A team of Metro State faculty and staff is taking a deeper look at issues of equity for students of color at the College. The Equity Scorecard Project Task Force at Metro State launched phase two of the project last week, with a two-day meeting on campus.

Background
Phase one of the Equity Scorecard Project used existing data to examine equity for underrepresented students in the areas of access, retention, excellence and institutional receptivity. The phase focused on what members of the team called the what – not the why – of the status of equity for Metro State’s students of color.

In 2004, Metro State, along with Fort Lewis College in Durango, was invited by the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education (WICHE) to participate in the Equity Scorecard Project. The project had its start at the University of Southern California’s Center for Urban Education, with a partnership of 14 California institutions. Later, WICHE was asked to join the partnership in order to expand its impact to other western states, which led to Metro State’s participation.

The Metro State Equity Scorecard team was appointed in fall of 2004 by then-Interim President Ray Kieft. Phase One was completed in December 2005; its results were disseminated to the College community in the 2006 spring semester. At a Feb. 2006 presentation to the Board of Trustees, President Stephen Jordan said that the work of the Equity Scorecard team was “very important with where we are trying to take the College.”

The final report included a comparison between the composition of the population of the seven-county metropolitan area and that of the student body at Metro State and breakdowns by ethnicity of students needing remediation as well as their retention and graduation rates. The report didn’t focus on areas of success, but on areas needing improvement

Among the team'srecommendations were:
• Form a Presidential Diversity Leadership Team to design and implement a diversity plan
• Generate division-specific equity scorecards for each school and student service division
• Have an assessment plan for college-wide support programs and services

Entering the second phase
Phase two of the project moves beyond an examination of what the data show and into what the causes might be, in order to generate solutions. In what is expected to be a yearlong process, the newly reconstituted Equity Scorecard Task Force got underway last week.

“We lost some members and added some, but we are fortunate to have a solid core of returning members,” said Associate Professor of Human Services Shawn Worthy, who co-chaired phase one with Women’s Institute Director A.J. Alejano-Steele and is co-chairing phase two with Interim Associate Vice President of Student Life Emilia Paul.

For this phase, the task force is subdivided into two “evidence teams,” one that is college-wide and one that will focus specifically on the School of Professional Studies. The SPS study, Worthy hopes, will provide a model for the other schools to follow. The SPS evidence team is being chaired by Assistant Professor of Secondary Education Esrom Pitre.

The teams kicked off phase two with a two-day meeting last week with two consultants from the Center for Urban Education at the University of Southern California. The meeting began with a presentation to the College community outlining the basic principles of the Equity Scorecard; the remainder of the two days was spent with the USC staff training the two evidence teams.

Phase two will consist of two primary parts, according to Worthy. First, the teams will update the data they are working with, and look at any new data or significant changes that have occurred since phase one. Then, the teams will “drill down further into the data to understand why some students struggle and others don’t,” said Worthy. The teams expect to use the data to hypothesize on causes for inequities, to come up with solutions.

While phase two is expected to take about a year, Worthy says that the issues identified are set to be revisited annually. “We will be taking benchmark data, seeing where there are problems, and hypothesizing causes of those problems to develop solutions. Then we will need to evaluate annually whether the solutions are working and, if not, come up with a new hypothesis.”

Worthy says that he is grateful for the support for this project from President Stephen Jordan and other administrators: “We are fortunate that Dr. Jordan supports this process, which allows us to look at Metro State through the lens of equity.”

Editor’s Note: To read @Metro’s four-part series on the phase I results of the Equity Scorecard go to:
http://www.mscd.edu/~collcom/artman/publish/equityaccess_twv3021406.shtml
http://www.mscd.edu/~collcom/artman/publish/equity_twv3031406.shtml
http://www.mscd.edu/~collcom/artman/publish/equity_twv3031406.shtml
http://www.mscd.edu/~collcom/artman/publish/equity_twv3041806.shtml