SF's Quality Enhancement Plan Focuses on Equity Minded Education
August 24, 2023
August 24, 2023 - Fall 2023 kicks off Santa Fe College's five year Quality Enhancement Plan, Equity Minded Education (EME). EME advances a comprehensive faculty professional development program through the Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence. This professional development program will emphasize equity-minded teaching strategies and faculty-developed departmental action research plans to improve student success and retention rates for the entire student body, but especially for our underserved students.
Over the last decade, SF has seen increasing equity gaps. For example, in Fall 2011, 62.4% of SF First-Time-In-College Black students completed courses successfully, compared with 74.5% of White and 70.7% of their Hispanic classmates. Ten years later, in Fall 2021, Black student and White student course success dropped to 41.9%, and 69.8%, respectively. Hispanic students course success rate in 2021 was 71.5%.
Evidence-based equity-minded teaching practices have been shown to improve course success and retention rates for all students while narrowing equity gaps for Black and other diverse student populations. According to Bobby Hom, EME Director, "This project is a mission-driven solution to a persistent college-wide challenge. Like the College's mission statement urges, EME promotes excellence in teaching and learning by designing professional development to support a culture that meets students where they are and inspires them to thrive."
EME's first professional development event is planned for Friday, September 15, and will feature Dr. Winkelmes, Founder, Director, and Principal Investigator of the Transparency in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education project (TILT Higher Ed). Specific times and location for the TiLT workshop and dates, times, and topic of other EME professional development will be announced soon.
"The CTLE is excited to offer EME professional development like TiLT," says Leslie Rios, Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence. "EME PD and the departmental action research plans that grow out of it hold promise for moving the needle on equity gaps and improving every student's experience at SF."
The Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) is a 5-year project that challenges colleges to improve student learning and/or student success. While required as part of the accreditation process, the QEP also provides excellent opportunity for the College community to identify a specific aspect of student learning/student success that can be improved and then develop a detailed comprehensive plan to effect improvement.
