LWTech Trustee Onboarding

LWTech Trustees are vital and trusted partners with college leadership for college governance and vision. Operating through policy governance, advocacy, and community outreach, our Trustees help guide the college in reaching its goals and serving its constituency.

As a Trustee, you receive initial training through the Governor’s office, and you are connected to the Washington State Association of College Trustees (ACT), which is a wealth of support and information about becoming a trustee as well as additional training in college trusteeship and excelling in your role.

Becoming a Trustee can be a long and complicated process. However, here at LWTech, we are committed to coming alongside you to help orient and guide your initial steps as a new Trustee.

LWTech At A Glance

Trustees on Campus

LWTech is located in the city of Kirkland, which is situated on the eastern shore of Lake Washington, just east of Seattle, Washington. Touring the campus is a great way to start getting to know more about the college. You can set up a campus tour by contacting Elsa Gossett in the President’s office.

Board meetings on campus are held in the West Building on the third floor in room W305, the LWTech Board Room. Trustees have reserved parking spaces in the West parking lot, right next to the West Building flagpole and bridgeway, along the wooded side of the lot. Reserved spaces are marked with a “Reserved for Trustees” sign. Those reserved spots are available to the Trustees whenever you are on campus. (You will want to notify Elsa Gossett if you are planning to come to campus so she can make sure the spots are open for you.) The Parking Pass from the President’s office helps campus security to know that your car is authorized for those spots.

Campus Location, Directions, and Hours

The LWTech campus is made up of six buildings: four buildings in the main area of campus and two additional instructional areas across the parking lot. The West Building houses most administrative offices, Student Services, and Financial Aid. The Technology Center, which is attached to the West Building, contains the Library and the LWTech IT Services department, as well as classrooms. The East Building sits across a courtyard from the West Building, and contains the Instructional division offices, classrooms, and lab space, as well as communal gathering spaces for eating and studying, the Fitness Center, the RISE Center, the Veteran Student Success Center, the college bookstore, Student Programs, the coffee stand, and our on-campus student-run restaurant, Chef City Grill. Connected to the East Building is the Allied Health Building, which completes the main campus area, with offices, classrooms, and labs for LWTech’s health occupations training, as well as the Dental Clinic.

Across the parking lot from the Allied Health Building, the Early Learning Center complex houses instructional areas and the on-campus childcare center. The campus also includes the Horticulture instructional buildings, surrounded by greenhouses and an arboretum, which are across the parking lot from the West Building.

The LWTech President’s office is located in the West Building on the third floor, directly to the left of the main entrance from the parking lots. Directly to the right of the President’s office are the offices for the LWTech Foundation and the Communications and Marketing department. As a Trustee, you will get a chance to interact with all three of these offices on a regular basis.

The college is currently in the process of awaiting funding for our newest building: the LWTech Center for Design, a new construction which will be placed to the west of the Allied Health Building, making it prominently visible from 132nd Avenue. The Center will provide space for the college’s many Design- and Art-related programs, as well as faculty offices, studio space, and a college and large community event space, the first of its size in the Kirkland area. Funding for the Center for Design is provided in the Washington Legislative capital budgets, and the college continues to advocate for passage of those funds in the next biennium and beyond.

Learn more about Facilities & Operations.

For a more comprehensive view of the planning process as it relates to the campus buildings and grounds, the Campus Master Plan walks you through the full description of facilities planning and maintenance from 2014 through 2024.

Campus Leadership and Departments

President Amy Morrison with greenary in background

Dr. Amy Morrison is Lake Washington Institute of Technology's (LWTech) ninth president. She joined LWTech in July of 2013.

As a first-generation college graduate and passionate advocate for workforce education, Dr. Morrison has committed her career to advocating for college students and community and technical colleges.

During her tenure at LWTech, Dr. Morrison has seen the college through post-Great Recession budgetary challenges, while growing college programs and partnerships. In 2013, Dr. Morrison launched the college’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion work in earnest with the development of the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Plan, and the formation of the EDI Committee, which was later moved to Council status. In 2019, LWTech was named one of the Top 150 community colleges by the Aspen Institute, in part because of the college’s substantive completion efforts.

In 2020, Dr. Morrison led the college through the COVID-19 pandemic, when LWTech was the first community college in the country directly impacted by COVID, and referred to as “Campus Zero” by the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Morrison is extensively involved in local, regional, and statewide initiatives, including One Redmond, Cascadia Innovation Corridor, Washington Technology Industry Association, and serving as a Commissioner for the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU). She is also substantively involved in statewide community and technical college system work, including chairing the presidents’ legislative and strategic visioning committees.

Morrison has been recognized for her inclusive, collaborative, and transparent leadership by NCMPR in 2017 as the Pacesetter of the Year, 2019 by EvergreenHealth with their Community Service Award, and by her alma mater University of Nebraska Lincoln Educational Administration Department with their 2020 Impact Award.

Prior to leading LWTech, Dr. Morrison served for nearly ten years in vice presidential roles including advancement as well as campus operations at Clover Park Technical College. She began her community and technical college career at Bates Technical College in 1999.

Prior to her community and technical college career, Morrison served as the Deputy Director in the Office of Congressman Norm Dicks where she focused on higher education and workforce outreach.

She received her doctorate in Higher Education Administration from the University of Nebraska Lincoln in December 2013 as part of the National Community College Leadership Cohort. Her dissertation focused on the importance of student completion (earning a credential such as a degree or certificate) for students pursuing a workforce or technical degree. She received her Master’s of Public Administration at The Evergreen State College, and her undergraduate degree at Mills College.

Dr. Morrison lives in Kirkland with her family.

The President works closely with her Executive Cabinet, which is made up of senior leadership that represents each area of the college. Members of the Executive Cabinet work directly with the college president, providing strategic direction and input.

Administrative Services

Bruce Riveland, Vice President of Administrative Services

Making up the backbone of college infrastructure, Administrative Services covers areas from Facilities and Operations to Financial Services and Capital Projects. Bruce also oversees risk management and some areas of regulatory compliance. As a Trustee, you’ll hear from Bruce on a regular basis at Board meetings with budget updates and information on facilities planning and projects.

Communications and Marketing

Leslie Shattuck, Executive Director of Communications and Marketing/Executive Communications Officer

The Communications and Marketing department are the storytellers and brand ambassadors for LWTech. They oversee the college's image, identity and brand, and manage everything from paid advertising and marketing campaigns, social media, design services, digital content creation, photography, crisis communications, and PR campaigns, to the LWTech website, Outreach and Recruitment and LWTech Foundation materials, and the campus magazine, Transformations. Leslie and her team work closely with the President on communications activities and initiatives.

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

Robert Britten, Executive Director of EDI

Robert Britten joined LWTech in 2020 as the inaugural director of the LWTech EDI department. Bringing expertise in community connection and diversity training, Robert has collected various college equity efforts and brought them under one roof, coordinating and strategizing future plans for the college’s equity journey. The EDI department focuses on the college’s core theme of community, and supports the college in endeavoring to continually perceive and deliver our work with an equity lens.

Foundation

Elisabeth Sorensen, Executive Director of Foundation Development and Community Relations

As the philanthropic arm of LWTech, the LWTech Foundation is set up to support our students by directly interacting with businesses and residents of our community. The Foundation provides student scholarships, supports the development of new college programs, and helps college staff with outreach and fundraising. Each year Elisabeth, with the help of students, staff, and our Trustees, holds the Bright Futures Benefit in late fall, and the Annual Scholarship Reception in May, which raise critical funds for student scholarships, needed instructional equipment, staff and faculty professional development, and a student emergency fund.

Human Resources

Meena Park, Vice President of Human Resources

Human Resources at LWTech partners with every department of the college to support their goals through inspired hiring and employee development. Meena and her team strive to provide a welcoming working and learning environment that supports and recognizes diversity, engagement, and success. Human Resources also encompasses Payroll, providing information and assistance with benefits administration and retirement planning.

Information Technology Services

Chris McLain, Chief Information Officer

The IT department at LWTech regularly achieves the impossible in support and strategic investments in LWTech’s electronic infrastructure. ITS provides helpdesk support to all college staff and faculty, as well as the student body, and maintains and upgrades equipment, infrastructure, and vendor relationships to get the most out of every software license and hardware lifespan. Additionally, for the next several years ITS is spearheading the implementation and adoption of the college ctcLink system, an enterprise-level software solution mandated and run by the State Board, which replaces several legacy data and processing software systems. Dubbed LionsLink at LWTech, the new software adoption process has been years in the making throughout the community and technical college system. LWTech is part of the sixth and final wave of adoptees, which has provided the opportunity to learn from our peers, but also to inherit the backlog in processing previously submitted issues at the state level. ITS ably navigates this maze of priorities and supports the college as we learn the new systems.

Instruction

Dr. Suzanne Ames, Vice President of Instruction

When most people think about College, they’re thinking about the Office of Instruction. Instruction develops curriculum, pays attention to student progress and trends, keeps up to date with best practice teaching requirements and recommendations, and provides professional development for the hundreds of full-time and adjunct faculty members that call LWTech home. Suzy oversees the administration and faculty of the over 40 areas of study offered by LWTech.

Research and Grants

Cathy Copeland, Director of Research and Grant Development

Staff, faculty, and students at the college all interact with the Office of Institutional Research and Grants Development (IR) for two main reasons: IR administers surveys throughout the year to understand student engagement and needs, staff and faculty satisfaction levels, and Trustee evaluations, and they lead the research and development of grants and extra funding for many programs and purposes throughout the college. Behind-the-scenes, IR works with data collected through assessments, surveys, and other tools to support college decision-making and planning at all levels. The data and analysis provided by the IR department keeps LWTech compliant with state and federal regulations, provides evidence of learning and mission fulfillment for accreditation, and helps with grant preparation and reporting. Cathy and her team in IR report to the Trustees throughout the year on trends, grants, and survey results that support the Board’s decision-making and effectiveness.

Student Services

Dr. Ruby Hayden, Vice President of Student Services

The reach of Student Services covers the student journey from initial access to navigating the college experience to successfully exiting LWTech. Each of the eight main service areas (Admissions and Outreach, Enrollment Services, Student Development, WorkForce Development, Financial Aid, Student Programs, TRIO, and the Childcare Early Learning Center) operate with connected purposes that provide support and assistance to prospective and enrolled students, the college campus, and the larger community. Ruby will often appear before the Board to highlight specific ways a department is serving students’ educational goals, to discuss enrollment trends, and to prepare the Board for the annual student commencement.

What to Expect as You Begin Your Term

You may have already had a chance to participate in the LWTech Foundation or the President’s Advisory Council. These groups are both long-time partners of LWTech, and help you receive regular updates on college projects, priorities, and needs. However, once you are appointed to the Board of Trustees at LWTech, several things happen to help you start taking on your responsibilities, both inside and outside of the college.

While your main contact at the college will be with the President’s office, through President Morrison or Elsa Gossett, inside the college, many departments work together to help set up access to college resources and information.

Our IT department will create a college email address for you, as well as accounts that allow you to access other college resources.
The Human Resources office will collect some personal information for reimbursements and payroll and reporting for tax purposes.
The Communications and Marketing department will work with you to write your bio and take your photo at the college to put on the Board of Trustees webpage.
The President’s office coordinates most of the above activities, and will also:
Give you the LWTech Board Policies (Chapter One of the LWTech Policy Manual)
Send you calendar invitations for Board meetings, college events, and other appointments
Provide up-to-date information on Board meeting packets and priorities
Provide reimbursement for expenses and per diem charges
Provide a Trustee Parking Pass
Create an electronic file from your signature for signing Board resolutions and forms, as well as a signature card for the automatic signing machine, which is used for signing the hundreds of diplomas that LWTech students earn each year.

As a trustee, you will be committing to attending monthly Board meetings throughout the academic year. Board meeting are usually about two hours long. Each meeting includes a session for presentations about various areas of the college or special initiatives that are being undertaken and their results. Often these presentations are informational or educational because they relate to action items that will come up on the Board’s agenda later on for a vote. Additionally, the May Board meeting is held at the end of a day-long Trustee Retreat, where you as a trustee will usually have a chance to spend more time with the college budget, develop the Board goals, and work through projects for which the college leadership needs your input. Board meeting dates are set at the end of each academic year and are considered public meetings. The schedule of each college’s Board meetings for the year is available on the SBCTC website as well as the LWTech Board of Trustees webpage. Other trustee activities include participating in Commencement, which is traditionally held at LWTech near the end of June.

Materials and the agenda for each Board meeting are sent to you electronically by the President’s Executive Assistant at least one week prior to each meeting. The agenda and materials are also posted on the LWTech Board of Trustees webpage.

Lake Washington Institute of Technology (LWTech) is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities at the associate and bachelor degree level.

Accreditation of an institution of higher education by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities indicates that it meets or exceeds criteria for the assessment of institutional quality evaluated through a peer review process. An accredited college or university is one which has available the necessary resources to achieve its stated purposes through appropriate educational programs, is substantially doing so, and gives reasonable evidence that it will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. Institutional integrity is also addressed through accreditation.

Accreditation by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities is not partial but applies to the institution as a whole. As such, it is not a guarantee of every course or program offered, or the competence of individual graduates. Rather, it provides reasonable assurance about the quality of opportunities available to students who attend the institution.

NWCCU's accreditation cycle is seven years in length; LWTech's next comprehensive visit will be held during fall 2026.

LWTech’s two main sources of income are the state allocation and tuition. The state allocation is tied directly to the number of full-time equivalent students (FTE) that LWTech serves. As enrollment goes down, our state allocation goes down proportionately. The philosophy behind this allocation model is that if we are serving fewer students, we need less income. The inverse is also true.

The tuition rate is set by the legislature and tied to the average household income in the state. Tuition income also rises and falls in direct proportion to enrollment. Many college costs are fixed, particularly for technical colleges like LWTech, so lower enrollment numbers and the associated revenue decline is often not matched by a proportional decrease in expense.

LWTech general enrollment targets are set by the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC) and are connected to our annual state allocation. These targets have been about 3100 FTE for the past few years. The Board receives a quarterly enrollment report from the Vice President of Student Services, Dr. Ruby Hayden, which covers current enrollment compared to our target enrollment, student demographic information, and the percentage of students that stay enrolled from one quarter to the next (student persistence).

Tracking enrollment over time allows us to project tuition revenue and plan for shortages. LWTech also uses this information to plan marketing and outreach campaigns. Using data from enrollment trends over a rolling three-year average, the college sets quarterly enrollment targets. Usually, when the economy is strong the college struggles to meet enrollment targets and when the economy struggles the college exceeds enrollment target. The COVID-19 pandemic and associated economic setback is the first time we have not seen this pattern.

Generally, LWTech’s student demographics are 60% female, 35% students of color, and an average age of 31. Our enrollment tends to fall into a few main categories: workforce education (55-60% of enrollment), transfer intent (10-15% of enrollment), and basic education for adults (15-20% of enrollments).

Over the past few years, LWTech has experienced significant enrollment drops in basic education for adults, and slower, but impactful, declines in traditional workforce program enrollments at the associate and certificate level. During this same time the fastest growing areas of the college are applied baccalaureate degrees and academic courses needed for transfer to other colleges or universities. From a demographic perspective, the student body is growing increasingly racially diverse and younger.

Trustee Responsibilities and Governance

Your role as a Trustee of LWTech is to provide leadership through policy governance of the college. This type of leadership stems from an understanding of the Carver Model of Board Governance®. Policy governance puts the emphasis for the Board on creating the vision of what LWTech should mean to its community.

“Policy is simply a course of action and established principle, direction, or determination that a certain thing or event will or will not happen. Once policy is established, the chief executive officer of the institution is to carry on the day-to-day management of the institution. It is the duty of the president, through his or her staff, to administratively carry out the policies set by the board of regents or trustees. Accordingly, trustees and regents should not become involved in the day-to-day administration of the institution.”

- Washington State Office of the Attorney General

Washington state code RCW 28B.50.140 covers in detail each aspect of Board responsibilities, but the most important point when it comes to Trustee action is that almost all of these responsibilities can be (and are) delegated to the president to accomplish. This helps the Board focus on its area of primary importance: setting and approving policy for the institution.

There are a few exceptions to this delegation of powers. LWTech Trustees will always:

Evaluate the president and approve the president’s contract
Grant Tenure to qualified faculty (with recommendations from the review committee)
Adopt college policy and also approve policies that enter into the Washington State rulemaking process.
Once a student completes their program of study, grant the student their degree or certificate, recognizing their achievements.

As a Trustee, your job, together with the other Trustees, is to make clear the Board’s beliefs, values, and commitments, in order for the President and her staff to work out those commitments and values through the mission, strategic planning, and operations of the college itself. The president’s job is to carry out the day-to-day management of the college in accordance with those policies.

Most Board responsibilities delegated to the president fall into a few major areas:

Educating students:The president and her team oversee the creation and delivery of programs of education to students, and decide, with faculty, what studies a program will cover. They make rules for student behavior and uphold the consequences for breaking those rules. They also offer support services and communicate with students to help them succeed.
College Facilities: College leadership manages the campus, taking care of the facilities, having a bookstore and other support-oriented buildings and departments, hiring people to run all these functions, facilities, and support structures, managing campus traffic, and in general making sure the campus is in good order.
Money: While the Board approves the college budget, tuition and fees, land purchases or leases, borrowing money, and receiving grants or gifts to college programs, the president and her team work out the budget, pay the bills, administer grants and loans, and manage the college budget.
Employment: Faculty and staff for the institution are hired by proxy by the president and her team. There are four personnel categories at LWTech:
- Exempt staff – administrators and college leadership positions
- Faculty – both full-time tenure track and adjunct, represented by the Associated Federation of Teachers union
- Classified staff – support employees, represented by the Classified union
- IUOE staff – represented by the International Union of Operating Engineers

Each category has different rules, contracts, or considerations. The president and her team negotiate and manage employees with the approval of the Board.

Trustees will also accomplish other types of activities throughout the year, such as approving new bargaining agreements, evaluating their own performance and accomplishments, passing resolutions to recognize extraordinary students or employees, and creating statements that communicate to the college community and the community-at-large the priorities and values of the Board and the college. Trustees also oversee and support accreditation efforts by the college, both for the college as a whole, and for programmatic or specialized accreditation. In the early spring, the president will often call upon you to advocate for the college’s interests with the Washington state Legislature. You may find yourself promoting the college in meetings with other organizations and with community members, as well. Trustees are also members of the Association of College Trustees (ACT), which has a wealth of resources and events to help you as a Trustee learn more, become more effective, and connect with other Trustees in similar positions as yourself.

From time to time, the concept of “the green line” is referenced during a Board meeting. This idea is shorthand for describing the difference in roles between the Board and the president, the difference between the ends (Board) and the means (the president). The Board operates “above the green line”; they oversee and evaluate goals, objectives, and measured learning (the actual and intended end product of the learning process), while the president operates “below the green line”; designing and operating programs and administering resources (the actual and intended means of the college operations and learning process), including strategies to accomplish the end goals.

LWTech leadership prides itself on maintaining a practice of “no surprises” with the Board and each other. Open and honest communication between Trustees, the president, and the executive staff are both the ideal and, thankfully, the norm with the college. When it comes to information or press statements from or about the college, LWTech has a Public Information Officer (our Director of Communications and Marketing, Leslie Shattuck) who works with the president to determine, on a case-by-case basis, LWTech’s public response to questions, issues, or opportunities that arise to speak about the college to the press or the public. All press requests must go through Leslie’s office. Because the Board is only able to speak as a group, you will not, as an individual Trustee, be called upon to speak for the college in any way.

While you’ll have many opportunities to participate in activities, trainings, and events at LWTech as a Trustee, sometimes it’s helpful to get a perspective that is specifically focused on Trusteeship. Both ACT and ACCT regularly hold events and trainings that are designed to assist you in your role and connect you to people with similar responsibilities.

Glossary of Washington state Community and Technical College system acronyms.

WA State Boards and Commissions Membership Handbook

WA State Governor's Office Boards and Commissions

SBCTC Trustee Recruitment Handbook

Role of the Trustees

Ethics

Open public meetings

Disclosures