Classified Senate Executive Board

Vice President of Committee Membership and Outreach

The Classified Senate (CS) is a voluntary membership body of classified professionals that recognizes higher education value at Orange Coast College (OCC) Si. Our goal is to advocate for the rights and recognition of classified professionals and promote student success. As a vice-president of the CS, I am a member of the executive board, and I be a part of the decision-making that affects the campus.

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Term: Spring 2021

Learning Domains:

• Leadership

• Personal and Professional Development

Learning Outcomes:

1. I will be able to use at least 2 leadership concepts from the MSHE program in real-world situations.

2. I will be able to apply at least 2 social justice advocacy skills learned during the MSHE program to counter unfair practices at OCC.

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Evidence

For the first learning outcome, I think that I achieved a Basic level. Unfortunately, I still have alot of room for improvement in applying my learned leadership concepts to my leadership role in the Classified Senate. There are two situations that I want to focus on for this learning outcome. The first situation is one where I believe that I have adequately applied my leadership skills. In Fall 2020, we had an assignment that required us to identify and analyze an organizational issue in higher education. I wrote about the extreme lack of diversity and unfair highering practices within the English department at OCC. Since that paper, I have been disturbed by the nature of that department and by the College system that allows it to persist. During this semester, Spring 2021, I have been actively combating the unjust situation at OCC. I have discussed the situation with colleagues, written about it anonymously in a District-wide HEDS survey, and intend to have a dialogue about it with the dean of the Division that houses the English department.

The other situation that I would like to focus on for the first learning outcome is my lack of participation in OCC's President's Task Force on Equity and Inclusion (OCC, 2021). The efforts of this task force parallel those presented by Wall & Obear (2008) as elements of an organization's multicultural development. In that type of development, an institution puts forth great efforts and strategies to create an inclusive campus climate and practices. I had a window of opportunity to join that task force, but I did not do it because I was worried that it negatively impact my performance as a student in the MSHE program. I wish that I had worried more about helping improve the campus at OCC rather than my GPA.

For the second learning outcome, I believe that I achieved a level of competent. The first act of applying social justice advocacy was when I was afforded the opportunity to speak to the District Chancellor, Dr. Weispfenning. Before the meeting, I prepared the topics that I would discuss. In addition to advocation for classified professionals, I discussed the importance of disaggregating the data from the HEDS survey conducted at the time. The HEDS survey is designed to gauge the campus climate to promote campus diversity and equity (HEDS Consortium, 2021). By disaggregating the responses from the entire OCC community, we can identify subgroups, such as ethnic groups, that experience higher levels of discrimination on campus (Schuh et al., 2016).

The second act of applying social justice advocacy skills was when I discussed the difference between being privileged and having white privilege with a white colleague. A friend at work mentioned that someone told him he has white privilege. He was upset about this because growing up as a low-income, Jewish immigrant; he never had any privilege. Although the conversation did not last more than ten minutes, I applied several tactics that I learned from DIRC workshops and mentioned some details I studied in class. After our short discussion, my friend seemed open to the idea that being white provided some privilege to him.

The following is a link to the Classified Senate membership page:

http://www.orangecoastcollege.edu/about_occ/classified-senate/Pages/Senate-membership.aspx

References

HEDS: Collaborating to Improve Higher Education. HEDS Consortium. (2021, March 24).

https://www.hedsconsortium.org/.

Orange Coast College. (2021). Equity and Inclusion Task Force. Equity and Inclusion Task

Force- Office of the President | Orange Coast College.

https://prod.orangecoastcollege.edu/e/equity-inclusion/index.html

Schuh, J. H., Biddix, J. P., Dean, L. A., & Kinzie, J. (2016). Assessment in student affairs. John

Wiley & Sons. Wiley.

Wall, V., & Obear, K. (2008). Multicultural Organizational Development (MCOD):

Exploring best practices to create socially just, inclusive campus communities.

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Reflection

My participation in the Classified Senate has given me the opportunity to expand on my leadership skills and continue to work on my professional and personal growth. I have been feeling guilty about missing the opportunity to elevate my role as a campus leader by joining the President's task force. But now, I am choosing to change my perspective on it. I will instead view it as a learning experience. Undoubtedly, the opportunity to join such a task force will be available again. Next time I will join the fight toward creating an inclusive campus. Additionally, I will continue to combat unfair and inequitable campus practices in my current roles.

My role as Vice-President of Committee Membership & Outreach will end in a year. Therefore, I think it's very likely that I will have a future post in this E-Portfolio that updates my leadership skills in the Classified Senate.