As we begin the final month of the 21-22 academic year, and we turn towards commencement and summer, the DP Communications Team wanted to take a moment to recognize and celebrate all that we, the Highline community, have accomplished over the past 12 months.
It has been a long hard year, with lots of uncertainty, anxiety and change. In spite of these challenges, we have accomplished a lot and have much to celebrate. Thank you for continuing every day, regardless of how tired you have been, to work on implementing the changes we need to make as a college to close equity gaps and increase the academic success, retention and completion rates for all our students. We invite you to join us on Wednesday June 15, at 3:30pm as we participate in the College’s Year-End Celebration. This event will be held in building 7 and via Zoom.
Highline you are inspiring. Thank you for all that you do.
Tyee and Mt. Rainier HS Students Visit Highline: Youth Re-Engagement and Success Programs and Degree Pathways Collaboration
(Photo of students in building 8 participating in the campus visit.)
With the support of Vice Presidents Lardner and Gerstman, YRSP and the Office of Outreach partnered in welcoming nearly 300 juniors from Tyee and Mt Rainier High Schools on April 14th. Students were welcomed by Vice President of Academic Affairs Lardner, President Mosby and Chair Swenson, and given an abbreviated Degree Pathways presentation. Next, students were broken into groups and attended two preselected workshops staffed by faculty and staff from various departments across campus. In total we offered 13 workshops per session and a fully staffed resource fair that showcased housing, student life and hands-on interactions with Geology, Respiratory Care, the MaST Center and more. Student surveys indicated that they found our campus inviting, our faculty and staff friendly, and that the event made them reconsider options offered by our campus.
A big thank you to event coordinators Jennifer Joseph-Charles, Donna Enguerra-Simpson, Alyeda Cervantes and all of the presenters, tour guides and resource fair participants for making this event such a success!
80% of Full-Time Faculty Engaged in Professional Development Activities Focused on Faculty Advising
(Photo of a cat sitting in front of a computer screen. One of the workshop participants.)
LTC was pleased to add, beginning this past year, an additional position to its team of faculty in residence focused on professional development for faculty advising.
This year through eleven interactive workshops, a community of practice on in-class advising, a brand new advisor buddy/peer mentorship program and various asynchronous opportunities to engage in learning culturally responsive advising, in aggregate roughly 80% of full-time faculty at Highline have been impacted. Workshop topics have ranged from ‘ctcLink Crash Course’ to ‘Advisor Speed Dating: Connecting Cross Campus’ and ‘Career and Exploratory Advising: Tips, Tools and Time Out on Stereotypes and Implicit Biases’. LTC has collected and analyzed data assessing these learning opportunities, including participant reaction, learning, application, and results.
In addition, we are excited to announce Highline’s inaugural Outstanding Faculty Advisors of the Year Awards! which will be held on June 6th from 2:30-3:30pm in Mt. Constance or via Zoom. This event will celebrate the service of faculty advisors and showcase great advising moments through a Gallery Walk.
Faculty advising is one of the best ways to improve the student learning experience and subsequent retention rates, and intellectually and socially engages students with the college experience. As we reflect on what it means to be a holistic educator and move toward inclusive advising, we want to give a big shout out to all the faculty who participated in LTC events this year. You are the heart of LTC and give meaning to our work.
LTC would like to thank our wonderful collaborators: Access Services, Advising and Transfer Center, EdTech, Entry Advising & Placement, Financial Aid, Running Start, Registration & Enrollment, and WES. A very special thanks to the CAPE Team, Elisa Tran, Sarah Trimm and Mary Weir.
Welcome To Highline Student Experience Reimagined
(Photo of Entry Staff Advisors (Left to right, Marie Artap, Kareen Maloney, Angela Thao, Kenton Westerfield, Shannon Waits) outside building 6 with “Welcome to Highline” banner above them.)
The Student Services staff have been hard at work redesigning the entry and admissions process for new students. The following has been implemented this year.
- Resources and staff were reorganized and hired in order to create the Entry Advising department located on the top floor of Building 6. Entry Advisors support students from Admissions to 1st quarter enrollment.
- Launched new admissions letter to all students that includes visuals and instructions for accessing new To Do List in CtC link, which has all the pre-enrollment steps to complete.
- Entry advisors support ELCAP students to complete orientation and get enrolled in ESOL or GED courses.
- A Road Map to College Success infographic was designed by two students in Highline’s Integrated Design BAS: Hye Yoon Choi and Aliyah Laurea, to visually represent the Student Advising Path and clarify the student journey for all. This road map will be shared across campus, visible on prominent Highline College web pages, and utilized in outreach events. The Guided Pathways Intake and Advising team, as well as countless stakeholders across campus provided content and feedback throughout the design process.
- New format of student orientations designed. Explore Highline! Orientations began virtually in winter and added in-person sessions in May. There are a variety of sessions available for students: in-person, combined in-person & zoom, evening sessions and a monthly Saturday session. All new students entering Highline are encouraged to attend Explore Highline! This is in anticipation of it being required for all students starting in Fall 2022. Students explore the degree pathways and the programs of study Highline has to offer, learn how to enroll in classes, explore the campus, pick classes with an Academic Pathway advisor, and many other things!
- New Entry Peer Connector student positions were created and hired in Entry Advising. Peer Connectors are available to give campus tours and support fellow students during their first steps at Highline.
- Explore Highline Pathway videos were filmed on campus, May 17-26th. All of Highline Degree’s Pathways, including ELCAP, have created content for 5-7minute films that will be shown to students at orientation and in outreach visits. More than 40 students, faculty, and alumni are featured in the films. The goal of the Explore Highline Pathway videos is to show students all of the career and degree options available to them in the particular Degree Pathway and to hear from people doing work or studying in that field. Cre8tive Empowerment is the film team hired for this project, funds are from Guided Pathways.
Aviso Being Piloted by Faculty and Staff
Over the last few months, Highline has been setting up a system called Aviso (student success software) to help with advising and support services. The aim of Aviso is to serve as a retention tool in order to assist faculty and staff with providing proactive student support.
How will Aviso help? Aviso consolidates the data and communications for advising and support in one place. Faculty and staff can view student transcripts and academic plans, and communicate easily with students. Members of a student’s support team can send alerts to each other and to the specialists that can help students. We’ll be able to do “warm handoffs”, making sure that students are linked to the resources they need, when they need them.
Aviso is being rolled out in two phases.
Phase 1 includes Alerts, Notes, Messages & Texting, Tasks/Action Plans, and Filtering. These represent the core student engagement tools.
Phase 2 includes implementing the Aviso Student mobile app, Aviso Next for check-ins at service locations, Academic Planning tools, and Aviso Predict, the predictive analytics support for identifying high-priority interventions.
Currently we are ⅔ of the way through implementing Phase 1. The tools are currently being piloted by over 70 faculty and staff “early adopters”, who participated in training during the first two weeks of May. Phase 1 testing along with the behind-the-scenes work for Phase 2 will continue over the summer. The full Aviso system will roll out campus-wide in September, along with lots of opportunities to learn how to use it. Visit Highline’s Aviso support web site to learn more and look for workshops during Opening Week!
College 101- A Degree Requirement Pilot for All AA-DTA Declared Students to Begin Fall Quarter
This fall for the 2022-3, students who are new to college and indicate their goal is an AA-DTA degree will be taking College 101, Strengthening Navigation Skills. Many colleges and universities across the country now require a first year experience course like College 101 to ensure a more successful launch for students entering the college system, providing them with the community, guidance and resources they need as they begin their degree journey.
The course was developed by a large team of faculty, staff and administrators last year with the goal of establishing student empowerment within a college community and supporting their navigation through the resources and structures toward the AA degree. The shared curriculum, housed in a Canvas template, focuses on five touchstones for college success: belonging and empowerment within a college environment; information literacy; college navigation (degrees and resources, funding for college, and using technology); college success strategies (time management, study skills, goal setting and stress management); and career exploration.
This past year (2021-22), the college offered seven sections of this new course in all modalities (remote, face-to-face, and zoom). Student response to the course was very positive. Instructors who taught it met to discuss course accomplishments and necessary revisions, so that the Canvas course template and course structure offer even more effective and selective activities for next year.
This fall, Highline College will begin a pilot of College 101 as a degree requirement for all new college students seeking the AA-DTA beginning in Fall 2022. The college will offer 15 sections of College 101 open to the full student body and an additional section or two for our cohort learning programs. To meet students needs the course is being offered in multiple modalities that include face-to-face, Zoom, Hybrid and Online. We are offering sections at The HUB, in the evening and on Saturday in order to meet the needs of our diverse student body.
This piloted requirement for the AA-DTA degree will continue for 5 quarters (Fall 2022 through Fall 2023). In Winter 2024, the college will assess the course’s impact on quarter-to-quarter and year-to-year retention for AA-DTA students to see if the correlation is positive, as other colleges with this requirement have seen. This data will be considered, along with students’ initial pathway selection, their academic plan, and qualitative responses to the course in a Faculty Senate decision about whether or not to continue College 101 as a permanent requirement for the AA-DTA degree.
Instructors from all degree pathways have applied to teach the course. The team who developed this course welcomes instructors with experience and interest in culturally responsive pedagogy, student identity development and intentional work with students of diverse backgrounds. While teaching about the college systems and concepts, instructors will identify student challenges and assets and acknowledge the cultural capital that resides with each student. The course content requires that instructors effectively translate complex concepts and systems into easily accessible language and responsive practices so that students feel comfortable and engaged in their Highline experience. For more information about College 101 please contact Liz Word, Interim Associate Dean for Guided Pathways or Wendy Swyt, Co-Lead for College 101 and Exploratory Pathway Work Group.
A Productive Year for the CAPE Team
The CAPE (Champions for Advising, Persistence and Engagement) Team consists of faculty and staff focused on improving support and resources for faculty advising. This group works closely with the entry and placement advisors to implement the Four Phase Advising Model and Guided Pathways advising requirements.
Below is a list of what they have accomplished this year.
- Helped LTC to create the faculty advisor of the year rules and rubric
- Reviewed nominations and selected faculty advisor of the year recipients
- Attended LTC advising professional development sessions
- Represented and advocated for faculty in all aspects of advising
- Developed initial draft for faculty contract regarding advising
- Helped Students Services with collecting content for the New Student Orientation pathways video
- Planned and hosted bi-weekley Coffee Chats
- Planned and hosted the Advising Week
- Planned and hosted bi-weekly meetings for pathway representatives and advising deans
- Attend Advising Council meetings
- Consult with Aviso implementation team
- Helped with faculty advising assignments.
- Created pathways email list for easier communication
- Contributed to STEM 101 approval
- Created grab-n-go tool list
- Created teams for each pathway to keep connection between faculty and pathway advisors
- Contributed to improvements of the Four Phase Advising Model
- Developed possible solutions that meet the goals outlined in the SBCTC guided pathways work plan to address faculty advising load and made recommendations to the VPAA.
- Continue the process of implementing mandatory advising as laid out in the Four Phase Advising Model with an eye toward culturally responsive advising and equitable educational planning.
A big thank you to the CAPE Team members for all of their work this year.
Six OER Projects Completed
Six Open Educational Resource (OER) projects were completed using Guided Pathway funds this year. These new OER resources ensure that more classes will provide and more students will benefit from free, culturally relevant, customized textbooks and course materials. The projects were:
- ENGL& 102 – Anti-Racist Research Writing Resources, Stephanie Ojeda Ponce
- CMST 320 OER Adaptation, Ellen Bremen & Lisa Voso
- CMST& 101 OER Textbook Replacement, Laura Manning, Lisa Voso, & Ellen Bremen
- ECED& 105 Introduction to Early Childhood Education (ECE), Jodi White
- ESOL Level 3 Textbook for Adult Learners, Alex Tang
- GED Social Studies, Shana Friend
Faculty answered a call for proposals, and projects were chosen based on cost savings for students, impact on improving equity gaps in courses, and alignment with the 2021-22 Guided Pathways Priority Areas. All materials have a CC-BY license, meaning that the products of this work are OER. Sarah Adams, from Mathematics, served as project manager, and Deborah Moore, from the Library, was the faculty librarian supporting the grantees. Michael Hanscom in Access Services provided accessibility testing support and training.
Congratulations to these faculty on completing their projects, and supporting our students!
The post June 2, 2022 Celebrating Our Accomplishments appeared first on Degree Pathways.
