Area Report for Board of Trustees

Welcome to summer quarter! I would like to take this opportunity to celebrate the 2023 Highline College Commencement Ceremony. On June 15, approximately 512 students of 1,273 students who graduated in the 2022-23 academic year participated in Commencement. Thank you to the Commencement Committee led by Associate Dean Juliette Kern and Director Edwina Fui. The planning, guidance, and intentional execution of this year’s ceremonies created a joyous celebration for all involved and recognized the tremendous accomplishments of our student body. Thank you to all staff and faculty who supported the day’s events. This day of celebration is not possible without your participation. 

As is typical at other colleges and universities, students at Highline apply to graduate before all coursework has been completed. The college expects to award the following credentials for the 2022–23 academic year. Here are a few facts:

• 1,505: total number of credentials (degrees, certificates and diplomas); some students earned more than one credential
• 1,044: two-year degrees, including 522 associate of arts degrees, 153 associate of science, 336 associate of professional-technical and 28 associate of applied science degrees
• 116: applied bachelor’s degrees
• 268: certificates
• 77: high school diplomas
• 107: GEDs

The 2023 graduating class reflects the diversity of the college campus. Here are a few facts:

• 17: age of youngest graduate
• 68: age of oldest graduate
• 46: veterans who used VA education benefits while attending college
• 148: number of immigrants
• 24: number of refugees
• 83: number of international students, representing 16 countries
• 74%: students of color (of the 1,214 students reporting their race/ethnicity
• 66%: female graduates

I would like to extend a special thank you to the Board of Trustees for taking time away from your full-time “day jobs” to attend this year’s ceremony. The return of trustee participation in the ceremony heightened the level of pomp and circumstance and was appreciated by the entire community. 

I look forward to seeing you all at next week’s meeting.

Information Technology Services

Information Technology Services staff are hard at work both supporting our summer quarter students while working to get projects completed looking forward to fall quarter.  We have had a busy fiscal year turnaround, working hard to receive and close out last year’s orders and work while simultaneously kicking off new projects so that summer work can get started.  Our thanks go out to the Finance team, and particularly Purchasing, for all their hard work to support us , especially at this busy time of the year.

We have an additional detail to add to the reorganization update provided last month.  As of July 1, the titles for several of our ITS Leadership team positions have changed.  Tim Wrye’s title is now Chief Information Officer (CIO), Pat Daniels is Deputy CIO, and Theresa Duhart is Director of Technology Support Services (TSS).  Our remaining vacant position of Director of IT Infrastructure and System Administration is actively screening and we hope to have that position filled in August.

Core Theme 1: ACCESS, Increase equitable and representative access to postsecondary educational and career opportunities that lead to social and economic mobility in Highline’s service area.

• The technical implementation of the Recruit module (aka CRM) for Aviso is complete this month. While all functionality is now available to us in production, the team continues to investigate how to best configure the tool to support Highline’s processes. We also continue to work with the vendor to improve the functionality for Highline, and are looking forward to building our institutional ability to make effective use of this new tool over the next year.

Core Theme 2: LEARNING, Increase equitable learning, retention, completion and transfer rates, and improve labor market outcomes using evidence-based innovation and high-impact practices in and out of the classroom.

• TSS staff have been hard at work on a number of classroom equipment updates and changes. At the beginning of summer, some changes made to support hyflex teaching in the Business Technology labs were completed.  One of our largest classroom update projects ever is happening over the summer with the majority of work planned to be completed by the beginning of fall quarter in Building 29, which has had equipment repairs but not a large-scale upgrade since that building was built.

Core Theme 3: COMMUNITY, Increase breadth and depths of partnerships with K-12, other postsecondary institutions, community-based organizations, employers and government that align with Highline’s strategic priorities and contribute to economic and social vibrancy of communities it serves.

• ITS held our inaugural Technology Roundtable on June 6.  Planned by Director of Technology Support Services Theresa Duhart, this hybrid event is planned to be held quarterly as a forum for faculty and staff to hear high-level updates from ITS leadership and staff, as well as to ask questions and provide feedback on technology use on campus.  60 attendees (15 in person and 45 remote) received updates on IT security updates, planned Windows 11 and Office365 migrations, classroom equipment, and the coming implementation of Microsoft Teams Phones at the college.

Core Theme 4: CULTURE & CAPACITY, Create capacity for meaningful strategic planning and institutional transformation through intentional development of employees, facilities, and systems that support student success and close equity gaps.

• Highline hosted an in-person work session on campus with the SBCTC Student Financials team to tackle some outstanding data and process issues and investigate implementing some new processes around student financials processes in ctcLink. Several Finance team members from Student Finance, Accounting, and Accounts Receivable participated along with members of the ITS Business and Data Analysis team. It was a very productive day that we hope to replicate in the future for deep dives on other ctcLink topics.
• Under the guidance of Jennifer Jovanovich, Information Security and Compliance officer, and through the work of multiple ITS staff members, particularly Mike Kromarek, Gary McCune, and Jenny Olson, this past spring has seen a number of IT security improvements:
  • Activated multi-factor authentication (MFA) for administrators in Office365
  • Upgraded Office365 with increased features for account protection, threat mitigation measures, and automated risk and incident notifications.
  • Increased consistency of end user login experience by migrating authentication to Okta for over 50 applications, including Canvas and Zoom. 
  • Implemented multi-factor authentication for all Highline employees for ctcLink

Division Honors and Achievements

• ITS staff would like to congratulate our former student employees who graduated from the Cybersecurity and Forensics BAS program this past academic year:  Nuraldaim Ali, GinaMae Aquino, Alexander Eidness, JessaKate Junio, and Ramneek Kaur. We wish them the best in their future career pursuits!  
• Jenny Olson, TSS staff member and also a graduate of the Cybersecurity and Forensics BAS program, is now the advisor to the Highline Women in Cybersecurity Club.

Human Resources

The Human Resources staff are in full swing for the start of summer.  While many of our faculty are gone for the break, the HR team is busy facilitating system changes for the start of the new fiscal year.  Although we continue to experience staff turnover in various areas of the institution, we have been successful in a number of key recruitments,

Core Theme 4: CULTURE & CAPACITY, Create capacity for meaningful strategic planning and institutional transformation through intentional development of employees, facilities, and systems that support student success and close equity gaps.

Our core Human Resources and Payroll staff have been updating employee accounts and issuing exempt and faculty employment contracts.  This entails processing nearly 500 employee records in just a few weeks’ time.  We have also processed a number of hourly staff changes that occurred due to recent changes in Civil Service laws.

Human Resources has also presented executive leadership with a plan to restart in person manager and supervisor trainings.  These trainings will further develop campus leaders in areas such as performance management, labor relations, and effective communication.

Our recruitment team continues to fill key positions around campus.  Most notably, we recently onboarded our new Director of Counseling, and will be welcoming our new Resident Director for Campus View at the end of July.

Division Honors and Achievements

I would like to recognize our new Executive Assistant in the Office of the President, Jordan Mellott.  Jordan is a Highline grad, and started her new role on July 3.  She will be supporting the Executive Director for the Office of the President, and Executive Director of Human Resources.

Report submitted by President Dr. John R. Mosby