Highline still has no vice president for equity and inclusion. Three finalists interviewed last summer didn’t make the cut, and budget concerns have delayed beginning a new search, said Highline President Dr. John Mosby.

Dr. Mosby said the finalists were all strong candidates, but weren’t the right fit for Highline. Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic has hurt the state’s economy, and Highline all the state’s colleges have been told to plan for what could be steep budget cuts.

Roughly half of the college’s funding comes from state money apportioned by the Legislature.

When he was hired as Highline’s seventh president in July 2018, Dr. Mosby made adding a vice president for equity and inclusion a priority.

The vice president position is meant to “lead the college in efforts to create an environment that values and demonstrates its commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion,” according to the position’s job description.

The vice president would help coordinate a central location for all the related work that’s being done on campus, in addition to creating programming and providing opportunities to hear from students, faculty and staff, Dr. Mosby said.

“We’re looking for someone to come and bring their ideas and vision to help us create an equity plan. Also to help us create more than ever before now, a space where people can feel heard and seen,” Dr. Mosby said.

“I think the college is looking for – I could tell you what I’m looking for: someone who’s an innovator, someone who has a very solid understanding of equity and social justice, and someone who understands our community and our demographics,” Dr. Mosby said. “I think that’s important, Highline is a very diverse community in a very diverse area.”

Highline is one of the most diverse colleges in the country. The job description for the position noted that Highline serves a student population of more than 70 percent students of color, speaking more than 100 different languages and coming from more than 35 nations all over the world.

“Someone coming in has to understand that, has to understand the dynamics and the makeup of our communities. [The college is looking for] Someone who is community oriented and who’s an advocate,” Dr. Mosby said.

The vice president would be on the executive cabinet along with Dr. Mosby and serve as another line of communication for all at Highline to ensure an equitable environment is being cultivated at the college, he said.

“While I feel like my cabinet members, including myself, are always trying to be mindful and inclusive in our thought process, having someone who’s area is EDI work will be a good addition to our cabinet in terms of making sure that the things we do always have an equity lens,” Dr. Mosby said.

“For the institution I think it adds the ability to provide another voice that has a direct link to my office, given I always want to be accessible to our students, staff, and faculty. That won’t change, even if we have somebody else in there doing this work, but it provides another resource for the campus,” he said.

A resource that the college attempted to give students this summer, however, fell through, in part due to still figuring out what’s best for the college, Dr. Mosby said.

“We had our search, and it was a failed search. … We had three, I thought, very strong candidates,” he said.

“We had decided that given the candidates and given our needs of the campus, I felt that we needed to pause and go back out again to get the right person with the right fit for our institution. … I think we saw that during the interview and I just was not comfortable making the call at that time,” Dr. Mosby said.

Alongside qualifications, the college now has to take into consideration the budget, which last year wasn’t as much of a concern, he said.  

“Last year was different, we had three vice president searches and funding wasn’t so much of an issue then. … We didn’t have COVID last academic year, well towards the end we did but– COVID really impacted us and our state in terms of our budget,” Dr. Mosby said.

“This year, the state has asked us to reflect a 15 percent budget cut. … That’s not a secret,” Dr. Mosby said.

“We’ve been asked to cut 15 percent off our budget which is quite a bit. It’s significant and there hasn’t been a change from that. At the beginning of the fiscal year we weren’t asked to do that,” Dr. Mosby said.

Budget cuts like the one imposed this year reduce the amount of available positions and make filling positions that require additional staff, like the vice president of equity and inclusion, even more difficult to consider, Dr. Mosby said.

“Because of our budget challenges, we’ve had – I won’t go so far to say a hiring freeze, but we really wanted to make sure that if we do have any positions, that it’s vetted through cabinet. We just need to make sure.” Dr. Mosby said.

“Right now, there’s very few positions that are open and part of that is because we don’t have many openings. … This year, now granted we don’t have so many openings, every time when we look at personnel, we have to carefully look at our budget,” he said.

“With a position like VP of EDI, every vice president position has support for that position. Just like as president, I have support from in my office, so I have staff,” Dr. Mosby said.

“I wouldn’t want to hire a VP and not have any support for them, or not have that budgeted. So then it becomes in many ways almost two positions, the VP and the support staff member,” he said.

“That gets pretty expensive when you factor in the salaries and the benefits. When you’re looking at a substantial amount of money, it does have an impact on the budget,” he said.

The job description of the position included that the hired candidate would receive an annual salary of $125,000 – $130,000.

“If we’re trying to curb our expenses and trying to lean our budget, that really would be in conflict with it. So we have to take those things in consideration when we’re opening positions,” he said.

As the college adjusts to the reduction in funding this year, Dr. Mosby said he intends on revisiting the hiring process for the position sometime in the future.

“I think given this academic year, we’re still managing our budgetary needs but my plan is to definitely go back out for that in the future. … Right now, given our budgetary challenges not just at our institution but within our state, it impacts that,” Dr. Mosby said.

Between juggling funds and finding the right qualified candidate, the search remains as the college develops a better understanding of what it needs, he said.

“Someone that really compliments our beliefs and values of the college I think is so key,” Dr. Mosby said. “Someone that supports our cultural policies and our commitment to diversity and equity.”

“Lastly, someone who wants to be at Highline. Someone who sees this as a rich amazing opportunity and not just as a position,” Dr. Mosby said.

“My motto is I don’t settle, I don’t think we need to settle on a position. We need to get the right person,” Dr. Mosby said.