Good afternoon Highline College,

It is with great pleasure that I announce that Dr. Maribel Jimenez has accepted the position of VPEDT with a start date of July 16, 2023.  Maribel currently serves as the Dean of Academic Transfer Pathways and Partnerships and prior to this role had served as a tenured faculty counselor, department chair and Title V grant director.  She also served on the state-wide Multicultural Student Services Directors Council as member and president during 2014-2019.  And locally she is a member of the Equity Task force for the City of Federal Way.  An award winning educator, she was recently appointed to the National Alliance of Hispanic-Serving Institutions (AHSIE) Council and featured on national podcasts.

I want to thank the search committee for their exceptional work in this process.  The committee, representative of staff, faculty and students, demonstrated a high level of passion and commitment to finding who I believe to be the ideal candidate for this position.  This committee represents the best of Highline College and I’m so grateful for their efforts:

Katie Baker (Faculty)

Mariela Barriga (Staff)

Ruth Frickle (Faculty)

Diego Luna (Faculty)

Joshua Magallanes (Faculty)

Mina Moriguchi (Student)

Nurma Noorkhan (Student)

Kevin Rainge (Faculty)

Rickitia Reid (Staff)

Gayatri Sirohi (Faculty)

Gerie Ventura (Staff)

Kharmyn Williams (Staff)

A special thank you to Vise Leiato in the President’s Office for her work on everything logistics.  And much appreciation for Diego Luna serving as chair.  Dr. Luna, thank you for the exceptional work in modeling for this campus how to chair a search committee. I appreciate your patience with me with and all my requests for check-ins 😊.  And for the entire campus, thank you for attending the forums, meet-and-greets and completing the feedback forms.  Your input was invaluable.

This moment is not lost on me.  This hire represents a historic moment for Highline College, that has been discussed long before I arrived as President.  And I want to recognize those groups and individuals (past and present) who advocated for this position years ago through national level research, alignment with our college goals and bringing the “receipts’ for justifying this college have this type of position.  A special shout-out to Dr. Natasha Burrowes, Barbara Talkington, Jason Ramirez, Doris Martinez, Iesha Valencia, Equity Task Force, the original VP screening committee of 2020, and many others who made this opportunity happen.

Please join me in welcoming Vice President Jimenez to this new role for our institution.  Have a wonderful week!

John

John R. Mosby, Ph.D. (he, him)
President
Highline College