Humanities (Religious Studies)
2024-2025 Program Review
1 ) In 3-5 sentences, describe your unit to an audience of potential students. Many units take this information from their website. If it has been awhile since your unit has updated its website, take this opportunity to design a brief description of your unit for today’s students.
Humanities (HUM) & Religious Studies (RLST) courses recognize and explore the dynamics of difference through interdisciplinary study, appreciation, and analysis of world cultures from ancient times to the present. Humanities students gain comprehensive, cross-cultural perspectives on diverse human communities by examining literature, visual arts, music, drama, film, philosophy, history, and religion. Religions are powerful forces that have shaped and continue to shape the world's history, cultures, politics, the pursuit of science, ethics, economics, violence, peace, power, marginalization, justice, and injustice. Religious Studies students gain excellent critical thinking skills by discerning and analyzing religions’ roles in diverse cultural, political, and social movements through multiple disciplinary lenses, including history, anthropology, sociology, psychology, philosophy, cultural studies, and postcolonial studies. Our approach is non-devotional and academic, which means we acknowledge that there are multiple authentic representations of religious expression in the world.
2 ) Who is disproportionately impacted in your unit?
See Step Six
Use the Disproportionate Impact* reports below to answer question #2. These reports show how student achievement outcomes vary by gender, race/ethnicity, veteran, foster youth, disability, and income/poverty level status to enable users to engage in more advanced student-centered and equity-centered analysis, reflection, and planning. These reports are integrated with ARC's Data on Demand system to provide users with more sophisticated and nuanced ways of exploring their unit's data. To access the reports, you may be prompted to log in to ARC's Data on Demand system. If so, click on "Log in with ARC Portal" and enter your Los Rios single sign-on credentials (same as Canvas or Intranet).
*This link provides the California Community College Chancellor's Office's definition of disproportionate impact.
Disproportionate Impact
The disproportionate impact (DI) links now direct you to your unit’s DI data in ARC Data on Demand. The DI data will show which student groups are experiencing disproportionate impact for course success rates (A, B, C, Cr, P), A-B rates, and course completion rates (students who did not withdraw) at the course level.
In addition, a new report on intersectional DI (e.g., ethnicity/race by gender) is available for assessing intersectional Di for course success rates. The intersection DI report defaults to the subject code level (e.g., all ENGWR courses). Use the org tree in the side bar to filter to individual courses (click on the right arrow next to American River College, right arrow next to your division, right arrow next to your department/discipline, then select the specific course to view).
If prompted to log in, click on “Log in with ARC Portal” and enter your Los Rios single-sign on credentials (same as Canvas or Intranet).
3 ) What equity advancing actions have your programs already taken?
See Step Six
4 ) What will be your unit’s strategies for eliminating disproportionate impact (DI)?
See Step Six
5 ) What support do you need to eliminate disproportionate impact (DI)?
See Step Six
6 ) What other issues or concerns have affected your unit and are important for you to bring up?
Per instructions from the Dean of Institutional Effectiveness & Innovation, Brenda Valles, and Vice President of the Academic Senate, Veronica Lopez, I am documenting the following:
The Annual Unit Planning and Program Review for this cycle cannot be completed at this time due to the confluence of the following unusual circumstances and departmental imperatives.
- We have 30,000 students at ARC, and the Division my Department belongs to, PCS, is the second largest Division on campus. Typically, the Division is staffed by one Dean and three FT staff: an AA and two support staff. During the Summer 2024 semester, we had zero Dean, zero AA, and one support staff. This prevented many administrative tasks from being completed. Shortly after the semester began, we added a new-to-the-college Interim Dean. Simultaneously, all remaining support staff resigned. As of 11/06/24, we will have zero support staff in the Division. Upon his arrival, the Dean was obligated to move through an enormous backlog of years of PRTs in a very condensed time frame this semester and next. In the case of my department, the backlog of reviews included adjunct faculty who were hired more than five years ago and were reviewed for the very first time. As a single faculty department, I am the only one who can complete the reviews for each of our overdue adjunct faculty PRTs. These deadlines are incredibly dense.
- Because my Department covers issues like Antisemitism and Islamophobia, we navigated some very intense campus conflicts related to the Israel-Hamas Conflict during the Spring 2024 and Fall 2024 semesters. See below for details.
- I'm on a very ambitious-in-scope type-b leave, with some critical deadlines coming up soon. The scope of work being completed during the Fall 2024 semester includes:
- New programmatic outcomes and curricular offerings for the recently established Religious Studies (RLST) designator that align with current trends in the discipline, transfer pathways & partners, and our DEIA initiatives. Up to six AB- 928-compliant courses will be developed in conversation with our AO and my counterparts at transfer institutions.
- ARC’s first-ever degree in Religious Studies: an AA in Interfaith Studies. Phase I will see the degree composed of existing courses. Phase II will see the degree composed of AB-928-compliant courses and emphasize an intersectional approach to DEIA efforts that include religious diversity consistent with trends in the discipline and transfer partners.
- ARC’s first-ever certificate in Interfaith Literacy: Navigating Religious Diversity in the Workplace and Public Life. This certificate will provide non-majors, CTE students, and public service professionals, including law enforcement, courts, corrections, social workers, and those working in the healthcare system with high-demand cultural competencies in navigating religious differences in the workplace and public life. Phase I will see the certificate composed of existing courses. Phase II see the certificate composed of updated courses.
- Creation of a Religious Studies: Student Transfer Manual. This document will concisely and accessibly bridge gaps between public perceptions and recent changes in Religious Studies for staff and students. It will be developed in partnership with my counterparts at transfer institutions and present a comprehensive map of current trends and transfer options for majors and transfer minors in Religious Studies.
- Continued development and offering of a suite of PD workshops (4-8) in partnership with the CTL responding to the crisis in Israel and Palestine on our Jewish, Muslim, Israeli, Arab, and Palestinian staff and students entitled: Interfaith Literacy: Overcoming Antisemitism and Islamophobia. My current release time to run this series expires at the end of the Spring 2024 semester. Receiving Type-B leave for the Fall 2024 semester will allow me to continue to develop and implement this series throughout the 2024-2025 academic year.
- Develop and offer a suite of PD workshops (4-8) in partnership with the CTL that support intersectional approaches to DEIA that include religious diversity and build collaborative relationships between different campus stakeholders. These 90-minute collaborations will provide a platform for interested colleagues to highlight overlooked faith dimensions of their research and work. Some examples may include Interfaith Literacy x LGBTQIA+, Interfaith Literacy x STEM, Interfaith Literacy x Culturally and Historically Responsive and Sustaining Pedagogies, Interfaith Literacy x Climate Change, Interfaith Literacy x Justice and Injustice, etc.
For all the reasons above, the Annual Unit Planning and Program Review for this cycle cannot be completed at this time due to the confluence of unusual circumstances and departmental imperatives.
Bill Zangeneh-Lester, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair
Department of Humanities and Religious Studies
American River College
Pronouns: He/Him/His
The Enrollment, Department Set Standards, and SLO Data Set may be additional considerations and helpful for answering this optional question, but not required. To access the reports, you may be prompted to log in to ARC's Data on Demand system. If so, click on "Log in with ARC Portal" and enter your Los Rios single sign-on credentials (same as Canvas or Intranet).
Enrollment
The enrollment links now direct you to your unit’s enrollment data in ARC Data on Demand (5 years of duplicated enrollment for Fall or Spring terms). Using the filters available along the left side navigation in ARC Data on Demand, enrollment data can now be disaggregated or filtered on a number of course or student characteristics to provide more fine-tuned exploration and analysis of enrollment data. Examples include disaggregating by course, ethnicity/race, gender, and age.
If prompted to log in, click on “Log in with ARC Portal” and enter your Los Rios single-sign on credentials (same as Canvas or Intranet).
Department Set Standards
Shows course success rates (# of A, B, C, Cr, and P grades expressed as a % of total grade notations) compared to lower and upper thresholds. Thresholds are derived using a 95% confidence interval (click the report link for details). The lower threshold is referred to as the Department Set Standard. The upper threshold is referred to as the Stretch Goal.
- Green
- Most recent academic year exceeds the upper threshold
- Yellow
- Most recent academic year falls between the lower and upper threshold
- Red
- Most recent academic year falls below the lower threshold
SLO Data Set
The faculty's continuous review of student achievement of course SLOs is documented using the Authentic Assessment Review Record (AARR), which involves a review of student work demonstrating achievement of the course SLO. Faculty record student achievement for a randomly assigned course SLO based on one or more authentic assessments that they regularly perform in their classes. The aggregated results are then reviewed annually as part of Annual Unit Planning, in which the results may serve as the basis for actions and, if applicable, resource allocation, and are aligned with college goals and objectives.
The AARR summary link provides an aggregate of the results of the most recent AARR implementation. The AARR results by SLO link provides a more detailed view, including the specific ratings assigned by faculty to each randomly assigned course SLO, and what, if any, actions were taken.
Note: Established thresholds (i.e., green/yellow/red indicators) have yet to be developed for SLO data.
In your program review process, you may want to refer to the goals and actions in your Annual Unit Plans since your last Program Review. Follow this this link to access your previous AUP submissions. For Faculty support, please contact Veronica Lopez at lopezv@arc.losrios.edu.