From President Cheryl Roberts
Dear Colleagues,
Welcome to the New Year, winter term, and all the promise that awaits us!
I’m so honored to be here at Shoreline, part of a community that includes wonderful and supportive colleagues who care deeply about creating the best environment for our students to learn and complete their educational goals. I hope you are as excited as I am about welcoming our students back to campus. Fall quarter involved a lot of learning and listening for me both on and off campus. What impressed me most was the tremendous dedication I saw and I’m looking forward to being inspired again this quarter by your commitment to students.
As we begin 2015, it is a time to remember our past accomplishments to show the way forward. Students are engaged and learning. This fall, we were able to provide recognition of all employees’ contributions to our students. Stable leadership is in place across the campus and we’re on solid financial footing because of good stewardship of our resources. As we mark our 50th anniversary, we have the opportunity to look at where the college has been and build a legacy for the coming decades.
It will be important to stay focused on our vision and mission because I’m sure there will be plenty of distractions in the coming months. The challenges our legislators are facing in Olympia are indeed formidable. Despite signs of an improving economy and growing state revenue, there will be even more demands on those funds. We know that a dollar invested in a community and technical college student returns far more than that to society, but there is plenty of competition for that dollar. Lawmakers are under a state Supreme Court order, the McCleary decision, to provide adequate funding for the K-12 system. Voters added their voice in November by asking for reduced class sizes with Initiative 1351.
We can and will vigorously make our case in Olympia and participate in the political process that does impact our environment. However, the decisions we make about how we interact with that environment can have much a bigger impact on our students, the college, and the communities we serve. We are in a position to not just react, but to set our own path with strength and determination.
Read the rest of President Roberts Winter Quarter Welcome 2015
Day at a Glance 
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