 Now the meeting to order for the Board of Trustees for Tuesday, September 21st. I'm going to do a housekeeping note first. We have a link up to provide a public comment. It's available on the agenda. It's published on the VSC website and there's a link posted in the chat. And if you have any questions, you can contact Jen Courier and she can help you with that. We have the second thing on the agenda is a resolution honoring Trustee Linda Bell, who is retiring. Welcome, Linda. Thank you. Thank you. I think it's already former trustee. Well, yes. So and we have a resolution honoring her that we will ask Karen Luno to to read. Are you ready and you can hear me? Yes. Wonderful. Hello, Linda. Hello, Karen. Such a pleasure to see you. I'm sorry we missed yesterday. This is truly a distinct pleasure and honor to to read this resolution. One of the nice things about serving on the Board of Trustees that one doesn't expect are the good friendships, the lifelong friendships that one makes on service on any board. And Linda and I have come to be very good friends and I enjoy her and respect her and it's a real privilege and I do want to point out as a testament to Linda's dedication, her term was up in March and due to the unusual and challenging times, despite the fact that Linda had was faced with challenges of her own in her personal life, above and beyond she chose to continue service to help the BSC and and to continue service to the people of the state of Vermont. So I think that needs to be noted as well. I would like to read the resolution honoring the service of Linda Milne, whereas Linda Milne has served on the Vermont State College's Board of Trustees for a total of 17 years from 2004 to 2021, having been appointed twice by Governor Jim Douglas and subsequently by Governor Peter Shumlin. And whereas during her tenure, Linda dutifully served on finance and facilities, audit and nominating committees, serving as chair of the audit committee and chair of the nominating committee. And whereas during her tenure, Linda was elected secretary and later treasurer of the Vermont State College's Board of Trustees, thereby serving with distinction on the executive committee. And whereas during her tenure, Linda was a member of various presidential search committees. And whereas Linda has completed a distinguished professional career spanning 40 years of experience in accounting, auditing, lobbying and public relations. And whereas Linda's professional affiliations include the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Vermont Society of Certified Public Accountants, and the Institute of Internal Auditors, Green Mountain Chapter. And whereas Linda is a proud member of the Vermont Rotary, and whereas the Vermont State College's Board of Trustees and the VSC system have been enriched by the totality of Linda's professional accomplishments and community participation. And whereas the Vermont State College's Board of Trustees have enjoyed Linda's wit, wisdom, and respected her without fear or favor of anyone guidance at committee and board meetings. And whereas Linda has been a passionate and consistent advocate for affordable higher education, therefore be it resolved. The Vermont State College's Board of Trustees expresses its sincere appreciation to Linda Milne for the benefit she has brought to the state of Vermont, to its colleges and universities, to its hundreds of faculty and staff, and most important to the thousands of students. Linda, we are honored to have served with you, and we wish you the very best. Okay, we have a motion on the table. We have a second. Second from Janet and Bar Jay. Okay, any discussion? I would just like to say, Linda, that you have been a valuable member of the board. You came when I came on, it must be 10 years ago, you were experienced and seasoned and knew how to ask all the right questions, especially about the financial situations. And having served with you on the audit committee, I've always been amazed and humbled by how much you actually knew about the audit process and the questions you asked our auditors, none of which I understood. But I do say without you, we would never have had the kind of perception of the audits and the things that we needed to know about our financial standing and the back. Nobody understood it the way you did. I also want to say that when I got on the audit committee, you were the chair of the audit committee, you were in charge of the whistleblower reports, and you had a few of those at the time, and very professional, very confidential, but very, very prepared to deal with that. And I know that that was a real asset to the organizations. And so I know we're in good hands, but your experience was just necessary, timeless, and really important. Is there anyone else who'd like to say something to Linda? Janet? Yeah, I just want to say thank you. I really appreciated your honesty during the trustee process, as well as your insight. And, you know, I think you made the board better while you've been on it. And I appreciate getting to know you. Anyone else? Yes, Bill? Yeah, likewise. Linda, thank you. Your thoughtfulness, your directness at times, when as necessary, your commitment and to this organization over a long period of time has made a tremendous difference. And I have also appreciated getting to know you personally. So thank you. Jim Maslin. Yeah, mom. Seconding all the above, and I would just add, Linda, don't be a stranger. You know where to find us. Come on by. We'd appreciate it. Anyone else? Well, I think no other discussion. All those in favor of the resolution to honor Linda Milne, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. I don't think anyone's opposed. So, Linda, thank you so much for joining us and giving us a chance to honor you. Thank you. May I just say a few words of farewell? Yes, please. Thank you for the kind resolution and remarks this morning. I really have enjoyed working with so many of you over the years, and I am delighted to be able to share that feeling with you today. I was looking forward to doing it in person, and I do miss that opportunity, although it may actually be fitting that we're doing this over Zoom since it was through the Vermont State Colleges that I participated in my first Zoom meetings and so many other Zoom meetings. And a sure sign that this must be the time to end it is I've used this very same setup here for the last year and a half for any Zoom meetings. This morning as I came to get set up, the light that I have here to my left to light my face broke, and right now my shade is propped up on my computer, and I'm trying not to move too much to make sure that it all fits. So this must be the time. I do want to acknowledge the help and support I've received over the 17 years that I was on the board. My first two years on the board felt like a very steep learning curve. I had no background in academics, except for the four years that I had spent at a small liberal arts college in the 1970s when I got my BA. I have a financial background as an auditor of governments, so I was always comfortable with the audit report and the and the audit and working with the auditors. It took a year or two because of its complexity for me to feel comfortable with the financial information or to feel like I understood that financial information. Because it is very, very complex. Admittedly, although I was comfortable with my understanding because of the difficult financial situations and situations and some lack of state support and other things the system faced, it wasn't always comfortable with the financial situation of the system as a whole. And fortunately, you're in a good situation to try to be dealing with that now. In learning about education, the opportunities and challenges facing the system, I had support and wise counsel from fellow trustees and both past and present, many at summer viewer here now. I had a great deal of help from staff and management of the colleges and the chancellor's office. And I had help from students of the system that I knew through friends, family and community involvement or who reached out to me as a trustee. My sincere thanks to all of you who helped me. I often had a lot of fun working and enjoyed myself on the board because I love learning new things. I enjoy discussions of interesting topics with people I agree with, but especially with people I don't necessarily agree with. It's so much more fun, those kind of conversations. And I will miss that engagement. I want to thank all of you for giving me this opportunity to bring closure to my years of service on the board. You've helped me in making the experience both enjoyable and personally rewarding to me. Thank you. I wish you, the current trustees and staff and students best wishes on this important effort of restructuring the system that you're engaged in. I have confidence in all of you and I look forward to watching the system continue to serve the students of Vermont and to provide accessible and affordable education to Vermonters. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. We wish you good speed. Thank you. You too and ditto really. Thank you. And I will sign off now again. Thank you. Okay. Well, that was a very pleasant farewell to Linda. We wish you the best. The second thing on the agenda is the approval of the minutes from August 4th. I need a motion for approval of the minutes. Do I see one? Sue Zeller is a and I need a second. Jim Nassan will count as the second. Any discussion, additions or corrections on the minutes? Seeing none, all those in favor of accepting the minutes of August 4th, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. Now we have a presentation by Vision Point Marketing on recommending a new name for the new university, the new combined entity, as it's been called. Would the chancellor like to introduce Vision Point? Sure. I would be happy to do that. So we hired an experienced higher education marketing firm, Vision Point Marketing, back in June to conduct extensive audience research and to use the findings of that research to recommend a name and to develop a brand identity for the new institution that will be unifying Castleton University, Northern Vermont University and Vermont Technical College. After conducting 31 small group listening sessions with students, faculty, staff, leadership, alumni and community members across the VSC and a brand perception study with over 3,000 respondents and a targeted brand workshop with 25 participants from the institutions and deep dive research into each institution. Vision Point Marketing today is making their recommendation for the name of the new unified institution to the board of trustees. I would point out this is really just a first step in a multi-step process that we will be having for establishing the identity and brand of the new institution. There are other critical elements to come, including the mission and vision, the brand identity, the academic program array and the organizational structure. So each of those pieces are currently being developed and I do want to thank all the many, many people across the system that are really working together to collaborate on those pieces. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Bruce Ortiz and to Katie Campbell to share the results and their recommendation of the work that they've been doing for us. Thank you very much, Chancellor. I'm going to share my screen here. Don't mind. Please, everyone, let me know just by nodding your head if you're able to see the screen. Thank you very much and thank you for inviting Vision Point to participate in this Board of Trustees meeting and for inviting us to witness the recognition remarks and resolution in honor of your fellow trustee, Linda Mills. It was really great to experience. So thank you very much. As Chancellor's Adotomy mentioned, I'm here today. My name is Bruce Ortiz with Vision Point Marketing and I'm here with my colleague, Katie Campbell, who will be co-presenting the findings that we are excited to present as part of this research and discovery process and recommending a name option and brand development platform for the new combined entity. I also have additional colleagues that are joining me from Vision Point. Erica Kim and Holly Simons as well will be joining the conversation and later discussion as we wrap up our presentation. As Chancellor's Adotomy mentioned, and as you are aware, the Vermont State College's system is undergoing an exciting and significant transformation wherein Casselton University, Northern Vermont University and Vermont Technical College are combining to form one new university. The Vermont State College's system has engaged Vision Point as a partner to support a component of the broader transformation initiative that is currently underway. Specifically, Vision Point was engaged to provide a strategic recommendation for the brand platform of the new combined entity. So today we're excited to share with you an initial yet important step forward in the brand platform development process. We'll share with you an overview of our research and discovery process and the key insights and learning distilled from this process leading us up to this point. And finally, we'll briefly cover an overview of what's to come after which we'll open up for discussion. As we're going through this presentation, we invite you to keep in mind that while we're reaching an important milestone in the VSC transformation, this is chapter one of a much larger story of the brand platform Vision Point is recommending for the new combined entity. And to further illustrate this, we need to clarify what is a brand platform as its interpretation can vary. To the brand platform that Vision Point will be recommending for the new combined entity will reflect the institution name, pillars and personality traits, messaging points and logo mark. Beyond the brand platform recommended by Vision Point, there are additional components managed directly by the Vermont State College's system that are currently underway as well related to the new combined entity. Areas that Chancellor Zadani mentioned earlier, such as the vision and mission and program array for the new combined entity will be shared by the VSC in the coming months. But today, we'll focus on the naming recommendation and supporting insights that help to inform its selection. And once there's consensus on this name, Vision Point looks forward to sharing the additional elements of the brand platform, which will help to further illustrate the brand, bring it to life and build more excitement for all that is to come. So, bringing focus back to the process and approach of brand development, I wanted to pause on this quote from Kierkegaard. While it's paraphrase, what it translates to is life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forward. And what this statement reflects is to honor the past, celebrate the present and embrace the future. The spirit of this statement resonated in our process as we got to know Castleton University, Northern Vermont University and Vermont Tech through the research and discovery process. And as we began our process, we understood a few things. We understood that there are strong connections and affinity to each institution's history and community, that there is a passionate commitment in the value and importance of both technical and liberal arts education as a part of the future. And we also understood that we needed to consider as we were developing this brand platform and naming options or recommendations, rather, that we have to consider how this platform enables continued future growth and evolution for the new combined entity. And finally, to begin this process, we knew all options were on the table. There was not a brand platform or direction for the name or brand platform that we were trying to drive toward. We really entered into this process with an open mind and open ears to listen to feedback, gather the research insights to help provide a well-informed recommendation to the board. So to that end, we dove into an extensive research and discovery process that Chancellor Zadotny kind of provided an overview of, which included a market research brand perception study in the entire state of Vermont. It included a combined brand workshop that where representatives from across all three institutions participated in. We held stakeholder interviews and what we called as our listening tour. Again, across all institutions where we held dedicated focus groups across various stakeholder groups so that we can gather qualitative feedback and input from the various stakeholders across the many institutions. And then as well, we conducted the brand perception study that I mentioned earlier and conducted our own independent market research. Additionally, we conducted a brand and marketing audit for each institution, which combined with the activities that I previously mentioned, what we thought to gain is a deeper understanding of each institution, such as their key characteristics, audience communication, values and missions for each institution, and sense of place and relationship with their local community. And finally, in addition to examining the Vermont State College System institutions themselves, we also researched the spectrum of in-state and out-of-state competitors and peer institutions, including ones that the VSC selected and identified as direct competitors or peers, and ones identified by vision point as a beneficial reference to also investigate. Our understanding of the competitive landscape and peer landscape really is important to help us identify opportunities in which we can either assimilate into the landscape where it's appropriate, as well as to identify what are the opportunities for us to stand out for the for the new combined entity to stand out and have unique differentiators among the competition. And this helps to inform multiple facets of our engagement and brand development, such as brand positioning, the pillars that I mentioned earlier, logo definition, as well as naming, which we're discussing today. And through our discovery session, discussions and research, although Capilton, NVU, and Vermont Tech are distinct institutions within the Vermont State College System, common themes across the institutions quickly began to surface fairly immediately, actually. And while this word cloud is not intended to represent a, or it's for representation purposes really only, it does highlight many of the common themes that we heard and learned. So common themes such as Vermont, more than a number, welcoming, community, student focused and applied learning, these were common themes that resonated throughout our conversations and were submitted as part of the brand perception study as additional feedback that we learned. And so really, you know, as we summarize the effort and feedback that we heard, this quote captured from the brand perception study, I believe is an appropriate summarization of these common themes. This is in response to the question, why does the respondent believe that the VSC would be undergoing this transformation? And this respondent stated, they are consolidating to better suits the Vermont community as a whole. This way they can offer the best possible service to their students. The spirit of this statement underpins the common themes that we heard. And the idea of the institutions coming together to form something that benefits Vermont overall, working both in service of Vermont and highlighting the strengths of it. So with that framing in mind, we surveyed several naming options for the, for the new combined entity. And these options reflected themes we heard and learned from research, options to position the NCE well looking ahead and taking note of the future vision and taking into consideration the higher education landscape in general and how this name establishes points of parity and distinction among other institutions. And as well as how the name positions the NCE locally in state, regionally, as well as on a national scale for future growth. So the key takeaways and directional insights that we learned for the naming and brand identity are represented here. And what they reflect are Vermont is intrinsic to your identity. Vermont, you know, can have many different, it can convey many different meanings and interpretations. And in this context, what we, what we heard and learned is Vermont meaning the relationship with your community, the workforce and economy, your connection to Vermont's connection rather to the student experience, the environment, this theme of Vermont is our campus. The other thing we heard as well is the importance of university as a term or as a phrase as part of the naming convention. Through our listening tour sessions and feedback, the inclusion of university was a critical component that was raised multiple times. It's critical to communicate the prestige and quality and the level of education that this NCE will be providing. And then finally, a theme that resonated is advancement, innovation and technology. This is another theme that we heard reflecting the commitment to the future through advancement, innovation and technology, meaning the transformative experience, transformative student experience, excuse me, innovation and technology and pioneering education in Vermont. Pioneering meaning education in terms of quality, the experiential and applied learning, pioneering the offerings of multiple modalities to increase accessibility, and pioneering affordability to education within the state of Vermont. And so with these key themes in mind, we explored many different naming options and many different variations of this naming option, knowing that Vermont is critical to include as part of the naming convention as well as university being a critical part all then summarizing advancement, innovation and technology. And we're really excited to be sharing the our naming recommendation. And with that, actually, I'm going to be transitioning over the latter half of this presentation to my colleague Katie Campbell, who will speak through the naming recommendations and our findings in support of it. Thank you so much, Bruce. Yes. And as Bruce mentioned, so with all of this in mind, there were many names that made it onto the consideration set of what should we be calling this new combined entity in this NCE during the VSCs transformation over these next few months. And, you know, as those names came onto the consideration set, we then vetted them, vetted them through legality, vetted them through our subcommittees and our governance groups, vetted them through the research and strategies that we had brought forward through all of that work that Bruce just walked us through. And with all of that, we are excited to share a name that we believe is both strong and agile. That could be expected, but is also aspirational for all that is to come from this NCE. We believe this name represents both the institutions as they currently are, the history that they've cultivated, the loyalty and brand affiliation that they have currently, while also being able to encompass this new unified university and our kind of hopes for that mission and vision of this, of our new entity. So one other piece to keep in mind is there's a lot of value in immediate associations of to what a name conveys. Bruce mentioned both Vermont and University and how critical those two naming elements were, but we also wanted to make sure we were putting together a name recommendation that could very much illustrate the new institutions support of rural communities, the access to education, the affordability, diversity, equity and inclusion, and what an important priority that is for this institution. All of that while also leaving us room to be flexible and to grow and evolve as the times do and as our needs do and as very much our constituents needs do. So with that said, I think excited to share our chapter one, as we'll say in this brand story or this first piece of this larger brand platform. And the name that we would like to put up for consideration very much is Vermont State University. And as Bruce has chatted through how we got there with this research and discovery process, we would love to focus the next few slides more on the findings that directly support Vermont State University beyond those initial ones currently already discussed. So within that process of coming to the name of Vermont State University from that larger list of on our consideration set, when we look to our brand perception study, the Vermont concept was the most popular when aggregating opinions across the different audience groups. It was the first choice among state residents, 35% of whom selected it as their preferred naming concept, but also the first choice among alumni, faculty and staff. And we don't want to undersell or understate the importance of internal buy-in. We as I know was mentioned at the top, we're a higher education marketing firm and I've done a couple of brand projects in the past. And we have gone down the road of the name not being the one that was preferred internally. And that's okay. It just creates a different set of kind of project priorities as we move forward. That internal advocacy that we hope for by using a name that could be preferred by alumni, by faculty and staff will allow us to take larger advantage of that group as we move forward in their excitement for all that is to come. Also with that Vermont concept that was tested in the market study, we wanted to look at what key aspects of the university's vision were related to this name and are those our top priorities as well. And we found that that was very much in alignment with the support of supporting the vitality of rural communities being the top, the top feature there accessible to learners of all backgrounds, as well as being artistic and culturally vibrant. So understanding that by using this Vermont concept in our naming convention, we were able to create automatic or quick associations with some of the pieces that are so critical to the future of the mission and vision statement of this institution. For the word state and kind of along those lines, why there may be the question of why is that included in this name? And why did we make the decision after kind of moving through this process that this was the best option for us and the one that we truly believe our research stands behind? Well, the top associations with state also reflect key aspects of the new university's vision and mission that we've kind of been chatting through over the last few weeks, including being accessible to learners of all backgrounds, as we saw in the previous slides, diversity, equity and inclusion coming through with this concept, which we know is very critical and important to us, as well as another remention of supporting the vitality of rural communities. So with all of this said, we're able to look not only across our market study, but also across our larger research set and discovery work that we've been conducting over the last few months to determine that this name of Vermont State University really does have a strength in emulating the pieces of our mission and vision that we so highly value and know are the future state of our university and what our constituents are looking for and also what we're hoping to accomplish, while also still being representative and true to the current universities and their distinct attributes and brands that they have now. So a couple of key takeaways just to put all of this in summation, you know, the name emphasizes the state of Vermont. It conveys strong aspects of being a public entity and public entities typically have a understood knowledge that this is a mutually beneficial relationship between both the state and its people and its students in the future of the state and the workforce. It is able to convey accessibility, affordability, and as I was mentioning, that mission to really serve its people current residents of Vermont or residents of Vermont that the institution could bring in. This naming structure provides a unifying platform and offers flexibility and customization. We talked about that importance of agility and being able to, you know, have a lot of flexibility in the way that we take this name and apply it to different schools or departments or locations. And with that simplicity and clarity, we have a lot of options to do that in the future phases of this brand platform. It also very much reflects and reinforces this idea that we heard in our research and in our listening tours through and through, which is Vermont is our campus. And the brand of Vermont is very significant and important. Vermont can stand for not only its beautiful landscapes and geographies, maybe it's open-mindedness and welcoming culture that is known of the state. And that's very important to now share on a national level for prospective students, parents, others in the higher ed community, so that they understand also the culture that's reflected at Vermont State University at this new unified institution. And we heard this across campuses. As we look to kind of understand our charge as your partners in this work, our charge was to not truly negotiate between institutions and universities. We were not looking to take something from Castleton at the demise of NBU or vice versa. We, our charge was very much to find that unifying common thread across all of the institutions that also felt authentic and very much reflective of what we hoped for in our new combined entity. And just a couple of quotes to show how we heard that throughout our listening tour. We not only saw it in the data, but we heard it through each of these sessions. A Castleton senior leadership mentioning that Castleton provides upward mobility for the residents, which allows them to continue to serve Vermont, again, that mutually beneficial relationship between state and people and students. A Vermont Tech faculty member talking about how Vermont Tech is transformative for many people, transformational even, across this breadth of audience members, speaking very much to those affiliations that were associated with both the Vermont and the state concept. We saw this also at NBU when a Johnson Select Board member and community member mentioned that NBU is not only part of our local community, but the state as a whole. Yes, it's specific locations, but it has an effect on the larger geography of the entire state of Vermont, and that being a key and a very important factor. And then an engineering executive when we were chatting with community members around the Vermont Tech campus areas, mentioning Vermont Tech as a state school. So their primary responsibilities to their constituents, they seem to cater to the Vermont students, Vermont as a whole. And as we're speaking of this, we're not trying to emphasize Vermont and Vermont only. It's more very much highlighting and celebrating the brand of Vermont and of Vermont State University and all the locations that make that up to, yes, serve the people of Vermont, also to serve out of state students or out of state constituents that could then come and contribute to the larger Vermont culture and entity. The other piece of all this that we want to consider is, you know, this naming convention and if that's well known or familiar, will there need to be learning for our audience members on what Vermont State University is? We know there will be as it's a new institution, but one thing that is working in our favor as with this name is that there are many comparable names as we look across the country and across higher education. And the word state being included in the name does not take from any prestige or any status that we would like our new institution to hold. Some comparable names to consider, some that probably have already come to mind for you while listening on this call, Michigan State University, North Carolina State University, Illinois State University, Pennsylvania State University and the Ohio State University, as well as many more. And as we think about the ability to be agile and how important that is. And as we were talking about, you know, that we really want to be able to celebrate and highlight not only the history of these different campuses and locations, but also have a flexibility in how we present that externally. So with Vermont State University, we are not pigeonholed into one shorthand or one naming convention or architecture as we continue to develop in this process. If we look just across those examples, Michigan State University, very much being known as Michigan State, NC State in North Carolina, sometimes NCSU, we have Ohio State or OSU Penn State. So we're not specifically putting ourselves in one bucket right now as to this is Vermont State University and this is the shorthand. That is part of one of the excited pieces that is to come. So we've got a lot ahead of us as we continue looking forward in this process. And some of those factors of what that looks like is within the upcoming months, taking this name, but being able to contextualize it much more, reinforce it and further build excitement for it. And how we'll do that is through the brand platform, which Bruce was chatting about at the top of this presentation. That's where we'll dive into the pillars, the core pieces of this institution that make it up and that we say are the priorities for it. The personality traits, how we communicate, how we talk through things with our students, our legislatures, or different audience members and key messaging points. What are the proof points that back that up? How do we prove that those pillars are truly our pillars and that we bring those to life? We also will look into the exploration of that brand name architecture. So what does this look like for specific locations or for specific programs or schools or departments? And how does that then bring the brand and give it legs? How does it bring it to life in specific instances on both external marketing as well as internal communications? And then probably the piece that's the most exciting is in the visualization of that through logo marks. And some of this will absolutely be communicated at the October board meeting. We'll also continue to work through it over the next couple of months, as we look to gather further feedback and really refine this to make sure that we're bringing this Vermont State University to the marketplace in its best position with its best forward to, as we've been mentioning, not only be very much in recognition of all the fantastic work that's been done in the state of Vermont in public education, especially at these three institutions, but really what's to come in the future. We are looking forward to it as higher ed constituents as your partners in this process, but very much for your prospective students, your faculty, your staff, your alums, and gaining that excitement and anticipation for them for this new combined entity. So with that, as you review this information and ahead of your listening sessions that we believe to happen this week, please let us know if there's other information that would be helpful in your consideration. And that concludes our presentation of today's name recommendation. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Katie. Thank you, Bruce. I just want to point out that we want to remind everyone that there will be making a link to the presentation and the presentation slides publicly available, and we'll be providing a link for public feedback on the recommendation later today. And the board will be holding a virtual listening session on Wednesday, September 29th at 6.30pm. There will be campus visits this week and into next week in person at the campuses and in the colleges. And we invite everyone to come to those and give us some feedback. We want to listen to what you have to say. There will be both the feedback that we're going to have before we vote. The details for all of this will be sent to the faculty, staff, and students via email. And we obviously have a time today for public comment on the agenda. Are there any questions for the people from Vision Point at this point? Jim Maslin. Thank you. Good so far. Thank you very much. It's all straightforward and it all makes very good sense. My comment has to do with NVU and the moniker that was attached to it, which is due north, which I thought was fascinating. Fantastic. So I wonder, going forward, what we'll do with what you guys will recommend with regards to marketing sorts of things. I mean, we could hardly say due north, east, south, and west. But you get the point. But there's something at least over here on my side of the state that worked very, very well about due north. And I'm just adding that as for your consideration, what's the buzz and the bonnet here that's going to take this forward in addition to it perfectly straightforward and logical and honorable name? So thank you. Thank you, Jim. Bruce and Katie want to make a comment on that, or are we just going to keep that? I'm happy to comment that in that. Yes. So in terms of where this will go next, that's kind of the beauty of this naming recommendation is there's a very solid foundation of what the name immediately can, the associations that are already being drawn with the name, as well as what the name based on our research and consensual feedback immediately conveys. And so from there, then these next exciting pieces that Katie had referenced in terms of the brand development, the personality, the key value points, including something like what you just mentioned, Jim, of due north, it will only help to further advance and round out the new combined entities, overall brand, which includes the name tagline and marketing materials, what that brand promise is that will be then conveyed and communicated throughout your marketing collateral. And while you can't say due north, east, south, it certainly recognized that where there's an opportunity is in what we heard pretty loud and clear is that Vermont is your campus. And that's not to state that that's going to be the tagline or anything by any means, but that spirit, I think touches upon the due north that is associated with NVU. And we know that that's a common, or we understand that it's a common talking point or marketing point that's already associated with CCV, which is a sister institution within Vermont State College of System. And that as an underpinning spirit, there's there's power in that in that connection that unifies all of the institutions that are under the Vermont State College's sister system umbrella. But certainly these are things that we will be continuing to explore as we're further defining and rounding out the brand platform overall. Pat Moulton, president of VTC. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to say a couple of things. First, I just say I have to admit my first impression of this name wasn't exciting to me in the least. But likely because we've seen this name before, and it really didn't seem to me to be that creative. However, I've turned the corner, I've done a 180, and I'm heartened that the research has really brought us back to this name. And I really truly appreciate that the opportunities that this name presents, this the opportunities for us to brand this well, and to not lock us into one stream of thinking. This really is a palette, as Sophie described, from which we can paint many branded pictures spanning the liberal arts and our advanced technology programs. I'm further ecstatic that the research pulled out the prominence of the need for names to reflect technology and innovation as core concepts. That's critical, as you would imagine you'd hear from the president of Vermont Technical College. That is our brand innovation technology in one that must clearly be reflected in our new name brand structure and program array. At this moment we're seeing part of the picture with the rest to be colored in, in the coming weeks. I urge us all to keep in mind this is not a standalone, this is a start, it's chapter one, as Bruce and others have said. It will be important to assure that the characteristics of innovation, technology, career focused, great outcomes are captured in our continued branding and naming work. That is what has and will continue to differentiate the Vermont State Colleges from others. Our focus on teaching what's relevant today while understanding the history of our various disciplines. With great outcomes from all of us, which launch careers as well as build leaders and people who have and will continue to change the world. Our campus is Vermont, we serve the state, we are and will be a university with all the diversity that that provides. That name seems to fit. I'm really anxious to hear the next phase of brand development help assure unique and inviting characteristics of our three institutions are captured and nurtured. Thank you. Anyone else trying to see if I see any hands here? Sean Tester. Thank you. Looks like really great work and a lot of thought went into this. Ultimately, I think it's pretty straightforward and is a solid suggestion recommendation. One thought that did cross my mind and I've been thinking about this a lot is brand confusion. Oh, right. Yeah. University of Vermont. I was wondering if any thought or consideration had been put into that. Maybe it's not an issue, but they are going to share two letters in there, an acronym. Thank you for that question, Sean. There was a great deal of consideration that went into considering your peer institution within the same state of University of Vermont. We looked at a couple of different things. Knowing that Vermont from the feedback Vermont and university were critical components to include as part of the naming convention and overall brand. There are many unique iterations and variations that we explored combining those two names within the overall structure, but we did have to be very mindful. As Katie mentioned, certainly from a legal standpoint, that there was not that there was any conflict with this naming structure as well as from a market standpoint and just external perception and understanding that there wasn't market confusion. But what we did find and somewhat referenced in the slides of comparable names is institutions with similar naming convention can coexist within the same state. For each of the naming or comparable states that were referenced in terms of Michigan State University, there's also a University of Michigan for ISU or Illinois State University. There's also a University of Illinois, same with Ohio State and C State and Penn State. That is an example that you see across the higher ed institution space, rather. The interesting thing that we found, so in the example of Penn State, Penn State is the public or state-funded institution, whereas the University of Pennsylvania is the private or Ivy League institution. And so we did see that not only can both institutions exist, but they can also exist where one is private and one is state-funded. And what this name with Vermont State University really helps to reinforce and claim is that Vermont State University, you all are claiming ownership as a public institution and as the public institution for Vermonters and of Vermonters. That also then is a welcoming institution for out of state on a national scale or regional scale. So certainly a lot of research and insight went into the naming convention to ensure that there wasn't any conflict at all and that both can exist within the same state. Yeah, I think one other point I'd add on there is even though we haven't determined what that shorthand for the University will be, that's another area that we can start to your point. Sean, just distinguish a little bit more when we're, when both names are thrown out there for prospective students. And what's great about the Vermont State University name is that Vermont is first. We really get to own and lead with that. And so whether we go with Vermont State or Vermont State University or whatever we decide to go down in the next iterations of this process, we do get to, I think, just even distinguish ourselves with the order of operations, if you will, versus a UVM or University of Vermont and all the benefits that they provide for the state as well. So we just tried to think of it too from a prospective students consideration set or even a prospective parents perspective, whether that's a first gen student or someone who's gone through the parents who are very familiar with this process and what that might look like. And because it's a familiar naming convention across other states and across our country, as well as different ways we could distinguish through the shorthand, we think we will be able to avoid any of that direct market confusion. Anyone else have any questions for Bruce or Kim, vision point? I guess I could either ask the people from vision point or the Chancellor, what is the next step? Of course. So in terms of the next step here, as we mentioned, looking ahead, the name convention is the springboard. So we understand that from here, there will be a week process where you'll continue to gather community feedback and have that information and insights then inform your decisions to when you will then reconvene on September 29th to finalize your vote. From there, then that information will be shared with vision point who in parallel path will be continuing to work through the further brand development and platform off components that I mentioned earlier in terms of the pillars, personality, the and then the more visual elements and as well as the messaging points. And then I understand that as part of the transformation overall, the additional components that are to come in the upcoming months are the mission and vision of the new combined entity as well as the programmer rate, which will be coming shortly from the Vermont State College of System. Okay, thank you. Any other questions? Any comments? Well, I would like to thank the people from vision point for a very interesting and comprehensive chapter one description. And we look forward to whatever is coming next and we will be in touch with you as we do contact people from the different campuses and colleges. Thank you. Thank you. Well, okay, the next thing on the agenda is the report of the finance and facilities committee. I'm going to turn to Sharon Scott since our chairman is not here today. And the vice chair is not here today either, but for different reasons, but Sharon, can you go over please the report from the we have some things that we have to vote on and I think you could go through those for us. Absolutely. So there was a finance and facilities committee meeting scheduled on August 23rd and at that meeting, we spoke about unaudited financial results as well as received a government affairs update and two items were identified and moved forward for voting and they are related to two endowments for Northern Vermont University. The first is to create the Elizabeth Dulcy Scholarship and Science Endowment. Elizabeth Dulcy is a long-serving faculty member in the sciences department who retired this past spring and this would create a scholarship for needy students in the sciences attending the Johnson campus of Northern Vermont University. The second endowment is a name change for the Sugarman Scholarship and to change it to the Kerry Seduto Scholarship Endowment. Ms. Seduto sold the Sugarman a long-running family business earlier this year and would like to rename the scholarship in her name. There's also a small addition to that scholarship to add agriculture to the field of study that individuals may aspire to and a change to remove its restrictions to only going towards female students. So both of those are available for up for approval with the board. Okay, so we need would it be easier to do one at a time or together both of them? I think we can do both of them together. Is that correct Patty or Sophie? That's correct. Sorry, I've got to get right on the right buttons. That is correct as long as there's no questions about either one separately then as long as you have that opportunity the motion can be for both. Okay, so I need a motion to create the Elizabeth Dulcy Scholarship and Science Endowment and to change the name of an existing endowment to the Sugarman Seduto Endowment. Do I hear a motion on that behalf? Sue Zeller is making that motion. Second, Karen Lunow. Is there any discussion or questions on these changes? Jim seems to indicate a positive. Anyone else have any questions? All those is hearing none. All those in favor of changing though or establishing and changing the name of those endowments please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Any opposition? It doesn't appear to have any, so those are changed. Is there anything else that we need to be aware of in the presentation from the Facilities and Finance Committee or is that something we'll get to another time? Facilities and Finance just a quick update for those who are not at the committee meeting. Early results for FY21 are favorable in comparison to budget and favorable in comparison to the third quarter. We anticipate that we'll have around $20 million in excess funds, excess revenue over expenses. As we discussed yesterday in the public session at the retreat, there are many needs that the Vermont State Colleges has for those funds so we aren't thinking of them as surplus but as our ability to be able to begin to set the VSE on a sound financial footing as we move forward and Finance and Facilities will be working on that work in the coming months. The next meeting that's scheduled for them is in October when we will have both the Audit Committee and the Finance and Facility Committee's meetings scheduled. Yes, and I just want to clarify that $20 million includes the transformation budget that this legislature gave us of as it works out $20 million. Actually those funds are separate so those funds are separate but yes it'll mention much of those funding. It comes from the state. It comes from our ability to have received some substantial bridge funding and then also the HRF funding that we received in form of the higher education emergency relief funds. Yes, yes a variety of federal funds that have been made available one time money. Absolutely, one time funds. Okay thank you. Any other questions or concerns about the Finance and Facilities? Seeing none we will move along to the report in EPSL which is primarily the program array optimization report that we heard from RPK. I will turn that over to Megan Cleaver who will go and and Yasmin who will go and go through that for us. Excellent thank you Lynn and we have a brief report today on the meeting that we had in late August as you say primarily that meeting was focused on an update on the tremendous progress that faculty have made over the summer on the program array and I did want to spend just a couple of minutes and pull some of the highlights of that discussion into our meeting today because I think the faculty we had several faculty members who joined our EPSL meeting and in addition to hearing in the report on progress they took some time amid the first week of classes to really give the committee a look into a into the process of their undertaking to actually optimize the programs and to build the future of what programs at the new institution will look like and I would I would say two key takeaways from those conversations and as Yasmin shared yesterday moving from 250 programs to 100 across the campuses of the new institution which is tremendous. The takeaways from that discussion one optimization looks different for every program and that really came through in the the presentations that we listened to faculty are being incredibly thoughtful about how to make dynamic programs work for the different campuses and how to create hybrid and how to create high flex options in service to the goal of statewide delivery and one constant that came through throughout the three presentations was the benefit to students of this optimization I say one of the other aspects of that that came through was some of the benefits perhaps were unexpected by faculty as they embarked on this and as they started to get to know and understand what colleagues across the system were doing it became clear that there were pieces that could be pulled through to benefit students across Vermont. So to give you a quick flavor of what we heard and I apologize because I will not do this justice. Dr. John Kitter who's an engineering professor at Vermont Tech shared with us that as the engineering programs are optimizing they're adopting high flex delivery that will enable access to the zoom to lectures and computer labs for all first year engineering technology courses and that's involving not only consolidating the programs but also outfitting lecture and computer labs with new instructor stations and additional monitors to optimize the student experience for students who are attending those lectures remotely. We also heard from Dr. Hannah Miller of Northern Vermont University and she spoke about the program optimization optimization across education programs and she was very passionate about the opportunities that it created to look across the programs and to consider as a merged department how they're preparing future teachers and professional development in service to teachers in optimized options and creating and pulling through the concepts of inclusive education across the coursework throughout that program. And then lastly we heard from Dr. Andrew Alexander currently at Castleton University in the humanities who talked about the proposal that they are working through combining history programs across the three institutions into one program and he talked about the fact that students will be able to move through the programs at any of the campuses and coordinate the offerings and the coordinated offerings and schedules will make it easier for students to choose a wider variety of electives. And whereas in the past they had separate capstone classes in the future they'll have one capstone experience that will be offered from a smart classroom location and the physical location of those classes will rotate among the campuses enabling students to be part of a larger cohort and to benefit from a wide variety of faculty instructors. So I share those brief vignettes we had much longer presentations from those faculty members but I think it helped the committee to really understand how faculty are spending the time to really be thoughtful about how they can bring different tools across the programs as they think about program optimization and how that program optimization is going to look different across each of these hundred programs that we will ultimately end up with. We also heard just from a numbers perspective there's still work to be done. There are 28 programs as of yesterday that still need additional review and refinement and there are 14 programs that need significant additional work and review. So the committee did leave that discussion where the request out to the CAOs working with Yasmin to come back at our October meeting and for each of the programs that are still either requiring significant work and review or requiring refinement to bring each of those programs to the EPSIL committee and share with the committee what the roadblocks are to making progress and what the milestones are in terms of when those 14 and 28 programs will make substantial progress towards reaching that optimization goal. And then lastly we did as a committee discuss the PRECIP reviews. Those are reviews that are conducted on each program on a rolling basis as directed by board policy. The review primarily involves faculty preparing a program self-study document. Those reports have been provided to the CAOs and ultimately delivered to each president and then ultimately presented to the EPSIL committee. Given the ongoing program work and the extensive work that faculty are undertaking to optimize programs, the CAOs did request that this policy be temporary suspended. EPSIL discussed that and did want to bring a motion to the board to suspend DSC policy 101 which is program review and continuous improvement process for the 21-22 and for the 22-23 cycles given the program work that is currently underway. So I'd like to put that motion to the board. Okay, thank you. Does Yasmin have anything further to add to that or we cover most of it? No, Megan has covered it. Thank you very much. Yes, Janet. Something I forgot to ask yesterday or I think maybe require is that as the as these programs are redeveloped, I think we have to be very careful to not let CCB become its own thing and lose our connectivity to the rest of the system. So just like I know, I just I know one example in particular because I worked with Joyce and Pat on it which was how you went from being a taking the manufacturing technician certification and then if you took these classes at CCB you could then enter this program at Vermont Tech and it was mostly you know an engineering technician kind of roadmap that also showed you how to get to be a four-year etc. I think for every one of these programs that's being redesigned for the for the new entity, CCB has to be required to provide the on-ramp program from CCB to get into those. So you know if you go to CCB and take A, B and C you'd be really ready to take the engineering program at whatever. So that's I think we and I think as trustees we need to require that so we don't lose the connectivity of CCB to the rest of the system. Thank you for that, Janet, and I'll just clarify that as part of the final reports this summer we did ask faculty to identify what the what the CCB pathway might look like recognizing and in most cases there was a CCB pathway already in place and I would say that these pathways are always a something that needs to be constructed from both sides the CCB and the four-year program working together to create a workable pathway but I think we saw by and large that programs see those see those pathways. They may need some tweaking now that we have new optimized programs but there's certainly there's a foundation there. Yeah I just want to make it I just think as trustees we have to create the expectation that we expect CCB and the other new entity to stay connected that it's a requirement. That's all I just don't I that's great that that's already happening but I don't want to lose that that becomes just a good thing to do and not something we expect. We don't know I think about this last night you know we don't know where where our US government will go but you know there's plenty of talk of free community college and if that comes to bear we need to make sure the rest of our system leverages that and that CCB is our biggest should be our biggest one of our based on ramps to the rest of the system so we don't and we don't want one of the other universities in our fine state to capitalize on that before we do. Yes that's a good point and I'm glad we're going to go and hear a report on the other 28 and 16 or 14 programs that are moving the need to do more that's a that's we need to stay on top of that as well. Anybody have any other to your motion Megan I can support that as long as we have a caveat that said should progress not continue on the program improvement or whatever we are naming it that the board has the right to revoke that right and say sorry we're going back to what we used to do I totally support we shouldn't do that now with good progress but I do want the ability to go back to that if for some reason progress doesn't continue. Okay so that's a good point so that gives us a decision on a motion um Megan can you do a motion that might include what the Trustee Bambarje included? Yes so I said the motion is to for the board to approve the suspension of VSC policy 101 which is program review and continuous improvement process for both the 2021-22 and the 2022-23 cycles as long as continued progress as long as progress continues to be strong in resolving the programs that need to be optimized for the program array. Okay we need a second on that Mary will second that. Any discussion any thoughts? Let's see the CCV issue has been brought up does President Judy have any comments on her pathways and how this has been included or how we can proceed to make sure that connectivity is there? Hi Lynn thank you and I appreciate Janet's comments because I do think it's important to make sure we as the as the programs change at the other schools that we maintain the pathways and certainly there's been every indication that that will continue but I do think that's important um because we have pathways with all the privates and publics throughout the state of Vermont and beyond and we want to make sure within our own system that it's the easiest for students to go from CCV to um this new entity so that's really it's important it's important for Vermont as we think about serving Vermont and Vermonters this is these pathways are incredibly important. Okay thank you any other discussion or questions on that? Seeing none all those in favor of the motion to suspend the VSE policy 101 program review and conference improvement process with a caveat that we continue the optimization process please indicate by saying yes. Hi. Anyone opposed? Seeing none the motion has passed and I wish the people with the EPSL committee and the people doing the optimization you know the best of luck as we continue to to deal with the other remaining programs and continue with this process it was a very very encouraging and and exciting EPSL committee to listen to the presentations from the faculty. Okay we now have reports from our presidents we will um we're asking for a five date minute oral report it's not going to be as detailed as it's been in the past probably but we and how things are going in the highlights of what are you considered to be the the importance of your activities to the board we'll start out with President Moulton from Vermont Tech maybe not we could go back to the traditional alphabetized and ask for Joyce Judy to give a report on CCV. Sure I'm happy to to do that and I will respect your time constraints as well actually there's three or four things I just want to mention I think that as was mentioned yesterday we had a really strong fall enrollment and so we're very happy with that enrollment as of this morning is up six percent from last fall and I just want to remind the board that we were up three percent last fall from the previous fall so it's we're feeling good about where we are but I also want to just acknowledge that I think thanks to all the support from the legislature around the number of we the number of scholarships and the way we were able to address affordability I think this is a real a positive sign that when we do work on affordability we do see more Vermonters accessing and investing in themselves and and and taking college courses and so you know a year ago we had the McClure Foundation gift and then we had an uptick then and this last fall so I think that you know we can't we no longer can say affordability is not one of the factors that influences the college going rate for Vermonters and just as a reminder for people who haven't heard me say this 10,000 times that Vermont is one of the highest high school graduation rates and one of the lowest college going rates and but I think this is and we also are one of the most expensive community colleges in the country so you put all those things together and I think that this is beginning to say you know what cost is a factor now it's not the total factor it's not all the only reason but I think it's something we can't overlook I think the other thing that has really worked to our favor in terms of enrollment Megan Kluber asked me yesterday you know why what do I why do I think CCB's enrollments are up because I will tell you that the rest of the nation most community colleges are experiencing a five to 15 decline I can't tell you why I hope all the things we put in place really are helping I think one of the things I want to call your attention to is in the packet that I gave to you yesterday is an update on the highlight of our strategic plan accomplishments and I think you're going to see I mean it when we put this together the last in spite of COVID the amount of activity and work that has been going on has been pretty phenomenal and so the two things I want to highlight that I think directly influence enrollment one is that we are really trying to to develop and capitalize on a lot of different formats in the way that we offer courses and 69 percent of our courses are online this fall that what you know it was interesting I serve on this college board advisory panel it's 12 community college presidents from around the country and the the chancellor of the houston community college system was on the call in the middle of the summer and he's had represents a system that has you know 350,000 students so it's not a small sample it's a size of you know it's it's big anyway he said to us he said you know one of the things a lot of literature is talking about how people are so anxious to be in person and back together he said but I can tell you from in houston we're not seeing that people are not that when they're paying for courses they are not paying to go in person so it was interesting because you know I think that we're hearing a lot of both nationally and locally that you know that people are anxious to get back to to in person and I think that's true for swath of people don't get me wrong but I also think that he's seeing as are we that online continues to be a popular format so we're doing online we're doing synchronous online which actually I think is going to become the most a really popular silver lining to covet where synchronous they have some scheduled time with a with a faculty with a class and then a lot online and I think it what it does is it removes geography so people don't have to come to a class they can they can get that interaction right from wherever they are we're also doing accelerated we're doing flex we're doing hybrid and we're doing about 20 of our classes are in person so I think that has that has been that combination has spoke to people I also think and this is where I want to point you to is in the strategic plan the number of pathways credentials short-term credentials leading to certificates leading to associate degrees I think is really helpful because people can get they can get something quickly they can use that to get a different job get a promotion whatever they can it's part of a continuum and that's why Janet's comment about the pathway to the other Vermont State colleges is incredibly important because I think a large segment of our population in the future is going to be around just in time education they come they take some courses they go into the work or they go and they're already in the workforce they're just going to have a different job they hit a plateau they come back but they have the courage because they keep seeing they're seeing incremental progress and so I do think you'll see that we you know we what we've done with our credentialing is embedded everything within our associate degrees and then hopefully that's embedded within a bachelor's degree so no one's taking wasted credits it's all working it's it's just building that that continuum and then the final thing I just want to mention um and just put the board on alert that um we are going through our niche accreditation process we're in the final stages of of preparing a draft that will be out for public comment soon but in early March we will be hosting a visiting team and my hope is that um we they'll be able to talk with a number of board members um so stay tuned for that but um you know all of our all of us um within the Vermont State Colleges um goes for an accreditation process every 10 years and um we are I can't believe we were in 2012 and now it's 2000 I mean 2022 but here we are again and um we will want the board to be engaged a bit when the visiting team comes so with that I will stop and I'm happy to answer questions any questions for Joyce Judy go ahead Janet um uh and I did not have a chance to read your package that you left us yesterday I don't know why last night if you hadn't told me it would be pretty good sorry um just uh off the top of your head are there some dominant themes that you're seeing in um certifications like is it all over the map are you seeing you know you know what is the top two most popular I just it's just curious to me yeah you know I um people are interested in yeah I would say Janet it's really a smattering um you know I can tell you that healthcare continues to be a big one and we are I think as you know a huge um we have a wonderful and strong relationship and have for years with Vermont Technical College and so the pathway the Allied Health Certificate into the nursing program at Vermont Tech is is strong and will and continues to be strong but then things like manufacturing um bookkeeping um you know we've done a lot of um partnering with um different entities around like um the boot camp around um um technology with an entity in in Burlington um we also have um hooked up with Amazon around cloud computing and helping people um get the skills they need to do jobs in working with in cloud computing or particularly in remote and so I think that um I would say that there's not one it's really a smattering it's always interesting because I um in addition to signing diplomas I also sign um we award certificates and um I've just got done signing the ones for people that finished in the summer and um you know we do a from funeral directing to bookkeeping to allied health certificate to manufacturing it's really across the board um you know and that represents the diversity of Vermont's workforce so I don't have I can I don't have the numbers in terms of what's most popular but just based on my anecdotal um um signing of certificates it's pretty across the board thank you any other questions okay seeing none uh we'll go to Jonathan Spiro at Castleton thank you Lynn I could give past reports for VTC if you want or I just start with Castleton uh it occurs to me that I have a bifurcated report for you because on the one hand we have had an amazing opening to the semester uh and morale in the cast and community is sky high uh and for a number of good reasons first of all we are teaching face to face which is a wonderful thing even with masks uh secondly while COVID remains in the forefront of our planning the number of positive cases on our campus in a given week ranges from very low to non-existent and yes we are well aware that that could change any minute uh third enrollment is holding steady this is partly due to the fact that out of state enrollment continues to go up at Castleton 38 percent of our students are now from out of state which is good news for us and great news for the state of Vermont because uh out of staters not only contribute to our economy during the four years they are here at Castleton but then of course they often choose to stay in Vermont to contribute their expertise to the professional workforce get married have children pay taxes uh and buy season tickets to our football games in addition we just welcome the largest group of incoming international students in our history this is in the middle of a pandemic it frankly took me by surprise the hail from 20 different countries and they have an immeasurably positive effect on our campus we continue to receive unsolicited accolades the most recent report from the U.S. Department of Education shows that Castleton is number three in the nation for job placement by public school Washington Monthly's annual college guide just ranked Castleton 10th in the nation for public liberal arts colleges they also named Castleton a best bang for the buck college in the northeast which means that we quote help non-wealthy students obtain marketable degrees at affordable prices unquote uh similarly the financial news site 24 seven wall street named Castleton the most affordable college with the best outcomes in Vermont and i'll give you one more zippia zippia is a career resources website they state and i quote students who go to Castleton which has a job placement rate of 95 percent or almost handed jobs just for having Castleton on their resume so as a result of all this school spirit is at a peak the number of students who walk by we're in Castleton paraphernalia hats t-shirts sweatshirts sweatpants it's astounding i've never seen anything like that on any campus we're witnessing a huge student attendance at on-campus events give you two examples our annual club club fair was two weeks ago in the pavilion and hundreds of students showed up to learn about our dozens and dozens of student run on campus clubs and at homecoming this weekend despite a threat of thunderstorms 4 000 people gathered for a ginormous tailgating party outside the stadium after which some of them actually found their way inside the stadium for the game itself um our fall athletic program is in full swing not just football soccer rugby volleyball golf cross-country field hockey they're all participating face-to-face and having a lot of fun it's just thrilling to be on a face-to-face campus again um when i got to the office this morning i looked out the window behind me and over there the choir was singing on the steps of the fine art center and down there a group of art students was sitting on the grass sketching i guess um over there the spirit band was practicing i'm looking at my window now i can see on the rail trail joggers and bicycle riders and dog walkers um my friend ethan from the grounds crew is mowing the lawn as he always does whenever i have a zoom call he appears right outside my window to mow the lawn um and some guy on a unicycle just thrown by i think anyway uh morale is high it's a great time to be at castleton why then did i say i have a bifurcated report because the present is sunny but it's my duty to report that um looking to the future folks are understandably concerned about the merger the community is afraid uh rightly or wrongly that uh much of what i described above athletics arts on campus activities residence halls pride in our campus uh is going to somehow go away it's not a wholly irrational fear by the way uh we seem to be bombarded by external consultants who have never been on our thriving campus yet erroneously preach that anything online is better than everything in person um listen i and we fully embrace technology and all of its amazing benefits but the idea that there is no longer a place in vermont for a beautiful flourishing residential liberal arts college with compassionate faculty and staff who provide individualized mentoring that's a false and kind of pernicious theory and at castleton we prove it every day i think lin i'll stop there before my self righteousness really becomes obnoxious thank you does anyone have any questions for jonathan's bureau about castleton go ahead janet um so you're the latter part of your so the first part great i happen to have had a couple failing members at a soccer game the other week and they said it was wonderful um to the latter part of your conversation i think it's really important for people to understand and maybe you can provide suggestions to the trustees that you know whenever change is going to happen people put it in their own head what that change is going to look like and they either come up with a best-case scenario or a worst-case scenario and certainly um in conversations we were having as a board yesterday and some of the board members aren't here you know there is certainly no vision by the trustees to say the whole system's going online and get over it right that is not what anyone has said um we know we have to do things differently um and we don't all know yet what difference going to look like um and yes there will be change but i think it's really important that you help us figure out how to make sure that that message doesn't become a one-note sort of uh i don't know individuals deciding what it is is going to happen um before it's even stated something like that is going to occur and i think yesterday with the trustees there was certainly a uh a group that was passionate that there's clearly a place for the maybe we call it the traditional on-campus experience and what it brings um so i guess my my request is looking for your help in um how we deal with the people that are fearful of something that they envision is going to happen when there's that has not been that that has not been stated thanks janet um a few thoughts occurred to me one is i've always preached to um people above me in the hierarchy that an on-campus in-person visit with our community goes a long way uh and uh i'm very pleased to see that there's going to be a week long listening to her this week they're arduous they're exhausting sometimes you have to hear uh some negative views but um when when people in any of our communities realize that the people above them from me including me are not some faceless ogre but our human beings who are doing their best from the state of vermont that goes a long way toward alleviating anxiety uh and certainly alleviates hostility um similarly i think that every consultant should be required to come visit our campuses before they render judgments on on what they think is best for us i mean that's just as common sense to me um i think that um i'll be curious to see the reaction for the rest of the day in my emails and phone calls to the new name um i think that um even if there's initial reticence or even hostility that might be modified as we go forward by um what they talked about allowing some customization some individual individualization either for geography or for programs um so that's that'll help um if we can demonstrate that the merger is going to result in actual cost savings um that will certainly help we're not there yet uh we know the individual presidents are going to go away that'll save some money but if we could demonstrate more cost savings that will help um make our case to the public um that's all i got off the top of my head so far thanks for asking sis alan please um not to take away from any of your accolades uh that you listed on your national basis do you think that vermont's experience with covid has could have also contributed to some extent to the increase in attendance or enrollment uh i know that i suspected our experience with covid helped some of our institutions you heard president judy point out that community colleges nationwide are down 10 to 15 percent and ccv is up completely contradicting the national trend that's an amazing stat and it might have something to do with covid uh we're pretty certain that at castleton covid hurt our attendance uh and so i said uh our attendance our enrollment is holding steady it's up slightly but uh to us that's actually kind of miraculous because covid really um made a lot of people opt to to opt out for a year or to go to fully online colleges and we managed to maintain that so it's a great question but i think the answer is it varies from institution to institution thank you anyone else uh who else do we have here um anyone else have a question for jonathan spiro uh seeing none i want to say thank you and i'm glad that you've got lots of students who came back i suspect there were some students who had pent up desires to return and and that may be one of the reasons why you're having so much success they've come back that's a great thing i hope that would be true at all of our schools and i do think that vermont was perceived as being safe and i think that that did have an impact on a variety of other institutions in the state so i'm glad you have all those out of state students who've come here because their parents want them to be in a place where covid is really well managed and low so i i do think i'm just doing this off the top of my head but i think it probably did have an impact and i'm glad that we're benefiting from it uh the next one will be nolan afkins from nvu right yeah good morning everyone and thank you i'd like to start my nvu report just talking about uh covid since that is top of mind for many of us in our daily lives um so certainly true here at nvu with our students faculty and staff uh just an update in terms of how nvu continues to safeguard our communities against the pandemic um nvu continues its commitment to safety and safety has been first and foremost throughout the end pandemic for for nvu uh we uh ensure safety uh we are currently doing that through weekly testing available to all community members uh we are offering single occupancy rooms for all students um we have outdoor teaching opportunities uh intents on campus like the rest of the vscs residential schools a vaccination requirement for any students who will be on campus at any time during the epidemic here uh we have a masking requirement indoors for all uh when in the presence of others and a full vaccination requirement for all visitors to our campuses who are age 12 or older currently nvu has a 96 percent vaccination rate amongst the residential and commuter students attending classes on the two main campuses and so we're very happy about that in terms of campus life and athletics uh similar to what uh jonathan just reported um students faculty and staff are thrilled to be back on campus uh campus life as we knew it uh prior to the pandemic is back students are enjoying club tours campus music theatrical traditions face-to-face student government meetings trips to popular destinations such as uh boston and burlington our athletic teams are practicing they're competing they're excited to be doing so again in in a face-to-face format on on campus um we're pleased to have this component of student life back in action on our campuses it's just it's nice to see the vibrancy back for sure has this as jonathan just reported at castleton over the past two weekends uh we've celebrated homecoming and family weekends uh first at johnson then at linden it was so wonderful to see students families and alumni gauge in the many events and programs um on our two campuses on both campuses we inducted alumni into hall of fame and athletics hall of uh the athletics hall of fame uh we gave alumni awards as well uh we returned to outdoor concerts ice cream socials hall of fame inductions and and roll call awards to celebrate and recognize our faithful alum um on the johnson campus we officially opened the wellness suite with a ribbon cutting uh the wellness suite renovation was made possible by a lead gift from local friends and supporters peter and evelyn foos uh during uh the event peter noted that and this is a quote we were happy to support this project because we believe in the power of higher education especially for first generation students attending a state university and we are pleased to help end view meet the goals of student athletes as well as serve the greater end view community through the generous generosity of 109 donors we raised nearly 500 000 for this renovation which includes the renovation of rooms dedicated to stretching and core work and group exercise classes additionally an underutilized racquetball court was converted to a strengthened conditioning facility new spaces have been named in honor and memory of alums peter albright class of 1980 and gary sudol class of 1982 um alumni student athletes staff and community members from 17 states gave gifts of all sizes and the project also received a grant from the green mountain fund and a donation of equipment from concept too so just a wonderful event um during homecoming and family weekend to highlight for me though um and for many of our recent graduates were the graduation processionals so on both campuses we um held uh graduation processional events for the classes of 2020 and 2021 they were designed to be very similar to the actual commencement ceremony uh and we had uh you know roughly 50 to 60 students come back and participate it was very meaningful it was very impactful it was um as impactful as if they were walking across the stage in a May commencement ceremony we held dinner celebrations for the graduates and their families after the processionals and again it was just a wonderful moving experience for them and so we're really really grateful that that we were able to do that for the students on the academic side of the house just a couple of initiatives that that i'd like to update you all about that we are very excited about the first is what is called semester cinema and so um i'm hopeful that you saw the the great publicity that we received around semester cinema our partnership with kingdom county production so j craven and and vessel ryan uh through this partnership and you students and college students from around the country will help produce a feature length film that will be called lost nation uh this experiential learning program with has a 15 year history it will be based on the linden campus during the winter in spring of 2022 so next semester the kcp nbu partnership will base classes and the production of lost nation both in man-tucket and on the linden campus two nbu students will receive full scholarships to participate in this program so we're very excited about that um a couple years ago austin pelagrino an nbu linden alum who previously participated in the semester cinema as a student at linden said the program at the time was the most immersive and professional filmmaking experience of his career which it was just an incredibly impactful experience for him he has since co-founded a cinema production studio called midnight industry based in bethlehem new hampshire so this program is a great segue to um an update on the nbu learning and working community vision and concept and since the so since the last board of trustees update given by president collins uh we have made significant and very real progress in establishing the learning and working community vision um a year ago this significant and pivotal pivotal refocus for nbu as a concept today it is well on its way to becoming a reality uh the learning and working community vision takes nbu's previous experiential and hands-on learning practices and makes a very deep commitment to embedding this hands-on learning within each and every degree pathway um additionally we will embed this learning within community organizations businesses nonprofits and the creative economy and by providing financial support and this is critical and key to this this vision for these work experiences often in the form of a paid internship we are importantly reducing the cost of running a college degree for our students so i'm pleased to share the early success of this vision in fact we have just released our first annual report on the project which you have in your nbu packets shared at the board meeting yesterday this past summer nbu awarded financial support to 27 students who engaged in summer internships the total support was about $50,000 for students ranging from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars so this is truly impactful uh we are able to do this with the generous support of a donor who gifted us 3.5 million dollars to help us actualize this concept and as we are sharing now we're in a position to make these student awards we will be able to do this on an ongoing basis we have um our next round of awards will be for fall internships and we will continue to do this on an ongoing basis so we're very excited about that in june we hired a coordinator to help us realize and actualize the vision uh then favoroso was hired as nbu's first partner engagement and workforce development coordinator he's been hard at work doing outreach with our communities to develop partnerships with nonprofits and businesses and others and in this position ben will support both employers and students helping to create formal partnerships and student pathways in support of the learning and working community vision over a three-year period again this position and this work is supported by uh the generous 3.5 million dollar gift that we received to actualize the vision uh just a couple other uh highlights to wrap up this piece part of the learning working community vision and concept is to focus on career readiness this fall we will launch a career readiness pilot program to ensure that all nbu graduates graduate from nbu uh career ready uh we are defining this um based on the career readiness competencies developed by the national association of colleges and employers or nace our program will provide information and activities to help students recognize value and articulate the essential skills that they are learning in and out of the classroom but the help of faculty each year students will take part in several modules that will help them learn about themselves in the world of work and direction and gain an insider's view of where their interests lie build their brand set and reach their goals our approach will support our students as they follow their career path in the future we're we're piloting this program this semester again though with the ultimate goal that every student who graduates from nbu attains these competencies and we then essentially certify them as career ready so the last update that i'd like to share relative to the learning working community vision and to wrap up my report is uh it concerns a recent partnership that our outdoor education and leadership and tourism program has developed um they have developed a cooperative partnership with the kingdom east school district which includes schools in berk newark satan and additionally in in conquered uh the cooperative arrangement is designed on a can or to continue on every semester giving students in the program an opportunity to participate on an ongoing basis and i'll explain what the the the partnership is about in a second um the the sites in this case the schools actually have obtained funding to pay students who will enroll in a three credit internship course to engage in this opportunity additionally the students can apply for stipend support through this learning working community internship support that i just discussed this will all obviously help offset their tuition expense um through the program what the students will actually be doing is they will be designing and developing the recreational offerings for the schools and then lead the school students in the recreational activities so this is just a wonderful example of realizing this a vision um it's exactly what we're working toward the cooperative uh program gives nbu students an in-depth on-the-ground experience that puts their degree program to work it provides value to the greater community and um the in the region that uh nbu resides in uh it actually involves a local institution in developing a program that suits their needs and it provides nbu students with an experience that helps to ensure that they graduate career ready gives them an example of what they can do with their degree and finally and most importantly yet reduces the cost of earning their degree six students who are taking part in this program this semester and it will continue on an ongoing basis so we're really excited to see this is is a pilot program that is completely consistent with with this vision that we're actualizing it in view and i will stop there and take any questions thank you does anyone have any questions for nolan adkins about the northern vermont university experience in that report janet yeah um so i did read your folder sorry to the rest of them um and i really did um your the uh that community report you put together was very informational and very inspiring so i think it's a really great thing that you guys are doing and that's been funded and um i think it i think it helps shape the future for what education kind of can look like so thank you yeah thank you for the feedback i i do have a question i believe nolan you were involved with some people from the ski areas association to trying to set up internships and other similar kinds of programs for the ski areas with your students um we have a program similar to that at castleton with killington does that have any legs or is that something that we're still working on yeah two comments there uh first our our current program our current uh mountain recreation management program does have uh relationships with ski areas not only within the state but actually across the country the more specifically um additional conversations with the vermont ski area association are ongoing where we're at the point where we're waiting for them to identify individuals on the board who are able and willing to engage in the conversation and then we'll actually meet so that's where it's at it's actually with them to identify board members to work with us to engage in the conversation and to move the the conversation forward yes thank you um any other questions any questions concerns okay well thank you very much nolan good luck with those exciting sounding programs now we have pat molten from vermont tack thank you very much chair dickinson and thank you all i will try to go through this quickly i know we're running out of time but um we did share packets with you all yesterday there's a lot of really great information in there please take a look when you have a chance uh including a great impact report from our continuing item workforce development division that i think you'll find fascinating uh but we are back here in full swing here at vermont tack we have over 250 students in our residence halls between randall center and williston fewer than we would like but it's a lot more than last year all but one room is full at our res hall in williston we have space here in randall center but we've been fortunate enough to rent rooms to vermont law school students who are staying with us this semester and some traveling nurses who are working at central mont medical center so that's great news uh we're back in our labs as usual and students are very pleased and faculty are very pleased happy to say that our first year class is up 15 percent over last fall so we've recovered our covet slit from last fall which is really great news uh we're also seeing fewer withdrawals this year than last year which is really great news our overall enrollment is up about one percent uh that's due to the smaller first year class we had last year that was going to be following us through in our subsequent years um we are seeing students following our product covid protocols very well uh we did have a little computer glitch with students reporting their vaccine status which we're trying to track down but we have approximately 80 percent vaccination rate of those who have reported we do have a four percent uh requested and granted exemption either medical or religious exemptions we're looking into weekly testing for our unvaccinated students we're currently testing our athletes weekly um also we don't have our crf or arpa funds that we had last year but there are funds set aside at the chancellor's office for testing and other needs my sincere thanks to Sharon scott for making that happen uh we've got our homecoming and family weekend plan for this weekend we've got a lot of fun activities planned we too will be recognizing our 20 and 21 graduates at this event we're expecting lower attendance than usual primarily due to covid and especially with our older 50 or 45 uh year reunion classes but we are going to put on a good event for those who are attending our advanced manufacturing lab construction is almost complete but we too are a victim of supply chain issues on electrical equipment so we've got all kinds of cool stuff in there and no electricity to power it at the moment but that hopefully will be solved soon um much of the larger pieces of our additive manufacturing equipment are in and our way cool new wis bang five access cn machine are in i don't know if many of you get excited about five access cnc machines but i i'm very excited about it um the place looks great the new fire suppression system is in and we're hoping for a ribbon cutting in early 22 when all the equipment is in and students have been able to get in and do their work and can demonstrate the amazing capabilities of that lab and i just want to give a huge shout out to barry holst who is our director executive director of the vermont manufacturing collaborative which is what birthed this advanced manufacturing lab baby if you will barry's been a one-man show during amazing work and keeping us moving ahead on our do d deliverables as well as getting the lab set up in fact i really want to give kudos to the entire vermont tech team i mean our faculty who worked incredibly hard this summer on optimization and transformation work and are still going full steam on that work including the great work that trustee cleaver uh pointed out on our computing and engineering faculty providing all the thousand level courses this year in a high flex format making it far more accessible i also want to thank the financial aid and register staff who got an incoming class admitted and handed out more than three million dollars in scholarships in a hurry after july 1 the effective date of the scholarship money that the legislature generously provided us keep in mind that required that they had to go back and rework every single financial aid package that had already been developed over the last several months so it's a lot of work on top of everything else they are doing with her funding and of course transformation that we've seen a big jump in enrollment in our online bachelor in nursing program as a result of those scholarships and and our other health careers which is fantastic i also want to recognize our athletic staff getting our sports teams fully populated and up and running after a year and meeting covid requirements our student affairs staff which is getting vaccination information making sure students know and how to follow protocols and dealing when they don't as well as dealing with 30 plus plus non btc students in our res halls getting them settled um and dealing with the possibles that we have within our student the possible positives within our student body and more we have had a fair number of new staff in our student affairs office so this is they're doing great work with amazing turnover same with our center for academic success and our marketing and admissions team doing incredible work to get that 15 class in for this fall keep in mind admission staffs have not been able to travel to college fairs or high schools or any of that normal recruitment activity but still came in with a bigger class and our marketing staff who have continued to do amazing work without their fearless leader amanda chock our director of marketing resigned for a new opportunity this year but um they're continuing to crank out great social media graphics keep our website up to date and i can't say enough for the contractors we've brought in to work with our marketing staff they've been doing excellent work our facilities team is short staffed and and few to no student hires this summer due to no students being on campus yet the campus looks great maintenance is happening our public safety officers are doing amazing work with our students our contractors keeping them on task as well as we had to deal with a hostile intruder a real live one on our campus in may our hr team the whopping two of them keep addressing the unique challenges of staffing and recruitment particularly in this labor force our continuing ed and workforce development team who literally daily receive cries of help from employers across vermont and every sector seeking staff talent and who are again administering the workforce 2.0 grants and of course michelle graham my assistant who amazes me her ability to step in whenever wherever is needed and continue to do amazing work i can't say enough about this team they maze me and they make me so proud every day they are gems every one of them on the not so rosy side staffing is clearly an issue our health services coordinator part time retired and finding a part time our end to fill that position is the needle in the haystack we're soon posting for a full time actually we have folks posted for a full time health services coordinator given that we don't have a full time covid coordinator and we know covid isn't going away anytime soon we also required to do our own contact tracing all of us this year again and that's another reason we need a full time coordinator we are short staffed in our student affairs office but they're doing great wet work they can't do it do it all we've got short staffing in almost every sector sedexo who normally has a staff of 21 has seven this year and our hiring student hires they cannot find people to hire we've lost our associate dean of development our director of marketing and half of our library staff um folks are leaving due to opportunities elsewhere we can't match and a lot due to the uncertainty of transformation some of these positions are filling relatively either others easy others are not morale is struggling like jonathan folks are thrilled to have students back on campus but everybody is covid burnt out not just weary burnt out they've all been dealing with budget shortfalls here at vermont tech for over a decade now their plates are loaded up because of new and exciting opportunities which is great but also a lot of trans transformation work which is new uh patients can be thin and tensions can be high uh we are doing some employee appreciation work next month we'll do our annual employee recognition dinner but you should know there's limited bandwidth left for a lot of new things without something else coming off the list having said all of that the team is doing amazing work covid won't be with us forever we will emerge a stronger institution as one i also want to thank sophie and the whole entire team at the chancellor's office who are right there with us struggling through this no they're not experiencing camping campus issues but they've got a whole ton of other issues on their plate this is hard work we're doing but it's being done by people who are committed to ensuring the tremendous value of the vse institutions bring to the state of vermont i believe will be stronger better and even more effective as vermont state university than we are now and i can't wait to see what that looks like so with that i'm happy to answer any questions pat that was a heartfelt presentation and i think we all feel your pain well i i don't want to paint a picture that all is lost it's it's we've got exciting it's and wonderful things happening every day but it is a challenge some days and the workforce challenge is not unique to everybody else it's happening to us too yeah yeah this is true janet a quick question is your nursing program full oh yes i'm happy to say every site is maxed out this year usually we have a few seats left in either bennington or braddle world that's not the case this year and i and a lot of that's due to the critical occupation scholarships and the opportunities for folks to come you know like i said in the bsn program where students can take that bachelor's in nursing completely online that's that's the enrollments jumped a lot there which has been been fantastic yeah i think that and you know what joece was mentioning i think those are great examples of when you make things affordable they will come amen we should leverage those with the people who give us money yeah i absolutely and you know and like joece spoke about you know the demand is everywhere i mean their manufacturers are calling us every day get me a fry two please are calling uh healthcare are oops sorry healthcare institutions are calling us i mean service you name it they're calling us to say what can you do and they're looking for short medium and long term answers we bring the medium and long term not not so much on the short term where you truly have to educate students to take on some of these positions so anyone else have any comments or questions for pat regarding my tech i thank you for your enthusiasm i think all of you for your enthusiasm i i'm under no uh i'm under no illusions that what you're doing is easy this is hard work and i i think we all owe you a debt of gratitude as well as the chancellor and the people in her office i know that they're working very hard to help you and you know we know that the um some of the things the legislature did and some of the federal money has made a major difference that the governor's work on the covet has helped and i uh really want to thank all of you any other questions or any comments for the the presidents okay not seeing any more of that we do have additional business i don't see any other additional business does anyone want to bring something up that would be important all right important we're all important jim of course and i'd echo your your compliments to the presidents this is incredible work thank you jenny do you want something to say sorry um just super quick um because they weren't all with us you know the the people who attended yesterday's trustees meeting our final moments executive session included a discussion about how great it was that sofi and yasmine and and i i'll never get everybody's sharing you know not all the names but all of you have leaned in so hard to this and how hard you have all worked and how much we appreciate it i think bill actually had the best speech but i can't remember everything he said um but i think we all uh and speaking i'll speak for the rest of the group thank you we know what a heavy lift a heavy heavy lift it's been and um we really appreciate what you've done bill do you remember what you said i think jan has captured it i i think there's a deep appreciation i'll add one other thing i was thinking in listening in listening to the program aspects uh across the uh different parts of uh our system i uh both as a legislator and as just a vermonter i i am once again truly it's so important for vermont to understand how essential the work is that is going on in training vermonters to fill the important roles in health care in in uh schools in manufacturing it's like the vermont state college system is an essential part of the infrastructure of vermont and anyone listening it's it's perfectly obvious how important it is for us to continue to move forward and and succeed so again thank you everyone thank you we now have a public comment period um is gen courier available to say if there's anyone who signed up for the public comment yes chair dickinson we do have one um person who has signed up to make public comment and that is beth walsh beth we have unmuted you if you would like to make your public comment is beth there beth are you you can unmute yourself that would be helpful give me the option to unmute yourself beth um doesn't look like i've got it there you go oh good great good because i couldn't see anything that said unmute so thank you for giving me time to say a few words um i loved listening to the the meeting but especially the presidential reports uh i think pat moulton hit a lot of nails right on the head we are almost all of us are thrilled to be back on campus we're still very worried about um what's what it's going to look like going forward but we missed our students when we were working from home um one thing i've noticed is that we continue to see faculty and staff give their notices um on all of our campuses and morale is not good it is not sky high it is it is crashing staff are overworked and like others have said we have the additional tasks of being on these transformation committees it's exciting work but all of us are overworked because of the positions that haven't been filled uh we love our students and our colleagues and our institutions and we're struggling to stay optimistic um i can only hope that some of that budget surplus and i understand there's plenty of places to spend it but we have to fill positions and keep the staff that we have um because recruiting staff at this point has been very difficult i talked to so many people who are trying to hire staff and they're losing their first choices because of the salaries that we are offering it's not enough and we really have to really it's hard it's hard we don't have enough money to do it the way we need to do it but we're losing people um i do also want to share with you that about 43 percent of our members voted on whether to support mandating vaccines for staff and um so that's about 80 votes 67 said yes 13 said no so 84 percent of our staff say yes we need to mandate vaccinations and we look forward to um to negotiating how a vaccine mandate will be put in place and enforce Beth can i ask you one thing? Enforcing mask mandates and um why don't you continue enforcing mask mandates and vaccination requirements for visitors um it seems to be different on different campuses we feel that it should be the same all of our members should feel safe on their campus and when we have different policies on each campus it it doesn't work out that way um so if anybody has any questions for me i'm happy to answer um i love my work i love both my jobs i love my career services job and i love my union job um there's not enough time to do both of them uh really well so i do my best and hopefully that's going to be good enough to get us through yeah thank you Beth one question i want to just clarify you said 43 percent of the people who you surveyed in the in the faculty 43 43 percent of our members voted 43 we had 80 votes and that's from uh count the back in march so i'm sure it's probably more than 43 percent because so many people have left um but 84 percent voted yes we need to mandate vaccinations for staff and we understand that the biden um policy is probably going to cover us but i just wanted you to know that we are we're in it we are all about keeping our communities safe oh that's good yeah so you did a survey and came out with a good result that shows clearly people want mostly want this yes and the mask mandate there is no voter survey on that no no um but but from what we understand on each of our campuses there's there are campuses that are doing a really great job enforcing it campuses that are struggling to enforce it um it's a mixed messaging going out things like that and we are i've always been adamant that this needs to be a common policies and and common commitment to keeping our campuses safe okay thank you i just want to clarify that so you're looking at 80 percent of the people who actually answered the survey were for the vax mandate and i you know i i think that what i hear from many many people in many many fields not just in our colleges but that the employment situation is extremely difficult people are leaving people have retired people have moved away people just didn't go back to work and it is really hard to replace them i mean what pat described is a very real phenomena across the board for everyone which is why they want so badly for us to have people who can go and work come out of our schools and work for them yeah so anyone else have any more questions any discussion um and i just wanted to add um we have been surveying um um faculty and staff about vaccination status and right now uh we have just under 70 percent have responded and throughout the survey we've been at around 97 98 percent of fully fully vaccinated so right now it's 97 percent we have been encouraging employees to respond just so we would have a sense for um the level of vaccination um as beth mentioned we are keeping an eye on what's happening at the federal level so although um president biden's um mandate through osha applies to private employers because the state of vermont um has an osha approved state plan through osha um there is we do expect that public sector employees in vermont will also be covered by that but of course we're still waiting like everyone else on what osha the emergency temporary rule whatever it is they're coming out with we've got to see what it looks like but we are following that pretty closely and keeping an eye on it and being prepared in the event that that's um what we have to do we just don't want to rush to do something and then find out the federal rules difference so we're just you know we're expecting that to come down at any moment and we're preparing for it thank you that's a good point yes bill okay can i just say in listening both to what everyone has said earlier and what beth has just said it it clearly speaks to the opportunity that is here uh everyone is looking for workers trained skilled workers and that is the name of our game and so the in the midst of all these challenges and they are real for our own system uh that our system is the answer to so many of the challenges that uh others are having throughout the state in all the different sectors of employment so let's not that's we just need to hold that foremost as we move forward i'll say thank you anyone else not seeing anyone else i'd entertain a motion for adjournment so moved by jim aslan seconded by bill lippert any discussion i want to thank everyone once again for spending so much time and energy trying to help make this this process work and make it successful for our students and for everyone involved for vermoners um all those in favor of a german please indicate by saying aye aye opposed thank you very much we'll see you in probably october or this week oh and on wednesday wednesday at 6 30 next wednesday a week on wednesday can we ask for the the tour information to be recent the times and places to everyone or just to you what are you looking for the town hall i would like to see it i i just want to be a lot of stuff and i don't have it in me and i like do you want the town hall meeting information and the listening session information bill everything the town hall meetings i will do that thank you i'd like it as well okay i think justice everybody i appreciate that thank you see you thank you bye