By: Dr. Keith Curry, Compton College President/CEO
Compton College is dedicated to fulfilling its role as an outstanding educational resource for the community it serves. In other words, a community college. This means creating a college culture that attracts, hires, and retains faculty and staff who are sensitive to, and knowledgeable of, the needs of the student body it serves.
Compton College’s faculty and staff mirror the population of the Compton Community College District, a direct result of the College’s commitment to its Equal Employment Opportunity Plan, which was established in 2016 to ensure diversity, equity, inclusion, cultural competency, and equal employment opportunity when hiring new employees. Work in this area includes partnering with the University of Southern California Race and Equity Center to review our hiring process and procedures, which started in the 2019-2020 academic year. Creating a new “Director of Diversity, Compliance and Title IX” position has also contributed to our success in improving our hiring practices.
A few years into the Equal Employment Opportunity Plan, we are already seeing significant changes. Creating diversity among the college’s faculty and staff takes continuous and intentional work, and remains incredibly beneficial to employees, students, and the community as a whole. Research suggests that students who have instructors and advocates they can identify with can benefit because they are learning alongside successful role models and mentors.
As president of Compton College, I am providing the following information and official data regarding the gender and ethnicity of District employees, and the communities served by the Compton Community College District.
Compton College Employees
Gender
• New hires in 2021 have been equal numbers of males and females.
• Overall, 50% of the Compton College workforce was female in 2021.
• Nearly 70% of Compton College students in 2021 were female.
• According to the 2020 U.S. Census, the population breakdown in the service area of the Compton Community College District is largely equal between male/female: Compton 49%/51%; Lynwood 49%/51%; Paramount 50%/50%.
• Statewide, the majority of California residents in 2020 were 50.3% female versus 49.7% male.
• For Los Angeles County, the statistics are 50.7% female, 49% male.
Ethnicity
• Among Compton Community College District and Compton College employees, the majority of the 23 new hires for 2021 were African American and Latinx.
• The 2021 Compton College student population was 22% Black, while the majority of students, 63%, were Latinx.
• The District’s service area population of an estimated 307,229 residents is also predominately Latinx (78%); 16% were recorded as Black or African American according to the American Community Survey, 2020.
• Statewide demographics show 39.4% of California residents are Latinx, and 6.5% are African American.
• For Los Angeles County, the statistics are 48.6% Latinx, 9% Black.
Compton College sponsors an on-campus job fair each year, featuring career development opportunities such as free workshops in resume writing and interview skills. All employment opportunities are announced on the Compton Community College District Human Resources webpage: www.compton.edu/district/administration/humanresources.
Faculty and staff diversity is a high priority for the Compton Community College District Board of Trustees, which remains committed to creating a welcoming and inclusive environment for everyone. Compton College employees work together to build a campus community that focuses on student completion, success, and learning through an environment that emphasizes respect, integrity, diversity, and excellence. This team approach is vital to teaching and learning at Compton College, where Every Student is a Success Story!
2022 Compton CCD employee data will be available in February 2023.
2 Comments
Curry likes to hire white people because he finds them easier to manipulate. They are less likely to criticize his terrible record because they don’t want to appear racist.
Compton College is disintegrating, with a huge, continual loss of students since Curry came on board–a far greater loss than other local colleges have experienced due to the pandemic. The student body is a tiny fraction of what it was before he came along. The campus is empty and sad.
This community deserves better. Be sure to vote in new board members this November, board members who will pay attention to enrollment numbers and demand quality leadership.
Good to hear considering the change away from diversity was brought to the attention of the college years ago.