Area Report Board of Trustees
Core Theme 1: ACCESS, Reduce Barriers and close equity gaps to access for all community members
Thanks to the Roy Howard & Ruth Koral endowment funds, Continuing Education has partnered with the Foundation to offer scholarships to our 55+ community who may need tuition assistance for select CE classes. In its first quarter, 16 students registered for classes, and $2,544.00 of tuition was covered by the endowment funds. This will continue to be offered to the community most quarters while funds are available.
The Math Resource Center is providing math tutoring support on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, at The Hub. You don’t have to be taking classes at The Hub to take advantage of this excellent resource. All Thunderbirds are welcome to visit The Hub and experience the small, supportive environment, located in Federal Way.
As part of the Global Programs Team, Jennifer Jones, geography faculty, presented at the Community Colleges for International Development (CCID) conference in Washington, DC earlier this month. Together with Sam Kaplan, Director of the Center of Excellence for Global Trade & Supply Chain Management, they presented about Highline’s Study Abroad program to Vietnam as well as the virtual exchanges they conducted during the pandemic. Their presentation showed how the programs are making international educational experiences more inclusive and accessible to students while also furthering the college’s global connections and partnerships.
The “Bring your Kids To College” outreach events created by lab support staff, Stephaney Puchalski and Mariola Kulaweic events continue and have had increasing attendance. On January 21, nearly 50 people attended “Sound of Science.” They experimented with waves, built devices that generate sound in different ways, enjoyed sound-based art, and made a little music. On February 18, the workshop will focus on robotics and will host three robotics teams. It will be on Saturday, February 18th from 11am to 1pm in the ThunderLab Makerspace (16-106). Everyone is welcome (including community members and Board members…).
Michael Myers, part-time faculty in Computer Science, is incorporating environmental justice in his Computer Science 100 course. He finds it a “big topic and relevant for future employment.” Specifically, he has students study computing technologies like NUC, Raspberry Pi, and other low-emission and low-power consumption devices that are powerful enough to replace high-impact computers. He notes, “Programming, web development, digital devices, cloud computing, etc., are ripe for focusing on learning about new computing alternatives that give students something new to research and learn about.” In his WordPress class (CSci 201), he has students create a website related to environmental justice as well.
Timur Kuzu (MESA) attended the AACU conference in Washington D.C. He reports “The conference was eye-opening at times and helped me understand the struggle educators are having nationwide. Struggles that seem to be going on longer than they should.”
On March 30-31, some of the Cybersecurity students will participate in Wicked6, a 24-Hour Virtual Global Hack & Chat Event, hosted by Global Women’s Global Cyber League. This is a 24-hr follow-the-sun format cyber game exhibition with a goal to get 3000 women on discord. They are also looking for female student speakers to share their club and cyber-competition experience.
Core Theme 2: STUDENT LEARNING, Increase educational success, collaborate to improve
The Hub continues to expand its course offerings by adding two Ethnic & Gender Studies (EGS) classes and Environmental Science 101 to its spring class schedule.
Sarah Adams and Patrick Kwon (Mathematics) are working together to fix errors and improve the OER textbook better for MATH 81 and 91 classes. This is critical work and often a significant problem for OER texts. Without a publisher, these OER texts often languish without review or revision. Patrick and Sarah’s work will ensure that their students continue to have access to low or no-cost high-quality resources.
Laura Sposato is our newest chemistry lecturer in the Physical Sciences department. Laura did her undergraduate degree in chemistry at Kings College in Pennsylvania and went to graduate school for chemistry at the University of California Berkeley, although our physicists were thrilled to learn that she did work in a physics lab! Not only is Laura an enthusiastic and engaged educator at Highline, she is also an acrobatics instructor at SANCA (School of Acrobatics and New Circus Arts), where she loves to find the connection between movement and science!
Helen Burn (mathematics) led a discussion of Data Science at 2YCs hosted by the Academic Data Science Alliance on January 27. The discussion was about developing a recommended or preferred course sequence for community college students interested in data science, focusing on courses in mathematics, statistics, linear algebra, discrete mathematics, programming, and communications requirements. It also explored whether the course sequence fits nicely into the AS Track 2 or AA-DTA degrees.
Emma Kong (Cybersecurity BAS program) attended the 2023 Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, with partial support from the Bellevue College Center of Excellence for IT. Ms. Kong stated that what she learned would be helpful to “curriculum development in our department.” She also attended a hands-on workshop on AWS, an important part of the Cybersecurity curriculum.
Students are preparing for the Spring AMATYC Math Competition, held in Building 7 on Thursday, March 2nd. This competition is held twice a year – once in the fall, then again in late winter/early spring. The top five scorers receive a gift card. At the end of the year, prizes and scholarships are awarded to the top teams and individuals in the nation. About twelve Washington schools participate, along with more than 140 schools around the country. Highline traditionally has very strong participation.
Highline College’s Computer Science Club is excited to announce we’ll be hosting our first ever in-person Hackathon on Friday, February 24th, 3 PM – 6 PM in Building 8 at Mt. Olympus. Students can join a team of up to 3 people to solve coding prompts ranging in difficulty from easy to hard, win points, and see how they compare against others. All coding languages are welcome. Food and certificates will be provided.
Core Theme 3: COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS, Create a more inclusive working environment and a more valued, visible relationship with communities we serve
On February 7th, High School Engagement and Success Programs hosted an appreciation breakfast for high school counselors. Attendees were provided with breakfast, lunch, raffle prizes and updates about Running Start, Career Start, High School Re-Engagement Programs (Alternative High School Completion Programs), Dual Credit, Highline Promise Partnership, TRiO Talent Search, and the Highline College Financial Aid & Admissions Processes. 60 counselors registered for the event and 44 attended. This is the attendance by district: 4 from Auburn; 14 from Federal Way; 1 from Fife; 18 from Highline; 1 from Renton; 2 from Seattle; 1 from Tacoma; 1 from Tukwila; 2 from Neighborhood House. HSEAS is currently surveying participants about their experience and will be using the data provide to plan next year’s event.
Tim McMannon, history faculty, is planning to reopen History Seminar to the public in Spring Quarter (for the first time since Fall 2019 because of Covid).
Jennifer Jones, geography faculty, has been offering a monthly series of presentations on Russia to the residents of Judson Park senior facility. They have covered an overview, the physical landscape and the history of Russia. The residents have greatly enjoyed participating in the activity and always have good questions and insightful comments.
The Cybersecurity BAS program is a local host partner of the 2023 NICE Conference and Expo taking place June 5-7, 2023 at the Westin Seattle. Students and faculty in the Cybersecurity program will have sponsored attendance. The NICE Conference is the annual convening of community members and thought leaders from education, government, industry, and non-profits to explore ways of developing a skilled cybersecurity workforce ready to meet the challenges of the future.
Dr. Aleya Dhanji (Physics) was selected for the Spring 2023 CourseSource Online4Bio Writing Faculty Mentoring Network (FMN) – an open-access journal of peer-reviewed teaching resources for college biology and physics courses.
Division Honors and Achievements
English faculty, Aaron Ottinger’s review of two academic books on environmental studies (including climate change, the Anthropocene, animal studies, etc.) and Romantic-era literature appeared in December.
Aaron Ottinger (2023), “Romanticism at the End of the World,” a review of Disastrous Subjectivities: Romanticism, Modernity, and the Real, by David Collings, Toronto, U of Toronto P, 2019, ix + 235 pp. and Romantic Revelations: Visions of Post-Apocalyptic Life and Hope in the Anthropocene, by Chris Washington, Toronto, U of Toronto P, 2019, ix + 252 pp., in European Romantic Review, 34:1, 101-106, DOI: 10.1080/10509585.2023.2158549
English faculty, Greg November’s story “Summers We Dream of Rain” was shortlisted for the 2022 Winter Fast Flash Challenge, from Fractured Lit. His story “Welcome to the Spinning World” was nominated for Best of the Net 2023. His story “All Alone in the Getaway Car” is forthcoming in the Raleigh Review (Spring 2023).
Dr. Katie Baker (LOGS faculty) was awarded the coveted “Rock Star” award by the Pure and Applied Sciences Division for her exceptional work on outreach, supporting student access, shared governance, and the development of outside partnerships.
Three science-oriented clubs participated in the Clubs Fair on January 12. They all had lots of interested students. The clubs included the Geology/Natural Sciences club, the Physics Club (aka PHATT), and the MaST Center. Pictures are below.
Report submitted on Feb. 23, 2023 by Vice President of Academic Affairs, Dr. Emily Lardner