Academic Affairs Division Goals: (Core themes 1, 2 & 3)

• Increase enrollments
• Increase student success and student completions; close equity gaps
• Implement guided pathways as a strategy to increase student success
• Increase transparency and communication within Academic Affairs

Responding to COVID-19

Faculty continue to do great work connecting with students and coping with the sudden shift to emergency remote teaching. Staff continue to do great work from home, finding creative ways to stay connected and to support the functions and processes of the Academic Affairs division. Everyone continues to express appreciation for the work of the Instructional Design (ID) team which includes faculty Sue Frantz, Psychology; Tarisa Matsumoto-Maxfield, Diversity & Global Studies/English; and Avery Viehmann, English, along with Marc Lentini, Educational Technology Director. Maurea Brown, ABE, is working closely with ABE/ESL faculty, and consulting regularly with the ID team. In addition, Bob Scribner, Learning and Teaching Center Director and Deb Moore, Reference Librarian, have been working alongside the ID team for the first month of the quarter. Given the impact of COVID-19 and the campus closure on students enrolled in ABE/ESL courses, Dean of College and Career Readiness Justin Dampeer is working with faculty and staff in that area to develop innovative strategies for doing outreach, placement and orientation for students who need those programs remotely, assuming campus access will be limited for a while longer.

Library reserve via mail: Gerie Ventura (Library Director) and Flint Thorton (Interim Bookstore Manager) collaborated to get books into the hands of students. This pilot program expanded the Library Reserve system by asking students to identify books that, under normal circumstances, they would have borrowed from the library. In response to those requests, Flint ordered books and had them sent to students’ homes. When campus opens up, books can be returned and reused.

Formative assessments of remote teaching and learning: Gabrielle Bachmeier (Dean of Organizational Development and Extended Learning), Marc Lentini, Tanya Powers (Associate Dean, BAS Programs) and Jenni Sandler (Associate Dean, Accessibility Resources) are leading the development of a survey for faculty and students to get feedback about the shift to remote teaching, with the goal of developing targeted supports moving forward. They are using the Educause DIY survey kit as a starting point. In addition, a collaborative effort between the Learning and Teaching Center and Instructional Design is leading to the creation of an opportunity for faculty to engage in peer-to-peer reflections on teaching this quarter, again with the goal of documenting what’s been learned through this profound shift in practice.

Update on Highline’s Honors Program: Jen Heckler, Honors coordinator and tenure-track faculty, has been working all year to rethink and revise Highline’s Honors Program to better promote equitable and inclusive teaching and learning practices. As the Highline Honors Program has grown and diversified over the past two decades, students’ learning needs have evolved. In an effort to more equitably serve current and future Honors students’ needs, Jen has been researching best practices in Honors education and networking with directors at regional two-year honors programs and colleges. Last month, Jen’s research culminated in a campus visit to Shoreline Honors College, where she, Raegan Copeland (Dean of Academic Transfer), Wendy Swyt (Arts & Humanities Division Chair), and Teri Balkenende (Social Science Division Chair) met with their counterparts. They learned how Shoreline’s Honors College successfully created an inclusive recruitment plan, developed discipline-based Honors classes within degree pathways, and supported Shoreline students as they prepared for and presented at University of Washington Seattle’s undergraduate research symposium. This quarter, Jen will gather faculty input and develop recommendations for program revisions.

Preparing for NWCCU visit: Lisa Bernhagen (English), chair of the Accreditation Steering Committee, and Jeff Wagnitz have organized a mock-accreditation visit to be held via Zoom on May 5. The draft self-study has been made available to the campus, and revisions are expected to be completed in summer in preparation for the October 2020 visit.

Spring quarter faculty meeting: On April 22, Academic Affairs held the Spring Quarter Faculty meeting. Over 220 people participated via Zoom. Vice President for Administrative Services Michael Pham gave an overview of the college’s financial situation, including the wider national and state context in which we are working. President Mosby responded to faculty questions and concerns. Faculty spent the remaining time working in smaller Zoom break out rooms discussing the shift to emergency remote teaching and advising. Special thanks to Executive Assistant Carrie Davidson for her newly acquired Zoom skills which helped facilitate an interactive meeting.

Academic Affairs spring newsletter: As part of Academic Affairs’ commitment to increasing transparency and communication within the division, Gabrielle Bachmeier and Michelle Donaldson (Administrative Services Manager) produced the Academic Affairs Spring Quarter Newsletter which included:

• Budget updates from Academic Affairs’ Director of Budget and Planning Marco Torres-Lopez, including the college-wide principles for budget planning for 2020-2021
• Updates on Guided Pathways working groups which are focusing on revising Highline’s pathways using student, staff, and faculty feedback, and developing a prototype for mapping all of Highline’s programs from beginning to end, including key deadlines from student services, so students can easily see what they need to do to complete degrees and certificates
• Updates from Faculty Senate, including revisions to the AA-DTA and the addition of three specific engineering pathways approved by transfer institutions
• Faculty recognition: professional leave awards, SBCTC Spring 2020 Assessment, Teaching and Learning Equity Award, Outstanding Assessment Awards
• New tenure track faculty hires for 2020-2021