 Okay, we're streaming now. Elaine will be on in just one sec. Okay, good. Okay, well, this is the Vermont State College Board of Trustees meeting. It's now May 10th. We are welcoming everyone here. We'll have a call to order. We've got a housekeeping note. The link to sign up to provide a public comment is available on the agenda published on the VSC website for us on the link posted in the chat. For anyone who wants to look up the chat, that's where you'll find the, I don't see it yet, but it will be there. We'll get started. We will need a motion to approve the minutes of March 27th. Do I hear a motion? We'll move by Adam and a second from someone else. Mary's gonna second that. Any changes or discussion or any questions about the minutes? Seeing none, all those who want to approve the minutes of March 27th, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, no opposition. It looks like we're going to approve the minutes of March 27th. Now, part of our, excuse me, part of our board development, one of the three things that our consultant suggested that we do in a little bit more detail is the presentation on the budget. We're going to have CFO and Chief of Operating Officer, Sharon Scott, provide a presentation on the life cycle of the budget process, followed by any questions. We can get started on that whenever you're ready, Sharon. Well, thank you so much. I am delighted to give you an overview of the budgeting process today. Budgeting is the board's clearest expression of priorities and strategies, especially system-wide budgeting. And it allows the system to drive initiatives and investments that are appropriate to the functioning of integrated the system and allows the development of a unified plan that balances the needs of the institutions with the responsibilities of the system. It also provides you as a board an opportunity to meet your fiduciary responsibilities. It's a really reliable tool in terms of reinforcing the strategic plan of the organization through the allocation of resources, both financial and human, and it's really vital to the success of the Vermont State's colleges. An effective budget process takes the following questions into consideration. First, does the process drive initiatives and investments that align with board priorities? Second, is resource allocation effective across the entire system? Third, are there meaningful opportunities for budget administration and oversight by the chancellor, president and board built into the process? And lastly, does the process include multi-year budgeting? With respect to FY22 budget, the process that we're going through right now, the budget effort has made a really solid start toward an effective budgeting process. However, as we knew at the outset of the process last fall, there are still significant places for us to improve, especially in regards to resource allocation and multi-year budgeting. The FY23 budgeting process will begin this summer with the board's establishment of key strategic priorities. As discussed in previous meetings, these priorities should be relatively small in number at no more than five or six, articulate to the core of the Vermont State College's mission in very short statements. The goals should be defined in terms of external factors like student and state success because that's why the Vermont State Colleges exist. They should also be independently worthy of your undivided attention as a board. As we discussed last fall, the board established three strategic priorities. These priorities are affordability, accessibility, quality and relevance. With respect to affordability, that means that cost and debt are not access barriers for students. Affordability is thus relative to both tuition cost and Vermont student and family income and to the post-graduation earnings needed for debt repayment. Related to accessibility, we discussed that accessibility for Vermont students, including adult learners, will mean that they have supported pathways that meet their educational goals, regardless of their financial means, geography, college readiness, or technology and broadband internet access. And for quality and relevance, we discussed that expectations of value for students include the ability to pursue their chosen educational path, a positive return on investment in the cost of pursuing a particular program relative to expected earnings, successful preparation for external evaluations such as licensure exams and preparation for lifelong career and personal success in our global 21st century economy. For Vermont, these expectations of value include the quality of Vermont State College's programs that are aligned with state workforce needs that are offered in a fiscally responsible manner and delivered in ways relevant to today's students and employer needs. We should always be asking ourselves when there's a new issue, does this issue or matter support these priorities, give us reason to adjust or change our priorities or detract from them? This summer we will reconfirm or adjust the key strategic priorities in advance of our budgeting process. At the start of the budgeting year, generally in September, the board identifies for the purposes of budgeting the key initiatives and areas of investment for the upcoming budget that are directly derived from the board's strategic priorities. They also describe the critical parameters in terms of revenue and expense targets. In regards to revenue and expense targets, the chancellor will propose maximum values for tuition, fees, room and board for the next academic year. This recommendation, balancing the needs of the institutions with the responsibility of meeting the needs of the board's priorities will directly influence the direction of the institutions for the coming year. Between October and the end of December, the institutions will develop multi-year budgets that address the needs of the institutions, placing a special emphasis on board initiatives and areas of investment, as well as on projects that will drive system alignment. Throughout this process, the members of the Business Affairs Council meet regularly to discuss progress on the budget with each institution sharing data that drives system alignment. Typically in October each year, we will review the financial statements and single audit with the external auditors. At the same meeting, the board will typically review the general fund proposal and capital budget proposals that will be delivered to the governor. Then in November, the board of trustees should expect to see results from the first quarter. These results reported at an institutional and system-wide level include budget versus actual performance and a forecast of results for the entire year. Beginning with results reported for FY22, the upcoming fiscal year, accountability metrics will be shared with the board of trustees. These metrics will include some form of performance against budget in the following key areas. The first is net student revenue, that is student revenue net of scholarships and waivers, full-time equivalency by value stream or student type for students, room occupancy, employee HUD count and wages. And this information will support and undergird the budgets presented to the board of trustees and you should expect to see these updates each quarter. In early January, the institutions will deliver preliminary first pass budgets to the chancellor's office. The budgets include a best and worst likely corridor as well as a narrative that describes the ways in which this budget meets the board's key initiatives and priorities. The narrative shows how the institution financially will independently meet the revenue and expense targets set for the institution and how their work furthers the work of the system as a whole. The review process begins with the chancellor and CFO meeting with each institution to review the first pass budget. The priority for this early discussion is on the institution's progress regarding meeting revenue and expense targets and on the methods by which the institution is approaching the board's initiatives and priorities. The reviewed first pass budgets will then be shared with the finance and facilities committee for their review and discussion. In February, the institutions will continue to refine their budget proposals based on feedback from the board of trustees, trends and activities occurring on the ground. This work will be conducted at both an institutional level and collaboratively across the system. Additionally, the board of trustees should expect to see results from the second quarter together with updated metric data. Again, these metrics are intended to hold the colleges accountable to their budgets while simultaneously offering greater transparency to you as a board. The process continues throughout the next few months with institutions refining their budgets both in terms of their local conditions and via a review of budgetary impacts across the system. Regular conversations between the members of the council of presidents and business affairs council offer opportunities to seek synergies between institutions and for areas of growth, cost reduction and economies of scale. Beginning with the FY22 budgeting process, cross system budget discussions will be held within the business affairs council. And the intent of the discussions was to offer constructive feedback to each institution from their peers, provide meaningful opportunities for the chancellor and president to drive strategic alignment between the colleges and give consistencies in practice. These budgets were then refined post-BAC review and presented to the board as second past budgets. In April, the institutions continue to refine their budgets based upon updated enrollment and expense information and further analysis of trends. The colleges continue to work collaboratively across the system to achieve financial objectives. Additionally, in April, the board should expect results from the second quarter, together with updated metric data. The final system-wide budget is delivered in May to the Finance and Facilities Committee with final approval by the full board in June. The FY23 budget will be multi-year, provide a strong narrative regarding how each institution's budget meets the key initiatives and investment areas set by the board and the budget will balance the needs of the institutions with the needs of the system. Beginning with the FY23 budgeting process, in addition to Business Affairs Council informal review of the budgets, each institution will formally present their budget to the council of presidents and the chancellor, giving the institutions the opportunity to benefit from the constructive feedback of their sister institutions, thus allowing the colleges to further refine their budgets before presentation to finance and facilities. At the June meeting of the board, the board will review, discuss and approve the final budget. This will be an opportunity to answer any additional lingering questions the board may have regarding the budget, as well as to present the dashboard of metrics that will be used to hold the institutional accountable throughout the next fiscal year. And this year for the FY22 budget, we will be presenting you with that first round of dashboard materials for you to review. As stated at the outset of the presentation, budgeting is the board of trustees clearest expression of priorities and strategies. It is the most reliable tool you have in terms of reinforcing the strategic plan of the organization through the allocation of resources, both financial and human, and is vital to the success of the Vermont State Colleges. We expect that it will take a couple of years to collaboratively develop routine reporting that you as the board will find helpful. I look forward to working with the board, Chancellor, Council of Presidents, Business Affairs Council, and the rest of the system to make a process that is as useful as possible. I look forward to any questions you may have. Any questions for Sharon? Linda. Sharon, you talked about the dashboard of metrics that would be based on outside qualifiers or numbers and stuff. Yet, when you were talking about the quarterly metrics we'll be getting on financials, you were talking about net student tuition, full-time equivalencies, those are essentially internal metrics in my mind. How do they relate? How are we gonna keep those linked? I understand they relate, but how are we gonna make sure that they? Right. So the first portion, which is looking externally to those external factors, the state and students, is in the establishment of the strategic priorities of the board. So each year we will have the opportunity to review where we are in terms of those strategic priorities, how the system is achieving them and whether those priorities continue to make sense. And I believe that as that part of it, we will actually be looking to some additional outside factors, like what does affordability actually mean, for example? And how does that metric get defined? And that will be refined over time. The metrics that we'll be sharing on a quarterly basis are really to allow you the opportunity as the board to do something you really haven't been able to do, which is actually to get a little bit of a peek under the covers to say, how are our metrics actually working until hold us more accountable for achieving the budgets that we say we're going to achieve? So some of that link of financial metrics that we'll be looking at, like net stewards, well, that's a big number, net student tuition. Yet in my head, finance stuff, of course, I can see how you can link those broad metrics to specifics like revenue and things. I just... Yes. So actually as part of the strategic financial planning process that we'll be undertaking this summer, one of the things that we will be doing is really assessing where is it that we anticipate the VSC needs to go financially? So in terms of when we look at the discount strategies for students, for example, how does that discount strategy then drive our net student revenue? Which then in turn has a relationship to our expenses. And that the driving of the net student revenue when we have a goal of affordability suggests that we really need to hold the line to some degree on what students are paying on a net student basis, an average student basis. And so I think there are several metrics that are occurring simultaneously. It's one of the reasons why I say it's a little messy upfront and it's gonna take us a couple of years to really find that groove where we all feel comfortable. It's peeling back some layers of the onion to get us where we need to go. That was helpful. I appreciate that, Sharon. Anyone else? Lynn, it's Adam. Go ahead, Adam. Hi, Sharon, that was great. Thank you. From the board's perspective, this seems very similar for the way in which we interact with the budget to the way we always have. Now it's more of that system-wide budget, but that was often our engagement with it to begin with. What is different for the board right now going into that planning under the new framework? How will we interact with it differently? What could we do to prepare for those differences? So the first difference that you'll be saying is that when we present to you our next pass of the budget, we will be presenting to you not only the financial numbers, but we'll also be presenting to you what we used to build those numbers. So sometimes we shared with you, but not always, FTE. We almost never shared with you residency occupancy, nor did we share with you information regarding employee headcount and average employee wages. And those are some of the key factors. As we look at them internally, those are the key factors that really drive the management of the budget. How much revenue are we taking in? And where do those factors come from? Where is our money going? And where does our money come from? It comes from net student revenue and state appropriation. And where does our money go? It largely goes to employees. And so by sharing with you those four key metrics and providing you an update, not only on what we budgeted, but how we are performing along the way it gives you better insight into what's looking at. So there's one element that's very different. The other element is that we began the process of adopting strategic priorities, not until last fall. And so it didn't get fully adopted into the budgeting process as strongly as it needed to, though I would argue that the transformation effort that you all agreed to as a board on February 22nd is probably the greatest expression of what that looks like. And so as we move forward, you will start to see much greater information regarding narratives. So for example, the colleges are putting together a much more detailed narrative for the FY22 budget than they have in the past. Again, not giving you just the facts, but more information about what undergirds the budget and how their work is related to those strategic priorities of affordability, accelerability, quality, and relevance. That's great, thank you. And that should all help us make this sustainable, which maybe would be that fourth strategic priority. Overarching grass. That is the overarching goal, yes, absolutely. Thank you. Anyone else? I guess I'm gonna have a question. Sharon, sort of building on the internal versus the external. Some of the external things I think we might have had in the past. It sounds as if we're going to get much more detail on the internal and those four categories of indicators. Is that correct? That is correct. We'll get much more information on the internal as well. And it's information that we often did not provide to you or we may have provided you just one small portion of the metric. You would see the financial number overall, like the set of numbers that come from the system as a whole, but not where are we exactly in terms of, you know, we budgeted for 2,000 Vermonters on an FTE basis. And the great news is 2,500 FTE showed up. But simultaneously we budgeted for 1,000 out of state students and only 500 showed up. So here's how that mix changes. And what does that do to our net student revenue picture? So on the plus side, it's great for Vermont in terms that more Vermonters are being educated. On the negative side, it affects our fiscal sustainability because from, you know, out of state students generally have a higher net revenue component to them. So I think it's some underlying factors that you don't really get. Certainly we provide on, you know, on rare occasions information, for example, regarding room occupancy, what our planned occupancy was and where we are today. We wanna be much more overt about that moving forward because without that information, it's very, in some many ways, flying blind. You know, as a board, it's your responsibility. You have a really strong fiduciary responsibility. And without that information, you're not able to exercise that opportunity as well. So you're talking about a payer mix and how do you integrate discounting into that or be part of it when you're looking at it out of state? Yes, so we're looking at payer mix. We're looking at room occupancy. We're looking at information regarding how many employees do we anticipate having and how much are we spending on them? And how does that change over time? And what does that do to your budgets? Not that you need to, as a board, get into the person A should be hired over person B, but you should have an understanding of broad strokes in broad strokes as to where the money is coming from, why the budget is different or the actual performance is different than the budget and where the trends are. And you should have more information about how that meets your strategic priorities. How does that affect affordability, quality, relevance, accessibility? How are these things moving forward? And so we will be providing greater information related to that. This is our first year of trialing it. You'll find that the narratives will be more detailed. They will be pretty varied between the institutions because it's a trial and error process. We're getting you more information. And we expect that it'll improve over the next couple of years. Will retention be part of that? Retention is an activity that we have been discussing as part of the Business Affairs Council in terms of looking at an annual opportunity, not a quarterly opportunity, because retention is one factor that we really report on on an annual basis. So there are some other things. Retention, enrollment in our programs, some other things that on an annual basis, we would like to have the opportunity to sit down with the board and provide you a little bit greater information so that you have a better understanding as to what's going on on an overall basis. What we discussed here, oh, go ahead. Sharon, I really appreciate this initiative having served on other boards. This is the kind of information that is useful to board members in terms of understanding the institution and the big picture. So don't swamp us with information, but... No, no, we're looking at the three or four numbers. Well, I really appreciate that. And I think it will help me learn more about the system and feel more confident in my service. Thank you. Welcome. Yes, yes, we don't wanna overwhelm, have so much stuff, it doesn't mean anything. Anyone else have any other questions? Go ahead, Adam. Yeah, just for our newer members, I don't want anyone to take away that we haven't been looking at these KPIs. Like, we were always presented a lot of this information. It sounds like we'll get more granular, but we certainly knew our payer mixes. We knew in-state versus out-of-state. We knew room occupancy. This was information I feel like we were getting, but it sounds like we're gonna get it maybe in a more granular way. And maybe it's from my time on the facilities committee that I had more of that information. But I wouldn't want any of the new members or any of our audience to think the trustees weren't looking at this stuff already. Point. Go ahead, anything else, Sean? Are you raising your hand or just? No, okay. Anything else for Sharon? Okay, Sharon, thank you. You're welcome. I look forward to seeing more of this. Okay. Now, I'm going to report on the board self-assessment. We came up with some gaps that we think we want to improve on. There were four of them. You all got in your package, the list of the grid of what they were and where we stand, but I just wanna review it with everyone. One of the gaps or one of the things that we could do to improve is accountability. One of the action items would be to develop an accountability matrix, which is underway and ongoing. We're going to try to find a board-level accountability matrix that includes the what, who, and when for each item so that we can maintain that accountability for ourselves and for the team. Another is create an accountability dashboard. And again, this is underway and ongoing to complete a board-level dashboard with measurable success metrics to ensure data-informed accountability. I believe this is part of what Sharon has just been presenting to us for the financial side. We're going to do accountability checks, which is also underway and ongoing. We're going to do an accountability check part of every board agenda. Again, this is something with the KPIs that we're going to be looking at ongoing in the future. Let's see, we're going to review the Board of Trustee Committee Charters and Practices. We sort of started that with the authority and responsibilities we had back a couple of months ago, and we're going to continue that, that ensure the accountability is part of our committee processes. Ensuring accountability cascades that it's not just going to be just us and the chancellor and her administrative team and the presidents, but it's going to be a culture of all the way down through the system and for establishing and maintaining accountability at every management level. The second item that we all seem to agree on was transparency. We're going to present a chairs report on the BOT self-assessment, which of course is what we're doing right now. We're going to commit to be open, frank, clear and have proven communications. We want to ask questions and we want to be frank and open about how we make sure that the administrative team and the Board itself is transparent to the public and to all of the rest of us. But we're going to access this account and it's accessing accountability for this. Again, this is underway and ongoing. We're going to make transparency a key success metric to which it holds itself accountable with regular self-assessment. I think we have made great strides in the past year and I think we're going to continue to try to do that. Another item that was important was roll clarity. Onboarding of new members is important. We've had a couple of new members this past year, this past few months. Again, it's an underway and ongoing process. Some of this came on with a lot of onboarding and some of this came on with very little. But we're going to ensure a comprehensive onboarding process for new members and that's going to be worked on as a real goal for the Board. We also want to continue to do Board development. Again, it's underway and it's ongoing. We want to ensure that we have Board development sessions ensure it understands the fiduciary and decision-making authority. And we have in fact done that with many of the items that we've had in the past couple of months. Succession is another item that was brought up that is important for the Board and we need a succession plan for the chair that we have a short-term emergency succession plan for the Board chair. We have an executive committee and we may take a look at how that works as far as succession, a succession plan for the Chancellor. We don't want anyone run over by a bus next week. We want to make sure that we have a system in place so that if something should happen, we can actually move forward. I believe the Chancellor, she sent me an email. I don't know if she sent it to everyone but there is a list of people that she depends upon and that will be the beginning of a new succession plan or a way of getting an emergency leadership plan. And then succession plan for all the other positions down the line. This is something we're going to try to begin this the summer and in the fall and try to survey other critical management positions for succession plans. Cause we have a lot of, we have a lot of critical management people who we want to make sure we're not going to lose the expertise and the efforts that they've made. Is there anything anyone else wants to add to that? Okay, if not, that's what we're going to be working on and that's what we're going to continue to do. We'll follow up with that in future meetings. A report from the audit committee. I'm going to turn to Linda Milne. We have, I believe a resolution. Do you want to give a report, Linda, please? Yes, thank you, Chairman. I'd like to move the resolution that's on page 13 of our materials regarding acceptance of the single audit report for the fiscal year that ended June 30th, 2020. That's a motion. Does anyone want to second that? I'll second that. Okay, Adam, thank you. Dylan, thank you. Is there any discussion that you want to add to that, Linda, or is? Yes, I'd just like to provide an explanation because the audit committee and the board in October, maybe the board in November, approved the financial statements and accepted the financial report for the fiscal year ended June 30th, 2020. But was not able to accept the single audit report or the report on the federal expenditures that would normally be accepted at the same time because with all the new COVID funding, the CARES Act, Secures Act, some of the other, the federal government and the agencies had not put out the compliance supplement which explains to auditors which requirements they have to test. And that compliance supplement did not come out, I think until December. So our auditors weren't actually able to do the testing of some of the federal expenditures, especially a lot of the COVID money, which was for us still a material amount of money, although student financial aid is the biggest. And they got the compliance supplement, completed the testing and were able to present the draft report to us at our meeting in April. I actually believe they completed the audit in March and have already submitted it to the federal data clearing house by March 30th, which was the federal deadline for doing that if you'd like to keep your low risk assessment when it comes to the federal expenditures on it. And so now we would like to accept, have the board officially accept the single audit report. Are there any other questions? Okay, seeing none, thank you, Linda and thank you to the audit committee. It was a little more complicated this year. All of those who would like to vote to support this resolution, please indicate by seeing aye. Opposed? Okay, we've accepted that resolution. And chair, Linda, can I just give a quick report on a few other things that we did that I just think all the rest of the board could be aware of. Come on, where is my, we heard also from auditors that the management hired in order to do the internal audit report looking at our payroll system and looking for improvements in that, that was very done. And they were in the midst of performing the audit while they were talking to us. And so we will at our next meeting have an update from Barry Dunn, actually probably the final report on the improvements that could happen to the payroll system. Much of the board may remember that when the payroll system was implemented, there were a lot of issues. And so we really wanted to take a look at it and make sure that if there were any efficiency improvements or just other practice improvements needed to be made that we had some guidance on that from auditors who have experienced some of the other higher ed entities that use the same system. So we are looking forward to getting that report in, I think it's later this month at committee meetings that we're having, okay? And then we also heard from the, the IT, some of our and had actually our IT staff, several of whom were new, our new chief information officer and other IT members joined the audit committee to give us an update on cybersecurity risks, technology risks. It's clear with some new staff, they had taken a major real effort to do an inventory of not only our hardware and our software and to identify where the risks are, but to come up with a plan on how to address those risks. And we will be getting, and the audit committee will has requested an annual update from IT on this, but like other audit committee members, I'm sure you all are very aware of all the reports you've gotten, we've gotten the cybersecurity and other sort of risks that have been in the national news. So it was really great to have that sort of face to face so to speak over Zoom with our new IT staff and have that reassurance that they are on top of it and assessing our risks. Chancellor, did you have something you wanted to say to add to that? I just wanted to confirm with the trustee Milne that we'd be looking to add an audit committee meeting to the calendar, I assume, because your next official one is October. So once the very done report is finalized, we'll look at scheduling a meeting for you. Yes, and we have the chief IT officer here. I don't know if Kelly wants to talk about any of this, but she did report to your committee. Kelly Campbell. Her and her team. And her team. Yeah, nothing to share now. I have a slide deck that I did share. And if that's useful to pass around to the broader board, I'm happy to do that. But as shared, I recently shifted into the CIO role and we also onboarded a new information security officer. And he's bringing great leadership working across the system with the colleges and the central team to really identify our risks and proactively put a council together to start working towards plans for mitigating, you know, the low hanging fruit things in our environment that can quickly be addressed and start to roadmap how to address some of the bigger kind of risks. So I have a slide deck I'm happy to share out. And I thank you, trustee Milne for inviting us. It was a great chance to kind of put these are IT topics per se, these really are business decisions we make in terms of how we secure our environment. So I appreciate the chance to discuss and share when I have the chance to do so, so. Okay, thank you. I think we all recognize how important IT can be to especially colleges because we have so many employees and students who wanna be accessing, you know, resources. Also as employees and students they bring a lot, can bring a lot of risks with them if they're not paying attention to. Yeah, as we say in IT and educated user community is one of the best things you can have, right? So it's really a partnership approach and education approach just as much as the infrastructure, right, so. Okay, anyone else with something to ask or wanna say something? I was just gonna add, I think that Kelly's PowerPoint was included, it should be on the website as supplemental materials from the audit committee meeting but if it's not, we'll make sure it's up there and we can circulate that too. Okay, good, that sounds good for anyone. If there's any questions, we'll look for that. Anyone else have anything else to ask or talk about the IT or audit issues? Cyber security. Okay, we'll move on to facility and finance. Chairman Silverman, we have some resolutions from your committee as well. Good afternoon, yes, we do. We have one resolution on page 15 resolution 2021-009 that I would characterize as administrative authorization. The USDA, which provides grants to the system and colleges, universities. We have to access a electronic clearinghouse of sorts and the USDA is very specific in our corporate resolution who we designate to delegate or to give online access to and to administer the system and this resolution essentially gets us to where the USDA needs us to be and I would make this in the form of a motion and a way of reading it. So you're moving that we basically have an administrative role assigned to the director of financial operations for the state colleges for the USDA signature, representative signature certifier role. Correct. Okay, that's a motion, is there a second on that one? Second. Linda Mellon has a seconded. Anyone have any questions or any discussions? Seeing none, it sounds like this is a bureaucratic issue. Okay. Correct. All of those who are in support of the resolution please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? That one is passed. So do we have another resolution? Indeed we do and this is not bureaucratic. This is actually important. Not that the other one wasn't, but that this one is something that we have to deal with through VSC policy 403 and it talks about what actions we need to do at the close of the audit to deal with any carryover funds. And so this is dealing with carryover funds for fiscal year 2020, which there were $5,846,624. And that was related to some of the COVID funding that we received for that fiscal year as part of the budget process for 2021. All of the component schools have recommended to the Chancellor's office that this be devoted to the budget deficit for fiscal year 2021. And the finance and facilities committee reviewed this with CFO Sharon and agreed to make that recommendation to the full board. But I would ask Sharon, if there were any clarifying comments that I should have made. The only clarifying comment is that the community college of Vermont did have funds that are set aside for special purposes as part of their request. All of the other institutions their funding will go towards budget deficit reduction. I think this was explained to us, is this the same material that was explained to us earlier when we were closing off the 2020 budget and starting last fall or? This was discussed at the last finance and facilities committee meeting. So there are 4,921,624 of the monies will be dedicated to deficit reduction. The remainder is for the community college of Vermont. And they have designated special purposes for that, that the FNF committee agreed to. Yeah, and this is the money, the 4 million plus, it was the money that was. It's really comes from. It really comes from the Heurfen CARES Act funding. Yes, absolutely. It's a $4 million surplus basically. Yeah, okay. Any questions or any discussion about how this works? We're gonna be using it to the 2021 potential deficit using it to help offset our expenses. Okay, we have a motion on the table. Do we have a second? Mary Seconds at Mary Moran. Okay, any further questions or discussions? Some of this is this fiduciary responsibility we all have. You all understand that we're anticipating a deficit right now, barring other things going on outside of the Vermont State Colleges. And we're going to use this to offset that deficit for 2021. Okay, anything else? Did I get that right, Sharon? Good, thank you. Okay, all those in favor of this motion, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Okay, any opposed? No, good, okay. I just wanna take a moment to say that Ryan Cooney, our student representative has, trustee has been reelected by the governing body of the student organizations. And I wanna wish him congratulations. He's probably a glutton for punishment. He's coming on for his second year. So congratulations, Ryan. Thank you very much, Chair. Looking forward to continuing the work we've started. Okay, now we have a transformation update from the Chancellor. Do you wanna get started with that? Yes, that would be great. And I think we've got some slides we're going to run through. So as you I'm sure you will remember on February 22nd, the Board approved the VSCS transformation proposal that was put forth was largely drawn from the work of the select committee. So it was principally combining three of the four Vermont State colleges. So Carstelton Northern Vermont University and Vermont Technical College into a single accredited entity. And then in addition, the Board of Trustees approved aggressive administrative consolidations that would cross all four of the current institution. So as shown on this particular slide, we will once we get through a transformation we'll have two separate institutions, the Community College of Vermont and the new combined entity. Just to be clear that that has not yet got a name. We all talk about that in a few minutes but it's the slide that it's hard to change the name on there so it still has the old name on there but we don't yet have a name for the new combined entity. So the three areas in the middle that this is really talking about the consolidation piece that will serve both entities as the academic services such as libraries, advising solutions and a common general education curriculum. Then there's workforce development programs that support technical training, continuing education and professional development and then administrative and technical foundations such as academic technology, ERP solutions, accounting, financial aid, registration and admissions processing. So it has been 11 weeks since the Board of Trustees approved the transformation proposal. So in that time the Vermont State College System has begun its work in earnest. So as you can see on this slide there are eight major project strands related to transformation. Each strand represents a major initiative or effort that requires independent management and oversight. So I'm going to just share with you the progress to date in each of those areas along with the next steps that we plan to take. So starting the next slide is on the new combined entity. So again, the Board made the decision on February 22nd. After that decision, we did take some time to explore whether it made sense to expedite the timeline. We had proposed July 1st of 2023 as the deadline for switching to the new combined entity but there were some benefits to doing it on an expedited timeline. And so we thought it was worth exploring. So we had reached out to a number of the areas that would be directly involved, most immediately involved with that consolidation. And so that was marketing, financial aid, registrar and admissions to talk to them about what the challenges would be if we were to move up the timeline. And based on the information that they provided, it became pretty clear that that was not a feasible timeline for us to move it up by a year. There was just too much work to be done. But the plus that came out of that was that those groups were interested in continuing to meet, given the amount of work that it will take to meet the July 2023 deadline. We also spoke with the US Department of Education to get a sense from them regarding timeline and what's realistic. We did learn from the US Department of Education that it will take, likely will take longer for us to receive US Department of Education approval than it did when we did the unification of Johnson and Linden. And that's just really a sign of the times because now so many other institutions are going through these kinds of activities coupled with, our understanding is there was a suspicion by the previous administration regarding mergers. And so the whole process has become slower and more laborious than it was when we went through it for Northern Vermont University. So that was helpful to know. It means that we need to work to get approval from Netschi sooner rather than later. We did meet a couple of times with folks from Netschi, the New England Commission on Higher Education to discuss with them, obtaining an advisory opinion. You'll see on one of our later slides. We had thought we would be seeking an advisory opinion this spring. In our conversations with them, it became clear that they didn't see that we needed an advisory opinion, that what we were proposing doing at this point was vanilla's not the right word because it's gonna be a huge amount of work but there wasn't anything peculiar or strange about it that would be inconsistent with the accreditation standards to where we would be seeking out to see if what we were proposing would conform. So in our conversations with Netschi, that sort of took out of the equation seeking an advisory opinion at this time. The marketing folks worked very hard to come together to draft a request for proposal and that was issued on our Zoom time. It's hard to remember. It was last week that went out. We're seeking audience research and brand strategy from a external firm. We were very clear that we need them to focus most immediately on doing market research related to the name of the new institution. The goal will be to identify a name to come back to the board at the August 4th board meeting with regard to a name. And the reason why that date is important is because marketing materials need to be printed in August to help with the recruitment of students for fall of 2022. So it's kind of important that we have a name at least that we can put in those materials in August. But to be clear, brand strategy, the identity, all that sort of work would take place in the fall and we would certainly be looking to get stakeholder input and feedback as we shape what the new institution will look like. It's really just the name piece that we're prioritizing first. Our admissions folk are already working on developing a quick reference guide. So I mean, we're still four separate institutions but knowing that transformation is coming, the quick reference guide will enable the admissions folk at the different institutions to be familiar with each other so they can then when they're speaking to students, they can share information about the other institutions in the system to help us as we move forward. And then most recently this week, no, I guess it was last week now, as we're on a Monday, we just issued a request for proposal for a search firm to assist us with identifying a president for the new combined entity and we're looking to do a national search. The RFP is out, it's on our website but we are looking for advice too from a search firm regarding the timing of doing the search. We are very much out of the normal cycle for recruiting a president right now. So we'll be looking for information from the executive search firm to give us sort of advice on how best to structure that search. So coming up, let's wait for the next slide here. Catherine's working on the slide, so. Well, that will come up in a moment. Yeah, so right, so I mentioned the RFP that's already gone out for audience research and brand strategy. So the next step obviously will be to identify that firm and then to work with that firm with regard to engaging stakeholders on the name and then beginning the marketing and branding work. We'll also be looking to select the executive search firm and then we'll be needing to create a, usually a trustee leads a search committee for presidents. So we will be looking to create a search committee for that as well as developing the organizational structure for the new combined entity. So that's work that is at a preliminary level that I'm looking to do with the presidents to start thinking about what would the ideal structure be for the new combined entity as we move forward. So the next piece is the academic transformation. So this should be familiar to many of you, but we've, we already have an external consultant called RPK group that's been working with Yasmin and with the chief academic officers at the colleges. They have also been working with different institutional leaders at the colleges and RPK group has completed its initial analysis on the program array. Meetings have been held with different faculty advisory groups. There was a big town hall meeting that was held on Friday, April 30th. And then the data that the RPK group has been using for their work on the program array that data has been shared with faculty and it's actually publicly available too through the transformation website. The common general education core which was something that the board had asked or directed that the colleges do back in the fall that has now been approved by all the faculty assemblies. And we have recently posted the position for the VSCS director of libraries. Again, just to remind you with the thought was we have CCV and Vermont Tech currently have a successful virtual library, Castleton and Northern Vermont University are interested in being part of that. And to help move that project along we're looking to hire a director of libraries to assist with it. And then we're also working on an application for a Davis Foundation grant to help with the looking at the program array, some additional funding to help us with that work. So that should be going out shortly. And then on the next slide. So next up, the faculty currently are providing input on the framework that RPK group has presented. I believe that the time for providing feedback may end today but they've had the opportunity to provide feedback on that. RPK will be issuing a report and a recommendation that will go to the EPSL committee on May 24th and then ideally for consideration by the board on June 16th. We currently, academic leaders are working with faculty with regard to the summer work that will be done in connection with the program array. And again, the hope is that we will shortly be be exploring and hiring a new director of libraries. And then once that person has been hired beginning the design for the virtual library as well as implementing the general education core for incoming students in this fall and providing professional development on instructional design for faculty. The next piece that we're looking at here will be on administrative consolidation. So again, as I mentioned, we have met with the US Department of Education. One of the pluses is that fortunately all four of our institutions work with the same officer from the Department of Education which will be helpful for us moving forward. A number of working groups were established again as I mentioned before as we were looking at that expedited timeline. We started having a number of groups came together and have been continuing to work together since then. So financial aid, accounts receivable, admissions, registrars, development and alumni relations and marketing. And right now there's a process going underway where those groups are documenting what they're currently doing, what's happening at each institution. So we can start finding sort of what's common, what needs to be adjusted. And then also what ideally would we want to look like for an administrative consolidation moving forward? What would be the preferred way to do it? We're also looking at our software options and this is in connection to our business processes. And I see Janet has a hand up. Janet, did you want to ask a question now? You're on mute. Sorry. Your previous slide on the reference to the library. Yes. I guess my question there is how, Joyce has talked quite a bit about the library and I think the work that CCB did with VTC. How much is this the library piece, a brand new effort versus being able to build on that? I believe it's gonna be building on what we've already, what we've already experienced with CCB and VTC, but also looking to create something new. But I don't know, Yasmin, if you're available to answer any additional questions on that as you've been leading that project. Sure. I mean, I think there are a lot of good models there in the Heartness Library. Janet, some of the pieces that have to come together is to operate sort of effectively as a single library is a lot of the backend database connection work so that it's seamless for students, kind of one point of access. So it gets fairly technical, but in terms of what's different, like that's a kind of an immediate thing we have to work on to get, you know, Castleton students and NBU students able to access resources in exactly the same ways. Okay. Thank you. So next up for administrative, I think we were on next up on administrative consolidations. I think is where we were at. So we still need to complete the current documentation of what we're currently doing. We need to establish system-wide service baselines and complete the evaluation of our current software. We're also evaluating national best practices in the core administrative areas. And then we're going to be collaboratively developing consolidation plans and timelines for those again, that this will involve a lot of sequencing as we move forward. Certain things are going to have to precede other things. So we will be looking at that next on the administrative consolidations. Next is the information technology. So again, as was already mentioned today, Kelly Campbell has recently stepped full-time, I guess not full-time, it's not the right word. She was full-time before she was acting as the interim before, but she is now the chief information officer. She and Doug Eastman have been working very hard to go around the system, meet with the executive leadership at the colleges, as well as meeting with the IT folks at the colleges and really conducting a listening tour to find out where things currently stand. And then developing an IT roadmap for transformation and effective operation. As we know, IT is going to be absolutely critical to us as we move forward. It really is the backbone of everything that we do, particularly, you know, obviously since COVID that's become even more apparent over the past year. So IT is working on identifying gaps in infrastructure and services. We've already kicked off a system-wide portal project and started work on creating a unified help desk. And then Doug and Kelly have already started meeting regularly with Ellucian. Ellucian is the vendor for Colleague, which is our ERP system to start identifying gaps and options for us moving forward on how best to address those. So coming up on information technology will be, again, continuing to work on developing an effective organizational model, identifying the strategy and prioritizing the roadmap to serve administrative consolidations and the new combined entity, as well as continuing the work that's already started on the portal project and the help desk. Continuing to meet with Ellucian in alignment with the transformation timeline and identifying and starting those priority projects based on the gaps identified. So there's a number of meetings coming up with Ellucian, the senior leadership, the presidents and the business affairs council will be meeting with Ellucian on Thursday to kind of learn a little bit more about what's going on with the information technology, some of the challenges we face given how our past use of Colleague and we're hoping to come back to the board, either both Epsilon and the full board or the full board in June to sort of talk about a bit more about that as we move forward because that's going to be critical for us. Next we have workforce development. This right now is, and you'll hear a bit more about this in the legislative update, but we've been meeting with the house and the Senate to discuss workforce initiatives. A lot of this came out of the house commerce committee was adopted by the house appropriations and the full house went to the Senate. The Senate had a slightly different approach to things, wanted to move some things around. So we've been working on that. But one piece that has already been approved and gone into law is the workforce 2.0. So as you probably will remember, we had a very successful launch of a workforce initiative using some CARES Act funding in the fall. And the legislature in H315, which already has, as I say passed and gone into law, approved a second round of workforce 2.0 and we're currently working or our workforce development. Teams are working very hard on how to implement that. And then there are a number of critical occupation scholarships that are still being worked out by the house and the Senate as they confer on the budget right now. So the next steps on that is again, launching the workforce initiative 2.0. This is, it's a three semester proposal. Before, if you remember, we had to kind of deliver it between October and December because that's the limits of the funds that we had at the time. This proposal is to offer free courses to people affected by COVID for the summer, fall and then next spring. So it has a longer time period to deliver it in. We also plan once the budget has been resolved to market and implement the critical occupation scholarships. We also plan to meet with UVM's office of engagement to sort of talk more about the work they're doing and how we can make sure we're aligned and we're working together and not stepping on each other's toes as we move forward. We'll also be looking to create a search committee for the executive director of the workforce development area that we're planning as well as identifying who that will be as we move forward. Facilities transformation, the, Sharon and, sorry, finance folks have met with the treasurer's office regarding disposal of assets and have also met with the bond bank regarding disposal of assets. So this is really around what flexibility do we have with regard to either selling, leasing or repurposing some of the infrastructure that we have? As a result of that, we've been working with the legislature to update the statutory language around what we're required to do if we're considering, for example, selling or leasing property that we have. We always were required to consult with the treasurer's office. It just wasn't entirely clear that that was the case. So that that's now going to be clarified in the legislative language that's currently being worked on by the General Assembly. There's also plans underway to use CRF funding to improve ventilation in core academic spaces. That was something that was provided for in some of the funding we've already received. And then we've also been engaging in some preliminary discussions regarding our anticipated removal out of Stonecutter's Way next year. Our lease doesn't expire until next year but we're already starting to figure out what logistically that's going to require in terms of us moving, relocating, continuing to be online, whatever that will be. So those discussions have already started. And then next on facilities transformation there's a capital spending review that's underway that we need to complete. We're also reviewing all our current proposals for property disposal of property with the treasurer's office in the bond bank. And then we'll be kicking off the facilities master planning activities. Again, continuing work on relocation of the Chancellor's office as well as issuing an RFP for duct work and cleaning and system wide ventilation assessment. So that'll be a significant amount of work. And then that work needs obviously to be done, the cleaning and assessment. And then finalize the plans for the remaining CRF funds that we have. And then on project management, continuing to deploy our internal communication strategy we did issue an RFP for project management services as well as launching a job search for director of transformation projects. That concluded last week. So I'm very happy to tell you that we had a representation from all four institutions on the search committee. They did a fantastic job. They had 75, actually, I think it was more, it was more like 79 applications. They conducted nine screening interviews and we had extensive interviews and a presentation from the three finalists last week. We extended an offer to the top candidate who has accepted and he will be starting on June 1st of 2021. His name is Wilson Garland and he will be, he's currently with the University of the Minnesota State System and he'll be coming to us from there. In addition, we did have a training session provided by Alan Rogers on project management that was for both the chancellor's office and the college senior leadership teams just to make sure we're all understanding what's involved with project management. That was certainly a big focus of the select committee report that anything we do moving forward be done in a professionalized project management way and that we learn from our past mistakes and not repeat those as we move forward. So next steps on project management is we do anticipate hiring an additional project management person to assist Wilson Garland as well as identifying other folks maybe internally to assist with that and then creating a project management office and then we'll be working on defining the portfolio of all the projects moving forward, developing project charters, engaging stakeholders as part of that work, we'll also be updating the risk management plan and this didn't really quite fit in here but I wasn't quite sure where else to put it. We also will be undertaking this summer a review and update of VSC board policies. So that will be an important thing we'll be looking at this summer. All right, as far as the strategic financial plan goes we're continuing to work with the legislature and the governor to obtain funding for FY22. So both bridge funding as well as an increase to the base and transformation funding. So far both the house and the Senate are in agreement on those first three things. The one place where there are differences is the critical occupations scholarships. Which again, I think you'll get a little bit more of that in the update on the legislature coming up next. Also working on completing the FY22 budget and then preparing to launch the planning for the strategic financial plan. So defining what the financial objectives and goals will be beyond just sustainability and gathering data on that. And so the next steps for that will be launching the planning in June and the goal is to have a plan available in preparation for the September board meeting for your review. And then this you probably will remember seeing from over a very similar thing being that was part of the February 22nd meeting we presented to you. So this is really just to kind of bring you up to date on it. So again, the transformation project plan was approved in February. The requesting advisory opinion from Nechi has come off the chart because that was determined not to be necessary. We've added in that we will be establishing the name for the new combined entity at the August board meeting and then have added in or updated that the approval of administrative transformation benchmarks will occur at the September meeting. So we just wanted to make sure you, those were an update was provided to you on those decision points. And then finally, I did wanna just review with you the communication update. So we have a lot of work that's been going on. We've been trying to communicate as much as we can with folks. So right now we have bi-weekly transformation updates that we've been issuing. Our third one is scheduled to go out later today. Those are also posted on the transformation websites. So if anybody has missed one, they're all available in one place. We're continuing to provide updates on the transformation website. Again, there are links there for the academic portfolio review as well. So there's lots of information on that website. There's a link as well for people to provide comments and feedback. So we review that and we will be providing, I think we'll be sort of analyzing it on a monthly basis, but to bring back and share with you. In the meantime, there's a lot of ongoing work that's happening. So weekly meetings that I have with the presidents, the business affairs council meets weekly with Sharon, then the COP and the BAC and my senior leadership team, we meet once a week. And as I had mentioned earlier, there are cross-institution working groups going on as well. And I also meet monthly with union leadership as well, just so we can sort of all make sure we're communicating as well as we can. Ryan has been very helpful along with Devin Tingle, who was the student representative on the select committee. We've had, I think we've had three or four student forums that we've done over the past few months. We won't continue them through the summer. The sense was that that would probably not attract that much attention, but we do plan on continuing to do student forums in the fall. And I think that was it. I don't remember. Oh, the other piece is we have had, we've did one meeting where we brought all the senior leadership teams from the colleges together with the chancellor's office together to do an update. And we have another one scheduled for May 20th again, just to make sure that everyone's on the same page as we move forward. And I'm happy to answer any other questions that folks may have on where we are right now and where we're headed. Janet. Yeah, so the slide that talked about the workforce workforce development position. Yes. I don't know what the intent was or the plan was for that job description, but as an employer, I think it'd be great to really think hard about how we want that job to look because there's sure a lot of organizations and entities in Vermont that go out knocking on employers doors and not really clear where it ever ends up in terms of a result. So it's created a bit of a cynicism, I guess, that when people come your way that it's gonna eventually help your workforce. So I just, I mean, I think it's a really important position. Don't get me wrong, but I think what we want that job to look like and that position to look like and how it interacts with the economic development groups and the state kind of gonna be important or it can really get lost in the noise and never have a result. Not because of not having good intentions, but it's just, it's a bit of a challenge to turn it into results. I guess a really good point. We can certainly happy to share the draft proposal with trustees and be very interested in getting your input Janet and Adam, I'm sure and then anyone else that has thoughts on that before we post it. So happy to do that. Anyone else? Megan. Thanks, not a question, but I just wanted, Sophie, thank you for that thorough report and for all the work that has gone into this, not only I'm sure of you and your team, but the faculty and staff across the system who are moving this forward. It's been an incredibly challenging year in higher education. And I just wanna recognize that I know folks are exhausted from just getting through COVID and helping students through that. And I really appreciate all the work that you've done and everyone has done to move this forward in this difficult, difficult year. Yeah, thank you. And I definitely agree that this is not a effort by a couple of people. This is taking a huge amount of work and it will continue to take a huge amount of work as we move forward. And it really will touch on everybody in the system and everyone has a role to play. So very appreciative for all the work that's been undertaken. And yeah, looking forward to working with everyone as we move forward. I mean, it's exciting. It is exciting to be able to create something new and reinvent ourselves, but it doesn't mean it's easy to do. Anyone else? I would like to echo Megan's compliment. It is a very, very in-depth and very, very granular discussion of all the things that you and your teams have been doing. And I have weekly phone calls with you and I have weekly phone calls with Jim Page and I try to touch base with other people on the board. And I will say that I was very impressed because I wasn't sure how far along all those things were and I'm probably as informed as anybody on the board. And I'll tell you that really was a very good report. Congratulations to Sophie. Thank you. And I think once we have Wilson on board and we can start sharing more detailed project charters and things, I think it'll, hopefully it'll look a little more professional than perhaps it has up until now, but we're very happy to have him come on board too. I think that's gonna help us really jump ahead as well. Well, thank you very much for all that effort and that work that's really very impressive. Does anyone else have any comments or questions? Well, moving on, we have a legislative update from Catherine, Catherine LaVesser. I believe Catherine sent out a report, an email that we all received about what was going on with the budget proposal. We'll can start with that if unless she has something else she wants to start with. That is where I'm starting. Thank you, Chair Dickinson. So as the 2021 legislative session winds down, we want to share a few brief updates with you today about the budget request and a few other things. We've continued working closely this session with legislative leadership, the Joint Fiscal Office, the Governor's staff and members of the administration, as well as our committee liaisons. You may recall that in January, the governor recommended that the Vermont State College's system receive a one-time $20 million appropriation to support system transformation on top of our $30 million standard-based appropriation. This was a tremendous first step in our budget process. In March, we shared with you that the House recommended that the Vermont State College's received funding consistent with the Select Committee on the Future of Public Higher Education in Vermont's report and that they also included $20.5 million in critical occupation scholarships, workforce development proposals and free tuition programs for our students. The Senate recently made their recommendations for the budget and the budget is now in a committee of conference where the differences between the two chambers bills will be worked out. Notably for the Vermont State College's system, the Senate and the House are in agreement on major aspects of our budget, including $76.5 million to support the Vermont State College's and our transformation. And that $76.5 million includes $30.5 million in our standard-based appropriation, a $5 million permanent increase to that annual state appropriation, $20 million to support system transformation over the next four years by pre-funding our transformation costs and $21 million in one-time bridge funding to address the Vermont State College's operating deficit due to COVID-19. In a similar proposal to the House, the Senate put forward $12.4 million in scholarships, workforce development and free tuition programs for our students. There is broad agreement in both chambers on many aspects of this proposal, including providing free classes, a free tuition program, scholarships to incentivize adult learners to finish their degrees, scholarships to incentivize students to transfer home to Vermont State College's system schools. And while there is broad agreement there, the chambers have some differences in how the money is allocated to students in certain professions and in the total dollar amounts allocated for some of the programs. In addition, we've requested that in the budget negotiations, they discuss that we be able to use the funds over two academic years rather than one. This will both help our students shore up our enrollment and increase student confidence in the system as we transition. We are fairly confident that wherever the legislature lands on the final budget, Vermont State College's students will be tremendously benefited next academic year. And in addition to the financial aspects of the budget, there is general agreement between the House and the Senate on the proposed legislative requirements language that the Vermont State College's board and the chancellor must adhere to that we shared with you in March. There are a few changes that the Senate made to the language, but they are quite minor and will be worked out in the committee of conference. Once the bill is finalized, the House and the Senate, the full chambers will again weigh in on the bill and then it will go to the governor. And so in addition to the budget, we are tracking several bills that may impact our students and our institutions. We do expect generally positive outcomes for the Vermont State College's system on all of these and we'll look forward to sharing a comprehensive written update when the session concludes. On a final note, Chancellor Zadatni noted in her presentation that H315, also known as Act 9, recently passed into law. This bill provides funding for three Vermont State College's programs, including two that were proposed in the original House Critical Occupations budget. The first is to use ARPA funds to be able to open 40 to 45 seats at Vermont Technical College in the practical nursing program to upskill existing staff in long-term care facilities in Vermont. The second is $3 million for workforce 2.0. So this is the workforce initiative for Vermonters whose employment or their employer was affected by the pandemic. It gives them the opportunity to take up to two free classes within the Vermont State College's system. And we hope to be rolling out this program in the coming months with some public announcements about how Vermonters can enroll. And lastly, there was $2.8 million allocated to the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation to provide funding for Vermonters in the high school class of 2020 or 2021 to take up to two free classes at any Vermont State College's institution. We are coordinating with BSAC to stand up this program and we are expecting a public announcement, a joint public announcement about it shortly. And so while the signals we've received up to this point continue to be tremendously positive, we do still have a long way to go before we reach the finish line. But we are very much looking forward to our continued work with the legislature and with the governor as the budget moves to the finish line. And I would be happy to take any questions from board members if there are some. Any questions on the legislative update? Okay, seeing none, I just wanna thank you very much, Catherine. It is very difficult to work in the legislature by Zoom as I'm sure several of us know quite well. And it's hard to keep up with what's going on in all of these things. And I really wanna thank you for all your help and your endeavors with this because I know you've been in touch with probably lots of people to help make all of this possible. But thank you very much. Thank you, it's a team effort. Yes, well, thank you very much. Any other questions on that? Oh, okay. We have going to turn this over to President Moulton who is going to do a presentation for Vermont's technical transformation group. This is something that they've been working on for quite some time. And I'm gonna hear what we have to say. Thank you very much, Pat. Well, good afternoon. And thank you all very much for giving us some time this afternoon. Very much appreciated. And I wanna start out with a few things. First of all, we're not here seeking any sort of a program approval or even action from the Board of Trustees other than to get your reactions and share your thoughts with us. As we move forward to a single accredited university for Vermont Tech, Castleton and NBU, I felt the board should hear what we've done to reexamine one of our lower enrolled and the more expensive programs that being our agriculture programs. Recognizing this is a legacy program for Vermont Tech. We've been providing agriculture education for over 121 years. The Vermont School of Agriculture was started when our land grant university had failed to provide a degree in agriculture in 25 years. And the Vermont School of Agriculture was started but it was also challenged in the 1950s when farmers were going out of business and enrollment was very low. It's deja vu all over again. We morphed into the Vermont Agriculture and Technical Institute and the ag program changed then. So the adaptation and change is not new to Vermont Tech's ag program. This happened formally and informally throughout our history and we're looking to do yet another significant pivot now. And this pivot was driven by the former chancellor's announcement to close the Randolph Center campus which could have meant the entire loss of the agriculture program. And ag leaders in Vermont recognize what a loss that would have been for ag education in Vermont if Vermont Tech was not offering that. Three of these ag leaders approached me about gathering subject matter experts across the state to define the best niche for Vermont Tech in our dairy and more diversified ag. And that process began a year ago and assembled over 40 subject matter experts who have completely volunteered their time to do this work. And in many cases, volunteered two to four hours a week in meetings and homework on the side, including the three ladies that have joined me here today. And they are Ellen Kaler who is with the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund. And as I affectionately refer to Ellen, the mother of Vermont Farm to Plate when I would argue Farm to Plate in the country because Vermont once again led the way. Also Regina Beidler who is a neighbor to Vermont Tech and she and her husband used to have an organic farm. Now she works for Organic Valley and her husband is a nursing student with Vermont Tech right now. Also Louise Calderwood who is a fixture in Vermont agriculture for many, many years with Vermont Extension, former deputy secretary of the agency of agriculture and now with the American feed industry. I could not have had three better people to work with me to lead this effort. And these three ladies and volunteers including staff, faculty, alumni, folks from other higher education institutions that you'll see, state and federal government, farmers and other experts have given generously of their time to analyze, debate, project and build a plan for us going forward. We have some more work to do to help assure this model will be what we need it to be when we're moving forward but we are moving forward on the transition. So today we're sharing the analysis, the recommendations and the plan for moving forward for you to get your thoughts, questions, feedback and concerns. We will be sharing the slide deck we're about to start on with you at immediately following the board meeting but wanted your full attention here. So Regina are you driving as Ellen driving? I'm sorry that I wasn't sure but I know you're all co-hosts who can make that happen. And I'm gonna cover the first few slides and then turn things over to Regina. So are we good to go? There we go. Perfect. Okay, so this is our agriculture and food system education transfer mission project our presentation to you. And we're gonna run through the quick presentation or the presentation is why are we doing this and the assessment of our current state finances enrollment, the process we've used and who's been involved with deep dive financial analysis and Lit Tyler has been very much engaged in that. Our final recommendations about the program the interim steps and then your questions and comments. So first is why are we doing this? And as you can see in this chart the declining headcount we've seen in our agricultural programs over the last many years and we literally have because of COVID this year 22 students in our ag program and have not enrolled big numbers for quite a while. Also next slide if you would Regina thanks to the work that Lit Tyler had done with faculty around modeling our academic programs we are also able to as well as our own financial information been able to do a lot of financial analysis. You see again on the top chart a comparison of our ag cost per student and this is a result of the work that Lit and faculty members did. And we compare that with nursing which is clearly our largest program but some other programs professional pilot electrical engineering technology and that ultimately gets us down to a cost per student when we consider the enrollment the number of administrators are operational costs and clearly the operational costs are intense because we maintain a farm with 85 milking lactating cows. So it's one of our most expensive programs if not the most expensive program it is the most expensive program on a cost per student. You'll also see in the lower chart the losses the college has been sustaining in this program over the last several years driven in large part again by low enrollment. We are pretty lean staffed we have one full-time faculty, a part-time faculty and a full-time farm manager who work on the project but still we're losing significant money and that's driven primarily by milk prices which Louise can speak to far more eloquently than I can but it's these losses across the bottom that we do not have the bottom chart that we do not feel are sustainable and that we need to transition before we bring this program into the new combined entity. And with that, Regina I'll let you take it from here. Thanks so much and this is Regina I just wanna make sure you can hear me okay. Yeah, thank you. Okay, thanks Pat. This slide is just an indication to say that what's Pat has been describing at Vermont Tech is contrasted against a rapidly growing local and regional food system with a wider expansive job opportunities and more specific training needs for its current and future labor force. You're probably aware of these dynamics through the work of Farm to Plate. And as we discussed, it's important for us to remember that the food system is bigger than production agriculture. So the big question for us in this process was is Vermont Tech going to focus solely on protection agriculture, education and training or can we also focus on other aspects of the food system? As Pat was introducing as well, there were a lot of people involved in this process and it didn't happen in a vacuum but with the input of a large and diverse group of stakeholders. This included listening sessions with a number of groups in the food system including current and former faculty and staff, community members, food system workers. I'll call out one specific session that gathered a group of recent two plus two students who had left VTC and are now at the University of Vermont. We got to ask them about what drew them to Vermont Tech and the strengths and future opportunities of the program. A survey group put together a survey that was sent out to a diverse group of stakeholders to invite feedback and that was completed by 191 respondents and all of this feedback and all the subject matter experts insights were added to this process for their combined expertise in this process. We've already mentioned the leadership team which is President Moulton, Louise, Ellen and myself and we've been meeting weekly since last May. We also were joined by a very capable of steering committee that drew from across the wide cross section of Vermont agriculture and education and that group had been meeting monthly through this past through about a month ago in fact through April and continues to be on call for any future feedback or needs that we need from them. I mentioned the survey committee which helped to put together that survey which drew about almost 200 responses. We had four other teams that worked through this process as well. The first one being the program models development team that was led by Phillip Ackerman Least and this group did a survey of other existing agriculture programs across the country to identify the flexible elements and delivery modalities that reflect the needs of current students and the food systems. A culture and curriculum team was led by Mark Mahaly who's a former dean and president of Vermont Law School. This group looked at identifying the knowledge and competencies that are needed for success in today's food system. They also reviewed the current curriculum at Vermont Tech for gaps and coordinated with the program model team around delivery modalities. Part of this culture and curriculum team was a dairy subgroup made up of a lot of different types of dairy producers of different size, some conventional, some organic, some goat, some cow to be able to put their expertise in as well since Vermont Tech has had a long-standing program and has an important place for dairy and future producer education. So this group too looked at what is the essential knowledge that dairy farmers need to have? Where does that education happen and how do those pieces support the needs of the food system? A business case development team was led by Jed Davis from Cabot Creamery. They arguably had the heaviest lift because they took the recommendations that came out of the program model and culture and curriculums team and applied financial scrutiny to those recommendations. This team reviewed existing conditions, current performance, proposed transformation, performance expectations, expected results and helped to identify gaps for long-term financial viability of the program. And finally, the marketing and communications team led by Kate Finley Woodruff from the University of Vermont. This team looked at developing some messaging around articulating the promise and the delivery of what students will receive from this program through clear messaging for identified audiences and that at the same time aligns with the larger marketing and messaging of the college. So through all of this, we have a number of recommendations that we'd like to show you today. The first is the recommendation to create a center for agriculture and food entrepreneurship. We feel like there are multiple benefits from this movement. One would be to make it an easily identifiable and marketable portal for prospective students to see the variety of available learning options available at Vermont Tech. There's also the ability to place advising at the center of the learning process to assist individual students in meeting their individual learning and professional goals. There's close connection to the activity in the classroom and on the campus farm and the ability to collaborate and coordinate closely with continuing education and other departments. One of the strengths of Vermont Tech is being able to not only have an agriculture education but also to have other types of technical education available. And the final benefit that we could see of a center was the ability to strategically market, implement, assess and continually enhance a suite of programs and learning modalities under the umbrella of the center. We also know that there are a lot of pieces that are already in place at Vermont Tech that are very important to keep. Program analysis showed that there's strength in maintaining the current range of programs with short courses, certificates, associates degrees and bachelor's programs including continuing access to the two plus two program with UBM. We also saw value in having a strong core curriculum that allows flexibility in learning for individual students. The existing associates degrees of agribusiness management and dairy herd management have significant overlap allowing space for an additional focus area that answers other worker needs in the growing food system. This offers the opportunity to recommend one associates in agriculture and food system entrepreneurship with concentrations in animal science or food entrepreneurship to meet the needs of a wider audience of students. When we were recommending this, we want to make sure that this recommendation would meet the proposed change of major would still meet the graduation requirements, the needs of the current two plus two program and those who want to pursue dairy management education. So in this slide, you'll see in the top box the gen ed requirements that are required for every student. And then below that in the lower box, what we see as core curriculum for any student in the ag program no matter what concentration they are choosing. I'll point out in the lower box that the next to the last bullet includes an internship of nine credits over two semesters which we'll talk about just a bit further down the presentation. Students would have to choose their concentration interests under this proposal and that which would provide the classes needed to meet their educational and career goals. And we see what's starting with these two concentrations that there would be flexibility to add additional concentrations as student interest and opportunities presented to themselves in the future. We see the opportunity to expand the existing number of students and learning styles by increasing the type and number of short courses and certificates and offering additional online and hybrid learning options. Jterm and summer programs would allow students the chance to learn in areas that are not covered in the regular curriculum and takes advantage of the growing season when a lot of agricultural activity happens. Applied education is a hallmark of Vermont Tech. This is reinforced by a recommendation of introducing nine credits of internship experience spread over the last two semesters of the associate's degree. Experienced during the first year would focus on growing basic farm and food production skills and resume and interview experience. And these are pieces that are already part of the curriculum at Vermont Tech. The second year would place students into internships with a focus on their area of interest, including a project of interest that would be beneficial to the student's mentor in the final semester. All of this learning described in these recommendations benefits from a more diverse array of on-farm experiences at the campus farm. This, along with a significant annual financial deficits at the farm, led to the recommendation of selling the dairy milking herd and substituting in six other enterprises, which you'll see here on the screen, a beef herd, dairy heifer grazing, deeply bedded hogs, vegetable production and joining two existing enterprises that are already on campus, which is Maple and the apple orchard. This doesn't mean that we wouldn't have dairy education on the campus as both the coursework and the ability to work with non-lactating cows will continue to exist. Partnerships with area farms would help to fill in some additional skills. The two plus two focus groups spoke positively about the interaction with local farms, giving real life perspectives that can't be learned on the campus farm. And we believe these longstanding relationships with area dairy farms will strongly continue. If adopted, this new program will require some rebranding and expansion of marketing approaches to significantly grow student enrollment. So this is an example of a type of marketing piece that could be utilized. You'll notice that we've called out the Center for Agriculture and Food Entrepreneurship as we've talked about with the center and then showing a more diverse array of enterprises and experiences that students would come to meet at Vermont Tech. And so with that, I'm going to hand the microphone over to Louise and she's gonna walk you through a few of the financial pieces. Okay, Regina, and you'll keep right on the slide. I will. We've gotten to be quite the tag team over the months here. So as Regina mentioned, the role of the business case development team was to take a look at the financial and enterprise analysis of all of these wonderful visionary opportunities that were developed through all of the other stereo, all of the other working groups. So if you'll go ahead and roll on for me, Regina, I'd appreciate it. So we started by looking at what is the steady state? What is the current scenario at Vermont Tech? And if you'll start in the center of your screen in the light yellow pair of columns and actually start on the left of those, the very lightest of the columns, this shows that between student tuition and the agricultural enterprises on campus, the dairy herds, the orchards, the maple operation, that the total income is about $730,000 for the ag program. And this is offset by the overall expenses in the program. Of course, all of the instructional and staff costs, the costs for operating the agricultural enterprises. And these also include the Institute for Agricultural Education. So all of the components of the ag program are included here. So this shows a loss when we pull in not just the cash, but also what is expected for a return to margin, which across Vermont Tech is expected to be a 74% return to margin. And the ag program is currently operating at a minus 18% return to the target margin. You can see that in reality, the ag program is operating at a loss of $814,000. And that's what the current enrollment of 22 students. The first piece that we looked at is what if we kept things the same? We kept the dairy herd, we kept everything as it is, how many students would it require to not only break even on a cash basis, but to also return that 70% margin that's required for the total operations of the campus. And that would require a growth of 135 students, as you can see on the bottom row. So then we looked at a number of different scenarios. The first is what if we had no production enterprises on campus and we didn't create the new center? Well, in that case, the break-even was anticipated to be 44 students, but there's some problems with this scenario. There's no leadership, no vision, no forward-looking with that. There would be opportunities for students to still have internships, to have off-campus experiences. And this scenario does include some additional costs to develop those off-campus scenarios, but it's still a concern is this enough to essentially double the number of students and attract students to the campus? Scenario three was what happens if we revise the enterprises? So we have the hogs, the stalker beef, the grazing dairy heifers, the vegetables. What happens if we revise the enterprises but don't create the center for agricultural entrepreneurship? Well, that would require 77 students to break even. And on the far right in the light blue column is scenario four. And this is the combination of revising the enterprises as Regina and I have explained and adding the cafe, the center. Yes, the total cost there is quite high at $982,000 to run that program. And in order to break even and to bring the 74% margin that's required back to the campus, it would require a headcount for 125 students. We recognize it's ambitious, we recognize that it's a heavy lift, but we do have some thoughts of how to achieve this. So first, let's just look at what do the enterprises look at very briefly here. You can see that each one of the enterprises with the exception of the maple and the orchard on the far right on a strictly cash basis runs at a moderate loss. So this is a total loss of about $86,000 that would need to be subsidized by tuition and other forms of income. It's recognized that this is a lab on campus like many other labs, but we did just want to make certain that you folks realize that we had run the analysis on the cost of running the pure lab on campus. But just consider that bright yellow box of $86,000 compared to what the historical figures were in the very first slide that President Molton put up. And that's a current loss of about a quarter of a million dollars from the agricultural enterprise. You'll go ahead, Regina. We did an assessment of what are the capital needs for the campus. So if you'll start on the left-hand side of your screen here, the table that runs horizontally, we looked at what are the deferred maintenance costs for the exterior of the buildings on the campus. This is rooms and siding and doors and windows, that sort of thing. And you can see the deferred maintenance here is close to $200,000. For the interior of the buildings, the stalls, the flooring for the animals, the waterers, the gates, that sort of thing, it's close to a $70,000 deferred maintenance for the interior of the buildings. And to fit up the new enterprises, to bring in the four new enterprises and do some upgrades to the sugaring operation, it's about $109,000 of capital needs. So the total capital needs for the campus are $377,000 for a combination of the deferred maintenance on the exteriors, the deferred on the interiors, and then also some fit up for the new enterprises. I should include and point out that some of this deferred maintenance includes things such as the bathrooms, the classroom, the office, is the parking lot appropriate. Those sorts of things were also considered. So now if we move over to the right-hand side of the screen, the top box is your income estimates. And it's thought that the sale of the dairy herd could generate about $65,000 worth of income, and then some proceeds from the Norwich liquidation. And it's estimated there could be about $100,000 worth of income. So for capital income, for the transition to this new model, they anticipated about $165,000 worth of income to offset what you see in the green box of the $377,000 of capital needs. And at the very bottom, it's estimated that the net capital needs is just to tick over $212,000 to meet the deferred maintenance and then also stand up the new enterprises. So what are some of the steps that are needed to get to this point? What are some of the immediate funding needs that we see for capital and then also for some program needs? Well, the first thing that we identified is the need for four short-term independent contractors who can assist with the start of the transition. And the thought here is that they would each cover a specific role in looking at the transition, and the total cost for the contractors would be about $75,000. The heavy lift is the reboot of the current program, the development of the CAFE model over three years. This is a combination of funding for the director, also for some additional marketing and branding and outreach type work. So the thought there is that that would probably come to about $750,000 for three years. The thought being here is that this would give the director for the CAFE the time to be building the connections, building the programming and building the student base that would be needed for cash flow. As I explained in the previous slide, the capital expenditures, about $213,000 plus the $25,000 for the upgrades of the existing farm facilities. And that $25,000 again is the bathroom, the offices, that sort of thing. So what are some of the additional challenges, things beyond just the funding? Well, certainly the need to teach out the current program and the current majors. And there is focus put on that right now of how do the existing students have their existing expectations met as the transition is made moving forward. And then also the heavy lift of the special funds to transform the existing program, to build the internship sites recognizing that under any of the scenarios, there will be a stronger commitment across businesses from the entire state for serving as internships. So the work for that, and then the marketing and the recruitment work that would also go along with it. So at this point, I'm gonna turn this over to Pat to give a wrap up of what are some of the interim steps that are needed to get us to the steady state. Thank you so much, Louise, I appreciate that. So as Louise mentioned, we're talking about trying to get part-time contractors that we can have working this summer and this fall to start nailing down things like farms and businesses that are willing to host our students in internships. I need to know that they're ready to be there for the long-term basis. Also seeking out additional employer partners and building some additional offerings through our Ag Institute and our Continuing Ed and Workforce Development Division. For example, there's a screaming need right now for expertise in meat cutting and proper butchering. Given the incredible increase in local sourcing of food, there are companies now looking, one that we know of that needs 10 new people. We've had a partnership with Shaw's and others doing meat cutting, but it's been sort of one-offs. There's currently money pending for the agency of agriculture that could potentially fund acquisition of equipment. And we are also going through some planning and looking on where might we establish that lab or what we've done in the past is partner with existing meat cutters, but they're too busy to let us come and take over their facility right now. But that may be another option that we could partner and come with additional equipment. So we're looking into that. We also need to assist Molly Willard, who is the director of our Ag Institute. And she also is a part-time faculty for us in our Ag Program, or excuse me, in our forestry programs. And we wanna help her develop some additional short courses with the idea of market testing. What kind of short courses could we offer? What kind of credit would be or non-credit associated with that? And then Dr. Kim Crow, who is our faculty member and department chair, will be working over her sabbatical on reworking the curriculum and moving it through the internal program approval process and ultimately to Epsil. Steph Nall, who is our farm manager, we're gonna be looking for someone to help her assist in transitioning the farms specifically when we want to green light the sale of the lactating cows and to bring in the new animals as well as to work with her on developing the new ag enterprises. And then also we have a lot of work to do on raising funds. The funding we need to hire the director, but also the short-term contracting needs, but then also looking at assisting and increasing enrollment and overall program and rebranding. I mean, these are all things we've gotta be able to do to get ready to start admitting the class, the first class of the new cafe when it would not be fall 21, it would be fall 22. So those are the next steps and to get us to that steady state where we can know with confidence we are proceeding with this new model because there's some of these things we have to get some additional clarity on and we feel we can do that over the summer and the fall. So now it's really kind of, we'd like to hear from you. I will, I just wanna say that you've gotten a snapshot here. There is a ton of material that goes along with this. There are spreadsheets under spreadsheets under spreadsheets in all the business analysis and enterprise analysis. And I can thank Lit Tyler for that. He has worked tirelessly with that business case development team on that work. There are subcommittee reports and team reports. All of this was a pretty intense and deep dive into this program, such that I've not seen in my closing in on five years. But the areas of concern around can we find those internships? Can we raise the monies we need? We need to do additional market research to assure when we build it, they will come. We need to hire that champion for the program. Center director is going to be laser focused on increasing enrollment and know that those short courses, certificates and the associates are of interest and do some of that test marketing through continuing ed. So, and that's where we are right now. And at that point, I'm happy to shut up and give you all time to ask questions, share your concerns, whatever they might be. Janet and then Sean. Okay, so first of all, thank you. I really, I love the thoroughness of both the financials and the creativity and the engagement with so many stakeholders. So hugely impressive on that front. And also, even though I'm not an ag person, I just think Vermont without a good ag program just doesn't seem right. So I think coming up with the right one is important. Maybe it's in the to come with what Pat, what you said about marketing research, but if you look at your redesign goal and let's say you implemented that as you see it, who's your, do you know who your competition is in like the Northeast or, and is this something different than everybody else? Or anyways, any commentary on competitive analysis would be appreciated. Well, that is the intent, Janet, and thank you to is that we're going to be unique and different. And the program subcommittee and the culture and curricular subcommittee had looked, had done a lot of that competitor research to try to find the right niche that we can occupy and do that in a way that's cost effective. And, you know, I must say providing an agricultural program is not inexpensive. And a lot of like university and others, University of Vermont and others are moving away from large numbers of animals, but we also know our applied education needs that connection with animals. And I would say, I mean, our competitors right now are SUNY cobalt skill, SUNY, obviously Syracuse, but we don't compete on, or not Syracuse Cornell, we don't compete on the same level with Cornell and Minor Institute, which our students actually attend minor and they attend minor through UVM as well. And thank you, Kim. So SUNY, Morrisville, UNH obviously UVM are our competitors but we're trying to find something that's unique and different and more diversified, hence the internship on multiple farms, hence the opportunity to pick a concentration more in dairy management and or entrepreneurship, which is not something that is written into every curriculum at these other institutions. I don't know, Ellen, Louisa, Regina, if there's more you wanna add that to, please go. Well, the other part of it I would say is who are our collaborators? Because one of the lovely things about this process is that we had stakeholders from Sterling College, from University of Vermont, from other enterprises as well. So we're already seeing UVM seeing some nice synergy of things that Vermont Tech can offer that they cannot offer and vice versa. So are there ways that we can work together to expand the offerings to students with both institutions rather than seeing ourselves purely as competitors? Yeah, I will say Kate Finlay Woodruff and I met with she and the Dean of the Ag School, Leslie Parisi and the Kate had a list and arm long of areas that she thought we could collaborate and that the objective here is collaboration, not competition and how could our facilities support their students and vice versa? And that conversation has just begun. We haven't gotten into the weeds too much and how that's gonna go. All right, Sean? Sure, thank you. Really interesting. It also breaks my heart to see, letting go of the dairy program, but I completely understand it. Pardon me, couldn't help but wonder if that chart you put up showing the losses of each of the individual programs that you're moving into between meat production, pork, et cetera, it encapsulates the agriculture industry in general, but my question, you may have answered it already or it's where you need to spend more time, but really around that, I mean, to get to that break-even number of students, to me that feels like a heavy lift and you must have some sense of what the demand might look like without yet doing the full vetting and market research. Can you maybe spend a little bit more time in that and how realistic that break-even point might be to reach? You're absolutely right, Sean. It is a huge lift. I don't know, as far as we've been able to tell from records, I think our max enrollment in this program has been maybe 50 or 60, but the, and keep in mind that 125 to get to the enterprises and the center director is two years. So it's really about bringing in 60 new students a year and that is going to be crazy. And that's what we need to do to make a 74% margin. And so one question that I've been asking myself that I don't need you to answer today, but something for us to consider is how important is an ag program and what if we don't achieve the 74% but what if we get to positive 25, positive 50? I mean, is it fair for other students to subsidize other programs? Ultimately, no, but what is that right mix of programs across the new combined entity that is going to give us the return that we need? And where do we say, yep, you've got to achieve that 74 and where do we say, 54 might be okay. The market research that we have done, we've done some with the AB, we're going out now to look at completion rates and conferral rates with a whole lot of other institutions. And yeah, that is where the risk is. And that's part of why doing some of these short courses that could really get us in setting up like a meat cutting institute, doing some additional short course work that could help us achieve what we need in terms of enrollment and a champion. I mean, Kim Crow and her team, quote unquote, all one and a half of her do an amazing job now, but she's teaching full time. She's advising full time, and where's the person that's really going to be the champion for this program going forward. And I've heard some concern from faculty like, yeah, every program would do well if you had a director like that. But looking at this program, I mean, that's critical to this state as is a bunch of our other programs. At what point do we say, okay, either we pull the plug or we say, yes, this is good enough. But Ellen, I see your hand up, so please go ahead. Just to say that another way to look at it if you flip the question a little bit is what is the demand for workers and managers and owners in the food system? And that food system is growing. Over the last 10 years, we've seen a net new private sector jobs of 6,500 new jobs in the last 10 years in the food system. But you take a look at, it's not just production agriculture, it's across the entire food system, whether that's in food safety, needing more food safety professionals, needing more marketing experts in the branding area specifically for food, whether that's cheese makers or fermenters or brewers. I mean, this space is really exploding. And part of the challenge has been that parents and guidance counselors and students haven't been exposed enough to the breadth of the jobs that do exist and will exist into the future in the food system. And that's part of what we were talking about is how do we reach back in to both the CTEs but the juniors and the seniors in high school and build this awareness about the careers that do exist? The other key point is, just like all the other sectors of our economy, we're facing demographic challenges. So which is the institution of Vermont that's gonna be the place where the next generation of farm owners and food system business owners are gonna get trained because everybody's aging out and we need that next generation. And we really see that Vermont Tech has a really important role to play and a niche to fill in being that applied hands-on learning environment that's gonna get people, everybody to have a strong grounding in business, business acumen in marketing, understanding the marketplace and how things are shifting and how to be really consumer responsive and to be relevant for the food system that is coming down the pike and constantly ever, ever changing. And we see our student audiences coming from beyond Vermont to that it's Vermont and the entire region. So if we're depending on Vermont, that would be a small audience but across the Northeast would be a much larger group. Yeah, Ellen through the farm to play strategic plan has identified thousands of needed jobs. We also are seeing some changing in the thinking about regional food supplies as a result of COVID supply chain and how that's gonna impact which is also gonna have a demand for students across the gamut as Ellen discussed. And as Dr. Crow was pointing out to me, we don't necessarily do a very good job at providing pathway for CTE students coming out of agriculture and about 50% of them don't continue on to college. So the market is changing and I just wanna correct you on one thing, Sean, we're not getting rid of the dairy program. We're changing, we're getting rid of the lactating cows in favor of more on-farm based experience with Dr. Crow does now, but this would be three semesters and nine credits that those students would do and give them a diversified with organic, with non-organic, with cheese producing as well as in food producers when we met with the food producers, tremendous demand again, in middle and upper level management, but also online folks, but the food safety need, the understanding of the marketing, the understanding of the business practices is where we really need to focus, so. I've got Ryan and then Adam. Then Mary. And then Mary. So Ryan, go ahead. Yeah, thank you. So first off, excellent presentation, very well done with a lot of passion. So great to see that. Coming back to, as I think a lot of us are with this increasing enrollment and how we're going to go around doing that with this 60 per year, which is quite a lot in of itself, because I mean, as you all said, obviously there is growth in the food industry and being in a different industry that's seeing massive growth with the pilots, I can say, it's awesome, we're talking hundreds of thousands of jobs worldwide, but even our pilot program is growing by maybe five or seven students a year, and that's with jobs worldwide, not just in the US. So my question would be, not only how we would go about getting up to maybe that 60 number, but also what are the enrollments you're seeing at the other schools, you're going to be kind of competing and working with the Sunnis and the UBM and the UNH, because if they're growing, then great, I think you've got some opportunity, but if they're seeing decreasing enrollment as well, then I'd be a little more concerned. So I don't know if that's something you looked at as well and how their enrollment has been or if that's something you're going to be looking at in the coming months, but anything on that would be great, yeah. That's some of what we're looking into right now, Ryan. It's an excellent point is what's happening across our competitors or other schools that have similar type of ag programs, whether they're here, we really want to look through the Northeast. And so I don't have a really smart answer for that question right now, other than where we're digging into that further. And you're right, it's going to take a while to get us here, and that's part of why we want at least three years of a subsidized director salary so we can get some traction in that building. And the fortitude at some point to say, it's not working or yes, it is working and we need to give it more time. It's similar to a process we're doing with our additive lab where we've got a director there that we're subsidizing through our contract for five years to get time to build up and ramp up that enrollment, but we know it's not going to be instantaneous. And we know there's still demand within the dairy industry here in Vermont and we want to serve that, but the demand as Ellen has said is changing. And we're seeing more students coming to us, Kim, Dr. Crook could speak to that better, who have no on-farm experience. And then we have students who are grew up on a farm. So, and folks are coming and we have nontraditional adults that want to move into agriculture and where can we provide those opportunities? So, you know, keeping in mind the nontraditional delivery modalities and other options for future students too, I believe, will we hit that 125? Probably not in three years, but can we move and progress? I think yes. Great, thank you. That was a great presentation and I would agree that, you know, Vermont Tech without some sort of farm education just doesn't feel right. So I'm glad that you're putting this for us today. It also strikes me as the way in which, you know, if education is the hammer, everything's the nail, right? And so is education the solution for Vermont's farmers and the only way in which they can obtain what they need or do we have the product they need? And can we design a system that meets their needs? So I'm just curious if there was conversations around that topic. If, you know, is the Vermont Department of Agriculture the place to really be spearheading this or is it the Vermont State College? And are we the right ones? I hope we are. I hope there's a way in which, you know, especially bringing in the broader food system, you know, I don't know if this program, I didn't hear a lot about those, how that else would fit in, how the broader food system would benefit from this exact course in the center. But maybe if you could speak on those two points, that would be great. Thank you. Adam, I think you bring up a really interesting point. And Governor Scott has recently stood up a new commission on agriculture that's, that Ellen is going to be part of. And actually, I think there are at least three or four people who are part of our steering committee through this process who are part of that commission that's really going to be looking at, okay, where is the future of agriculture going? I did some listening tour three years ago around where is agriculture with large big A going? Where's dairy, where's goat, and there's different, you get different, 10 people are going to give you 10 different answers. And if you ask our friends at Vermont Creamery, if everybody did goats and provided goat milk, then the end of problem, but it's all of it. It's goats, it's value added processing, it's additional produce. I mean, and, you know, the ag industry is important to Vermont from a tourism standpoint, you know what I mean? With all due respect to some parts of Massachusetts, it's, you know, it's, or parts of New England, it's not that attractive. You come here and it is, but, so we tried to answer that exact question. Is this the product that folks need? Is this the product of what Vermont agriculture needs? And we have dozens of listening sessions to farmers, to producers, to distributors, to co-ops, and I can't list them all. And that's how we came up with this plan was through that listening session. And then I don't know if anybody else wants to weigh in this. I guess the question of it should be us or should it be agency bag? And it's gotta be us as we evaluate our program. I mean, it's gotta be us as Vermont Tech and as the new combined entity who decides where is our place gonna be in agriculture education. And then beyond that, I think it's up to others to say where is Ag going in the larger standpoint? I'd invite Louise or Ellen or Regina to weigh in, so please. Yeah, I'd like to speak to that if I may. And it's an excellent question. And in Vermont, if we truly are blessed in the diversity that we have in the way of different funding opportunities for all types of agricultural enterprises from the very tiniest beginning to the ones that are highly capitalized and leveraged and need to borrow a million dollars at a pop and not think twice about it. We also currently have a broad and rich base of technical assistance providers coming from a variety of different opportunities. And again, they serve agriculture across the range of producers. There are some gaps in technical assistance, but not only producers and processors, we have nimble opportunities to respond to technical assistance. So this after high school education piece is a critical piece. Is it the only piece that we need? No, but if Vermont Tech went away, it would create a huge gap in that piece. So I think it's a wonderful question to look at what are the other things that are needed to build a vibrant agricultural economy, including the value added processing. And just to speak to that very briefly, there is the opportunity for internships and coursework. You didn't see that in the six proposed enterprises. And quite frankly, that's because the staffing that's required for processing and marketing is a totally different staffing than what's needed for production. So that's very much seen as a phase two, is taking those same enterprises that you saw and developing value added opportunities in marketing of the whole animal or the entire vegetable, but also opportunities in processing. We see those as important next step. The only thing I'll add to that too is just an observation as a longtime farmer that it's a very technical and much more sophisticated and difficult job to do than can sometimes be looked at from the outside. That really being married to someone who is a dairy animal science graduate from university of Vermont, his ability to understand soils and animal physiology and chemistry and forages made him into an excellent farmer. You can farm without knowing that, but you benefit from knowing that. So I feel like whether you're in production agriculture or in another part of the food system, anything you learn around business or marketing or the way animals work or the way soils and grasses work, all of that's to your benefit to really succeed in a very challenging place. Mary, I think you're next. Yeah, I don't know how to put that little hand thing up there, so I just, I waved at you. Pat, you may have alluded to this, but it may be off topic, but I'm wondering about the work that you're doing with high school age and specifically tech center aspirants to the agriculture world, both the adult ed and the high school age students. Could you comment on that briefly if you think it's germane? It's germane certainly and be boosting enrollment, Mary, because we don't have enough of those ag graduates from CTE coming here. And the time it takes to be working and developing those relationships and pathways is difficult for a one full-time faculty department. That's part of where the center director is seen as being critical to making those connections and building those relationships and really pumping up the program. So I mean, I think in all fairness, like I said, in fairness to Kim and the whopping one and a half people they've done amazing work, but they cannot build enrollment to 60 and do their other work. It's just not possible. So if we're gonna put some life back into this program we've got to recognize that and we've got to get some champions to really work on this. But the other piece that I, if we're to keep our lactating cows and keep the status quo, one thing that I don't think I don't know, correct me if I'm wrong, lit and others. I mean, we've got amazing investment we'd have to make in the barn. I mean, the barn is not sustainable as it is now. I mean, that's probably 5 million anyway, plus, plus, plus, plus, plus. So I mean, if we're gonna stay where we're at we've got to do something different. If we want to, and in recognizing how agriculture is changing let's make sure we're building something for the future that's not always backward looking but that's forward-looking. But yes, that and Kim did put something in the chat for me, I mean, let's see. We're working with one particular CTE right now. She said to develop a plus two degree path. But, you know, that's time and we are working across with CTE more generally and one of the project charters we have for the transformation of Vermont tech is building greater relationships with the rare and tech ed centers. Kim also explains, Dr. Crow explains we're offering courses in dual enrollment and asynchronized formats and synchronized formats with that CTE now. So that's area week, that's work we can expand so that we're getting that better connection with those career and tech ed centers that have strong agriculture and forestry programs. Yeah, thank you. Are there any other questions for Pat or the other ladies have worked on this project? Yes. Heron. Am I muted? Yeah, sure, I'm muted. First of all, I wanna thank you all for this very exciting and multi-faceted proposal and you folks have so much energy and coming from Franklin County and from a long line in earlier generations of John Deere dealers as a little kid, I took calls from farmers and they would call it the crack of dawn because they figured everybody else was up too and we were for them. So I think this vibrant ag community certainly sounds like the multi-faceted way to go. I have raised this question before and it goes back to a meeting I attended many years ago in Boston and former trustee had invited me in and there were folks from all around the region. And everyone was crying the same cry, money, students, et cetera in the region. And I wanna ask this and I'm not asking it in a pessimistic way, I'm asking it in a realistic way. Is there any value as we pursue options to make a viable, sustainable path for a vibrant ag community to look at what's happening in the region and have serious dialogue with our neighbors in other states and perhaps folks center on their strengths. We already have across the board in other academics. When we can't offer something, we have agreements with reciprocal agreements where a student can go into that state's university at in-state rates. So what I'm asking is I'm not suggesting that we don't do what you're recommending. What I am suggesting is that in our thought process, maybe we take a look at, if we can't get the numbers, better to get a huge piece of the pie than no pie at all. And is there a way that other states might capitalize on their strength, we capitalize on our strength and we get the numbers that way? I think the answer is yes. Dr. Crow is reminding we have reciprocal agreements with all the New England states now where they may not have a program and that we do and vice versa. And absolutely. I mean, I think working with other institutions where they may not be able to specialize and we can, I mean, that's another part of this phase and a phased approach to moving forward with the ag program. So I think you're on to something there, Karen, for sure. Because I think all of us are struggling with how to do this in an affordable way that's meaningful to students. As we've seen by the schools that have been morphing their ag programs or potentially eliminating them entirely. So, but yes, I think that's potential work we can be doing. And again, we need the bodies to do the work and that's part of it is, because it takes a while to develop those relationships and do it in a way where again, we're collaborating not competing because nobody wants to be taking students away from the other. But as you say, how can we augment and support so that there may be a way that we all can win? I really see that as the opportunity with UVM and we ought to start there and then figure out how we can move forward. I don't know if anybody else has any other thoughts on that, but yeah. And frankly wanna try to keep students here in Vermont if we can to support the Vermont economy. And I think that's hence the desire, well, to support the regional economy, not just Vermont, but we wanna support students from throughout New England, we have to. The pool is not that large. So, I don't know if that frankly answers your question, Karen. Well, it does. And I'm thinking, if we're struggling with the dairy program, a traditional dairy program, we in Vermont struggling with that, everybody else must be slammed with that as well. It would not be better to have one really high quality dairy program in the region than no high quality dairy program in the region than have a bunch of them that are in jeopardy. I'm just using that as an example. Yep, understood. Well, I don't know that I see more questions and we've taken probably more time than you were planning, but I very much appreciate your attention. I wanna thank Louise and Regina and Ellen and Lit and Dr. Crow for being here. I can't say enough about these ladies who've given so much of their time and folks like Lit and other staff and Kim and Steph Nalt and Molly Willard, who have really come into this process, kind of foisted upon them, but willingly and participated very generously of their time and their expertise as well. So, you'll be hearing more from us, but I wanted to give you the preview here and thank you so much for your time today. Thank you. Thank you, Ellen and Regina and Louise. And Dr.- I feel, yeah, donating your time. I mean, that's been very impressive. So, thank you so much for that. Yes, well, thank you. Okay, we are now moving on to an executive session. Megan, would you like to read that motion and we can get started? I do. I move the Vermont State College Board of Trustees enter executive session pursuant to one VSA 313 1F to receive confidential attorney client communications made for the purpose of providing professional legal services because premature general public knowledges of these discussions would place VSA at a substantial disadvantage. Pursuant to one VSA 313 A2 to discuss negotiating or securing real estate purchases or lease options and pursuant to one VSA 313 A3 to consider the employment of a public employee. Along with the members of the board present at this meeting in its discretion, the committee invites the chancellor and the general counsel of the VSC to attend. We have a motion on the table. Is there a second? Mary has seconded. Mary Moran, is there any discussion? All those in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, we will be exiting from the executive session. It's now 326. Do we go into a breakout room? 446, 43. And we're leaving executive session. We're now in open session. And on the agenda, we have additional business. Is there any additional business that anybody wants to discuss? Seeing none. Okay, we have comments from the public. Jen had a sign up sheet or a sign up venue that people could sign. Is there anyone who would like to say anything from the public? We have Beth Walsh to assign that to make a comment. Beth, you can go ahead. Okay, thank you. My comment, my question has to do with the transformation update that Sophie gave us. I'm specifically the facilities transformation. One of the lines that you, one of the things you said was a little unclear to me. You talked about improving ventilation on core academic spaces. So the term academic spaces. Wondering how you define that and whether it's different than spaces where staff and faculty work. You're muted. That's a good question. I'm good. Oh, yes. No, I guess I can hear me now. I'm going to turn it over to Sharon as she is in charge of that. Go ahead, Sharon. So we have a limited amount of funding that has come to us in the form of coronavirus relief monies. And we are allocating those dollars first to academic spaces where there are large gatherings of students. So that's generally classroom buildings and spaces where large numbers of people would gather. If there is money available after that, we will absolutely expand that to administrative spaces and other spaces where there are faculty and staff and others. So not looking first at offices but instead looking first at classrooms. And of course, taking advantage of any dollars that are left over to be able to look at any other spaces that we can. Okay, thank you. Okay, anything else? Anyone else want to say or comment on something? Well, hearing none, then we'll thank people for coming forward. We need a motion to adjourn. Wait a minute, Mary. Mary's making a motion to adjourn. Second by Ryan Cooney. Okay, is there any discussion on that? Seeing none, all those in favor of adjourning, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Okay, any opposition? Seeing none, thank you for being here. I appreciate everybody's commitment and we will see each other shortly. Thanks everybody. Bye-bye. Bye.