Area Report for Board of Trustees
We are well into spring quarter with faculty and staff working diligently with students to get advised into classes for summer and fall quarters as well as move them closer to commencement. We’re also working to recruit new students from area high schools to come to Highline. As part of that important work, High School Engagement and Success hosted Highline College’s Second Annual Highline EXPO on April 14, 2023. In partnership with multiple departments across campus, Highline College EXPO welcomed students from Federal Way and Highline Public Schools to tour our campus, attend our resource fair and learn about Degree Pathways and Financial Aid. Students also enjoyed breakfast, lunch and prizes for successfully answering HC trivia and participating in our raffle. All students received lanyards, water bottles and backpacks that highlight our Degree Pathway options. The success of this event was truly a team effort with: 30 programs participating in the resource fair; 28 amazing volunteers that helped with check-in, navigating students and ensuring that rooms were ready for presenters; updated Degree Pathway Presentations; resources provided by Entry Advising and Financial Aid; an incredible MC; 17 in-class workshops for students to select from; and huge push from Budgets and Purchasing to meet the needs of such a large event. In total, 322 students (260 seniors and 62 juniors) attended Highline EXPO.
Core Theme 1: ACCESS, Reduce Barriers and close equity gaps to access for all community members
Students with their Children on Take Your Child to Work Day.
During the Building 25 Open House on April 18, library staff interacted with 84 patrons (mostly students but some employees). Representative survey feedback from patrons: “Today I discovered that the Highline College Library offers lots of wonderful books!”
High School Engagement and Success has coordinated Admissions and Funding workshops at all of the large high schools in Federal Way and Highline Public Schools. These workshops began on April 17th and will end on May 27th. There is a total of sixteen workshops that focus on supporting students through completing their HC admissions and financial aid applications, as well as activating and accessing their My Highline, HC email, Canvas, and CTC accounts. Students will also finalize their placement, Entry Advising and orientation appointments during these workshops. Our efforts to remove barriers are hugely supported by the presence of Entry Advising, Financial Aid, the Transition Center, the HUB and Highline Promise.
The Bring Your Kids to College outreach team has seen significantly increased attendance at its monthly events. In April, families from around the sound celebrated Earth Day with hands-on activities related to soil erosion, clean water, and upcycling. These monthly science events are open to the public, and sponsored by the Pure and Applied Science Division and the Physics Club. They are organized by Stephaney Puchalski and Mariola Kulaweic (lab technicians for Pure & Applied Science).
Core Theme 2: STUDENT LEARNING, Increase educational success, collaborate to improve
The Hub has increased ESOL enrollment 2.5X from winter quarter to spring.
Our business club students embarked on a journey to compete in the DECA Collegiate National Competition. From April 14th until the 18th, our students were in Orlando, Florida representing Highline. Most of the students that our students were competing against were four-year university students and some of them were in their fourth year.
Anh Luu, Liz Lopez, Najib Yasin, Nigel Herbert, Eliseo Martinez, Jacob Weber, Cristian Rangel qualified for the national competition by coming in either first or second place in both the local- and state-level competitions. While at the national competition, club members received a real-life business prompt/question, had 30 minutes to solve it and then presented their solution to a panel of industry professionals and judges. Liz Lopez competed individually in Human Resource Management, Nigel Herbert competed individually in Financial Accounting, Jacob Weber competed individually in Sales Management, Anh Luu and Najib Yasin competed as a team in International Marketing and Cristian Rangel and Eliseo Martinez competed as a team in Sports and Entertainment Marketing.
Anh Luu, Liz Lopez, Najib Yasin, Nigel Herbert, Eliseo Martinez, Jacob Weber, Cristian Rangel ready for DECA competition.
The students are grateful to the Associated Students of Highline College (ASHC) who made both the state and the national trips possible.
Out of the seven students that went to the National Competition two of them won and qualified for the finals, the two got medals for winning the preliminary competition (see attached photos). They proceeded to the final competition but did not win in the final competition. We were so proud of them as they all represented Highline College well.
Five of our students, this was their first year to compete in the national competition, they gained more knowledge and will be much more prepared if they compete again next year. Four out of the seven students are graduating this year and transferring to four-year university, but we have three of them who will still be with us next year. Our goal is to also recruit more members to the club and give our students a chance to learn and prepare to become great emerging leaders and entrepreneurs who will succeed in their careers when they graduate from Highline College.
We are grateful that Highline College gave these students this opportunity.
The Cybersecurity Competition Club competed in the NCL Skyline competition April 14-16. The team competed virtually on Discord from Friday morning when the team games began, through Saturday, and then in person from 8AM – 6PM on Sunday until the contest ended. Highline’s team ranked 110th out of 3593 teams! The team consisted of five cybersecurity students: Chris Bahlmann (AAS), Barry Hansen (BAS), Michael Myers (BAS), Jennifer Meadues (AAS), and Jordyn Ceplina (AAS).
Highline Engineering student Dustin Cole will be honored as a member of the 2023 All-Washington Academic Team for his academic achievement, community service, and involvement in college. Cole and other top scholars from the state’s 34 community and technical colleges were recognized during the April 27 awards ceremony at South Puget Sound Community College. Cole, from Federal Way, holds a 3.97 GPA while studying at Highline College as a Running Start student pursuing an Associate of Science degree in general engineering and intends to study mechanical engineering at Eastern Washington University so that he can help other people through his interest in problem-solving. “I chose to study engineering because of my natural intuition of all mechanical objects,” Cole said. “I want to be a part of the engineering that revolutionizes the world and technology around us,” adding that being a well-rounded engineer is his goal as he feels that is the best way he will be able to help people. He particularly noted the influence of Highline faculty on his success. “Talking to instructors and making a personable connection in the classroom during office hours makes the education process easier for a student,” he said, noting math instructor Terry Meerdink has been especially influential during his time at Highline.
Students gathered in Building 29 to read posters created by Physics 202 students.
Math week at Highline was an unqualified success! Starting with Pi Day and continuing through the rest of the week, students enjoyed pizza, games, poster presentations, and more.
The Healthcare Industry Leadership Table is a self-convened network of healthcare organizations in Seattle-King County who come together to share and take action on improving access to a skilled healthcare workforce. In April, the group hosted an event, 2023 Sound Careers in Healthcare (SCIH), to improve equity and access in healthcare career exploration by providing guidance around healthcare career pathways. The event was a two-day hybrid event for 9-12th graders in King, Pierce, and Snohomish Counties, with particular emphasis on BIPOC, first-generation, and/or low-income students. For the 1st day, the University of Washington’s Health Professions Recruitment Collaborative (e.g. Doctors for a Day) and HILT hosted a hands-on healthcare career exploration fair at the UW Husky Union Building. For the 2nd day, Kaiser Permanente and HILT hosted an interactive livestream at the Kaiser Permanente Bellevue campus. In the 2023 Highlight Video Fred Goglia and Kayoko Kado from HC’s Respiratory Care program are included.
Jen Hecker (Honors faculty) and Wendy Swyt (Honors, College Studies faculty) gave a presentation “Beyond Undecided: Helping Students Decide on a Major” to a large standing-room-only audience at the University of Washington/CC Transfer Advising conference on April 14. This is the second year in a row that they were the only community college presenters. They received very high evaluations and feedback: Just wanted to take a moment to thank you both again for taking the time to come and present at the UW/CC conference. Wanted to send some evaluation feedback related to your presentation your way. Really positive feedback overall, and one of the favorite sessions of the day especially with the tools you all talked through for immediate and tangible impact. You all are consistently a hit. Also appreciate your encouragement to other cc advisers to present that Tim mentioned you brought up in your session as well. Really appreciate and am excited for how you all at Highline keep showing up – you’re doing an amazing job.
Core Theme 3: COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS, Create a more inclusive working environment and a more valued, visible relationship with communities we serve
Katie Baker talking to future Highline students
Emma Kong and Syeda Nizami during a rare quiet moment at the FWSD STEM Expo
STEM programs from Highline had 6 booths at the Federal Way School District STEM EXPO. STEM faculty in attendance included Cait Cramer (Engineering), Aleya Dhanji (Physics), Melissa Moehlig (Chemistry), Eric Baer (Geology), Katie Baker (Biology), Jacob Selander (Geology), Terry Meerdink (Mathematics), Syeda Nizami (Computer Science), Emma Kong (Cybersecurity), and George Lopez (Mathematics). Highline was a gold sponsor of this event.
Dr. Eric Baer (Geology) was named to the Fred Hutch SciEd 2-year College Advisory Committee and attended the inaugural meeting in April. This committee will connect Highline students to the significant educational and employment opportunities at this national cancer treatment and research institute.
Four Arcturus student editors attended the Associated Writers Program Conference in Seattle and took part in the “Get Lit” panel that looked at literary arts journals from two-year colleges.
Division Honors and Achievements
Dr. Aleya Dhanji (Physics) will be leading a workshop as part of the 4th Annual University of Waterloo Teaching and Learning Conference. “The Hidden Curriculum of Navigating Higher Education” will help participants understand the barriers underserved students face in navigating college systems and how this connects to being a holistic educator. The workshop attendees will also create an in-class advising activity based on inclusive teaching strategies.
Dr. Helen Burn (Mathematics) was part of an invited panel to discuss “Ramps & Pathways to Data Science: K12, Community Colleges, and Minority-serving Institutions” at the 2023 Data Science Leadership Summit in Boston Massachusetts May 8-10.
Timur Kuzu (MESA director) was selected as part of a team to present at the American Association of Community Colleges National Conference in Denver Colorado 1-3 April 2023. Although he could not attend, the team he was a part of presented their work on Illuminating STEM Pathways for Underrepresented Students.
Syeda Nizami (Computer Science) has been unanimously elected as the coordinator of the Computer Science/CIS program. She takes over for Ravinder Kang who was coordinator of the department for the last several years.
Susan Rich (Faculty English) read in Anacortes at Pelican Bay Books with two former Washington State Poet Laureates: Kathleen Flenniken and Claudia Castro Luna. In addition, her poem “From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows” was published in the on-line journal, Inklette and another poem “Food for Fallen Angels” was published in Singing the Salmon Home — a new anthology edited by WA State Poet Laureate, Rena Priest.
English Faculty Tarisa Matsumoto- Maxfield’s poem “The Undertaker’s Wife Waits Among the Dead at Lake View Cemetery, Seattle” has been published in volume 21 of Mom Egg Review.
Report submitted by Vice President of Academic Affairs, Dr. Emily Lardner