Mapping Organizational Support and Collective Action: Towards a Model for Advancing Racial Equity in Community College. Research & Occasional Paper Series: CSHE.6.2024

In this paper we present the Advancing Racial Equity in Community College Model which maps out the organizational conditions shaping institutional transformation. Focused on two dimensions, the level of "organizational support" and "shared responsibility" to enact equity, we describe four quadrants with distinct organizational conditions that shape how equity advocates design, build, and sustain equity efforts. With well-documented racial inequities and renewed calls for racial justice across higher education, it demands new ways of exploring and understanding how institutional actors leading equity efforts are nested within differing organizational contexts that can enable as well as restrict the enactment and success of racial equity efforts. Our model helps equity advocates gain an "awareness" of known barriers to implementation in higher education, assess the readiness of their campus for racialized change, and take action to build the necessary institutional support and capacity to move the work forward.