Area Report for Board of Trustees

The First Quarter Financial Report is being provided for the Board to review this month. While the first three months of the fiscal year (July-September), including the short summer quarter, are not typically representative of the entire year, we are cautiously projecting for both revenue and expenses to be in line with budgeted numbers.  The one exception continues to be our challenges with state (domestic) FTES.

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

Global Programs:

• As part of Professional Development Day on October 21st, Dr. Jennifer Jones facilitated a panel discussion of several faculty – all of whom recently returned from Vietnam – entitled “Building Community with Students from SE Asia– Insights on Vietnam from Faculty and Staff.” The faculty panel spoke about their experiences in Vietnam, including the lessons that can be applied towards providing relevant curriculum as well as programs to strengthen relationships with students.

Highline Bookstore:

• We are seeing an increase in the trend of moving toward eBooks and electronic-based materials via access codes. While some still preferred the actual physical textbooks, an increasingly large number of faculty and students is looking at eBooks and electronic-based materials for cost savings and ease of access.  Consequently, Bookstore staff is working closely with faculty to ensure accurate eBooks adoption in order for students to get access to the course materials in a timely fashion.

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

Public Safety:

To increase engagement and outreach to ESOL (English Speakers of Other Languages), the Public Safety Office plans to revamp the emergency communication system and the ability to send emergency communications in multiple languages a priority. In collaboration with ITS, Public Safety tested a couple options via app messaging to text emergency messages in different languages.  The goal is to select a new system communications platform for implementation in the following academic year.

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

Budgets and Grants:

• In an effort to encourage fiscal accountability, the Budgets & Grants Office is creating a budget management handbook as a resource for program managers. In addition, we have also added more links and resources to the budget reporting website to assist program managers with budget management.

Global Programs:

• Our Global Team met virtually on October 13^th with a past partnership from the city of Yangzhou, China, including Yangzhou Polytechnic College and Yangzhou Municipal Foreign Language Office. During the meeting, we discussed resurrecting opportunities for faculty exchanges and short-term English/business training programs.

 Financial Services:

• Continuing towards our goal of increasing visibility and improving the connection between Finance and the College community, Kendra Ferrer, our student financials specialist, co-facilitated a professional development day session on “Making Sense of Student Financials”.

Public Safety:

• The Public Safety Office hosted “Coffee with a cop” on November 2nd from 11 am – 12:30 pm at building 8 Student Union. This event provided an opportunity for students and employees to meet, sit, mingle, and talk with local law enforcement about important safety issues.
• Francesca Fender attended the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) train the trainer course in Issaquah (October 4^th – 6^th). The CERT team is a pool of employee volunteers who have trained together to learn about disaster preparedness for hazards that may affect the campus or the surrounding community. This team collaborates and trains with the city of Des Moines CERT Team to be able to give support to emergency response agencies during a disaster. This team can aid the campus and surrounding community when professional responders are not immediately available to help or overwhelmed by a regional emergency.

Division Honors and Achievements

• The Public Safety Department recognized service awards for Officer Hussein Rodol (15 years), Officer Benton Barnes (15 years) and Officer George Curtis (10 years) of continued service to Highline College.

Report submitted on October 27, 2022, by Vice President of Administrative Services, Dr. Michael V. Pham