Transforming Discourse, Transforming Practice: The Self‐Assessment Tool for Community Colleges

ABSTRACT Community college faculty remain largely invisible in national data and in tools designed for four‐year institutions. This study uses critical discourse analysis (CDA) to examine how a faculty diversity self‐assessment tool, originally built on Griffin's Institutional Model for Increasing Faculty Diversity for four‐year universities, was adapted for community colleges, attending to the assumptions embedded in its language. Through this critical discourse analysis of the revision process, the study highlights how power and legitimacy are constructed through language, and how university‐centric norms in the original Tool reinforced institutional hierarchies. The adaptation process challenged these discourses by centering teaching‐focused roles, recognizing the diversity and realities of community college faculty, and including issues such as mental health and burnout. The revised tool not only serves as a practical audit for community colleges but also as a discursive intervention to advance faculty diversity and equity and challenge power relations embedded in postsecondary education.