Area Report for Board of Trustees
Welcome to fall quarter! On behalf of Executive Cabinet I would like to thank Chair Bowman for his support and partnership during Opening Week 2022. This year’s events were the first hosted in-person since 2020 and I commend the Opening Week Committee for their level of dedication and commitment to community that was highlighted during the week’s events. 350+ faculty and staff gathered in person over breakfast to celebrate the service milestones of their colleagues and to learn about the strategic planning model, Highline’s Strategic Plan for Equitable Student Success, that we will be applying in the coming years. Colleagues had opportunities to reflect with each other on how their personal professional goals are represented within the plan’s overarching core themes, and to dive deeper into how our work as a college will be measured throughout the years. Thank you to everyone that took the time to educate, learn and lean-in throughout the week’s activities. It was a great start to the academic year and I look forward to our continued work together under the core themes of ACCESS, LEARNING, COMMUNITY and INFRASTRUCTURE.
I would like to take this opportunity to draw your attention to a new addition to the Office of the President’s (OTP) Area Report. You will see below that my report now includes information on Highline’s Title III Strengthening Institutions Project. During summer of 2022 the OTP welcomed two new team members under our reporting structure, Jennifer Johnston and Juli Hammond. I am delighted to be partnering directly with the Title III team and look forward to supporting them in this very important work.
Human Resources
During the last month, Human Resources has focused on creating new resources and training for Highline’s managers. Human Resources will present Onboarding – Building belonging from day-one and beyond at Professional Development Day on Oct. 21. We look forward to creating new training content and opportunities for our managers; they are instrumental to employee development and retention.
Core Theme 1: ACCESS
As part of the Opening Week events, HR partnered with the Office of the President to offer the first In-Service for managers. In-Service included changes to the WPEA 2023-25 contract, an overview of what supervisors can do to support the Strategic Plan for Equitable Student Success, and a community of practice round table. The vast majority of participants (95.25%) reported that the content was pertinent to their leadership roles and the programming was engaging.
Human Resources is working with the Marketing and Design Team to create new resource website for managers. New web pages are being created that detail hiring processes, managing employee performance, alternative work schedules, employee recognition, and training and development resources. Our goal is to have these new pages up and running by the end of October.
Division Honors and Achievements
Leslea Berg, HR Consultant 2, and Mariya Matyash, HR Consultant 1, attended the NeoGov Connect User Conference. Leslea and Mariya have brought back valuable information about analytics and reporting for candidate demographic data, and opportunities to improve efficiency in our hiring processes.
The beginning of the school year is always a challenging time for our Payroll and Benefits Team. Two of the three employees on the team are fairly new to our community and they executed payroll accurately and on time. This requires attention to detail and adherence to the STCTC payroll timelines. We are so grateful to this team for their dedication.
Information Technology Services
ITS staff have been busy supporting the start of the fall quarter. We are thrilled to see a significant increase in use of our computer labs again as more students return to campus. Our Data & Development and ctcLink teams have been working with multiple groups across campus to work on improvements to processes and rollouts of several new software tools, including the full campus launch of the Aviso platform. Infrastructure has also been working on increased utilization of the Okta authentication platform, giving us a higher level of security with broader Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) implementation and a consistent login experience across more tools.
We are excited to have filled our IT Security and Compliance Officer position in September, welcoming back Highline alum Jennifer Jovanovich. Jen is making quick work of reviewing our existing IT security plans, processes, and training and identifying places to improve to make our security stance even better.
Core Theme 1: ACCESS
- Customer Services, led by Theresa Duhart, is offering regular drop-in technology support sessions for students who need some extra help getting started with our student-facing technology
- ITS has been working with Student Financials, Enrollment Services, Financial Aid and others to increase consistency and efficiency of some of our student communications around student payment and funding challenges.
Core Theme 2: STUDENT LEARNING
- ITS staff have worked to support multiple new tools in support of student success and learning, including Aviso (Advising and Student Success support), Vita Navis (Career assessment and exploration), and GetInclusive (student and employee training platform)
Title III Strengthening Institutions
Core Theme 1: ACCESS
TUTORING
Highline College has joined most other Washington CTC’s as a member of the Western eTutoring Consortium. eTutoring is a synchronous and asynchronous web tutoring platform allowing tutors to work with students in real-time or in a question and answer format online. Support is offered 5 a.m. – 12 a.m. daily, 50 weeks of the year.
Embedded Tutoring and Supplemental Instruction is being offered in several Title III-identified courses. Tutors will be either present during class, have access to Canvas, or offer tutoring sessions after class in the building where the classes are offered.
Challenge: The Academic Success Center is actively seeking tutors. Tutor salary may not be enough to compete with local employers for students supporting families.The starting wage for Highline College tutors is $15.50/hour whereas Dick’s Burgers starts at $20/hour with access to a $28,000 scholarship.
TUTORING
Entry Advising continues to shine, providing a welcoming environment for all new and returning students, and guiding each student in the first steps of their educational journey. The New Student Orientation, called Explore Highline, has been seeing 60-80 students per session, and is offered in person and on zoom several times per week. International students are now joining all students in the orientation. Title III supports salaries and supplies for Entry Advising. Pathway videos starring students, faculty, alumni and industry partners are complete and will be used for orientation and pathway advising.
Implementation of the Four Phase Advising Model is moving along, with a new faculty contract clarifying the 3rd phase of that model, when students reach 30 credits they will be assigned a faculty advisor.
Core Theme 2: LEARNING
CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE ANTIRACIST LEARNING
Dr. Erich Elwin, Faculty Equity Lead for Title III, along with the Anti-Racist Design Team, provided workshops during Opening Week demonstrating case studies of implementation of Native Cases and other culturally responsive practices. Dr. Elwin and Bob Scribner, LTC Program Manager, provided introductions to two Title III-sponsored Communities of Practice: 4Connections and Anti-Racist Pedagogy. These yearlong learning communities will offer strategies for faculty and staff to improve outcomes. Both quantitative (disaggregated pass rates) and qualitative data will be tracked to examine impact.
The Design Team along with a faculty librarian has expanded the Anti-racist/Culturally Responsive Educators library guide. Title III is purchasing several new resources curated by the design team.
DATA LITERACY
Development of a culture of evidence and inquiry is woven throughout Title III. IR provides course-level disaggregated data for participants in learning communities. Developing Data Literacy skills among faculty and staff is another goal of Title III. While hiring for data positions has been slow, CampusWorks provided initial workshops aimed at increasing use of data in decision making for Strategic Enrollment Management and closing equity gaps and Title III funding is supporting those workshops. IR and Title III will collaborate to provide additional training for equity-focused data and narrative.
Core Theme 3: COMMUNITY
The Title III Team met with leads of Highline Promise, TRiO Talent Search and TRiO Student Support Services grants to find connections and seek ways to streamline efforts. Title III and Highline Promise both focus on improving service and outcomes for Black and Brown students, and Title III is partnering and supporting those efforts.
Report submitted Oct. 6, 2022, by President John R. Mosby, Ph.D.