The Student Equity Collective (SEPI)
A Three-Year Professional Learning Series led by
The SDSU CCHALES Research Collective
What We Are
We started as an idea. One that sought to use the 2022-2025 Student Equity Planning cycle as an opportunity to empower community college educators as agents of change and use their student equity plan as a tool for action that improves the conditions, experiences, and outcomes of racially minoritized students. That idea soon took shape and grew into the Student Equity Planning Institute (SEPI) a three-year project to support 17 community colleges in developing and implementing new equity goals and strategies. We began with more than 200 people -- students, classified professionals, faculty, and administrators-- from each campus, as well as system-level colleagues and equity champions. Together, we’re reimagining what a ground-up, race-conscious, community-oriented approach to equity looks like.
Our project is a three-year effort divided into two phases. In our first phase, Student Equity Planning (11/2021-06/2022), we designed SEPI as a space to craft a new, more race-conscious equity plan that is action-oriented and aligned with Guided Pathway efforts. Then, in the second phase, Student Equity Action (08/2022-06/2025), we actively provide multi-level support and peer-to-peer community spaces to help campuses Our goal is to help campuses reflect, refine, and revolutionize their strategies to achieve racial equity goals. The heart of our project is the commitment to identify, disrupt, and remove policies, practices, programs, and mindsets antithetical to equity. Moving into 2024, we stand united as an Equity Collective, actively working to forge more just and equitable institutions for students, colleagues, and communities.
As a Collective, we are guided by five unwavering principles:
INVEST IN THE PEOPLE WHO LEAD POLICY. We build community, develop trust, create a shared language, enhance competencies, and empower those who lead policy to make impactful change.
HUMANIZE AND LEVERAGE DATA FOR ACTION. Our deep inquiry goes beyond numbers, recognizing each percentage point of an equity gap as a student with dreams and aspirations, deserving of immediate and long-term action.
CALL IN INSTITUTIONAL LEADERS. We engage campus stakeholders early, actively involving them in discussions and decisions to prioritize student groups, identify and adopt strategies, and allocate necessary resources.
HEAL FROM INSTITUTIONAL TRAUMA. Acknowledging the heavy resistance and adversity faced by our colleagues, we provide spaces for healing and reflection, essential for sustainably leading change.
ORGANIZE FOR COLLECTIVE ACTION. Understanding that systemic inequity requires systemic responses, we teach, model, and champion collective action as the path to achieving equity.
What We Do
Our Anchoring Racial Equity Goal prioritizes closing educational disparities experienced by Black and Latinx students in Successful Enrollment, Persistence, and Completion of Transfer-level Math & English. We recognize that racially minoritized students within community colleges experience significant barriers to successfully moving from application to matriculation, retaining from fall to spring semester, and then accessing and completing transfer-level Math and English. Moving forward, these three are our priorities and will be integrated into all SEPI support spaces.
Collective Meetings
Bi-monthly meetings supporting campus teams with the implementation of student equity plan efforts and strategies. We host five Equity Hubs that serve as communities of implementation practice for campus members leading equity strategies across five specific areas:
Ensuring Black Student Success and Wellness
Latinx Student Equity
Developing and Sustaining Critical Professional Development
Conducting Race-Conscious Inquiry and Assessment
Leveraging Guided Pathways for Retention and Completion
Campus Leads Check-ins
Bi-monthly meetings with campus leaders overseeing Student Equity and Guided Pathways focused on addressing problems of practice, providing implementation progress, and tailored professional development and support to implement efforts proposed in equity plans.
IRPE Community of Practice
Quarterly meetings for institutional researchers where we provide tools, resources, and facilitate discussions to effectively measure, monitor, and assess ongoing equity efforts.
Sister Circle
Recognizing the intersection of race and gender and the ways Black women are harmed while leading equity efforts, we developed a space for Black womxn/femmes to co-exist in the SEPI.
Change Workgroups
We created two workgroups focused on changing state and system-level barriers to equity work focused on 1) Policy Advocacy - Updating CA Education Code and Equity Planning Cycle and 2) Institutional Transformation - Getting CEO/CBOs to align with equity work.
Annual Convening
We hosted our first in-person Convening on April 28, 2023, and received such great feedback on our programming, energy, and impact that we decided to continue and expand our event. We now plan to host a two-day convening in Spring 2024 (April 25-26) and Spring 2025.
