The Humanizing InstituteA proposal for the California Community Colleges
Human connection is the missing piece of AI-era professional development.
The Humanizing Institute would bring human-centered, future-ready teaching to the California Community Colleges and foster cultures of inclusion and academic integrity through intrinsic motivation. It prioritizes instructor-student relationships as the connective tissue of equitable teaching and learning and taps into students’ real world experiences as opportunities for knowledge construction and authentic demonstration of skills. The implementation model strategically leverages the Regional PD Networks and statewide UDL initiative with opportunities to partner with FoundationCCC.
California has already invested $2 million in this work
From 2019 to 2024, two grants from the California Education Learning Lab, a state-funded entity, supported the Humanizing Online STEM Academy, administered by Foothill-De Anza Community College District. More than 330 faculty completed the program, and research partners at UC Irvine studied what changed for participating faculty and the students in their humanized classes. The results show humanized teaching narrowing, and in some measures reversing, racial equity gaps. The Humanizing Institute builds directly on this foundation.
+12.6 pts
Additional gain in pass rates for underrepresented minority students, reversing a 6.1-point gap.
+11.4 pts
Additional gain in course persistence, reversing a 3.1-point gap.
Gap closed
A 0.307 grade-point gap in course grades, closed by a 0.315 differential gain.
Difference-in-differences analysis of asynchronous online STEM courses, Spring 2017–Fall 2023 (Ledezma, Xu & Pacansky-Brock, 2025).
At Bakersfield College
After 34 faculty completed the Academy, course success rates rose significantly from 64% to 68%.
- African American students: 57% to 66%
- Hispanic/Latino students: 61% to 68% (statistically significant)
- Students of two or more races: 61% to 72%
Bakersfield College Academic Technology, Fall 2024.
How faculty teaching changed
- Personalized course homepages: 55% to 99%
- Surveys to identify high-opportunity students: 27% to 96%
- Instructor social presence online: 63% to 97%
- Self-efficacy in online teaching: 4.02 to 4.58 (of 5)
52 instructors, five institutions, pre/post surveys (Ledezma, Xu & Pacansky-Brock, 2025).
In the AI era, this work matters more than ever
Equity in access and student success remain core goals of the system, and humanized teaching remains a proven pathway. Faculty have been encouraged to develop an AI policy to deter academic dishonesty. A 2026 CCC student survey by WestEd found a strong correlation between clear AI policies and fear of being accused of cheating.
Transparency is key to building trust, but harsh, rigid policies mixed with instructional experimentation create what some have called “AI whiplash” among students. Leaning in with students, having conversations about the risks and potential of AI, and developing critical AI literacy is our goal. Achieving this goal requires faculty to embrace vulnerability and develop a culture of academic integrity through trust, connection, and intrinsic motivation.
Instead, a growing number of faculty now require online students to come to campus for assessments. That may protect a single exam, but it erodes the access that students who depend on online classes because of work, family and distance count on. Cheating has never been eliminated, and AI will not change that. What course design and an actively engaged human instructor can change is the inclination to misuse AI in the first place.
Clear GenAI instructor policies are correlated with higher cheating-accusation anxiety for students.
“Who wants to offload to AI their grandfather’s story of how their family got here?”
When assignments center what students are proud of, including their families, past experiences and future goals, they validate students’ “funds of knowledge” (Moll et al., 1992) and give students a reason to do the work themselves. Integrity by design reduces the pull to offload learning to AI and keeps online classes online.
Online is now the norm
In 2024-25, 53.4% of student enrollments were in courses with distance education sessions. The Chancellor’s Office acknowledges that agentic AI brings “new challenges to authentic teaching and learning” in online environments, raising “significant ethical, governance, and academic integrity concerns if not intentionally managed by prepared pedagogical practices and careful oversight” (2023-25 DE Report).
Employers want human skills
AI literacy is important to preparing students for the workplace; however, we are amidst a loneliness epidemic. Fewer young people are thriving, and fewer are engaging in the physical world. Humans need conversations with other humans to foster emotional intelligence, creativity, problem solving, collaboration and communication skills. These skills are central to higher education in the AI era, and trust, mattering and belonging are the conditions that enable them.
Educators are depleted
Efficiency-driven systems have come to rely on contingent faculty, and the growth of DE has burned out support staff and faculty who now teach in multiple modalities. Equitable teaching hinges on “connective labor” (Pugh, 2024), and this is precisely what is at risk of being automated in a culture of burnout. Investing in relationship-centered teaching and learning sets the California Community Colleges apart from other systems and makes a clear statement about human-centered principles.
Accreditation requires interaction
Federal rules require regular and substantive interaction (RSI) between instructors and students in distance education, and courses that fall short put federal financial aid eligibility at risk (34 CFR 600.2). ACCJC reviews RSI, and Title 5 requires regular effective contact (§55204). As AI tools make it easier to automate feedback and course communication, colleges need clear, faculty-friendly RSI resources. Humanizing gives faculty concrete, repeatable ways to meet RSI through instructor presence, substantive feedback and instructor-initiated interaction.
Why humanizing works: trust from the first click
Social psychology research shows that the brain unconsciously scans every environment for cues of inclusion or exclusion to decide whether it is psychologically safe. Each student reads those verbal and nonverbal cues through lenses shaped by their social identities: gender identity, age, race, sexual orientation, physical abilities, neurodiversity and more. Humanized teaching cultivates a “welcomeness to engage” through trust, mutual respect, and authentic care (Wood & Harris III, 2015) before moving on to the course content.
Students with minoritized identities are more likely to have received negative cues about their abilities through stereotype threat, structural inequities and discrimination. Open-access colleges serve more diverse students, which calls for intentional design for what Universal Design for Learning (UDL) calls learner variability (CAST, 2024). Asynchronous online classes lack the human cues of a face-to-face room, so presence and trust must be cultivated deliberately.
Humanizing applies to all teaching modalities. It focuses on developing an equity mindset in faculty and support staff through strengthening knowledge about how learning happens. Trust and connection become the guiding principles for using technology.
Grounded in Universal Design for Learning
Humanizing is built on Universal Design for Learning (UDL), the research-based framework from CAST that the Chancellor’s Office is advancing systemwide. The UDL Guidelines 3.0 center learners’ identities and belonging and name bias as a barrier to learning (CAST, 2024). Humanizing adds the relational layer: instructor presence and trust turn UDL’s options into an invitation students accept.
The “why” of learning
Engagement
UDL: welcome learners’ interests and identities, foster belonging and community, and build emotional capacity.
Humanizing: kindness cues in the high-opportunity zone, getting-to-know-you surveys, the Learning Dedication, and warm, wise feedback.
The “what” of learning
Representation
UDL: offer multiple ways to perceive and understand information, and value multiple ways of knowing and making meaning.
Humanizing: a mobile-friendly Liquid Syllabus, short video microlectures, and Conversations Across the Curriculum that bring students’ funds of knowledge into course content.
The “how” of learning
Action & Expression
UDL: honor a wide variety of forms of communication and expression.
Humanizing: voice and video options for students and instructors, the Wisdom Wall, and conversation as a form of assessment.
What the Institute will do
In the AI era, we are moving from a society that asks “What do you want to do?” to one that asks “Who do you want to be?” The Institute pursues three linked aims.
Built on what works
The humanizing framework, course design practices and Wisdom Wall from the state-funded Humanizing Online STEM Academy, with five years of equity results behind them.
New for the AI era
New Connection Catalyst assignments, all disciplines rather than STEM only, regional communities of practice where faculty explore AI on their own terms, and the Future-Ready Teaching Retreat.
1. Relationships
All courses, especially online, begin with verbal and nonverbal cues of validation and social inclusion. Faculty apply humanizing elements, including a Liquid Syllabus, a getting-to-know-you survey, and warm, wise feedback.
View a liquid syllabusUDL: Engagement
2. Human-centric skills
Faculty employ a Learning Dedication and a wisdom wall to cultivate a growth mindset and a culture of academic integrity through intrinsic motivation. Embedding conversations across the curriculum and into assessments centers nontraditional ways of knowing, taps into students’ families and communities as “funds of knowledge,” and develops the human-centric skills that employers seek beyond AI literacy. Work rooted in students’ own lives is hard to outsource and worth doing.
UDL: Representation · Action & Expression
3. Wellbeing is an outcome
Humanizing brings human connection to isolated and burned-out faculty and gives students opportunities to explore who they are becoming as humans. Moving away from a culture of detection toward authentic interactions and ways of learning makes wellbeing an outcome for all.
UDL: Engagement (emotional capacity)
Connection Catalysts: new assignments designed for the AI era
A new, growing collection of assignment designs that build human-centric skills and critical AI literacy together, in any modality. Each one asks for something only the student can bring, which lowers the incentive to misuse AI without requiring students to come to campus. They sit alongside proven practices from the Academy, such as the Wisdom Wall.
New · Connection Catalyst
Learning Dedication
Students dedicate their learning to someone who matters to them, then share it with the class. Drawing on possible-selves research, it invites integrity that grows from a hoped-for future self rather than rules alone.
“What if the reason to learn with integrity was someone you love?”
UDL: Engagement (identities, belonging)
Explore the Learning DedicationNew · Connection Catalyst
Conversations Across the Curriculum
Students prepare with AI, then learn from a real 30–45 minute conversation with a person in their community. They reflect on what humans and AI each bring to the table, tied to a course outcome in any discipline.
“What if higher education centered conversations as a way of learning?”
UDL: Representation · Action & Expression
Explore Conversations Across the CurriculumProven practice from the Academy
Wisdom Wall
At the end of a course, students record short voice or video advice for the next cohort, who meet it on day one. Relatable peer role models can boost confidence and ease stereotype threat, and reflecting on their own growth builds students’ self-efficacy.
“Learning is a process of growth.”
UDL: Action & Expression · Engagement
Explore the Wisdom WallThree ways faculty take part
Asynchronous Canvas course
Builds on the proven Humanizing Online STEM Academy, broadened to faculty in every discipline. Faculty experience a humanized, UDL-designed course as students, then redesign their own, leaving with documented RSI practices their colleges can point to for accreditation.
Regional communities of practice
Faculty from colleges across a region meet over time to implement, share and sustain the work. Together they explore ways to use AI in course design and instruction that give them agency and free up more time to build relationships with students. They connect with one another, not only with their students.
Future-Ready Teaching Retreat
The signature in-person retreat in a natural setting, organized around three outcomes: Reset a vision for the AI era, Reclaim relational practice, and Restore wellbeing and purpose.
A regional offering within the RPDNs
The Chancellor’s Office Academic Affairs team is already scaling faculty professional development through the Regional Professional Development Networks, with online teaching and AI literacy named as priorities in the Faculty Professional Development Plan 2026–28. The Humanizing Institute adds the missing human layer as a regional offering that builds connection within each region. It also advances the Chancellor’s Office’s commitment to Universal Design for Learning.
Year 1
Pilot in one or two regions
Launch the course, communities of practice and retreat with regional cohorts.
Throughout
Collect data
Measure faculty practice, wellbeing and student outcomes, disaggregated to track equity gaps.
Year 2 and beyond
Scale to every region
Expand region by region as results come in, adding staff to support the growth.
Led by
Michelle Pacansky-Brock
Visiting expert in professional development and AI with the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, and creator of the Humanizing Online Teaching framework. Michelle led the Humanizing Online STEM grant work (2019–2024) and is the author of Best Practices for Teaching with Emerging Technologies (Routledge).
Sources
- Bakersfield College Academic Technology. (2024). Empowering online STEM education: A journey of inclusive pedagogy.
- California Code of Regulations, Title 5, §55204. Instructor contact.
- California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office. Universal Design for Learning resources. California Community Colleges UDL resources
- California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office. (2025). 2023-25 distance education Board of Governors report.
- CAST. (2024). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 3.0. udlguidelines.cast.org
- Estrada, M., Eroy-Reveles, A., & Matsui, J. (2018). The influence of affirming kindness and community on broadening participation in STEM career pathways. Social Issues and Policy Review, 12(1), 258–297.
- Huebner, T., & Pedroza, V. (2026). Listening to students first: What California community college learners are telling us about GenAI, equity, and learning. WestEd. (Additional WestEd analysis of survey data.)
- Ledezma, G. M., Xu, D., & Pacansky-Brock, M. (2025). Humanizing online STEM: Preliminary research findings, Brief #2. HumanizeOL.org.
- Moll, L. C., Amanti, C., Neff, D., & González, N. (1992). Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms. Theory Into Practice, 31(2), 132–141.
- Pugh, A. J. (2024). The last human job. Princeton University Press.
- U.S. Department of Education. Definition of distance education, including regular and substantive interaction. 34 CFR §600.2 (effective July 1, 2021).
- Wood, J. L., Harris, F., III, & White, K. (2015). Teaching men of color in the community college: A guidebook. Montezuma Publishing.
- World Economic Forum. (2025). New economy skills: Unlocking the human advantage.
- Xu, D., et al. (2022). Humanizing online STEM: Preliminary research findings. HumanizeOL.org.
The Humanizing Online STEM projects were supported by the California Education Learning Lab. Learn more at HumanizeOL.org.
Liquid Syllabus created by and shared with permission from Eric Martinsen of Ventura College. Photo by personalgraphic.com on Unsplash.