Area Report for Board of Trustees

Enrollment

As of August 27, 2019, Fall Quarter State funded enrollments are 3737.7 FTEs

Core Theme 1: Promote student engagement, learning, and achievement

Academic Affairs has been focusing on Core Theme 1 with the aim of increasing student enrollments, success and completions. To those ends, several recent initiatives deserve mention:

• Enrollment, recruitment and & retention group: Academic Affairs, Student Services, Marketing and IT are collaborating to jointly develop recruitment and retention campaigns to remind unregistered students to register for fall quarter as well as to proactively notify students who are on the list to be dropped for non-payment. This group called students on the summer quarter 2019 drop list and were able to retain 683 of the 933 students on the drop list. Calls will be done again in early September for students registered for fall. Signage and messaging have been designed and placed around campus, on the college home page, and Social Media accounts communicating to students that it is not too late to register for fall quarter. The next steps are to develop a cross-divisional strategic enrollment retention plan that is integrated into the college’s general quarterly business practices.
• Arrive: Step into Highline: Academic Affairs has created an option for students who have missed the financial aid deadline to attend Fall classes. Arrive: Step into Highline provides students the option to take either English 101 or Communication 101. Both of these 5-credit courses apply to all Highline degree pathways. The 5 credit class will be linked with a 2 credit College 101 course intended to support students in career and pathway exploration, and their navigation of college resources. The goal of the project is to help interested students maintain their momentum so they will enroll in classes in winter 2020. Faculty members Laura Manning and Nancy Rawles were sought out to teach these courses because of their experience in creating inclusive and engaging learning communities and developing strong relationships with students. This initiative is funded by Youth Reengagement and Success Programs. Jennifer Joseph-Charles, Crystal Kitterman, Justin Farris, Shannon Waits and Steve Washburn collaborated to develop this pilot project and will be working closely to enroll and track outcomes of these students. If the hypothesis is correct, and students in the pilot enroll for winter quarter, we will try to expand these opportunities.
• KCHA Housing Voucher Pilot Program: Highline is partnering with King County Housing Authority to pilot a housing voucher program for currently enrolled students who are homeless. The committee is currently developing the pilot program requirements and application process. Applications will become available during fall quarter 2019 to award up to 40 vouchers. The plan is to make the awards at the beginning of December so that students have time to find housing prior to the beginning of winter quarter 2020.
• Summer Institute on Accessibility: A joint project of the Learning and Teaching Center, Instructional Design, and the Accessibility Task Force, this summer institute was designed to provide a framework and support for faculty to incorporate accessibility principles into their courses. Rashmi Koushik, Avery Viehmann, Sarah Adams, and Bobby Dutreix facilitated the institute. Fifteen faculty participants learned how to make course materials more accessible and completed a project to upgrade materials in their courses. Projects included captioning videos, syllabus updates, and more. Several participants will be featured during an Opening Week break out session.
• BAS Update: For the 2018-19 academic year, Highline ranked 4th in the CTC system for BAS enrollment with 241 FTE. This is an incredible accomplishment especially since our BAS programs began in the 2014-15 academic year with 28 FTE. This represents a 213% increase in enrollments as we move into our fifth year of running these degree programs. Highline’s BAS programs generated about half a million dollars in revenue for the college during the 2017-18 fiscal year.
• College Spark research project on assessment and equity: Highline is participating in a research grant from College Spark to explore long term outcomes of students at Highline who have used alternative measures for placement. Highline’s transformation of the placement process and use of multiple measures has increased access to college level English from 60%-89% and college level math from 17%-63%. This study will allow us to understand how increases in college-level placement has impacted enrollment, persistence, credit completion, and degree attainment for students at Highline. A key lens throughout this study is racial equity to better understand the connection of placement to equitable outcomes for each of these indicators. Two additional studies will explore the rate of misplacement in the Road Map region and students’ experiences with the assessment and placement process. Shannon Waits (Director of Academic Assessment and Placement) is serving as the senior advisor to the project and Emily Coates (Director of Institutional Research) is a research lead. Additional project partners include the Puget Sound Educational Service District, Puget Sound College and Career Network, Community Center for Education Results and the University of Washington eScience Institute. These 3 research studies intend to build evidence for the CTC’s in the Road Map region to more rapidly transition to alternative assessment and equitably increase successful college transitions and completion.

Report submitted Aug. 30, 2019, by Interim Vice President Emily Lardner, Ph.D.