 Good morning. You are back with the Vermont House Government Operations Committee. We are meeting this morning to do a little bit of work to help our friends down in the Judiciary Committee. They have a bill H183, which is an act relating to sexual violence. The bill contemplates creating a task force or a council of higher education representatives to do some work on collaborating on best practices to reduce sexual violence on campuses in Vermont. And so the Judiciary Committee is dealing with all of the other sections of the bill, but they've asked us to help in terms of giving some input into the creation of this council. I want to hear from some of the folks who may be members of the council and hear their thoughts on whether the makeup of this new council is appropriate if they have recommendations and we will share those recommendations with the Judiciary Committee. So what I would like to do first is invite Michelle Childs to to give us just sort of an overview of the the bill in general, just, you know, very just help us orient us since we're not immersed as a GovOps committee in in what the bill is and then if you could help us look in particular at the section of the bill as introduced that creates this council and then we can hear from some of the folks who are here to testify about this council. So thanks. Welcome Michelle. Nice to see you again. Good morning. Nice to see everybody. Um, I was just thinking of going over that one section, but did it sound like you wanted to hear about the whole bill. I think it would be helpful to just have, you know, three to five minutes on, you know, what what is the rest of the bill do just just so that this committee who may not have been as aware of this bill has an opportunity to understand how the council fits in. Sure. Is it okay if I can pull up the current house judiciary strike all is that yeah, if I do that. Yeah, let's make you a co host and you can do that. Sure. Oh, sorry that I picked up a different. I thought I was just going to go over the one so let me. Let me get ahold of that. We'll call it a brisk jog through the bill. Okay, sure. Page one of five. Yes. That's not the right one. Sorry. Apologies. There's been a lot of these. I can only imagine how many tabs are legislative council. Yeah, you're my fourth committee this morning. Oh my gosh. Hold on a second. Sorry. There we go. Okay, can you see that version two. Okay, great. And I can, I can send this to Andrea if you want me to. It's not as you can see it's still in draft form they haven't voted it out yet and it's got a lot of highlighting my, but let me know if you want me to send it because I had it is available on house judiciary website. So there's a few different issues here and first we're going to start out with the criminal provisions that are contained in here so these are making amendments to the sexual assault chapter and title 13 so title 13 being your criminal title chapter 72 being your title with sexual assault and we're starting out with with the definitions and a lot of what the amendments to to the sexual assault statutes have to do with in this proposal are around the issue of consent and what does consent mean. So you see we do have an existing definition of consent in section one in section 3251, and you'll see currently consent means words or actions by a person indicating a voluntary agreement to engage in a sexual act. And this adds the that it is a knowing or voluntary agreement. And also a new definition that comes from federal law, and a lot of the tweaks here are based on what is currently in the US code and title 10 with regard to sexual assault and in the military code that was updated. In 2008 and 2015. So they have so they are the federal law that's most recently adopted if you look at title 18 in the federal code that hasn't been amended since I believe the 80s and so it's a little older. But this definition comes directly from federal law so incapable of consenting means the person's incapable of appraising the nature of the conduct at issue or physically incapable of declining participation in or communicating and unwillingness to engage in a sexual act. So the definitions of developmental disability and psychiatric disability that's not changing what's in the current law, but is updating it with respectful language that we currently use the statute because as you know, oftentimes when we're going through an amending statutes will come across terms that we no longer use and we try to update them were appropriate. So in section two with regard to sexual assault. You'll see in said section a it's no person shall engage in a sexual act with another person. And you'll see the first one is without the consent of the other person, and then you have other provisions in there around threats or placing the person in fear that they'll suffer imminent bodily injury and you'll see the addition of the language on starting section five seven is that when the person knows or reasonably should know that the other person is asleep unconscious or otherwise unaware that the sexual act is occurring so clarifying that when you have someone who is is asleep unconscious or otherwise unaware of the conduct that that does not constitute consent. In section B, the current law just focuses on the issue of if an actor gives another person drugs or alcohol without their knowledge or against their will and then proceeds to engage in a sexual act with them. It is a crime. So subdivision be one just free words that a little bit and updates the language, and has to do and that so that still applies to when the actor administers and intoxicant to another person without their knowledge, but subdivision be to is a new language addressing the circumstance where where the actor isn't necessarily the person who who gives the survivor a alcohol or drugs but however they engage in a sexual act with a person who is incapable of consenting and there's that term again online 18 where we just talked about it that's in the definition section. So person engages in a sexual act with a person who's incapable of consenting due to substantial impairment by alcohol drugs or other intoxicants and that condition is known or reasonably should be known by the person. So in subdivision one you have a certain circumstance where they're drugging a person without their knowledge and engaging in a sexual act with them and subdivision to is they're engaging in a sexual act with them when they know or reasonably should know that that person cannot consent because they're substantially impaired by an intoxicant. And so I'm just just to be trying to move through I'm going to skip over some stuff but feel folks can always email me and I'll circle back with y'all another time when you have more time. So section three. This is an existing law on trial procedure and consent so there is language currently in statute that builds out and more detail about consent. This just tries to clarify that you'll see you know lack of verbal or physical resistance doesn't constitute consent. Neither does submission resulting from the use of force threat of force or placing another person in fear. An expression of lack of consent through words or conduct means there is no consent so that's essentially no means no. Section four is a reference to our existing rape shield law that says that you cannot take into evidence and offer a trial of victims. Prior sexual history or the way they were dressed or things like that. Division five. Subdivision six a person shall be deemed to have acted without the consent of the other person. And then it goes through and give some some different circumstances so the first one being that they knew or reasonably should have known that the person was mentally incapable of understanding the nature of the sexual act. B that they knew or reasonably should have known that the other person was not physically capable of resisting or declining consent. C is that they knew or reasonably should have known that the other person was unaware that the conduct was being committed. C is that the person knew or reasonably should have known that the other person was incapable of consenting to the sexual act due to a psychiatric or developmental disability. And so again this is in current law we we tweaked a little bit to have respectful language but also I just want to note here that this does not say that just because someone has a psychiatric or developmental disability that they are therefore incapable because certainly people are. This is saying that if, because of the disability, the person is incapable of consenting and then you go back up to the definition so that disability makes them either unaware of the ability, unable to appraise the nature of the conduct or physically incapable of resisting the conduct, then then that would not constitute consent. And then subdivision is that the person knew or reasonably should have known that the other person was incapable of consenting, because the person was substantially impaired by alcohol drugs or other intoxicants. I know that was super fast but you get the gist I think. Section four is on data collection so this was requested by advocates who were saying you know there's there's really not there's not enough information to kind of track what's happening to reports of sexual violence throughout the system what happens we know that that these types of cases are are very hard to bring. They're often just two people who are involved and no witnesses. And, and so there is a, you know, it tends to be a low reporting. And then, you know, I'm sure that the witnesses can talk about the statistics and numbers there but the cases that actually been got have charges brought and then there's an actual disposition of those in a conviction are few and so advocates have asked for some data on this so that's number first of 2024 and then by annually there after DPS and DPS I'm sure as you guys know Vermont crime information center is within DPS they're the repository for all the criminal history records, and there to report to you. So we have data from the national incident based reporting system and the Vermont judiciary on the following issues. The first being the number of sexual violence cases reported to law enforcement. The second one is the number of civil sexual assault or stalking orders granted there is a provision entitled 12 under court procedure that allows for a victim to obtain a restraining order in cases of sexual assault or stalking. And then line eight is the number of sexual violence cases that law enforcement then refers to a prosecutor so in the first one you have like how many reports are made and then you'll see and see how many reports then actually get referred for prosecution. Subdivision D is the number of sexual violence cases charged the nature of the charge and the disposition of the charges. Subdivision two says that that data is got to be aggregated by county and then subsection be says that the Department of Public Safety has to make a reasonable effort to protect victim confidentiality when statistical information may be identifying. In a small state. Sometimes that's difficult when you're working with us with a small community and so that provisions in there and then subsection C is that DPS is to post this data on their website and in a way that's clear and understandable. People can access it. So section five. Excuse me is the intercollegiate sexual violence prevention Council. And so this creates the Council. This is comes from a recommendation of a previous committee and report that I think probably Sarah will talk about. The other witnesses and the Council is created to coordinate response to campus sexual harm including across institutions of higher learning in Vermont and subsection B you have the members. So this is I know what you're going to focus on so currently the members are the title nine coordinator from each institution of higher learning in Vermont. A campus based prevention education coordinator who was appointed by the Vermont State Colleges. A campus based prevention education coordinator appointed by the University of Vermont. A campus based prevention education education coordinator appointed by the Association of Vermont independent colleges to community based sexual violence advocates appointed by the network against domestic and sexual violence. To law enforcement. I think that should say or public safety representatives. With experience responding to an investigating campus sexual violence, and they would be appointed by the Commissioner of Public Safety to college students appointed by the Center for Crime Victim Services. Top of page seven a person with expertise in sexual violence responses within the LGBTQ community appointed by the Center for Crime Victim Services. And then the new the new language that is being offered for consideration is on lines four through seven so the first being a sexual assault nurse examiner by the network sexual assault nurse examiners are professionals who are trained to collect evidence after, after a sexual assault and so those nurses are trained and available at hospitals so when someone reports a sexual assault. To a hospital, there will be a same nurse who will meet them there and can conduct the examination. There's a part later on that I'll show you that has an appropriation so that that program can be expanded to general practitioners and outside the hospital context because as you can imagine. You know there's only hospitals in certain parts of the state and so if you are in an area where you've got a two hour drive to a hospital and you've just been sexually assaulted. That compounds things. So, and then finally 10 is a prosecutor from either the Department of State's attorneys and sheriff's or the office of the Attorney General and I just put kind of appointed by because usually will say a state's attorney appointed by the executive director of the department or will say somebody from the AG's office pointed by the AG this is just a prosecutor and then so you'll have to figure out who you want if you want to keep that provision, who you want the appointing authority to be. So that's what I see goes through the duties. Michelle can I interrupt you for a moment because Mark has his hand up. Okay I'm sorry I can't see that. Thank you madam chair Michelle before you go much further. Can you tell me what that number adds up to and again, I'm not knowing that because I don't know how many institutions of higher learning there are in Vermont. So, do you have a total number of that council make up. Um, let's see there's 12345678. 910111213. So, but again going going back to membership be one. So it's a corn coordinator from each institution of higher learning in Vermont. Oh, no I don't know I'm sorry that's a good point. Okay, thank you. The witnesses can. Okay thanks. Sure. I see in the chat that there are 12 entities. 12. Okay. Thank you. So there's the duties that you can take a look at. They're going to be staffed by the network against domestic and sexual violence. They are due to provide a report on or before December 2022. And after the council shall submit a written report to General Assembly with a summary of activities and any recommendations for legislative action. Let's see. I selected chair from among the members at the first meeting, majority of the membership constitutes a quorum. If they aren't being paid by, let's say the organization that they work for so let's say in the, in the cases of the students, or then they would be entitled to per diem and expenses. There's appropriation here that will I'll show you here so you see in section six for FY 22 $13,000 is appropriated to the network for the purpose of staffing the council and also paying the per diems and expenses for those members who aren't otherwise compensated. So that's subsection be that's the money I talked about that would go towards expanding the forensic nursing program out to primary care reproductive health care settings. So beyond the hospital setting. Excellent. Thank you. All right, so let's go to some of the other folks who are with us and and committee I'm hopefully that was a good introduction to the to the bill and what it does. And it's our role here to just make recommendations on whether this is the right, you know, the right makeup of this council and, and whether we, whether we want to add other entities and so I think what I'd like to do is go first to Sarah Robinson with the network against domestic and sexual violence. This is the entity who would is contemplated to, to be staffing the council and if you could share with us a little bit about them, the makeup of the, this group and if there have been conversations that you've been aware of about either adding or changing membership to this council. Thank you. Good morning for the record Sarah Robinson deputy director at the Vermont network against domestic and sexual violence. And for those of you who may be less familiar with us the Vermont network serves as a statewide voice on issues related to domestic and sexual violence in Vermont, and we represent 15 independent nonprofit organizations who together provide direct services to victims of domestic and sexual violence across our state and together these organizations serve every square mile of Vermont. So thank you again for the invitation to provide testimony on h183, which is a bill that on whole seeks to address and improve Vermont system of response to sexual violence and I'll specifically speak to section five that I know you all are contemplating today. And by way of a little bit of context, in May of 2019, the legislature passed Act 77, which was a miscellaneous judiciary bill, and it included language in section four which created a time limited task force on campus sexual harm. And that task force was charged to examine issues related to responses to sexual harm dating and intimate partner violence and stalking on campuses of post secondary educational institutions in Vermont. And to report to the legislature honor before March 15 2020 with findings and any recommendations for legislative language. So that task force met over a period of nine months and held six formal in person meetings, and the final report of that task force is posted to the committee's web web page. And after that final report was submitted that body sun set it. The establishment of an ongoing Council on campus sexual violence was a key recommendation and discussion of this previous task force. And we'll really serve to coordinate and innovate responses to sexual violence on college campuses across Vermont that is the intent. And a little bit of context I just wanted to share that one in five female students and over one in five transgender students are sexually assaulted on college campuses and women ages 18 to 24 for our four times more likely than women of other ages to experience sexual violence. So then these institutions of higher learning is especially complex due to issues such as student privacy title nine proceedings and variable law enforcement involvement in campus sexual assaults. So the, the council proposed in h183 will insist in ensuring that both responses and prevention efforts on campuses across Vermont are coordinated, and that resources and best practices are shared across both large and small private and public institutions. So in terms of the composition, much of this came out of conversations that the previous task force had had and some of the members of that previous task force are included on this proposed council. There were also recommendations that were made by the Attorney General's office to add a prosecutor and a same nurse and we were supportive of those recommendations. In the language that the administrative staffing and resources to support this council is dedicated to the network at the moment and I will just say that the previous campus sexual harm task force indicated in their report that a permanent body such as this ought to have some staff and capacity and at least some minimal resources to carry out their work, but they did not as an entity decide where those resources ought to be dedicated. And I will just say as the network we have no attachment to staffing this committee but we are more than willing to do so. And if there's a more appropriate staffing structure that others propose we would be amenable to to those suggestions. But the composition of the council is intended to really represent the various stakeholders that serve survivors of domestic and sector of sexual violence on college campuses and bring together individuals who may have resources to share and knowledge bases to share to have interdisciplinary and ongoing conversations about supporting our institutions of higher learning and students and ensuring that they can access their education on campus. And with that I'm happy to answer any questions that members of the committee might have. Thank you Sarah Tanya Bihowski has a question. Wonderful thank you madam chair hi Sarah it's nice to see you. So we know that those who generally can speak best problems within a system or those who are most impacted by that system and that said I'm really grateful to see representation from the LGBT QIA plus community and college students and I'm wondering if thought was given to the pros and cons of having a survivor or a space held for someone who has survived sexual violence on a college campus and I don't and I know some of these members could be that but it's not explicitly named here and I'm just curious if you can speak to that. That's a great question. I can say that part of the intent of those two college students appointed by the Center for Crime Victim Services was to create the space for individuals who may identify as survivors of sexual assault to serve on the the fact that the appointing agency is housed in the Center for Crime Victim Services kind of makes that attachment, but the reason that language was chosen was because people have various levels of comfort with being publicly identified as survivors of sexual violence. So the idea was to provide a more general language and with the expectation that there may be people who identify as survivors who might seek to fill those seats. Um, thank you as as just I'm just wondering if as sort of a caveat to that there might be language added with a to sort of put out that a priority is given to individuals who have had that experience. We would certainly be amenable to language such as that. Peter Anthony. Thank you for the run through of the clarification of consent, consent, Michelle. I, I, I am sympathetic to Tanya's worry, but it seems to me it's also highlighted by the fact that they're only out of 20 some odd members of the council they're only two students. That the small number of young people immediately raises the issue of whether they are identifiable as victims or not. And I, I'm just I'm struck with that quite apart from Tanya's point about making sure that the voices of people who have suffered this grievous harm are also heard from but not necessarily put in an awkward position, I guess, but the fewness of numbers just heightens that possibility, I think. Thanks. Thanks, Peter. Okay, so back to Mark Higley's question before on how many entities there were I believe the tally that I have is 12 private entities in Vermont for Vermont State College entities and the University of Vermont. And so what I'd like to do now is go to to some of the folks who are with us from our institutions of higher learning and I think I'm going to go first to Vermont State Colleges and I see Patricia Turley and Michelle Whitman are here from Vermont State Colleges. I'm not sure if you already flipped a coin or if you both have thoughts that you'd like to share with us but please help us understand how the Vermont State College system feels about the makeup of this council. Thank you, Madam Chair. I will go first and Michelle is available, primarily because she is a title line coordinator and so she really, I believe she was also on the task force, so she has firsthand experience here if that's valuable to you. Thank you for the opportunity to testify on this legislation. My name is Patty Turley I am the general counsel for the Vermont State Colleges. And third we have four institutions, they are Northern Vermont University, Castleton University, Vermont Technical College and Community College of Vermont. We support the, you know, I'm here primarily about the intercollegiate sexual violence prevention council we support this effort. Some of our employees have participated in the legislative task force, and also in a separate intercollegiate sexual violence group. One of them is here today Michelle Whitmore, who is a title line coordinator at Northern Vermont University, and she participated in the legislative task force, I believe. We're concerned about two areas, although we totally support this bill where we're behind the collaboration the sharing of best practices, we think that that is that that is a good target. Our first concern would be that the legislation doesn't identify the what the how many meetings per year what the what the timeframe might be that is considered here. So we think that that would be helpful so that we can understand the undertaking better. Another concern is that as written we would contribute for title nine coordinators, because we have four institutions, due to the size of our institutions, none of our title nine coordinators are dedicated to that role exclusively. They all have other duties outside of title nine, which are providing different types of services to students depending on the campus that they're serving. All of our title nine coordinators are attending regular meetings, they are not able to provide the services that they do to students, and although a that creates a gap that nobody else on their campus is really able to to fill. We would request that the committee consider allowing the VSE to send one coordinator, as opposed to one per institution. We understand that the different institutions all have different experiences with the title nine and other sexual assault issues that they might experience. However, our coordinators communicate with each other. They support and problem solved together in a regular although usually informal fashion. If we designated one individual to to attend this council. We believe that they would that they would be communicating with each other for that purpose because they share this goal as well. That's primarily what I am here to describe and I don't know if you have questions of me or in particular of Michelle Michelle is there anything in particular that you wanted to express before we move to questions. I just really wanted to echo Patty statement just about the, the commitment and the time dedicated as a title line coordinator on a Vermont State College campus that already is very lean and staffing. And for myself in particular as as the Northern Vermont University title nine coordinator. That is in addition to my role as the associate dean of students and senior women administrator in addition to orientating first year experiences so this work is incredibly important. And then focusing in this work need to really be dedicated to do so and and we all as tonight coordinators are very much dedicated to this work but the time that is then decreased in focusing on the students on campus the other day to the responsibilities that we have takes a seat back and I just want that to be noted and certainly echo what Patty had shared about the importance of possibly having one title nine coordinator for the Vermont State College system. Thank you. Thank you so much to both of you. I think what I'd like to do next is here from Susan Stitley who's the President of the Association of Vermont independent colleges so Susan please share your thoughts on the Council. Thank you for joining me today. You know of course our, we have 12 private colleges in the state, Bennington College, Champlain landmark Goddard Norwich University, Middlebury, SIT Sterling College, St. Mike's for my college of fine arts for my law school and the Center for cartoon studies. We range a group, ranging group with different levels of student populations. The Center for cartoon studies only has 40 approximately 40 students students and up to you know 2,500 for the larger institutions, but everyone is very supportive and of the Council. It is a lot of members on the Council my account came up with 29. So each with the 12 private colleges and then another appointee that specializes in education and the rest. I wouldn't be a little concerned that it's a little unwieldy with that many people on the Council. But you know that that said our title nine coordinators are certainly willing and happy to serve. Another outstanding issue that we've discussed is the requirement of an annual climate survey. There is a lot of has some hesitancy around that it's very time consuming to do a climate survey. It takes a lot of implementation and administrative work and doing it on an annual basis. I'm concerned that you know views don't change that much annually. So having and there's also student fatigue with surveys. So perhaps making that a bi annual, bi annual annual survey would be a better approach to that. And I don't believe that a legislation addresses how many times the Council is actually going to meet. So that's a question of is it in person, is it on Zoom or maybe it's going to be a combination of both when we are through this pandemic, but four to six times a year seems a reasonable amount to most title nine coordinators. And really that's all of our thinking on it so I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. Thank you so much. Would you recommend that that we specify fewer representatives of private institutions I know you said the Center for Cartoon Studies has 40 students and that seems perhaps a very different animal than you know your Middlebury college or your school districts. Yeah, the challenge with that is you know each, each college is so different and so independent. And although the title nine coordinators do get together and meet it's not like the Vermont State College system where they're all part of one system. So I think it probably is appropriate to have for the private colleges, one representative from each institution. Thank you so much. Wendy Koenig thank you for being with us. Wendy is here representing the University of Vermont. Good morning. Thank you so much. Good morning for the record I'm Wendy Koenig I'm the director of federal and state relations for UVM. I would like to give some testimony that I consulted on with our general counsel Sharon Rick Paulson she's unable to be with us here today but I have some notes that she's given me so I think that some of the some of the UVM's concerns are very similar to what has been voiced already. We did have our title nine coordinator participate in the prior counsel, Nick Stanton, and I think we are a bit worried about time. As the as in particular the state colleges mentioned that our title nine coordinator is is generally very busy hearing and adjudicating cases on campus and was was thinking that a good suggestion might be that if we name the title nine coordinator as a UVM representative that he or she would have the ability to delegate to someone else on their staff if they're unable to attend a meeting that having the title nine coordinator attend every meeting might not be possible given their role on campus. I also know I also know the call for student members, and one of the questions we had is how those folks would would be identified and we'd be thrilled to be able to nominate someone to do that if if that was desired. I think that one of the other things that we were thinking about is that we just, I think our general counsel wanted me to make sure that everybody understands that we think that this is great to talk about prevention and education, but she wanted to remind folks that when we're talking about issues of investigation and adjudication that that is governed by federal law and that's something that we have to do on campus. I think that we're a little bit worried about the term best practices in the legal sense that we know that participants in this council will be well intentioned and talking about that. But best practice may connotate national expertise or sort of all college type of expertise and I think that we're somewhat uncomfortable without terminology. I think Susan brings up something that we're concerned about which is the survey issue, some of the surveys that we do climate surveys on our campus for a lot of different things and some of them already include pieces about sexual and other type of domestic violence situations. I would agree that with the amount of serving that we do on campus for some of which is federally required that it can give students some some survey fatigue and we don't always get great response rates on surveys when we've tried to do more in any given year so I would say that we do want to be careful and also, as mentioned, lots of our institutions are very very different in their size and scope and so if we want to avoid making a one size fits all survey if we're talking about surveying, because a survey that would go to the to sterling college with 130 students and the University of Vermont would probably have to be quite different. So, we just wanted to mention that. There is some data and some science which I think we can provide you all if you're interested in it that shows that doing these surveys are not always the best way to get it at some of these issues. I think also that in terms of some of the data sharing, we are a little bit worried about privacy concerns. We want to make sure that in any data that is shared that we are complying with FERPA regulations and not identifying students in any way. And lastly, I think that the one other thing that wanted she that our general council wanted me to mention was that she does feel that this doesn't need to necessarily be a legislative group that maybe this should be a group that's that's run by the group of colleges and universities. That being said, I think that that covers everything else that we were worried about and happy to provide you with any of that scientific data information or with any of these points in writing to happy to answer questions as well. Thank you tiny of you have ski has a question. I actually have two questions one is back directed to the Vermont State colleges and it sort of gets to the something that came up during the private college discussion and that is about the differences on campuses. I hear you that that you know you have four campuses within the same system and it and asking for four different title nine individuals to come to the table would be unwieldy. And I worry that maybe what's happening at Castleton is very different than than what might be happening at the Linden campus and so I just wonder if you can speak to that for me. Where Michelle I don't know if you would like to speak to that since you are one of the coordinators and actually communicate regularly with the other other coordinators on that. I'm sure sure to share some thoughts on that and make sure that I that I understand your question clearly. So, for the Vermont State College system the title nine coordinators, we had we typically meet on a very regular basis and that includes representative from Castleton from Northern Vermont University, and from Fred again for getting one and I apologize for that. So, we have been meeting on a regular basis throughout the semesters I will say due to the pandemic and other areas of focus that we are reading on a more unofficial basis, we'll check in with each other. And if there need arises or if we need to just share some, some suggestions and thoughts on education and prevention. But we do work very closely together and I'm very grateful for that. And within the Vermont State College system office of the chancellors, we also have a wonderful title nine coordinator in general council, who also communicate with us on a very regular basis, sharing with us best best practices that are available to our committee and also to provide us with other opportunities to get additional training. I'm not sure if that answers your question appropriately but please feel welcome to ask me to clarify. No that was really helpful thank you that that regular connection together really helps ease my mind that all voices across the system will be represented. My other question is just a technical question so there's seven and it might not be specifically for the Vermont State Colleges but there's 17 colleges we've listed in the state of Vermont and I wonder how many, if any are non residential campuses and if that changes the, the impact of sexual violence on campus. I know CCV is non residential but I don't know if any of the others are right. I'm happy to answer that. Oh, I'm sorry Susan also would like to so I'll just say briefly CCV definitely is not a residential college and there are components of, for example, Northern Vermont University has a program called Northern Vermont NBU online and that's a non residential program so there are some components of the other colleges that are non residential. And for the private colleges, a Goddard College and Vermont College of Fine Arts. They are both low residency programs so their students come from across the United States and just come for programs usually 10 to 14 days at a time. Also, SIT the School for International Training in the Brattleboro area. They don't have any programs on their Vermont campus anymore they're all abroad. At UVM, most of our programs are residential. In during the pandemic, we do have about 2200 students who have chosen an remote option, an at home option so at the moment, we have a significant population that is not residential. Thank you. Peter Anthony. Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to also support the notion that 28 may be unwieldy. I know that's already mentioned. I already talked about the balance of students relative to providers, other interested parties. I guess I want to go back to the possibility that there would be in ascertaining the campus climate survey fatigue that was mentioned and I'm wondering whether that language should be loosened up. Instead of focusing on a vehicle for ascertaining data, rather change the language so that you're actually focusing on what you want to know from the data as opposed to how you collect it and get around that and sort of allow that a little bit more diversity as to how each campus or generation gets at the data that you want to collect. In other words, flesh out the meaning of climate, what do you mean by climate, spend some time on figuring out that instead of using a word like survey. Thank you. I wanted to jump in on that point or should we take that as a good echoing of what we're hearing in terms of concerns around the climate survey. Go ahead, Wendy. I think that that suggestion is a good one and as I said, I think that some campuses may already have some data information that we conduct through different surveys that might answer some of these things and my guess is that that's true on other campuses besides UVM. Great. That's a helpful suggestion. John Gannon. Thank you. A comment and then a question just looking at the first five groups of memberships it appears that there could be a requirement that a college university have multiple members on this group and if there's something we can do to eliminate that so that there is a single representative from each college or university I think would would slim down the number of participants in this council. And then my question is to Wendy. She said, I believe you said that this doesn't necessarily need to be a legislative group that maybe this should be a group that's run by a group of colleges and universities could you explain that a little more please. I don't I don't know that I have any more of an answer on that that was something that I received as as feedback from our campus I think that. I think there's some concern about data sharing I think there's some concern and I think that they think I think that there's some feeling that maybe the colleges know how to deal with that best in terms of the federal institutions that were under. And I also think that there's some concern about having an advocacy organization as the person in charge of report or the entity in charge of reporting and running the group. Thanks. All right, so next I would like to invite Rory Tebow who's Washington County State's attorney to share any observations or thoughts on the makeup of this council and and and share any recommendations you have. Good morning for the record I'm Washington County State's attorney Rory Tebow. Thank you very much representative Copeland Hansen for the invitation today. Obviously, the Department of State's attorneys and sheriffs has a lot more contributions and opinions about the other substantive parts of h183 regarding changes in law. But from a perspective of this group, I think we agree with the Attorney General's recommendation that there be both a prosecutorial representative in some form and also a sexual assault nurse examiner added to the composition. I think that's important and it mirrors really how we use our multidisciplinary team or MBT group to supplement the special investigative unit in Washington County. It brings together a lot of different voices. I think my comments to be really limited and I'll defer the expertise of both Sarah Robinson and also those are actually in the business of title nine about the exact position, but I would echo that there is definitely a need for this type of assessment. There's a lot to be said about improving systems in the state. Each county has some variances in its relationship, both with law enforcement and the law enforcement purview and responsibility for college campuses in that area. And from my perspective, Washington County has several smaller institutions and one large one being Norwich University. And in that sentiment, in that sense, it is important to have a good flow of communication and clear expectations when addressing college sexual assaults and sexual harassment. I know, again, the title nine process is separate and distinct from the criminal process but ensuring that there are systems in place to allow victims a cognizable and appropriate choice is important. I think this is a be a welcome addition to helping ensure there's best practices and understanding a little bit more of the scope of campus sexual assault in the state of Vermont. This mirrors other efforts made at a federal level and other states. So I think it does deserve our attention and the department is happy to be part of it. One note I would say is right now there's some open ended language in each one is drafted. It's not typical that we, we didn't want to have both an AG representative and the state's attorney representative on there. The question really comes down perhaps the committee's preference of who should be the person to select that, you know default and say the attorney general could select that and pick somebody from the stable states attorneys if need be. There's generally a good relationship there and I don't think it would be a problem. I think we have a lot to contribute to how to best serve victims and ensure that there's a handoff from people who make a title nine complaint to a criminal complaint and ensure that our victim advocates are informed in that as well when our office does become involved with that said I'm happy to answer any questions. Thanks Rory, John Ganon. Thank you Rory for testifying today and you sort of started to touch on the question I had which was the language in the bill around the prosecutor being appointed to this council on the language right now is a little unwieldy because it could be from either the department of states attorney's insurance or the office of the attorney general appointed by we don't know at this point. So who typically prosecutes sexual assault cases that have been on Vermont campuses. So really that'll defer in usually default to a county prosecutor. The attorney general takes, you know, it's much smaller percentage proportionately of cases in the state I think right now the criminal division is six or seven, you know, attorneys versus about 63 or 65 or so in different states attorney's offices so from that sense, the volume of cases is often with us, but there are any number of reasons why the attorney general may become involved there may be some, you know, special circumstances with case a conflict in an office or alternatively it may be a case of a variety or complexity that warrants, you know that sort of that level of care and in that sense I would say that you know we have a fantastic group of assistant attorney generals in the criminal division, and they do tend to have a slightly reduced caseload versus what field deputy states attorney would have and they can really sink their teeth into deep dive into these cases. And to just follow up on that. Do you think we should modify the language and be 10 slightly just say a prosecutor that has experience with sexual assault cases on college campuses so that we were actually having somebody with expertise in that area. Sure, and I think you know in, it might actually open up to in writing it broadly as a prosecutor might not then limit it to being a state prosecutor it could actually be a federal prosecutor, and I know that we do have some talented assistant US attorneys who have a deep background and dealing with crimes of sexual violence and do overlap from time to time and these issues. And I think each office around the state of state's attorneys I can't say generally has somebody who is proficient and skilled here. So yeah, there's definitely a great pool of people to select from and I don't think there's any, you know, fighting or pushing by any department to, you know, to feel that as all of our agencies, you know, have a lot of different committees, boards and groups that we contribute membership to. Thank you. Thanks, Rory. I appreciate that you're probably noticing that we're running up against the noon hour. So thank you for being very direct and and to the point and john great questions. Next I'd like to go to Rebecca Turner, who's here with the defender generals office and and hear any thoughts that you have Rebecca on the makeup of this council. Thank you very much for the record Rebecca Turner from the office of the defender general. So, I think my main points and comments were to address and point us up the makeup of of the council, and what struck me here and I understand I've heard the concerns that's already unwieldy so the question would be that there are actually, there's a significant missing perspective on this council and that is the perspective of the person who stands to be accused of these allegations. And, and so I look through it and the 20 some positions there is not anyone there who can share some people who, again, are likely to be to be accused. The most clear and obvious omission is someone from the public defender's office. I mean here we have an inclusion from the prosecutor side, but not from the office of the defender general so the most simple addition there there should be some seat at this council from that perspective, or at least the criminal defense bar. Another critical perspective, and I think this one warrants a bit more explanation. And that is that we need voices and perspectives from the BIPOC community in Vermont on this council and BIPOC voices perspectives, their stories their direct experiences in this is absolutely needed and. And what I understand about this, and this is this is an issue that doesn't come up often in the discussion on sexual harassment or assault cases on campus. But the intersection of racial issues in that context, and specifically, who, what are the race and ethnicities of the men and boys who are disproportionately standing to be accused in this. Now, my understanding is that there are no lease from the federal government perspective and maybe others on this on this hearing can correct me. There is a, these statistics on race of the an ethnicity of the person who's accused are not being tracked nationally so we don't have these statistics. But what we have our anecdotes, and again others on this call may be able to share what they know to the extent the the race and ethnicity of those who are accused of these in Vermont but certainly nationally and there is a professor at the Harvard Law School Janet Halley or Haley I might be mispronouncing her name, but she's been tracking this anecdotally there and she has seen disparities evident. Again disparities being that men boys color are being accused. Now what we know of course is that racial disparities exist in our Vermont criminal and juvenile justice systems. And that's the reason why there should be this wide pass when it comes to sex related offenses in the criminal juvenile justice systems. And so I think that where we are now with, you know, last summer coming to sort of this national real realization of wanting to be sure that we're sensitive to and address and be conscious of sort of the perpetuation of disparate policies or this is one opportunity where there should be seats at the table not just one right and again my point is not just to have one seat but fair and balanced. Again from people who can speak from the perspective that accused. I just wanted to throw as a resource out there. Who are these people possibly should be part at this table. If the members of the committee aren't already familiar with allied Vermont. They have a website and it's a fabulous resource listing all the organizations, racial equity organizations Vermont, and that can be consulted. There is a LV again anecdotes show that it's not just black, brown men and boys, but that it's newly arrived immigrants, new Americans who are disproportionately being accused. So I think it would be invaluable to have, or organizations that represent immigrants or new Americans perspectives and then a lb is a great resource here in Vermont. The newly established social equity caucus, the legislature might have additional ideas, or places to go and may should be consulted, but that's what I wanted to leave you with in terms of my thoughts on this bill. Thank you, Rebecca for sharing your perspective committee any questions for Rebecca on on what she's just presented. Go ahead john. I don't know if this is a question for Rebecca or not, or maybe it's for Sarah but I know that the Vermont campus sexual harm task force did have a representative from the defender general's office on it. So I'm just wondering, who made the decision to exclude the defender general's office. I can respond to that and just say that this was an initial pass based on, you know the conversations at of the task force but don Matthews from the defender general's office did serve on the task force who is a wonderful member of that group and made valuable contributions and we would welcome a representative from the defender general's office on the council. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you Madam chair and thank you to those who have testified today. I just have a general question about getting data, because we've been hearing sometimes surveys, you know people, you know gets not consistent with filing them I do know sometimes that people have been sent surveys and they purposely sleep, put in the wrong information because you know this is more like high school based but going forward, because they're just sick of getting the surveys. But do we know if any information is going to be taken from actual cases that occurred on campuses, you know obviously taking out the specific pinpointing information to somebody but learning from past experiences do we know if that's going to be looked at. Maybe Sarah Robinson has a perspective on that. My thought with respect to that is that the title nine coordinators from the various colleges are going to have a lot of firsthand experience in connecting with with both survivors of sexual assault and and folks who've been accused of sexual assault on college campuses. And so they would be able to bring a lot of actual, you know, cases and and perspective on, you know what works and what doesn't work but Sarah Robinson you you probably have another perspective on that as well. I think that's accurate and I would say that in terms of the, you know, campus climate surveys, you know the intention is certainly not to, you know, mandate one survey and one, one way the same way, but to have an opportunity to share aggregate data between various approaches to gathering information so that we're, you know, this group is able to identify some significant trends that may be occurring across institutions and across various settings. That's helpful. Yes, thank you. I just hope that for unfortunately, where there are events to use real data from that that the data is tracked and recorded, just to know where, where we can see improvement. So I want to kind of maybe asking people about things that may get are yet to happen, or what they feel could happen like what has happened and what what we've done to track it and to make it better. Thank you. So I want to thank all of you for being with us this morning. We've had a dense hour of looking at a brand new bill and understanding the makeup of this council so committee members I will ask you to sort of mull over what you've been saying and we'll come back to have a committee discussion later today or or first thing tomorrow on some of the recommendations that we've heard so thank you all for being with us this morning committee thank you for hanging in through a very long morning.