Friday Letter, 10-14-22

Good Friday Morning Kodiaks!

We all know that our co-location with UWB is of great value. It gives our students a vision of what university life is like. It inspires them to continue past Cascadia in their educational career. It presents a pathway that is a national model. It is a moment of pride when others outside of our institutions recognize this as well. Recently, in the Daily Journal of Commerce, Mark Cork from Mahlum Architects talks about this relationship, how we developed our (award winning) Master Plan for the physical development of campus, and how over the last 5 years it is truly coming to life. You can read that article here. And, yes, we did win an award…called the Excellence in Planning Award by the Society for College and University Planning. It is very satisfying to look around and see the entire plan coming to life.

With regard to our CC5 or “Gateway” building, we will know in the spring if we get the funding for construction in this year‘s legislative session. We sit at a place on the priority list where, if the legislature is generous, we get that money July 1 (and would open the building in 2025). If the legislature diverts capital dollars elsewhere in the state, then we might not get funded until Spring 2025 with an opening date of 2027. The building will happen, we’re just not sure when. I will be spending some time in Olympia this Winter encouraging legislators to include funding for our project.

Next week is our October Trustee meeting. On the agenda:

• A report out by Art Faculty Chris Gildow on our Pandemic Memorial. (Thanks, Chris, for all your hard work.)
• A discussion of our 10^th day enrollment numbers (calculated this week) and the implications for our year-long budget. I will summarize this presentation in next week’s Friday Letter and talk about the next steps in preparing for our 23-24 budget cycle.
• There is a presentation by our AAG, Lana Smith, on the Open Public Meetings act. If you get a chance, please read the “Faculty Report” at the end of the Board Packet. It was written by David Shapiro and in the packet distributed by Donna Sullivan on Wednesday. He gives a nice shout out to Lana.
• There is also recognition of one of our students, Rita Nichols-Kaskes. She has applied for the SBCTC’s Transforming Lives award. She gives a huge shout out to Bryan Fauth and Fi Walters for their work here at Cascadia. Congratulations to these staff on helping to transform the life of this student.

I want to draw attention this week to our CTC system’s stance on DACA students. As you may have read, the program was deemed unlawful by the courts. The State Board along with support from the college presidents are publishing a letter you can read here. Both the state and Cascadia remain committed to supporting our students no matter their citizenship status.

I also want to draw attention to the attached Q&A document from the SBCTC regarding the termination of the Governor’s Higher Education Proclamation for COVID. Despite a change in vaccination requirements, the Cascadia team will continue administering the daily check-in and conducting contact tracing. Each quarter we’ll decide to continue this practice or not.

A Reminder: October 26 is our next DIA (Day of Inquiry and Assembly). Calendar invites will be coming out soon. The all-campus gathering will be from 9-11am and we’ll talk about Leadership and Governance in the CTC system as well as here at Cascadia.

Finally, I met with Shawna Pitts and Alia Mahdi this week in Coffee for Three. They both made me smile with their bright outlooks on Cascadia. I also met for lunch this week the new President of Shoreline Community College, Dr. Jack Kahn. I am excited to work with him as I think he shares common philosophies with Cascadia on leadership, inclusion, and shared governance.

SHOUT OUTS

From the IN Box, two independently submitted shout outs for the same person:

A shout out for Daniel Kaufmann (aka Kornfed) in Information Services! Two weeks ago, I encountered a remote desktop connection issue in Taiwan during a recruiting trip and despite it already being after 5pm on a Friday in Seattle, Kornfed used his personal time to stay online for 2+ hours with me diligently and patiently trying multiple solutions until I eventually got connected. Kornfed is always very supportive and helpful (as are other IS colleagues) and I appreciate him so much!

Shao Wei Wang

Many thanks to Daniel Kaufman for his positive attitude and helpfulness in getting my new systems set up. He comes in with a patience and positivity that makes the answers to even my simplest questions seem important. He really wants me to succeed. Thanks Kornfed!

Anonymous

Please share a shout out at FLShoutouts@cascadia.edu.

Have a great weekend.

Friday Letter, 1/22/21

We saw changes this week on the national landscape. Every new federal administration passes rules and makes judgments that affect higher education. I didn’t realize until becoming the president of a college how much these decisions actually influence our daily work. Rules for financial aid, how we administer the DACA program, support for students with food and housing insecurity, immigration constraints for international students, and COVID relief funds are just a few areas that see frequent changes at the national level.

This week, President Biden made determinations on student loan repayment, equity and inclusion initiatives, and DACA students that will affect us locally. I invite you to read this summary document. As we always do, we will respond to these new rules, implement them according to the new executive orders, and support our students through the changes.

You might also be interested in this article around enrollment trends from the Chronicle of Higher Education. While mostly focused on our 4-year cousins, the article talks about declining enrollments, the impact on college finances and ideas about how to navigate a changing student population.

More locally, the Navigators have created a form for you to use should you have questions about campus. Please remember to seek answers by asking colleagues and supervisors or by using the go.cascadia database. If you can’t find the answer you need, turn to one of our Navigators for help.  Here is the link to the go.cascadia site and the form.

If you are new to campus since last January, Lily will be scheduling a “coffee for three” with you. That’s a program I started in 2010 to make sure I stay connected with the pulse of our campus. I’ll be buying you coffee (sending you a gift card) as you, one other new employee and I get to know each other. Additionally, Katie Rousso and I will begin a “coffee for four” program with the classified staff to talk about the unique challenges and opportunities for this set of employees. Once this round of coffees is finished, we’ll tackle the faculty and exempt employee groups. Don’t take offense if I switch to water at some point during this process!

SHOUT OUTS

Last night at the Trustees meeting we heard from David Dorratcague, Natasa Kesler, and David Ortiz on their sabbaticals from last year. I always sit back with pride when I watch these presentations. Our faculty pursue their own enrichment with such great energy and the impacts on our campus environment and our students’ success is always apparent. My own personal shout out today to these three for great presentations and great work.

Another shout out this week is for Mark Collins who led a successful Employee Giving Campaign, got the college’s Annual Report to the Community published online (print version still to come), and launched this year’s scholarship application season. Bonus shout out to the folks in Communications and Marketing who supported all three of these efforts with beautiful graphic/web designs.

Remember to support your colleagues.  Send me an email at FLShoutout@cascadia.edu.

Have a great weekend.

Friday Letter on a Thursday, 8-13-20

Hello Cascadians! Welcome to the August 13 Friday Letter on a Thursday.

Webinar-ing

Yesterday was an exciting and interesting day for me. I was a panelist for a 300-person webinar sponsored by the group “Communities for our Colleges”. This group invited U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal to be the featured speaker and “listener” while a group of students and faculty talked about what they hope the community college system will be able to accomplish given all that’s happened in our world. I represented the college Presidents and was asked to speak on two topics.

The first  topic was “How are the presidents responding to the State Board’s vision statement of Leading with racial equity, our colleges maximize student potential and transform lives within a culture of belonging that advances racial, social, and economic justice in service to our diverse communities.”

This allowed me to talk about the work of the Presidents group in setting up a new Equity & Inclusion Commission, devoting one of our statewide association’s committees to this, AND some of the work being done on individual campuses, like Cascadia!  =)

The second topic was how the federal government can help us here in Washington.  It was a chance to talk about CARES funding. DACA, and international students…all things which have encountered roadblocks nationally.

Representative Jayapal is an ally, but it was nice to see the community come together to hit home on these important topics.

Retreat-ing

Summer is the time of retreats. My typical load is THREE:  the WACTC retreat (July) the eteam retreat (August) and the Trustees retreat (September). This year, as president of WACTC, I’m honored (?) to have TWO MORE: the statewide association of Trustees (called ACT, next week) and the State Board’s retreat (the week after). I’ll represent the presidents…and I’m happy for zoom because the travel and overnighting would have made these even more demanding.

At the ACT retreat, I’ve been asked to talk about how we onboard new presidents, executive training to replace the now-defunct WELA program, and presidents’ contract evaluations.

The eteam retreat is the one I’m typically most excited about.  We’ll discuss all the components of Convocation, the October DIA, and the September Trustees retreat. These discussions will revolve around “state of the college” information and “strategic planning” information.

As with all of you, I’m anxiously waiting to see how our enrollment numbers develop.  We’re catching up to last year’s level (although still far from where we need to be) and the next 5 weeks are hugely important to our financial stability. Any personal contact with current students or new students encouraging them to stick with us will help the big picture.

Shouting Out

 Shout Outs can be sent to FLShoutout@cascadia.edu. In our online environment, it’s more difficult for me to know, witness, or learn about great work.  I’d love to devote a FLOT to some of the outstanding work accomplished this summer.  Send an email!

Have  a great weekend.

Friday Letter, 9-8-17

Good morning. Today we return to the true Friday Letter: written and published on a Friday morning.  Typically, I write the letter on Thursday and publish first thing Friday morning.  This week I waited because of all the email traffic I received regarding DACA…Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.  This policy, in case you are unfamiliar, gives certain rights to children who were brought to the United States by their parents as minors.  Both parents and minors came to the U.S. as “illegal immigrants”.  However, minors under the DACA policy have been allowed to go “legally” through our school systems, serve in our armed forces, and obtain work permits.  Each person eligible for such rights must reapply for an exception from deportation every two years and only those brought to the US as minors are eligible.

The state of Washington has had a long standing policy of not using residency as a determiner of eligibility for higher education. Residency has only been used as an indicator of which tuition one might pay.  We have welcomed students, undocumented or otherwise, under our mission to transform lives…any life…because we feel that an educated population is the only way to resolve our workforce and social needs and leads to a more self-sustaining and successful future.  As federal policy potentially changes over the next few months (as announced this last Monday), the future of DACA is uncertain.

Locally, we stay true to our pledge of an inclusive and hate-free campus. This pledge, signed jointly by UWB and Cascadia, is the hallmark of our commitment to educate and serve any learner that walks through our doors.  This local commitment does not stop at our doors.  This week I received the following email from Mayor Andy Rheaume of Bothell:

I’m reaching out to let you know my heart is with your DACA students. If you are planning a meeting with students please let us know if it would be helpful for us to attend. When Trump initiated the travel ban, the city expressed that our police have not and will not prioritize arresting or working to deport DACA students or any other law abiding resident/student. I believe we have something in writing on the city website documenting the city’s position in this matter. Let us know if we can be of assistance.

Today at lunch, I will be meeting with all of the Mayors of the cities in our broader eastside community.  I will be asking them to make the same commitment.

On the state level, our higher education system in Washington also sent a letter to President Trump. You can read it here.  Every president of every higher education institution in the state signed it.  While we must abide by any eventual change to the law, institutions of higher education are fighting to allow this group of immigrants to remain a part of the fabric of our community.

But our state is not just committed through its higher education leaders. I would encourage you to google the Dream Act of 2017, a bipartisan resolution to resolve this issue lawfully and in support of young people who qualified for DACA.  Major businesses, many in Congress, and national organizations such as the America Council on Education are supporting this legislation.

The governor (a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives) has unequivocally announced his support for such legislation:

“While we remain relentless in our efforts to keep these young people home, the real solution is for Congress to act immediately to pass the bipartisan DREAM Act. The DREAM Act would provide the lawful reassurance and protections these young people need. The ‘build a wall’ and ‘deport them all’ mentality in the White House is an affront to the principles this nation was founded on and an irresponsible response to our outdated immigration system. Congress must seize this urgent challenge and stand up for Dreamers, now.

“More than 17,000 Dreamers call Washington state home. The cruel action [announced on Monday] by the president threatens the ability of these young men and women — many of whom know of no other place to call home — to pursue the incredible opportunities our nation promised them five years ago.

“Washington state will consider every option possible to challenge the repeal of DACA, including legal action, coordination with other states and any executive action that could help protect Dreamers.” 

Finally, I offer one last resource. The card viewable here gives you an easy way to understand DACA and to help advise students of their rights under that policy.  Please take a moment to save the image or print it out for your office.

Rule of Law is important, certainly. However, when the country’s approach to immigration is flawed or outdated, then exceptions, changes and improvements must be made.  This was the original reason for DACA.  On our campus, when we make a mistake, we defer to what is best for the student.  We do not remove the student, we do not put up walls, we do not ridicule them for being on our campus.  Instead, we work towards a reasonable solution.  At least, that is my expectation for how we approach issues when we find fault with ourselves.

I hope you will encourage Congress to act timely to also find a reasonable solution during the next six month before the window closes on DACA.