Maricopa Reports
Affirmative Action Progress for 1997-98

Each year, the Maricopa County Community College District prepares a written affirmative action plan which outlines its commitment and effort to improve the number of minorities, women, persons with disabilities and Vietnam-era veterans in all job groups, with special emphasis on those job groups that previously had underrepresented female and/or minority participation. The plan covers activities implemented from October 1st through September 30th of the next year.

The 1997-98 MCCCD affirmative action plan has recently been released and copies have been sent to members of the Governing Board, chancellor, vice chancellors, college presidents, deans of Administration and Instruction, and college libraries.

Highlights of the current affirmative action plan include:

• "Building Partnerships for Effective Affirmative Action"-- a joint effort by the Affirmative Action Office and Employee Services to enlist the support of current employees in its recruiting efforts through a broad based campaign to educate persons involved in hiring decisions on the legal, technical and philosophical aspects of affirmative action. The campaign features a symposium which has been presented to college presidents, deans, administrators and employees who work in the area of personnel.
• Smaller meetings with campus-based groups on the topic of affirmative action.
• Quarterly meetings with representatives from MCCCD's minority and women's employee groups in order to identify sources for recruitment.
• Active recruiting via advertising in national trade publications and targeted mailings.
• Establishment of a data base to serve as a resource from which screening committee chairs can draw membership.

The affirmative action plan also discusses those areas where minorities and women were underutilized.

Underutilization is a technical term required by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs. The term is not an admission of violations of any fair employment practice or lack of good faith efforts.

Rather, it is used by affirmative action planners as a measure to determine those areas where good faith efforts should be targeted.

To determine underutlilization, an employer considers the minority/female population of the labor area surrounding the facilities, minorities/females in the workforce compared to total potential candidates in the immediate labor area and the availability of minorities/females with the requisite skills in the immediate labor area.

Areas of Underutilization in the 1997-98 Affirmative Action Plan

Minorities were underutilized at Maricopa in five job groups: Technical/Paraprofessionals, Grades 8-10; Service Maintenance, Groundskeepers; Health Care faculty; Science faculty; and Vocational/Technical faculty. Improvement was shown in the percentages of minorities in the Science faculty workforce.

Females were underutilized in the areas of Administrative and Managerial, for both grades 22 and above and grades 16 through 18; Other Professionals, grades 9 through 13; Skilled Craft; Service Maintenance, Groundskeepers and Food Service/Custodians; and Art/Music/Drama, Social Science/Humanities/Foreign Language and Vocational/Technical faculty.

Published in the Special EEO Edition 1998 of In Brief