Area Report for Board of Trustees

Vice President for Administration

• As we begin a new fiscal/academic year, I would like to take an opportunity to reflect on several goals and priorities that the Administrative Services had set for ourselves in 2021-22. It is however with mixed emotions to report that we were not able to accomplish all goals/priorities as intended.
• Return-to-Campus: I am extremely proud of the contributions of our Administrative Services staff provided to support the return-to-campus goal.  Our employees provided crucial and essential services to ensure the safety return of faculty, staff, and students on campus, including contact tracing and regular cleaning/disinfecting.  We look forward to welcome more and more faculty, staff, and students to campus in 2022-23.
• CtcLink Stabilization: The 2021-22 year had turned out to be another challenging year for our finance and budget staff in working with ctcLink stabilization.  Additionally, personnel turnover definitely played a role in our struggles to normalize the business processes. I expect for us to continue facing these challenges in 2022-23 until improvement in staffing levels.
• Equity-first Strategic Plan: Due to a variety of reasons, we did not make much progress within Administrative Services on this initiative. We look forward to the institutional roll-out of the campus strategic plan in the fall of 2022, prior to our own divisional development.
• Campus Master Plan 2030: Despite our best efforts and the efforts of many other faculty and staff on campus, we were not able to fully develop Highline College Campus Master Plan (2030) this past year. We are planning to re-group in the fall 2022 to complete the Campus Master Planning process. It must be noted however we were successful in our new major capital project submission for the Pathways Building.
• International Partnerships: This has been one “bright” area for our Global Programs team. Despite the challenges of the pandemic, we had been able to maintain and expand partnerships with international partners. We hosted several virtual workshops to share and discuss academic and instructional ideas/programs, benefiting both Highline College students and also students from oversea institutions.
• Fiscal & Budget Sustainability: Despite all the challenges facing Finance/Budget teams and Highline College, we will be ending the FY2021-22 well within budget. Thanks largely to the availability of the federal stimulus funding (HEERF). Unfortunately, however, we did not achieve a key goal of completing the annual financial statement audit on time.

Facilities

• Facilities is thrilled to welcome Zach Lambert as the new Capital and Facilities Project Manager. Zach came to us from the private sector but did work previously for Green River College for 15 years. He is also currently pursuing his MBA at the University of Iowa.
• The Facilities team is finishing up with the cleaning out of the third-floor B-23 to prepare for a renovation as a lead up to the Welcome Center major project.
• Facilities is set to start several Energy Service contracting jobs across the summer. These projects include control upgrades, installing new hot water tanks in several buildings in order to decouple from the plant domestic water supply, and HVAC unit replacements in selected buildings.
• Our three-way agreement East Parking Lot expansion, with Sound Transit and the City of Des Moines, is proceeding on schedule. After clearing the area, the contractor will be grading the lot in the next couple of weeks, along with continuing utility works.

Finance & Budget

• Finance & Budget teams have been working extremely hard on fiscal year (2021-22) close to ensure all financial transactions are properly recorded.
• The financial statement audit is nearing completion. Due to personnel challenges and other year-end activities, as well as ctcLink complexities, we have been forced to delay certain audit-response activities until after fiscal year close in July.
• It is with pleasure for Finance welcome a recent Highline graduate, Sam Sullivan, to the team to help out with year-end activities, as well as to support the department while we continue to recruit and replace some vacant positions. Sam was featured in the Thunderword earlier in the year, as part of the Highline DECA team that took second place in the national DECA competition. Sam plans to attend the University of Washington in the fall.
• As part of our continuous improvement and learning process in ctcLink, the Budget Office has successfully uploaded FY2022-23 preliminary budgets in the system.
• Budget Office provided three (3) training workshops to all program managers on the new grant management process, including reporting, tracking, amounts and answering FAQs.
• The preliminary/draft FY2022-23 Operating Budget is being submitted for the Board to review in July. The Board will take actions in the September meeting for budget approval.

Public Safety and Emergency Management

• Public Safety provided verbal de-escalation training for the Continuing Education staff on Thursday, July 14th. The training was meant to provide tools for front-line employees to defuse situations and reduce the likelihood of physical or verbal confrontation. It also provides techniques and strategies for managing aggressive behaviors. These tools lead to greater confidence and knowledge for handling situations and provide a safer workplace.
• As part of our quarterly drill schedule, Public Safety held a shelter-in-place in responding to violent intruder drill on July 27th. The emergency management team also tested the emergency communications system campus wide. In addition, the Department also conducted remote door-locking system tests for Buildings 6 and 26.
• We have extended until December 31^st the partnership contract with University of Washington Medical Center for the COVID testing site on Highline College campus. The volumes have been steady at 50-100 patients a day, with approximately 25 percent positive results.

Auxiliary Services

• After more than two years of the pandemic, Conference & Event Services is starting to see a slow increase in requests for space/room rentals on campus. We look forward to welcoming more community and public events on Highline College campus in the future.
• It is with sadness that we have said goodbye to Teresa Williams, Bookstore Fiscal Technician III, on July 21^st. We will be looking to fill this position as soon as possible.

Global Programs

• Preparation for the “Follow the Supply-Chain Short Term Study Abroad Trip to Vietnam” in September 2022 is well underway. We will be leading 13 students, from Highline College, Tacoma Community College, and North Seattle College on a short-term (10-day) study abroad trip to Vietnam from September 8^th through September 18^th. Each student participant pays an extremely affordable program fee of $500. The rest of funding for the trip has been provided by donations and contributions from corporate sponsors as well as the University of Washington.
• In addition, as part of a pilot program to provide experiential learning for faculty and staff professional development, eight (8) Highline College faculty and staff will also be joining the study abroad students on the same trip to Vietnam, although with slightly different itinerary and agenda. The funding for the faculty & staff program is provided by their respective annual professional development allotment.

Report submitted July 13, 2022, by Vice President Dr. Michael Pham