We extensively research, and share with campus partners alternative and neutral strategies that can help ACC enhance the academic achievements and post-graduate outcomes for all students, including but not limited to first-generation, low income, and underserved populations.
Safe Spaces for Students
Creating safe spaces for all students. Lived experiences research suggests that community centers offer spaces of safety and hope for individuals and that centers could be considered a community of practice as well as places for increasing cultural awareness, and fluency. Belonging also includes students discovering oneself and choosing spaces and times to rest, make space connections, and work for change. Continuously, each of our Campus Community Center models are improved upon to enhance and serve these goals.
North Star and Targeted Universalism
ACC has a unifying North Star goal of increasing student completion rates, across all student populations we serve, to 70% by 2030. Targeted Universalism (TU) is one of many frameworks we recommend institutional partners consider in achieving our North Star. TU is outcome-oriented and focuses on developing a range of implementation strategies and processes directed in service of our explicit, unifying goal.
Using disaggregated data we and our partners investigate the ways different students are situated within the intersections of various systems that shape educational performance, identifying students’ common and different needs with a goal of helping all students achieve ACC’s unifying completion goal. TU acknowledges that different strategies are needed for every student to benefit from reaching our completion goal. Some students may start closer to the goal and will receive what support they need, which may be less. Others who start furthest from the goal will receive what support they need, which may be more. With an unwavering commitment to our unifying completion goal, TU platforms require a multiplicity of strategies and resources to advance all students toward completion.
Strengths-Based Approach
Every student, faculty, staff, and employee of ACC holds great potential, skills, knowledge, and incredible cultural wealth from their lived experiences and identities. While structural barriers create significant challenges to each person’s ability to thrive in their educational and post-educational outcomes, we don’t ignore the significant inner barriers of ‘stereotype threat’ and ‘belonging uncertainty’. A valuable resource we utilize in providing customized leadership and team building training upon request is the Gallup’s Clifton StrengthsFinders assessment. CliftonStrengths presents who you are, as well as what you do at excellence. Nothing feels more welcoming than being valued. By showing an individuals’ unique value to a given team, CliftonStrengths also centers the individual in the team.
We collaborate continuously with ACC legal counsel, Office of Compliance, & HR to insure federal, state (including SB17) law compliance in all belonging programs, initiatives, and internal/external partnership ventures.
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