Area Report for Board of Trustees

The Student Services Division had a good lift into the start of winter quarter. There were limited challenges for students regarding accessing financial aid. Entry Advisors and Pathway Advisors were busy ensuring that students got enrolled into course and/or programs of study seamlessly, and staff were readily available across the division to support students with related wrap-around services concerns or questions. While there has been an increase in the number of students seeking mental health support services from counseling staff, there has been a marked decrease in the number of incidences related to mental health or safety at Campus View. Leadership throughout the division will continue to meet students where they are and to provide good, consistent, student-focused support. In this report, the VPSS would like to draw the Board of Trustees’ attention to the following:

• Workforce Education Services (WES) funding and expenditures
• Running Start enrollment accomplishments
• Outreach and Recruitment Department Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) pilot
• Honors for two outstanding athletic coaches

Kind regards,

Jamilyn Penn, VPSS

Student Support and Funding Services:

Workforce Education Services (WES) staff have been focused on supporting eligible students with funds to pay for quarterly tuition and books. These funding options include Worker Retraining, Opportunity Grant, Opportunity Grant Health, Early Achievers, and Basic Food Employment and Training (BFET). For winter quarter 2023, 85% of student tuition and books have been posted to the General Ledger (GL) and the remaining funds will be posted in February. WES supported eligible students with tuition and book support well into fall quarter 2023, which is not typical. As such, the rest of the expended funds will be posted to the GL at the end of February and early March 2024.

WES had developed a SMARTIE goal, which was presented to the Student Success Council (SSC), to increase enrollment for spring quarter 2024. By supporting more eligible students, WES staff will expend more funds. Identified strategies include the following:

• Classroom presentations in Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs to promote WES-related funding options
• Development and implementation of a WES checklist for referrals
• Email and text to professional-technical enrolled students
• On-going communication with the Budget and Finance Office to ensure that estimated monthly student support for tuition and books have been met
• Work with the Marketing Department to craft campaigns to get the word out about funding to eligible students

The Running Start Program has higher than usual new student enrollment for the winter quarter. About 60 new students enrolled at Highline College. Typically, staff see less than 20 new students. Enrollment continues to be strong, up more than 15% from this time last year. Staff hosted the High School Counselor Breakfast on February 7, 2024. They also hosted the Running Start Information Sessions and encouraged students and families interested in beginning their college experience while still in high school to learn more about that opportunity, especially at Highline College.

The Outreach & Recruitment Department had a Kinder to College visit with Federal Way Public Schools February 13. The two educational partners will host the event a second time on February 21, 2024. The Outreach and Recruitment Department is focusing on strengthening relationships with Latinx & Hispanic community organizations, including El Centro De La Raza and Para Los Niños. Staff are also learning how to use the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) pipeline for new webform and event contacts. The pilot-related work regarding the CRM will launch spring quarter 2024, and the Outreach and Recruitment staff will play a significant role in these efforts.

Athletics Both the men’s and women’s basketball teams are in the middle of league seasons. Spring sport athletes start working out in February. The NWAC has approved both Jason Prenovost (former Men’s Soccer Coach and Outreach Director at Highline) and Steve Mohn, (current Head Men’s Soccer Coach at Highline) to the NWAC Hall of Fame. They will be honored and inducted at the year-end meetings in Tacoma. Congratulations!

The Advising and Enrollment Services Department convened the first Student Services Advisors Committee to build relationships and collaboration between Pathway Advising, Entry Advising, Running Start Advising, and Career & Transfer Services. Staff in these departments collaborated and established partnership with Highline Public Schools to provide career and employment opportunities for Highline students. The Dean of Advising & Enrollment Services, Jesse Knappenberger, attended a Guided Pathways Executive Retreat with Dean Liz Word, VP EDT Dr. Maribel Jimenez, and CIO Tim Wrye

The Career & Transfer Services Department hosted serval transfer fairs and is positioned to host career-related fairs in March. Specific events include the following:

• Career Fair, March 7th
• Transfer Overview, Jan 19th (for Faculty Advisors)
• Transfer Readiness workshop, January 29th – February 1ST
• GCU Tabling, February 7th
• Central Washington University (CWU) Transfer Fair, February 13th

The Entry Advising Department collaborated with ELCAP to host admissions workshops for Jumpstart students seeking to enroll in spring quarter. Entry Advising staff are partnering with English faculty to revise and update the Directed Self-Placement assessment. On February 3, 2024, hosted a New Student Orientation, and they continue to offer two Spanish language-focused orientation sessions each quarter.

International Student Programs ISP staff conducted well-being check phone calls to internation students in January 2024. Staff focused these efforts on reaching and supporting international students on academic probation, (GPA under a 2.0) and international students on Academic Standards (enrolled 12 credits or less). Staff also talked with students who may have been enrolled in too many online classes and redirected them to enroll in at least one face-to-face course quarterly, during the first year of enrollment at Highline College.

ISP welcomed 47 new international students for the winter quarter, 2024. There were about 20 students who attended the family Fun Center event along with ISP staff. Transportation and admission were supported with ISP funds. ISP hosts quarterly meet-and- greet events at Campus view for ISP residents, where staff highlight academic and campus resources.

Student Life: 

Campus View staff have collaborated with Office of Student Life to host the following events:

Campus View occupancy is 86%. There are currently 133 residents. The maximum capacity is 154, not including 4 ADA rooms and 2 professional staff rooms.

Conduct

For 2022-2023, the number of conduct reports from Campus View has significantly decreased. The main conduct issues that have recently come about are the lack of guest passes being filled out by residents. Guest passes have been made available in the lobby for guests coming in after hours. All residents were emailed with this information.

Additionally, Campus View staff had issues over vacation breaks with residents giving friends their key card to access the garage and apartment when the residents were not home. This issue has been addressed. Staff and residents no longer have this issue.

Center for Leadership and Service (CLS)

To date, there are Clubs twenty-seven (27) Associated Students of Highline College (ASHC) recognized student clubs. Two new clubs are underway. One club is the Queers and Allies Club (Q&A), and another club is the Vietnamese Students Club. During the recent Discovery Fair, 13 active student clubs engaged with our Highline Community to highlight their clubs, hand out information, and recruit club members. Additionally interested students were able to find out how to start a new club.

Global Student Ambassadors (GSA) have been busy with winter quarter planning. They have been collaborating with the Inter-Cultural Center to bring cultural awareness to Lunar New Year. The Highline community had the opportunity to gain experience about what Lunar New Year is, including traditions and food associated with the celebration. The Cross-Cultural Ambassador Program hopes to involve more student voices in bringing programs focused on our Global Community. For example, they would like to host “What’s the Tea” event to teach the history of tea and diverse ways cultures across the world participate in tea drinking and ceremony.

The Highline community will be able to explore World Wonders and Art across the globe without ever leaving Highline College through exhibits of miniature replicas of artifacts from various parts of the world.

During ThunderWeek, 450 students joined and engaged with The Center and other Highline College departments across 6 events. In total, 14 Departments participated – from the Library to Athletics!

The Winter Leadership Retreat brought students together from across campus to explore a variety of leadership topics and to build community. This year’s Winter Leadership Retreat was the first in-person retreat since January 2020 and was convened at the Duwamish Longhouse in West Seattle. The retreat’s theme was Leading with Purpose and Resilience, and the workshops focused on helping students identify their strengths and how to have courageous conversations with others. Approximately 50 students attended the retreat. Highline College partnered with three other campus partners, TRiO, Counseling, and the Equity, Diversity and Transformation (EDT) Office to bring the event to fruition. Participants discussed the Duwamish tribe, community cultural wealth, among other topics. and courageous conversation.

The Connect Program had an inaugural Reframing Love program in partnership with Women’s Program Reframing Love will gave participants a chance to reexamine how the community looks at love. Through presentations and activities from members of CLS, Counseling Center, and Women’s Program’s students had an opportunity to think about how they can practice loving themselves. Staff leading the conversation focused primarily on the 8 dimensions of self-care and the five love languages and extrapolate on these topics.

The student-led Services and Activities (S&A) budget process is underway. The committee is comprised of five (5) student Leaders, two (2) ASHC representatives, three (3) Highline College staff/faculty, and four (4) non-voting members. The current Contingency Fund is $109,960.20. The S&A leaders have worked with students to create a new budget request form. The new form was sent to staff and faculty on February 1, 2024. Budget presentations to the S&A committee will take place March 1-15, 2024.

The Associated Students of Highline College (ASHC) participated in the Community and Technical College (CTC) Legislative Advocacy Day on January 25, 2024. ASHC met with Senator Wilson and three other legislative aids to talk about Textbook Affordability and other topics of concern for college students. ASHC hopes to find more opportunities for meaning exchanges between regional legislators.

Center for Cultural and Inclusive Excellence (CCIE)

The Martin Luther King, Jr (MLK) Series, The Power of Community: Bridging the Divide occurred January 16^–-February 1, 2024. The Center for Cultural & Inclusive Excellence shifted related MLK events from a week-long experience to a series-model to promote flexibility and sustainability of efforts for committee members and speakers/presenters, alike. 150-200 participants engaged in events, which encompassed topics of Unviolence, Care for Community & Land, Mural Art, Black History, and Being Black on Zoom. Upcoming events include the following:

• Students of Color Conference: Applications Open! Due February 16th
• Inter-Cultural Center: Lunar New Year, Bi-Erasure, Domestic Violence and Poetry
• Service and Mentorship Engagement: Peer Mentorship Info Session and Service Learning