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The Academic Senate promotes a shared understanding of committee community guidelines in which all Academic Senate meetings, committees and workgroups strive to:

• ensure regular review, reflection and action on diversifying committee membership by prioritizing representation from the campuses, credit and noncredit, varied disciplines and constituencies, including student members, members with a range of experience, and members with diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds;
• focus committee tasks and outcomes on diversity, inclusion, anti-racism, and belonging to better maintain high standards of education and success for ��ѡAV students and employees;
• onboard, train, mentor or orient new committee members with a focus on shared learning--both the trainer and trainee teach and learn, share and listen together;
• designate a committee member to specifically serve as a contact and resource for student members during the duration of the students’ term;
• actively advocate for student leaders to have the same privileges as other members of any governing body by intentionally making space to uplift the voices of student members and ensure students have access to institution-wide information and context building that other constituency groups may not require;
• actively encourage members to use “I” statements, and to listen with compassion and curiosity;
• practice collective awareness and group accountability when responding to any committee member that engages in verbal abuse, passive aggression, or hostile language;
• make a practice of sharing pronouns after each person’s name to actively resist binary norms and assumptions, and help correct those who use the wrong pronouns when addressing colleagues;
• clearly present options and opportunities to acquire meeting materials in alternative formats, real-time captioning or interpretation of proceedings and offer alternative formats for comment.  
• follow an accessibility protocol, including a means of requesting alternative media for the meeting, that will be listed on the agenda prior to meetings and published in enough time so that accommodations may be fulfilled.  
• practice beginning meetings with an acknowledgment of the indigenous land we occupy, and to collectively, through ritual practice, ground ourselves in the collective humility of our privilege;
•  maintain transparent decision-making procedures shared through clear and timely communication with publicly accessible committee descriptions, membership, meeting times and locations, standards, rubrics, and procedures;
• incorporate regular cycle review of rubrics, committee descriptions, and other codified policies and procedures to ensure they accurately reflect the current committee and college-wide needs;
• prioritize and invite ongoing feedback from all members to continually improve committee goals, practices and outcomes;
• make the accessible to all current and future members at every meeting; and updated as needed;
• prioritize public communication about and dissemination of faculty leadership opportunities with regular rotations for filling the role of Senate officer positions, committee chairs, Senate affiliated coordinator positions, and other leadership roles;
• reflect on, address and implement practices when seating Academic Senate committee chairs and coordinators that promote a variety of experience sources (credit/noncredit; centers; time at the college; race and ethnicity, etc.)
• consider term limits or regular renewal processes to promote circulation of diverse perspectives in all leadership positions.

The above guidelines were developed and passed as part of the .

The above guidelines were developed to create a welcoming environment in Academic Senate Executive Council committees. They are not mandates, but are considered best practices; and are intended to be reviewed and updated annually by the Academic Senate Executive Council. Implementation was passed as part of the .