Area Report for Board of Trustees

The Institutional Advancement division is made up of the following groups: Communications and Marketing (CM), Outreach and Recruitment (OR), Grants and Government Relations (GGR), Foundation and Alumni Relations (FAR). IA is involved in many different areas on and off Highline’s campus, ranging from promoting our College at local high schools, assisting with writing grants for key programs and raising money for student support and special projects, or skillfully crafting advertisements to placement on or in wide array of medium such as busses, billboards and movie theaters. Institutional Advancement is there to do just that: advance our institution. Our 2022-2023 reports to the board will focus on our goals and objectives identified in Institutional Effectiveness Reports (IE). The SBDC/Startzone and COE for Global Trade and Supply Chain Management also report through IA and updates on these programs and their goals will be shared periodically.

Core Theme 1: ACCESS

CM will collaborate with Financial Aid, Registration and Records, and Admissions to review the information and language used on their website to fit into plain language standards in order to best serve all current and prospective students, including non-native English-speaking students. By doing this, they will be working with campus partners to reduce some of the barriers our potential and current students face when navigating our websites.

• Progress: Offer made to new web designer/front end developer a planned start date in Mid-September.
• Hiring process underway for Communications Consultant II, with one of the desired qualifications including plain language familiarity and proficiency.

Core Theme 2: STUDENT LEARNING

GGR’s is working with campus partners to research/identify at least five federal grants and submit at least 1 federal grants; research/identify at least 12 foundation and organizational grants and submit at least 8 grants. These efforts will represent at least $5 million in funding applied FY 23, including grants focused on student learning.

• Highline recently received notification about a successful grant award from National Science Foundation (NSF) for Project Title: Advancing Culturally Responsive Team Learning for Underserved Students in the STEM Classroom: Motivation and Engagement Across Different Class Modalities for $585,861 from March 2023 – February 2027.

Core Theme 3: COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS

The Highline College Foundation will partner with at least 6 organizations to increase Highline’s presence in the community, to create opportunities for participants in annual Black and Brown Male, YELL and Native Success Summits, and to promote opportunities at Highline through community events.

• The Foundation is currently sponsoring/ed community events such as the St. Anne’s Hospital ‘To Your Health’ Gala, the Greater Federal Way Chamber of Commerce Summer Classic, Rotary Club of Des Moines/Normandy Park Summer Festival, White Center CDA Truth in Community Gala.
• The Foundation is currently seeking sponsors to help underwrite expenses associated with the Summits.

Division Honors and Achievements

• IA wants to recognize Dave Weber’s 25 plus years at Highline College and during his time at the Print Shop, Highline College print publications have won numerous awards from ACUP (Association of College and University Printers)for print and display materials and in September Printing Industries of America So Cal (PIASC) will be recognizing the student produced Arcturus and the Bistro signs.
• IA said goodbye and thank you to Melissa Sell, as she retired after 20+ years of service to Highline College, most recently as the Executive Assistant to the VP of IA.
• IA welcomes Ashley Smith, Executive Assistant to the VP, who joined the division in June after exemplary service to the Public Safety Department.

Report submitted August 30, 2022, by Vice President Josh Gerstman