Area Report for Board of Trustees

Good day Trustees,

Winter break is fast approaching! Like many of our community members I am looking forward to spending some time with my family over the break. I hope that you will have the opportunity to do so as well. I would like to take this time to recognize the Vice President for Student Services Search Committee led by Vice President Josh Gerstman. The week of Dec. 4 , 2023 our campus community had the opportunity to interact with three very strong candidates through various panel interviews as well as student and employee campus forums. I look forward to reviewing the community feedback and making the decision soon.

2024 will soon be underway and I look forward to spending it with each of you as we work together on the path to student success. Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas Thunderbirds!

Information Technology Services

Information Technology Services staff continue to move forward a wide variety of campus improvement and upgrade projects.  At the quarterly ITS Technology Roundtable earlier this month, we shared with campus staff in attendance information about coming Windows 11 upgrades, the Teams Phone migration project, and improvements in email security, as well as upcoming changes in authentication and multi-factor authentication, including the impending move of Microsoft365 logins behind our Okta single sign-on (SSO).

Core Theme 2: STUDENT LEARNING, Increase educational success, collaborate to improve

• Jenny Olson, Technology Support Services (TSS) employee and advisor for Highline’s Cybersecurity Club, traveled with club members to St. Charles, IL for the Department of Energy’s Cyberforce competition which focused on the importance of cybersecurity in a real-world scenario. Club members, students in Highline’s Cybersecurity program, participated in a competition where the main objective was to ensure smart meters and the infrastructure required to support them were kept operational while under attack, including websites, databases, and Active Directory. The exercise required them to fix an existing flawed infrastructure instead of a clear and secure one from scratch, as well as completing a video brief for the “C-Suite” as well as provide security documentation. The day of competition consisted of “capture the flag” activities and red team injections that gave them real-world attack experiences. This competition, where they placed 30th out of 107 teams, was a rich and rewarding experience for club members. 

Core Theme 3: COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS, Create a more inclusive working environment and a more valued , visible relationship with communities we serve

• With the financial support of the Mark Wynne Memorial Fund at the Highline College Foundation, Infrastructure and System Administration employees Kip Wanzer and Justin Pedersen worked with Rus Higley to install an underwater camera and establish a live stream at the MaST.  Besides fish, crabs, shrimps, and other animals, it’s also possible that you may see SCUBA divers swimming by and even marine mammals like seals and sea lions.  The large schools of fish typically seen (often at night) are usually Tubersnouts or Shiner Perch.  The livestream can be viewed on the MaST YouTube Channel.

Core Theme 4: CULTURE & CAPACITY: Promote a campus culture which fosters equity and inclusivity supporting employee growth and development, and institutional capacity for transformation.

• Kael Godwin, Data Analyst on the Business and Data Analysis team, worked with Budget Director Marco Lopez to provide an improved budget dashboard in Tableau for day-to-day budget managers to view budget balances, expenditures, expenses and other critical budget information. This new dashboard relieves the Budget office of the burden of performing manual data updates and allows multiple viewers to use the tool at the same time without disrupting the work of others. 

Human Resources

The Human Resources Department has had a busy month.  Between Open Enrollment, Recruitment and end of year preparation, every staff member has been fully engaged in their work.  As the end of the quarter approaches, we’re looking forward to a few quiet days before transitioning into Winter Quarter 2024.

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.

From our benefits fair in October to open enrollment which ran from November 1-30, our benefits team has worked with many of our employees to provide up to date information regarding changes to premiums and covered services.  At the conclusion of the open enrollment period, we made approximately 21 changes to employee accounts.  We will spend the month of December reviewing these changes, as well as making any last-minute corrections to employee retirement contributions for the year.

Recruitment has been very busy working to permanently fill our Vice President for Student Services position.  Our screening committee reviewed several applications, ultimately deciding to interview six well-qualified applicants during our first round of interviews.  Of those, three finalists were selected to participate in second round interviews and open forums on campus.  The on-campus stakeholder interviews and open forums took place on December 5^th, 6^th and 7^th.

Division Honors and Achievements

I would like to recognize our newest employee, Christine Conner, Human Resources Consultant Assistant 1.  Christine joined the Highline College team on November 13^th.  Christine will be completing her Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration/Human Resources this month at Central Washington University.  We’re looking forward to celebrating that exciting milestone with her.

Title III

October 1 was the first day of Title III’s Year Three. Our external evaluator visited in October to review Year Two. She celebrated our successful achievement of several Title III goals, such as Obj 6 percent of students meeting with an entry advisor, Objective 4 fall to fall retention, Objective 5B 6 year graduation rates, and Objectives 7 and 8 regarding professional development for faculty and staff for closing equity gaps, and suggested that we focus efforts and any carryover funds on strategies that will quickly help fulfill objectives not yet being met:

Obj 3: Hispanic and Black students completing 30 credits in one year

Obj 5A: 3 year graduation rates

Obj 4: Fall to Fall retention

Obj 1: Pass rates for all, Black and Hispanic students in high enrolled, pathway entry courses (aka Gateway Courses)

Core Theme 3: COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS, Create a more inclusive working environment and a more valued, visible relationship with communities we serve

Title III collaborated with the Office of Equity, Diversity, and Transformation to send campus leaders for ESCALA Moving Toward Serving training. The purpose of the training is to coach Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI) or Emerging Hispanic Serving Institutions (EHSI) to intentionally serve Latinx students, rather than just waiting for the demographics to fall into place based on geography. Principles of Servingness are provided at the close of this document. The group will present Action Steps to the Executive Cabinet and the community for feedback and support.

Core Theme 1: ACCESS, Reduce Barriers and close equity gaps to access for all community members

Title III Is proud of the Entry Advising team for exceeding Objective 6: percent of new students meeting with an Entry Advisory (goal 65%, actual 69%). Entry Advising provides a bright, colorful, welcoming space for all who are new or returning to Highline. Entry Advising is part of the first two pillars of Guided Pathways:

1. Clarify pathways to end goals.
2. Help students choose and enter pathways.

As a reminder, the other two are:

3. Help students stay on path.
4. Ensure students are learning.

Due to year one hiring delays, Title III has surplus personnel funds. We sought proposals from the Steering Committee and campus stakeholders for nine intriguing solutions to our goals. All community members provided input, and the decision will consider feedback, Student Success Council and Executive Cabinet priorities, and addressing unmet objectives.

Core Theme 2: STUDENT LEARNING, Increase educational success, collaborate to improve

Title III is excited that feedback is rolling in for embedded tutoring and e-tutoring. Initial analysis indicates that both tutoring in general and embedded tutors boost student confidence and a sense of belonging. Initial analysis shows that tutoring in general and embedded tutors specifically enhance student confidence as students and their sense of belonging.

Faculty Communities of Practice (CoP) are in full swing. Two are prescribed by Title III, Antiracist  and the 4 Connections. In addition, there are also CoP on Climate Justice, Universal Design for Learning and Teaching and  I-BEST.These collaborative communities aim to improve instructor understanding of pedagogies that address equity gaps. Academic Affairs is also sponsoring ACUE Course effectiveness training for 30 faculty.

Core Theme 4: CULTURE & CAPACITY: Promote a campus culture which fosters equity and inclusivity supporting employee growth and development, and institutional capacity for transformation.

From the ESCALA Moving Toward Serving Training:

• Servingness starts when you center the experiences of Latinx students.
• Learning how to serve Latinx students is everyone’s work.
• Servingness requires changing institutional culture.
• Racialized identities are important in HSIs.
• Equity protocols help to unveil missing narratives.
• Using Latinx ways of knowing heals racialized trauma for Latinx people in higher education.
• Tending to your personal work contributes to the “braid” of the collective.
• Moving towards serving is hard, messy and uncomfortable. It takes intentionality.

Summary Data, Year 2 of 5 for Title III:

Report submitted by President Dr. John R. Mosby