Date of Award

5-6-2026

Access Restriction

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctorate in Education

Department

Education

School or College

School of Education

First Advisor

Kenzo Sung

Second Advisor

Cynthia Alcantar

Third Advisor

Edgar Zazueta

Abstract

The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office accomplished system change using regulatory power to institutionalize diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) into Education Code. This qualitative research study investigated the origins and intention of the regulations that added DEIA competency criteria into employee evaluations and faculty tenure review through document analysis. The study also used interviews to examine the faculty perceptions of the regulations and understand how faculty supported or resisted the regulations. Applying critical policy analysis and Felix’s (2021) multicontextual implementation framework, this study examined three main questions: (a) how did the California Community College Chancellor’s Office collaborate and engage with faculty to create the policy of DEIA criteria in evaluations and tenure review in Title 5 (Cal. Code Regs. tit. 5, 2025); (b) how do faculty in the California Community College system perceive and understand the implementation of DEIA criteria into evaluations and tenure review; and (c) how do these faculty act in supporting or resisting change to culture and processes around implementing DEIA criteria in evaluations and tenure review? Over 60 documents were collected and analyzed and eight faculty were interviewed. Findings indicated that the Chancellor’s Office successfully used their regulatory power and collaboration with constituency groups to gain support and collective ownership of the regulations. The findings found that when there was a misalignment between the many contexts in a college’s ecosystem the implementation of the policy faltered. The findings point the success of the Chancellor’s Office in institutionalizing DEIA and the need to support colleges in for sensemaking of DEIA regulations and implementation support.

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