Area Report for Board of Trustees
Good day Trustees,
October has been a busy month. I want to start by thanking you all that attended and supported our Signature Thunderbirds Soar event. It was a beautiful, well attended event that provided an evening of connection, community and support for our students. Before the event, we had a nice opportunity to provide a “Circle of Honor event” for our retired board members (Trustees and Foundation) with a nice intimate reception. Many thanks to Vice President Gerstman, Institutional Advancement staff and the Foundation for their support in making this event a beautiful and successful one. I can’t wait until next year!
I enjoyed the time attending the Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT) conference with all of you the week after. It was a nice opportunity to connect with Presidents and Trustees throughout the country through networking and attending workshops. Our state had over 135 attendees – well represented. I’m excited that next year, Seattle will host the conference giving us an opportunity to showcase our colleges and programs.
On a personal note, I had an opportunity to attend the Northwest Kidney Center (NKC) Gala as well. I sponsored a table and invited Highline community members to attend. NKC is where I do my treatment and I also sit on their Foundation Board. It was a opportunity to network with hospitals and doctors, many of whom work with our nursing and respiratory therapy students. They love our students and programs here at the college and it was a pleasure to see this first hand that evening, while supporting amazing work that continues to support my mentally and physically.
The college also sponsored Professional Development Day. An opportunity for personal and professional growth for all employee groups on campus: Faculty (full and part-time), Staff (Exempt and Classified) and Administrators. Workshops were offered providing a variety of meaningful educational workshops for everyone. The goals of the day are to stimulate and expand participants’ knowledge and perspectives through engaging activities, build and grow the Highline College community through collaboration and promote and encourage lifelong learning in a fun and safe environment. Another well attended event by our campus community.
In addition, I attended the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Faculty Conference. This is the 2nd year Highline has participated and presented. We are also using this opportunity to cultivate and recruit faculty to teach at Highline and we will be doing more of this networking and programming with various groups as we continually strive to ensure that we recruit and retain a diversity staff and faculty that aligns with our student population.
Have a great month.
Information Technology Services
Information Technology Services is excited to welcome Jesse Chiem as the new Director of IT Infrastructure and System Administration. Originally from Vancouver, WA, Jesse holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Portland. Jesse joins us from the University of Washington where he led technology operations in the Chemical Engineering department. Jesse’s position was the last piece in the ITS reorganization puzzle that we have been assembling the last year, and we look forward to the work he and his new team will accomplish going forward.
Core Theme 1: ACCESS, Reduce Barriers and close equity gaps to access for all community members
- Technology Support Services provided technical support for students directly in Building 6 alongside Entry Advising and Financial Aid in the lead up to fall quarter. This effort resulted from conversations with those departments about how to reduce technical barriers to college processes. ITS staff collected data on those interactions which is being used to guide decisions about similar efforts in the future.
Core Theme 2: STUDENT LEARNING, Increase educational success, collaborate to improve
- The Aviso Core Team has been rebuilt and expanded this fall to include new staff in Academic Affairs and broader representation from Student Services. The team is working on several priorities this year, including broader training for staff across campus to facilitate wider adoption of the tool, improvements in the use of Academic Planning, and support of the Pipeline functionality to support recruitment efforts.
Core Theme 4: CULTURE & CAPACITY: Promote a campus culture which fosters equity and inclusivity supporting employee growth and development, and institutional capacity for transformation
- With the start of the new academic year, we have also kicked off the new round of our annual required IT Security training. Jennifer Jovanovich, IT Security and Compliance Officer, has updated this year’s content based on employee feedback and changes in the IT security landscape. User access to the training has been improved by shifting the authentication to Okta, and supervisors will soon receive reports on their employees’ completion in order to help boost college-wide participation in the training.
- The IT Infrastructure and Systems Administration team has begun the implementation of Teams Phones for the college. While we expect the full project to take about a year, the first pilot users will be transitioning this fall. This project will replace our aging telephone infrastructure and move voice calls to the Microsoft Teams platform.
Division Honors and Achievements
- Jill Hammit led a state-wide workshop in conjunction with the SBCTC ctcLink Campus Solutions team on Optimizing the Student Self Service Experience. Jill shared her expertise and examples of how to make required processes in ctcLink more streamlines for students wherever possible.
- Tim Wrye was invited to join the Client Advisory Board for Watermark Student Success & Engagement. SS&E is the platform known locally as Aviso, and this group assists Watermark in guiding and prioritizing future improvements in the platform.
Human Resources
The Human Resources Department has had an exciting start to the 2023-2024 academic year. We have gotten to spend a significant amount of time with faculty and staff from across campus and have been steadily filling vacancies and providing various trainings across all of our employee groups.
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.
Since the start of the quarter, the Human Resources team has spent a significant time providing various forms of employee development and engagement. Beginning with Opening Week, HR staff worked together to present our Service Awards, recognizing faculty and staff for their years of service to the institution. Later that same week, we hosted a three-hour supervisor in-service where we connected with 60 campus supervisors. During the in-service, we discussed a number of topics such as Union Activity/Supervisor Requirements, Performance Management, Time & Labor, Title IX, the Recruitment Process. We also answered a number of questions during our Supervisor Roundtable and will be following up later this quarter with the remaining supervisors who could not attend the Opening Week session.
For Professional Development Day on October 20, we hosted two more training sessions. One session discussed different ways staff can help create a caring, welcoming, and inclusive environment for students, while the other session focused on labor relations and collective bargaining.
On October 26, our benefits team, Koreen Jack and Anadelia Gonzales, hosted our annual benefits fair. Staff and faculty had the opportunity to meet and discuss with various vendors the different benefit options available to them. Some of the vendors in attendance were Kaiser Permanente, Delta Dental, WA529, WSECU and AFLAC. The benefits fair allows employees to get their questions answered prior to our open enrollment period happening November 1 through November 30.
Lastly, we began our search to permanently fill the Vice President for Student Services position. Our first committee meeting was held on October 27, with the committee consisting of a cross section of students, faculty and staff. The committee, led by Josh Gerstman, VP for Institutional Advancement, and supported by Mariya Matyash, Human Resources Consultant, consists of the following:
- Student Representative: Kimberly Wangari
- Equity Task Force: Natalie Bjorge
- Pure and Applied Science: Michael St. John
- Social Sciences / ELCAP: Audra Lord
- Health, PE, Education: Daryllyn Harris
- Business: Nikolay Barkov
- Arts & Humanities: Rhiannon Hillman
- Classified Professional: Gum-Lai Ross
- Exempt Representative: Ay Saechao
We have a number of well-qualified applicants and look forward to working with the committee to bring the highest qualified applicants to our campus for open forums. More information will be provided by the search committee in the coming weeks.
Division Honors and Achievements
I would like to recognize Jordan Mellott, Executive Assistant, and Mina Vo, HR Generalist, for all of their support in making the Supervisor In-Service and Professional Development Day a huge success. They were instrumental in planning, coordinating, and executing a variety of challenging assignments. I am grateful for the opportunity to work with such dedicated staff who have put the needs of the college first and do so with a smile.
Report submitted by President Dr. John R. Mosby