COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT 9

HIGHLINE COMMUNITY COLLEGE

 

MINUTES OF BOARD OF TRUSTEES’ MEETING

July 8, 2004

 

STUDY SESSION

Tenure Review Review

Real Estate

Spring Strategic Initiative Report

Enrollment Report

Distribution of Fees and Tuition Waivers

Signage

Executive Staff Retreat

Board Professional Development

Board Elections

SBCTC Paper: Opportunity, Education and Washington Economic Future

 

MEETING

 

Call to Order

Mike Emerson, Chair, called the meeting to order at 10:15 a.m.

 

Roll Call

Members Present:                              Michael Allan

                                                            Elizabeth Chen

                                                            Edward Davila

                                                            J. Michael Emerson

                                                            Arun Jhaveri

 

Attorney General Representative:       Larry Paulsen

 

Approval of Minutes

Minutes of Board of Trustees’ Meeting, June 9, 2004, were approved.

 

Correspondence

None.

 

STANDING REPORTS

 

Associated Students of Highline Community College

No report.

 

Washington Public Employees Association

Lisa Peterson reported.

  • WPEA had a meeting with Representative Dave Upthegrove at their last chapter meeting.  The conversation centered on how the state calculated the funding for schools with special programs of ABE/ESL based on FTEs of the school.  Staff voiced their concern because not all community colleges lie in a community with such a great number of ABE/ESL students and they felt that the state should re-consider how they calculate special funding.

 

Highline College Education Association

No report.

 

Faculty Senate

No report.

 

ACTION ITEM

 

Election of Board officers for 2004-05.

 

It was moved by Michael Allan and seconded by Elizabeth Chen that the following be named Board Officers for the 2004-05:

 

                        Chairman:  Ed Davila

                        Vice Chairman:  Arun Jhaveri

                        TACTC Representative:  Elizabeth Chen

                        Legislative Representative: Michael Allan

                        HCC Foundation Board Representative:  Mike Emerson

 

The motion carried.

 

REPORTS

 

Institutional Effectiveness Report

Patty James, Director of Institutional Research, and Jeff Wagnitz, Dean of Instruction for Transfer Programs, distributed to the Board the second annual Institutional Effectiveness Report, A comprehensive Review of Progress toward Achieving our Strategic Initiatives for the academic year of 2002-03 and provided an update on the status of the report.

 

The Institutional Effectiveness Plan is an extension of our Strategic Plan and contains indicators of success, and measures progress toward meeting our strategic initiatives.  The academic year 2002-03 report is the aggregation of all measures for which data are currently available and contains nearly 80% of all the indicators.  The 20% are in development and will be added to the report as time goes on.  Patty James presented the assessment work for each of the four strategic initiatives relative to the current measures and Jeff Wagnitz described where we are in the process. 

 

Strategic Initiative 1—Achieve excellence in teaching and learning—summary of findings indicated that student satisfaction with instruction compares favorably to students at peer institutions.  The persistence toward degree attainment is comparable to the state average for full-time students.  Over 80 percent of students successfully complete academic, developmental, and professional-technical courses.  Student employment placements exceed the state average.  Basic Skills (ABE/ESL) achievement exceeds the state average.  The number of safety incidents decreased.  There was an increase in courses offered through alternative delivery modes and enrollments.

 

Strategic Initiative 2—Enhance a college climate that values diversity and global perspectives.  The report analyses student and employee data examining the changing diversity of the college and internationalization efforts measured through international program exchanges and student enrollments, as well as the infusion of globalization issues into course curricula.  The summary indicates progress is being made in the area of diversity.  The diversity of students in credit-bearing courses closely mirrors the district population.  And international student enrollments are less predictable than they once were.

 

Strategic Initiative 3—Strengthen and expand the presence and role of the college within the communities it serves.  The assessment work takes existing information resources used for baseline data and qualitative information sources from various constituencies are under development.  The summary indicates that the Foundation contributions and grant funding reflect continued support for the college.  Highline continues to grow in media recognition.  The enrollments in Worker Retraining, Adult Basic Education, and TechPrep are meeting state and college targets, as well as local demand.

 

Strategic Initiative 4—Continue to foster a college climate that nourishes the well being and productivity of the college community—assessed the employee surveys in 2001 and 2003.  The summary of findings indicated employees perceive an atmosphere of openness; want to be working at Highline in three years; believe the college supports productivity, innovation, and professional development; and believe individual contributions are acknowledged.

 

Sixty three percent of all of the indicators that we have currently have been rated successfully met. 

 

Jeff Wagnitz reviewed where we are in the process now.  The overall institutional effectiveness measures and the development of the framework of the document were integral to our accreditation self-study a couple of years ago.  Standard One of Accreditation says that the institution is obligated to engage in on-going planning to assess whether it is meeting its goals and to use that information to improve itself over time.  That effort at Highline has at least a ten year history.  One of the recommendations of the visiting team from the prior accreditation process ten years ago was that the institution needed to develop a more identifiable, more focused planning process on campus and that resulted in the College’s first strategic plan which came out in the mid 1990s.  There was an effort to assess achievement in that report, and in 1997 there was a follow-up to see how many of the plans that were laid down had been achieved.  A really significant review of the strategic plan was undertaken in 2001 and a new plan was published, about the time that the accreditation process was getting underway.  Based on the goals of the new Strategic Plan, an excellent framework provided putting some assessment in place in time for the accreditation visit in 2003.

 

In the years after the 2003 accreditation team left, it is necessary to follow through with what we said we were going to do.  The commission asked that a cycle of planning assessment and change be accomplished.  This starts with planning and implementing what the tasks are that we are doing; measuring what’s going on and looking at the results of the assessment and interpreting it; making changes and changing plans; and improving the institution based upon that.  We are halfway there and are examining how to look at these data to get something meaningful out of them that can be used for improving the institution and figuring out exactly how to measure things, what are used as indicators, what the right numbers are to track, and how long it takes for a trend to emerge. 

 

Challenges in interpretation is deciding who interprets it and when, providing context, engendering the right culture, and re-focusing from measures to findings.  There are challenges in terms of getting people to interpret the data and who needs to look at it and when do they need to look at it.  This is an opportunity to improve and work on those challenges.

 

AREA REPORTS

 

General Administration

Laura Saunders gave an update on construction on campus.

  • The grassy area in front of the library should be finished by Opening Week. 
  • The artwork for the Student Union should arrive some time first part of fall quarter.
  • North parking lot will be resurfaced and re-striped and closed last week of July first week of August and should be re-opened by start of school.  South parking lot will receive more parking spots.  East parking lot will be re-striped.
  • Higher Ed Center is ahead of schedule. 
  • The Student Union should open in late October and events are being planned to take place there in the fall. 
  • Child Care Center project has a marine theme and an opening dedication ceremony is being planned during Opening Week on Tuesday, September 14 at 11:30 a.m. 
  • Work is continuing with the developer for the building on Highway 99 which we may be able to move into in April. 
  • Work on Building 19 for noise abatement with funds provided by the Port will probably begin late fall to be completed over winter break. 
  • Work is being done at Federal Way for the Early College.
  • Mulvany G-2 Architecture, a worldwide architectural firm, has been retained to design the Redondo Pier paid by the federal fund.  The construction funds need to come from the appropriation through the legislature and HCC will need to raise the matching money.  It will be a major addition to the campus.  The project came about with Dr. Bell’s work in the legislature in Olympia and in DC and the work of Bob Maplestone and the faculty educating people about this project.
  • Other minor modifications around the campus include changing a classroom into a conference room and offices.
  • Investigating energy work on campus to see what more can be done that is cost effective.
  • Maintenance problems included a 12” heating water pipe crack on Monday with 190 degree heating water and left part of the campus without heat. 
  • Dr. Saunders is very involved in collective bargaining in Olympia over the summer.
 
Institutional Advancement

Lisa Skari reported

  • The nationally published newspaper, Community College Week, does a scan every year of the top 100 associate degree producers looking at different categories including programmatic and ethnicity.  This year, out of 1300 community and technical colleges including four-year universities that offer associate degrees, Highline was number 44 out of 100 for Asian American students receiving the associate degree. 
  • Foundation closed out the year with the annual campaign producing $536,000 not only in emergency assistance and scholarship, but endowments and program specific activities.  The half million dollar mark was made in one year and our net assets were over one million dollars.
  • The search continues for a Director for Resource Development and Rod Stephenson has been hired for a six month interim.  He has been involved with community college foundations for about eight years at Tacoma Community College and Big Bend Community College.  We anticipate having a permanent person hired by the end of the six months.
  • The College’s logo is being examined by the design company, Hebert, to determine if our logo represents who we are now.  Part of the challenge with the present logo and the long house is that we have expanded our cultural responsiveness and serve many more cultures than Native Americans.  For someone from the outside, we could be perceived as a tribal college.  The marketing effort by Hebert will give Highline an idea of how we are perceived as a campus and the logo is part of that. 

 

Instruction
Jack Bermingham reported.
  • Ellen Hofmann, faculty member who teaches languages, writing, and in the general humanities program, was selected by the Fulbright Commission to participate in a classic seminar in Italy this summer by the Fulbright Program.  One of the challenges with the Fulbright Programs is that community college faculty are always under-represented.  This is a great reflection on the College.
  • Three Highline faculty, Angie Caster, Barbara Clinton, and Kathy Oberg, participated in the Community Colleges for International Development (CCID), faculty professional development seminar the end of June.  They participated in the trip to Italy (Venice, Florence, and Rome) focusing on cities and their cultural development.  One advantage of this professional development seminar is that it pulls together faculty from many different institutions and gives the faculty an opportunity to interact with other community college faculty at other institutions with strong international programs. 
  • Thanks were extended to Laura Saunders and her colleagues in the Administrative Services department for all the great work that they have been doing in managing the facilities development of the construction projects, while also continuing the normal work they do on campus.  Over the last year just changing pathways and managing people so students can get to class and classrooms are accessible was a big challenge when you have this number of major projects going on at the same time on campus.  That worked remarkably well.  People seemed to go with the flow and enjoyed seeing the buildings develop with comments about how great this construction is instead of saying this fence is in the way.  I think that this is a real testament to the success of the human interaction of this facilities development.
  • Instruction is looking forward to the partnership with CWU in the Higher Education Center and what it will do in expanding our capacity.  A joint program in the fall is being planned where CWU and HCC faculty and their deans will get together to talk about joint programs.
  • The Faculty Resource Center continues to have a high quality professional development unit and finished the two weeks of Summer Institute.  The staff does a tremendous job in working together with the faculty putting together professional development programs and activities.
 
Student Services

Ivan Gorne reported.

  • There will be a meeting with a number of Student Services staff from CWU next Monday to discuss collaborative efforts in the area of student services when they join the campus.
  • Emails to Carol Helgerson were received from the campus with comments regarding commencement at the Tacoma Dome that were mostly positive. 
  • The annual retreat for all Student Services staff will be on Friday concentrating on how to be more productive and happy at work. 
  • The Educational Planning Advising, faculty and staff are working together on the Undecided Student Task Force.  It is a collaboration of Student Services staff members and instructors under the Project Declare. 
  • There is a new publication providing parents valuable information about how to successfully navigate college and plan for educational career goals.  There is a national trend that the parents of this generation’s college age children are much more involved in their children’s college.  We are trying to set up an environment where the parents can be involved and where their child needs to move along on their own.

 

Discussion

None.

 

Unscheduled Business

None.

 

New Business

None.

 

Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 11:25 a.m.

 

Next Regularly Scheduled Meeting of the Board of Trustees

The next regularly scheduled meeting of the Board of Trustees will be September 9, 2004.

 

              8:00 a.m.       Study Session             Building 25, Room 411

            10:00 a.m.       Meeting                        Building 25, Board Room

 

ORIGINAL SIGNED SEPTEMBER 9, 2004

 

______________________________            _________________________________

J. Michael Emerson, Chair                             Priscilla J. Bell, Secretary