Area Report for Board of Trustees

In partnership with the Area Health Education Center of Western Washington (AHECWW), Highline College continues to offer Mental Health First Aid for free to students, staff and community in both English and Spanish. Students can also take it as a one credit course, HSER 135.  Board members are welcome!  Look for next quarter’s courses to open up soon.

You are more likely to encounter someone in an emotional or mental crisis than someone having a heart attack.  Learn how to help a friend, family member, coworker, or neighbor in need.

MaST Center News

• MaST Center’s Discovery Days on Saturdays from 10-2 have continued to be popular.  In October, nearly 1000 people visited the MaST Center.
• 11/12/21 Sea Critter Story Time with King County Library.  Stories read by the KCLS librarians and then a tour of the MaST Center during one of our feedings.  Over 40 children participated virtually.  Our next event is 12/10 and will be themed “eye spy”.
• 11/13/21 Squid-A-Rama, our annual event to celebrate the return of the squid.  If you’ve ever seen people fishing on the end of public docks late at nights with bright lights, they are squid jigging.  The virtual event was hosted on Live on the MaST Center’s Facebook page and was done in partnership with the City of Des Moines, Des Moines Art Commission, King County Library, local schools and a bunch of amazing people.  Artwork done by local elementary students will be featured at the MaST Center till the end of the year.
• In September, we obtained a new Giant Pacific Octopus through a partnership with an octopus intelligence research lab with the University of Washington.  After a couple stages of polling on Facebook, including over 45 suggestions for names, our fans choose Coral.  Coral has already nearly doubled in size and based on talks with our advising staff is set to graduate from Highline this spring!  Stay tuned for more information.
• We have also continued to develop our partnership with two new high schools in the region.  Maritime High School is a marine industry themed school through Highline School District, while the Why Not You Academy was founded with support from Russell Wilson and Ciara’s Why Not you Foundation.  Several meetings including tours of the MaST have started to lay the groundwork for some face to face visits hopefully later this school year.

Pure and Applied Science Division News

• Highline’s Cyber Competition Club, composed of AAS and BAS students, competed in the Department of Energy’s Cyberforce Competition November 12/13. The students research what is in the virtual network environment and harden it.  During the actual event, professional hackers attach their network and teams must achieve certain goals and/or solve various problem.  Highline’s team placed 15^th out of 135 teams.  More information can be found on the web.
• On a recommendation from Emily Lardner, Colleen Sheridan (biology) represented Highline College on a roundtable listening session with five other 2-yr college faculty on Oct 28th, 2021. This session was hosted by the Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists at the Department of Energy (DOE) to learn more from Research Faculty Mentors from 2-year Institutions about how to increase the number of underrepresented students in the DOE’s research internship programs.  Dr. Sheridan told them about their department’s initial work to get Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) into classrooms because undergraduate research has been recognized as a high impact practice that helps to increase student engagement, retention, and learning.   Dr. Sheridan said, “A CURE would dramatically increase exposure of the research experience to ALL students in the classroom.  However, one large barrier that we can see to implement CUREs more widely is the need for faculty time.  We suggested if the DOE could pay for course release for faculty, as well as overhead and supplies for a CURE, this could help overcome that barrier.  With a CURE in place, instead of serving just 1 or 2 students from Highline College who could travel to do an internship, they would be reaching 24 or 48 or more students at Highline.  Nothing is set in stone, as it was just a listening session, but we are hoping to get the idea out there that if we can support faculty with time and money to use their creative research minds to implement CUREs in their classrooms, we can help to provide this high impact research experience to many, many more students!”

Continuing Education News

• Fall quarter, our Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) students have returned to IN-PERSON clinical training. After over 19 months, they are ON-SITE at Judson Park learning hands-on skills training with patients.
• Fall quarter, we had a record number of students enroll in our Medical Assistant – Registered (MA-R) to Medical Assistant – Certified (MA-C) Twenty-six students registered – nine sponsored by Olympic Medical Center, two sponsored by Planned Parenthood and fifteen self-pays. There are currently six students already on the waitlist for the spring quarter class.
• Last but not least, our Retail Management Certificate (RMC) program has 35 active participants (at various stages of competing their certificates). All of the students are sponsored by Safeway/Albertsons. As of spring 2021, we had 6 graduates and have 4 students currently on track to graduate at the end of this fall quarter.

Arts & Humanities Division News

• Arcturus, the college’s literary magazine, received three awards by the Pacific Printing and Imaging Association.  The Print Rocks! awards celebration was held virtually on November 4^th.  The book is a collection of poetry, short stories, art and photography submitted by students, staff and faculty.  It also garnered the Honorable Mention from the Washington State Humanities Association.

Health, PE & Education Division News

• Carl Hinkson, a previous distinguished alum from our Respiratory Care program and a current member of the department’s advisory committee, was recently elected as President of the American Association of Respiratory Care (AARC).  This is very exciting news for respiratory care in our state and a great honor for Carl. 

Business Division News

• HOST opened the Fireside Bistro with funding from a Restart Grant. They are holding classes in a real restaurant environment which will enhance education in HOST for students immensely.

Faculty Laureates

• Woody Moses (biology) had an article published this year on Mount Baker Experience Magazine.
• Katie Baker (biology) has been selected for the SBCTC Open ProfTech Project Allied Health Cohort and will be receiving a $10,000 grant as part of the team developing an open-source textbook for healthcare students over the next 2 years.
• Cindy Xie (biology) has attended the “Anatomy and Physiology Teaching and Learning Community” meeting this month to communicate with colleagues about how to improve A&P teaching and student learning. This is a new teaching and learning community initiated by UW and local community colleges trying to build around common interests in how students learn the challenging concepts and competencies in Anatomy and Physiology classes.  She has also attended a virtual “CRISPR workshop” conference sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
• Jacob Selander (physical sciences) has been working with a colleague from graduate school and Timber Press publishing since 2018 on a book project, and in March it was finally published. The title is Rocks, Minerals, and Geology of the Pacific Northwest, and it is a guide to over 100 rocks and minerals found in Oregon and Washington, along with a geology primer and guide to interpreting the region’s landscapes and geologic history. Shortly after the book was released in March, it quickly vaulted to the #1 spot on Amazon’s list of “Rock and Mineral Guides”!
• Jamie McGillen (English) has published the third book in her Young Adult Historical Fiction Series. It’s been listed as the #1 New Release in its category for a few weeks.
• Susan Rich (English) had two poems published in the November issue of Plume.
• Jayendrina Singha Ray’s article on Navid Hamidi (the Executive Director of Afghan Helath Initiative) introduces the reader to the process of resettlement through Mr. Hamidi’s experience. The article came out in these newspapers: Seattle Weekly, Kent Reporter, Mercer Island Reporter, and Issaquah Reporter.
• Melinda Hurst Frye’s (art) work was in a group show exhibition titled ‘Chasing Shadows’ at the Port Angeles Center for Fine Art in October. In November, Melinda has works included in the faculty exhibit at the Hedreen Gallery at Seattle University and participated in Sitka Center for Art & Ecology arts invitational at the World Forestry Center in Portland, Oregon.
• Žanetka Gawronski’s (fine arts) solo exhibition, Liminal Moments, included 14 encaustic paintings and opened this month at CORE gallery in Pioneer Square. The exhibition will be up through November 27. As a result of this exhibition, she is in conversation with another gallery for another solo exhibition and during the opening she got a job offer to teach at a local art college. If you would like to see the work, it’s available on her website.
• Last month, Michelle Eisley (multimedia) helped launch the first show as part of the Bow Lake Show Series in SeaTac. It is a Live Model Horse Show Series where each show will qualify the entrants for Nationals, the Wester Conference, Region 1 championships.  Michelle is also working collaboratively with a private studio working on some 3D visualizations for NASA technology that will interact with the ISS and other satellite-based projects.
• Justin Taillon (HOST) was this year’s chair of HITEC (Hospitality Industry Technology Expo & Conference) this fall in Dallas. More than 2,000 attendees showed up this year, down from the normal 5,500 in person attendees.  Justin ahs also been added to the Destination Des Moines City Council.  He and the committee are overseeing community-building events and planning The Waterland Festival and the Christmas tree lighting in downtown Des Moines.

Report submitted December 2, 2021, by Vice President Emily Lardner, PH.D.