Sociology
2022-2023 Program Review

Sociology is the study of human behavior and society in all its manifestations. Its aim is to study and understand the process and structure of human interaction, to identify the main forces that sustain or weaken social groups, and to determine the conditions that transform social life. Sociology, like any science, is a disciplined, intellectual quest for knowledge about the fundamental nature of things. In the Liberal Arts tradition, Sociology demands a breadth and depth of theoretical knowledge, as well as rigorous empirical focus.

Our Sociology Department’s purpose and function is to make sociology accessible to our students and to support our students’ success in our courses and in their life goals, whether that is completing a degree, transferring, making sense of inequality in the workplace, or having a place to go that supports them.  We want to develop more sociologists.  

A sociology department priority is to identify and address the disproportionate impact our courses and department has on specific student populations.  Our focus currently is on eliminating our equity gaps for our African American, Native American, Hispanic/Latino, Filipino, White, and other students and to expand to include intersectionalities.  We are also focused on improving our enrollments and productivity in these very unsettled and uncharted times.  We understand these latter two issues are ones that have been created, in part, by the loss of 3 units in Area D, and by the uncertainties created by COVID-19 and remote/online instruction.  We still believe we can make a difference.

Sociology  challenges our students to use their critical thinking skills as engaged citizens. We support the development of academic skills and an appreciation of diversity. Our discipline demands that one is committed to those learning outcomes measurable by SLOs as well as the immeasurable outcomes that are integrated into lifelong, transformative learning.

We offer the Sociology AAT Degree.

Transform the future of all students and community through inclusive, equitable education.

Mission: American River College places students first in providing an academically rich, inclusive environment that inspires critical thinking, learning and achievement, and responsible participation in the community.

American River College, serving the greater Sacramento region, offers education and support for students to strengthen basic skills, earn associate degrees and certificates, transfer to other colleges and universities, and achieve career as well as other academic and personal goals.

Commitment to Social Justice and Equity: American River College strives to uphold the dignity and humanity of every student and employee. We are committed to equity and social justice through equity-minded education, transformative leadership, and community engagement. We believe this commitment is essential to achieving our mission and enhancing our community.

Sociology Department’s contributions to the achievement of the ARC Mission

Our Sociology Department challenges our students to use their education and classroom skills to be active and thoughtful citizens of our college and society. We support the development of an appreciation of multiple perspectives and successful life skills. Our focus on connecting systems and structure to the individual supports employment and job skills required to lead and navigate in the workplace. Our discipline also lends itself to understanding diverse perspectives and what must be in place to translate those perspectives to equitable outcomes.

We offer the Sociology AAT. This degree provides a path to students who wish to transfer to a CSU campus in Sociology and serves the diverse needs of students who wish to obtain a broad and an in-depth understanding of the field. Additionally, this degree allows students to learn the fundamental principles and practices of Sociology in order to create a solid foundation for their future personal, academic, or vocational endeavors.

In addition to transfer, this foundation would be appropriate for entry into a variety of related fields and careers. The Associate in Arts degree in Sociology for Transfer provides students with a major that fulfills the general requirements of the California State University for transfer. Students with this degree will receive priority admission with junior status to the California State University system. The Sociology degree is designed to facilitate students’ successful transfer to four-year colleges that prepare them for advanced study in a variety of graduate programs as well as a variety of career opportunities that include social work, law, criminology, law enforcement, teaching, health services, urban planning and development, data science, marketing, and research.

The Sociology Department has also co-developed a two-track Social Justice Studies AA-T degree:  The Social Justice Studies:  Race and Ethnicity AA-T degree and the Social Justice Studies: Women, Gender, and LGBTQ AA-T degree. These degrees are designed so that it would be simple for students to double major in Sociology or another discipline and Social Justice Studies.

Since the development of the Sociology AAT degree, our department of three is regularly offering ten different courses. We have developed several new courses to expand the currency and breadth of our offerings and to address the interests of our student population. We currently have several more courses in various stages of development

We have expanded our offerings at Natomas Center and teach multiple sections in our Dual Enrollment Program.

We are working more closely with HomeBase.

Our sociology department has been engaged in an inquiry process over the last few years about our individual course data and our departmental DI.  We’ve wrestled with what we can do as racially conscious best practitioners and how we can redesign our courses and program to center our students.  We strive for transformative education that is inclusive and equitable.

The Sociology Department is positioning itself to grow and strengthen. Our goal is to become the place where students come to get excited about learning, where they form the relationships with educators and each other that is at the heart of transformative education, and where their own greatness leads them to success.

Departmental Support for Institutional Equity:

Most directly, the Sociology Department contributes to the mission of American River College by reassigning two of its three full time faculty to institutional equity work and college leadership.   We have three full-time faculty.  Our fourth faculty member retired in 2019 and has not been replaced.  Between 1.0-1.4 of the 3.0 full time faculty fte has been reassigned to equity work.  Two of our adjunct faculty also have assignments in online education.  

• Our faculty have served or currently serve on the Student Success Council (co-chaired) and the Institutional Effectiveness Council.

• Department member co-chaired the Institutional Equity Plan Project Team
• Department member was on the Professional Development and Training Plan Project Team
• Department Member was part of a team charged with creating professional development and implementing a professional development plan based on the Professional Development and Training Team and the African American, Native American, latinx, Asian and Pacific American, and LGBTQI+ Disproportionate Impact Project Team recommendations. The Professional Development implementation also supports the implementation of the Institutional Equity Plan.
• Department members, in the CTL, wrote the workshop for ARC’s Individual Course Data release and facilitated those workshops.
• A department member created and offered the Equity Action Institute, a three semester cohort-based professional development opportunity. Four cohorts successfully completed the Equity Action Institute and its graduates are in all levels of ARC leadership.
• Department members, through the CTL, facilitate Communities of Practice for departments or groups who want to expand their equity knowledge and skills.
• Department members, through the CTL,  are available for one-on-one drop ins to Collaborate for Change
• Department members, through the CTL, facilitate Anti-Racist Leadership workshops for managers
• Department members , through the CTL, are working with Academic Senate, Curriculum, Program Review, and others to equitize processes and design.

Based on the Disproportionate Impact Data Set and the enrollment Data Set we planned to use to measure our Annual Unit Plan’s progress towards our unit objectives, we have not succeeded.  However, we also did not plan on 

• moving to remote instruction
• losing 25% of our department through retirement 
• the loss of African American students through the remote instruction period
• the difficulties in scheduling classes and the changes we have had to make to course modalities after students have already enrolled
• losing the opportunity for students to enroll in Sociology classes because Area D required units were reduced from 9 units to 6 units and thus additional units would not be covered by financial aid

We believe we have put effort into examining ourselves and our department and are becoming better practitioners who are more equitable and student ready.  With that said, we also acknowledge how much more there is to learn and to be done.

• As a department, we have engaged in inquiry and in departmental and individual work towards utilizing innovative, high quality instructional methods and technologies.  We have worked  with sociology data, course design, and course practices to close DI gaps.

• We have tried to expand easily recognizable pathways to ARC through high school outreach by faculty members but when the pandemic hit and we were working remotely, we refocused on  growing  Dual Enrollment and Early College.

• We have worked to provide easily recognizable pathways through ARC by creating accessible and relevant courses and through degree completion.  We were able to create a solid Sociological Research Methods Course.  Our only full-time faculty member who is not on reassign time has regularly taught 5 preps each semester in order for our students have access to a full complement of sociology classes.

• We work together and strive to teach culturally relevant and equitable curriculum.  Our department worked together in the spring OER project to develop a CanvasShell for our Sociology 300 course that provides teaching resources.

• We have started focusing more on careers in sociology in order to provide easily recognized pathways to employment for our students and share information about our Internship and Career Center.  We are very committed to doing better because employment is a social justice issue.

• One way we are promoting liberation and honor the dignity, humanity, and contributions of all members of our community to work on captioning for all of our video and online lectures.

• Individually and collectively, we attempt to provide students with personalized, proactive support.  One piece of this is to have the resources and human power to do so.  Our goal is to replace our retired faculty member aso we will once again have four faculty members who are serving our students. If we do not have the resources for faculty hires, we would like to hire a long term temp to fill the 1.2 fte that the sociology department is offering to the college’s equity work.

• We continue to work to connect students to people, programs, and services as an integrated educational experience and have been working with and providing presentation through Homebase. 

Soc 12% of students African American Compared to 9% in BSS

29% Hispanic /Latio compared to 28% of BSS students

67% of our students do not identify as white as compare to BSS where 62% of students do not identify as white

We have made some progress between September 21 -September 22.  For example, we:

Reduced the DI for African American students in Soc 300

Narrowed th DI Gap for Hispanic/Latino Students, but still much work to do

In particular, across all courses, we have a focus on closing African American DI. We are close to eliminating DI for Hispanoic/Latino students in Soci 300 and need to work on DI for this population in Soc 320 (now Soc 321).

While we are supportive of all of our students, we are aware that specific focus must be maintained on implicit and explicit Anti-Blackness and the historical legacy of exclusion that impacts African Americans.  We are committed to our Black students and because so many of sociology’s  African American students are in the 18-22 age range, we believe that working with Umoja is a critical strategy.  

We also see and are focused on the DI for our Hispanic/Latino students.We believe that we do have particular responsibilities as a Hispanic Serving Institution to focus efforts on our Latinx student success.  One of our commitments is to continue to work with Puente and to bring a cultural wealth perspective into the classroom.

We are working with the PRIDE Center and are teaching an Introductory Sociology class that is reserved for the PRIDE Learning Community.

Also, our continual development of our race consciousness as instructors and continual development of culturally responsive learning methods are critical.  Being race conscious is a critical piece of equitable teaching and learning.   It involves having knowledge about the ways race impacts our lives and an understanding of how the ways that the practitioner operates produces racial inequity.  Zaretta Hammond clarifies racial consciousness by stating that: 

 More specifically, it’s about recognizing the social-emotional impact of living in a racialized society where some people have unearned privilege and others have unearned disadvantage. As teachers of culturally diverse students, we need to educate ourselves about the realities of structural racialization in society and recognizing how colorblindness is just another form of implicit bias.

This means that as teachers, we need to invest in trust-building as well as excellence teaching and learning for our students who are disproportionately impacted.  Our development is an ongoing and exciting challenge.

It’s been a mix of successes and failures over the last six years.  

Program Strengths:

The Sociology Department faculty do our best to center students and student success as we design our courses, teach, and engage in departmental planning.   As sociologists, our discipline lends itself to looking at problems from both the systemic and the interpersonal lens.  We are aware that we cannot control all the forces impacting our students and yet we want to maximize the ways in which we can design our courses and create flexible options to maximize student learning and success. Our people are our greatest strength.

The Sociology Department serves a larger percentage of Students of Color than the Behavioral and Social Sciences Division percentages.

Our Sociology Club provides research experience to our students.  This year our students attended the Pacific Sociological Association in Washington State and presented the findings on their research project on Sacramento Water Quality.  Our students were the only community college students presenting research.

Ryal Strom was named Sociology Student of the Year by the Pacific Sociological Association in 2019.

In 2019, our sociology students were part of an integrated ARC presentation team facilitating a Pre-Conference Institute at the National Conference of Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education (NCORE) in Portland, OR.

Our sociology students have served on institutional committees and project teams.

We have been experimenting with class offerings and are offering 40-50% of our courses in an on-ground format fall 2023.  Data shows that we have lost many of our students of Color during our remote instruction years, and we are doing our best to build relationships and increase our enrollment and success for students of Color, especially those who are disproportionately impacted in sociology courses. Sociology has historically enrolled a higher percentage of students of Color than most other disciplines at American River College.

Jeff Sacha, a member of our Sociology faculty, won the  Faculty of the Year award from the Pacific Sociological Association in 2020.  

Pamela Chao, a member of our Sociology Faculty, was awarded the UCD Equity Award for Seeding Improvements in Education Policy and Practice in 2020.

Our department’s institutional service to equity is highlighted above in question 1.2.

Over the last 6 years the Sociology Department has engaged in the following activities:

• Co-Developed Social Justice Studies Race and Ethnicity and Social Justice Studies Women, Gender and LGBTQ  AAT Degree

• Developed Social Justice 300 Introduction to Social Justice Studies

• Launched Sociology 302, Research Methods to complete the Sociology courses needed to fully support our sociology majors’ successful completion of a Sociology AAT

• Ensured all Sociology courses can be taught online  

• Drawn into early discussion and planning of Ethnic Studies requirement

• Created an information sheet on Sociology for prospective students

• Expanded the offerings of all courses to a minimum of once a year. 

• Continued to expand offerings at outreach centers with the goal of ultimately offering all AAT degrees at Natomas.

• All full-time sociology faculty have taken professional development that includes equitizing curriculum, assessments, student-ready syllabus, course assignments, anti-racism, culturally responsive teaching and the brain, data, Native American allyship, Black student success, Umoja philosophy, Latino/a/e/x student success, serving Asian American and Pacific Islander students, gender, Undocumented students, Disabled students and accommodations, whiteness, anti-Asian American violence, calling In culture, visioning liberation, Hiring the Best, closing racial equity gaps, and/or de-centering whiteness.

• The entire department was involved in the OER Project during spring 2022.  We have created a Canvas shell for Sociology 300 Introductory Sociology, which is classified as a “Super Course”--ten or more sections are offered each semester.  We are still working on this Canvas shell.  The goal is to provide resources that supports all instructors to be “best practitioners” and to create a course based on their style and positionality that is equitable, racially conscious, and centers student success in order to close our departmental and individual course disproportionate impact gaps..

• Collaboration to support learning opportunities:

• Design Lab

• Homebase

• WAC

• RAD

• Beacon

• Tutoring Services

• Counseling

• Reference Librarians

• Career Center

• CTL

• Student Leadership

• DSPS

• EOP&S

• New faculty Academy

• Transfer Center

Opportunities

We are eager to grow the Sociology Department because we believe this discipline offers the critical skills necessary to navigate today’s changing economic sector and social norms.  Some of the opportunities we see are:

• Bringing in new adjunct faculty who have the expertise in race and gender and other intersectional specialties to engage our students who are the most marginalized.
• Reaching out to high school students in Dual Enrollment and Early College Programs.
• Building partnerships with community organizations and the Internship and Career Center for more practical and paid opportunities for our students.

Challenges

The Sociology Department has been playing a long game to grow our department.  Resources have been scarce, and after years of requests, we were able to expand our department of three when our fourth full-time faculty member was hired to start in the Fall of 2016.  Our newest faculty member was brought on to develop Sociology 302 Introduction to Social Research Methods which filled in a critical course in our Sociology AAT.  Soc 302 was successfully cataloged but has yet to be offered due to low enrollments during the pandemic.  We also have a number of contemporary courses at various levels of development and will proceed when resources allow.

Currently, Sociology is down to three full-time faculty again.  A  fourth faculty member retired in 2019 and has not been replaced.  Also, we have been down between 1.0-1.4 faculty members’ fte over the last six years because two of our three faculty members have been consistently reassigned to equity work for the college.  Two of our adjunct faculty also have assignments in online education.  

We have added to the challenges were listed above in question 2.1 here:

• Moving to fully remote instruction does not allow us to serve the learning styles/needs of all of our students.  
• Losing 25% of our department through retirement has been a blow to our department and our goals
• The college-wide drop in enrollment, particular of African American students through this remote instruction period, has been felt by sociology.  We have historically enrolled more African American and Students of Color than other departments.
• The difficulties in filling face to face classes and the changes we make to course modalities after students have already enrolled makes students less likely to register for our face to face classes.
• Sociology productivity and enrollment were challenged by the reduction in area D from 9 to 6 units and the addition of the 3 units in Area F.  While we wholeheartedly support the ethnic studies requirement, the loss of the 3 units in Area D definitely discourages anyone who is not a sociology major or in a major that specifically requires a particular sociology course for transfer or graduation from taking a sociology course.  This is an institutional design issue and there is little we can do as a department to eliminate this impact to our enrollment
• It is more challenging to create transformational classes and relational trust building in an online modality.
• Asynchronous classes have their place, but they often leave something to be desired for students who want the relational and transformational aspects of our classes. Most sociology classes have been asynchronous over the past three years.  Our data shows that Students of Color do not do as well in asynchronous classes.

Equity Gaps

Enrollment

Our fall 2021 enrolments across almost ALL race and ethnicity categories show a more than 10% decline in enrollment from the previous year’s.  However, I do wonder about the narrative around this data set since it reflects an unusual time of remote instruction and the Covid-19 pandemic.  

We are very concerned that even though our spring 2021 enrollments equals or exceeds our prior year’s, we show a marked decrease in African American, Filipino, Multi-Race, Native American, and Other Non-White categories.  

Productivity

Fall 2021 productivity is down slightly.  Spring 2022 productivity is down more.  

We are curious how our enrollments and productivity have been impacted by the pandemic and remote education as well as the reduction of Area D units from 9 to 6.  The loss of the 3 units in Area D definitely discourages anyone who is not a sociology major or in a major that specifically requires a particular sociology course for transfer or graduation from taking a sociology course.  This is an institutional design issue and there is little we can do as a department to eliminate this impact to our enrollment.

DI–Success and A-B

Soc 301 and Soc 350 are the only two courses that do not show clear DI across our student populations.  The fact that DI exists and is so pronounced through out so many of our courses has been a source of many emotions for this department and motivates us to renew our efforts to center student success, sharpen our racial consciousness, and to continue to try to scaffold learning and offer flexibility and support to our students.  

We are disproportionately impacting African American Students in six of the courses we offer in the department. Filipino, Hispanic/Latina/e/o/x, Native American, White, and Unknown students are impacted in at least one of the courses in Sociology.  We will do better.  We must do better.  

DI Success-Drop Rate

There is DI for African Americans in two of the sociology courses.  In one course each, for multi-race, White, and Unknown.

Department Set Standards are met.  This does not absolve us from working on closing our DI gaps in success and AB-Success rates.   

We would like to see comparative data between BSS as a division and all of our departments as a part of the data provided for Program Review.

Sociology is committed to doing better and to continue to develop our skills to be equitable and student ready instructors.  It is not acceptable that so many of our Students of Color are impacted by the disproportionate impact that our systems create.  While any one of us cannot solve this systemic issue, we can and are committed to doing what we can in our classes to close opportunity gaps.  We know we are human and will continue to make mistakes, but the conviction to be culturally responsive instructors who support independent learning and critical work is necessary for change to occur.  We are designing and redesigning our classes, and continue to work on shared resources for our classes.  We will focus on our African American, Latinx, Native American, Filipino, Multi-Tace, and White students who experience DI in our courses in racially conscious and equitable ways.  We know that the context of each course will impact how and why specific racial and ethnic groups are experiencing the DI and we will take each course’s unique circumstances into account.  

We will definitely strengthen our communication and relationships with Umoja Sakhu, Puente, the Native American Resource Center, the PRISE Learning Community, and the UNITE Center.  We will survey our students more frequently about what works and what doesn’t work for them. We will continue to question ourselves and our intent in comparison to our impact.

We also hope for a more coordinated direction and resourcing between our department, the division and the larger college.

The ideal future is a college with transparent communication, accessible processes, equitable decision making, and success for our disproportionately impacted students.  We look forward to working with all parts of the college to move us towards that vision.  

???As mentioned previously, The Sociology Department is positioning itself to grow and strengthen. Our goal is to become the place where students come to get excited about learning, where they form the relationships with educators and each other that is at the heart of transformative education, and where their own greatness leads them to success.  We would like to have four full-time faculty members who are representative of our student diversity, equity and race conscious, and complement each other in our areas of sociological expertise.  We tend to have a higher percentage of students of Color than other departments because our discipline focuses on many of the issues that are reflected in our students’ lives and names the issues. We look forward to working closely with Ethnic Studies, Social Justice Studies, and other departments to form learning communities that are cohort based.  Sociology has contributed a great deal to our college equity efforts.  As we enhance our practices and close opportunity gaps, we will share our processes and join with others in our community to:

Transform the future of all students and community through inclusive, equitable education.

Mission: American River College places students first in providing an academically rich, inclusive environment that inspires critical thinking, learning and achievement, and responsible participation in the community.

American River College, serving the greater Sacramento region, offers education and support for students to strengthen basic skills, earn associate degrees and certificates, transfer to other colleges and universities, and achieve career as well as other academic and personal goals.

Commitment to Social Justice and Equity: American River College strives to uphold the dignity and humanity of every student and employee. We are committed to equity and social justice through equity-minded education, transformative leadership, and community engagement. We believe this commitment is essential to achieving our mission and enhancing our community.

As written already, while we are supportive of all of our students, we are aware that specific focus must be maintained on implicit and explicit Anti-Blackness and the historical legacy of exclusion that impacts African Americans.  We are committed to our Black students and because so many of sociology’s  African American students are in the 18-22 age range, we believe that working with Umoja is a critical strategy.  

We also see and are focused on the DI for our Hispanic/Latino students.We believe that we do have particular responsibilities as a Hispanic Serving Institution to focus efforts on our Latinx student success.  One of our commitments is to continue to work with Puente and to bring a cultural wealth perspective into the classroom.

We are working with the PRIDE Center and are teaching an Introductory Sociology class that is reserved for the PRIDE Learning Community.

Also, our continual development of our race consciousness as instructors and continual development of culturally responsive learning methods are critical.  Being race conscious is a critical piece of equitable teaching and learning.   It involves having knowledge about the ways race impacts our lives and an understanding of how the ways that the practitioner operates produces racial inequity.  Zaretta Hammond clarifies racial consciousness by stating that: 

 More specifically, it’s about recognizing the social-emotional impact of living in a racialized society where some people have unearned privilege and others have unearned disadvantage. As teachers of culturally diverse students, we need to educate ourselves about the realities of structural racialization in society and recognizing how colorblindness is just another form of implicit bias.

This means that as teachers, we need to invest in trust-building as well as excellence teaching and learning for our students who are disproportionately impacted.  Our development is an ongoing and exciting challenge.

Grow and strengthen Sociology to lead in region - We continue to look for opportunities to schedule courses that are appealing to students and community members, harness the strengths of our faculty, increase student enrollment and success, and grow our

department to be the premier sociology department in this region.

Diverse curriculum development - We have developed three new courses over the last three years and are currently developing Sociology of Aging, Sociology of Marriage and Family, and an equity and diversity based certificate program for the future. We are

looking for ways to address the needs of a diverse student population and ways to reflect the diversity of course offerings that should be available in a premier sociology department. We are also looking for ways to address the needs of the Equity Initiative in

our course development.

Hire a new full-time sociologist in a tenure-track - A new full-time faculty member in Sociology who is able to teach Marriage and the Family, Gender and Sexuality,....

Collaboration in Programs -

Diverse learning opportunities - Increase the opportunities for students to supplement their sociological learning through opportunities for research, internship, presentations, exposure to guest speakers, films, and workshops on campus that relate to course material. Our department loves opportunities to collaborate with UNITE, CTL, Student Leadership, and the Career Center to co-sponsor sociological programming. Our Sociology Club has also been very successful in giving students hands-on opportunities to engage in sociological research.

Maintain contact with area high schools - This is a work in progress, and we continue in our efforts to establish contact with counselors in high schools located in the area to inform them about the sociology program at ARC. We also have created a degree

information sheet available to students to give them a clear idea of what is needed to major in sociology and transfer. Working with counselors and providing concrete information encourages students to take sociology courses at ARC.

Dual Enrollment-We would like to offer sociology classes in fall and spring semesters and move beyond Soc 300 as the class that is offered.

Early College-we would like to be part of the Early College offerings at Inderkum High School.

Refine the AAT Degree - Increase the number of students who earn  AAT degrees in sociology. Offer classes so students can complete the entire program at Natomas.

Relevant Courses for local workplace needs - Create courses and a certificate program to address workplace needs in the local region

Work more closely with Learning Communities–Unite Center and offer more classes with the Learning Communities

Create interest based learning communities through linked classes.

More Team Teaching

Renewal Opportunities to rejuvenate.  High touch and equitable teaching requires a great deal of time and emotional as well as intellectual energy.

Our Commitment to Social Justice and Equity: American River College strives to uphold the dignity and humanity of every student and employee. We are committed to equity and social justice through equity-minded education, transformative leadership, and community engagement. We believe this commitment is essential to achieving our mission and enhancing our community. We support this through the transformative, humanistic ideals we hold and the equity consciousness we strive to use to continue to develop our program. We aspire that our actions embody equity-minded education, transformative leadership, and community engagement.