 video. This is the Vermont State College Board meeting on March 27th. The full board will be here. We'll have a full report today. I'm going to start and call the meeting to order and ask for the approval of the minutes from February 22nd. Do I hear a motion? Mary Moran has a motion. I have a second. Adam will second that. Okay, Adam. Seconds that. So we have a motion on the floor and a second for to accept the minutes of February 22nd. All those in favor please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Okay, good. One housekeeping note. The link to sign up to provide public comments available on the agenda published on the VSE website or the link posted in the chat. And we're going to change the agenda just slightly. The past two budget update which is an item 9b will be discussed as part of the legislative update which is actually agenda item number 8. That's something that the CFO will go over with us. Now we're going to get started on the presentation on our on our board's responsibilities and authority. There is an article in our materials from Jim Page of Barbara Brittingham that was governing higher education system in perilous times. Assessing the board's readiness and the capacity for strategic change. It was a very good article. I hope everyone had a chance to read it. I'd like to welcome Jim Page who is our consultant that we that the state has hired and that we have also been using during the course of this transformation process and study. And I'm going to turn the meeting over now to our general counsel, Patty Turley and the Chancellor, Sophie Zadotny to present what what they have we worked on with Jim Page and which will go through a variety of materials. We will have questions and answers at the end and Jim Page will not be presenting but he will be available for comment or to answer any questions. So with that I'm going to turn it over to the Chancellor and the general counsel. I'm going to turn it over to Patty to get it going. I'm going to share my screen. I can make sure Sophie if you can nod. Can you see that? Okay, good. Thank you. So yes, thank you chair Dickinson for introducing this important topic. We are going to work today on making sure that the board has a good understanding of the authority of the trustees and how to locate the different responsibilities within the Vermont State College system. So our very first the establishment of board authority and the locating of the board responsibilities are the overview for this for this presentation. And what you'll find is that the board's authority cascades down to the Chancellor and to the Presidents. The primary source of authority is indeed the statute. We are a we are created by statute so the legislature can also change our purposes and powers. Emphasized within this portion of the statute that's in front of you is the underlined version that says the corporation shall plan, supervise, administer and operate facilities for education at the post-secondary level, supported in whole or in substantial part with state funds. We know there is some movement in the legislature to address address issues such as board makeup, more specific purposes and accountability. And so that may be on the horizon, but this is our statute as it's currently in place. The VSC is a public corporation and instrumentality of the state and a government entity. Those are distinctions for the VSC. One thing we often hear is confusion about whether we are a 501C3 corporation or a non-profit corporation and we are not because of our public corporation status. The board of trustees is described in the law and of course you are the trustee so I'm sure you're aware that there are 15 of you appointed or elected as defined in the statute. There was a change to the statute as you well know in the past few years to create the board appointed trustees. The governance of the board is this is an interesting aspect for you to keep in mind. The board acts as a full board. You are not 15 individual trustees with distinct constituencies. You don't represent a region or a specific voice of a constituency. The board members are officers of the whole system. They have a you have a fiduciary duty of care and a fiduciary duty of loyalty. Now the trustee handbook provides us with a little bit more information about what does it mean to have the standard of care. And some of you have been through the trainings on conflict of interest and duty. So only a brief reminder here is that a trustee shall at all times discharge duties as a trustee in good faith with the care and ordinarily prudent person in a like position would exercise under similar circumstances and in a manner the trustee reasonably believes to be in the best interest of the system. Loyalty is another concept that the trustee handbook has defined. And the the trustee may challenge the judgment of others when he or she deems it necessary to do so and shall vote individual convictions after listening to others, but must be willing to work with board members in the best interest of the system. A final note here is that the board members as part of these fiduciary duties, they also are to maintain confidentiality of executive sessions. They are to support the chancellor's role as our chief executive to whom the board has delegated authority. And the chancellor is the spokesperson for the system, while the chair is the spokesperson for the board unless otherwise delegated. The power of the board is also set out in in the statute. And so it is here, but you don't have to read it too closely because we're going to separate it out in these next slides. Some of the specific powers that the board has from the statute are to confer degrees and honors to appoint a chancellor to appoint presidents of each institution and to set out their duties, salaries and terms of office. So that comes straight from the statute. And in addition, in the statute, the board has the powers to make bylaws and regulate the governance of its meetings, and the governance of its institutions. Now, this this last part is interesting, because it provides some additional detail within the statute. The terms of student admissions is actually a board power, as is courses of instruction, courses of educational standards, rates of tuition, and scholarships and other student aids. So that sounds great. It's in the statute. But what does that mean? How do we put it into practice? Well, the board makes policies and and and implements practices and it does so in accordance with Vermont's open meeting law. And that means that we have just as we're doing, we have agendas that are born ahead of time and people have an opportunity to observe and attend and comment. And the board votes on its policies in the public meeting. The board adopts policies from implementation, but it's the Chancellor who puts them into practice. The trustees don't have individual power or authority within within this within this framework. So the powers reside with the full board to make policy. And the and then management has to guide the board and and inform the board and implement what the board puts into into place. Later, in this presentation, we'll discuss in more detail that management is generally responsible for development and execution of strategy, selection and supervision of staff, development recommendation to the board and implementation of the budget and the establishment of procedures. Transformation is the reason that we're doing this presentation because it will make demands on the board as well as the system to make decisions. We're always making decisions, but probably a lot more decisions are ahead of us right now. And so one of the reasons for this presentation is to make sure we understand who makes these decisions. The legislature, the Board of Trustees, the Chancellor, the presidents or others. The legislature, for example, by statute has the power to close an institution. We do not know the board does not and the system does not. If the General Assembly does decide to abandon lease or sell any of the institutions, it must work with the agency of administration to determine that action and obtain the approval of the governor. So they're also constrained. The state of Vermont is supposed to support and maintain the corporation in whole or in substantial part with state funds. That's why the legislature is involved in in in our in our funding. And we've already discussed the board's authority in the previous slide. So now I'm going to look at the Chancellor's authority. The role of the Chancellor is really the chief executive officer. That's that's the best way to describe the role of the Chancellor with the responsibilities and authority that comes with that position. The Chancellor is appointed by the board and serves at the pleasure by the board of the board, unless the terms are otherwise designated by the board. The board conducts an annual performance review of the Chancellor and the Chancellor appoints the chief financial officer. That is the only other officer of the corporation outside the trustees and the Chancellor. And that person who happens to be Sharon Scott is appointed by the Chancellor. The personal handbook provides some additional information about the Chancellor's duties. The Chancellor has full discretion to add, modify, delete or otherwise change unilaterally the provisions of the handbook. So that is a personnel handbook or the policies and procedures on which they are faced at any time. The Chancellor also is the hiring official in the Chancellor's office. The presidents are the hiring officials for each member institution, but they must consult with the Chancellor before not reappointing or discharging an employee. The Chancellor makes final decisions on requests for reclassifications. Again, that's about personnel. And the Chancellor is the final decision maker on non bargaining unit, non non union employee complaints, and is the penultimate decision maker on grievances filed by bargaining unit employees. Next, we're going to look at the role of the president. The role of the president is as the chief executive and administrator officer of the member institution, the board selects presidents, but consults with the Chancellor and faculty staff and students first. President has direct responsibility to the Chancellor for the effective operation of the institution and for abiding by the policies and objectives approved by the board. And the Chancellor exercises immediate supervision over the president. Our bylaws make it clear that the Chancellor makes recommendations to the board on compensation, reappointment, non appointment and discharge of presidents. And the it is the board that after considering the Chancellor's recommendations and its own assessments of a president's performance has final authority. So the board does have final authority with respect to the president's performance and whether to reappoint or discharge. The Chancellor does have the authority to suspend a president with pay in cases of a potential discharge before the board has had an opportunity to consider. The presidents are hiring officials for each member institution, but they do consult with the Chancellor before not reappointing an employee or discharging an employee as I previously described. So most of these roles are quite familiar to you. We were more digging down into why we have those roles and I'm going to hand this over to Sophie for the remainder of the presentation. Right. So the next slide shows the locating different levels of authority. So as Patty has indicated, the highest level of authority is our authorizing statute that's written into law. The next level of authority are bylaws and the resolutions that the board passes. And then under that we have the board policies. So under our bylaws, they provide that the board may establish committees by resolution, that each committee of the board shall have the powers set forth in the resolution that established the committee. The Charters for the board's committees are set forth in the trustee handbook and we're going to be talking about a new charter coming up here shortly. Generally, the chart is provided for the purpose of each committee, its organization, its responsibilities and its duties. And much of the work of the board is conducted by committees. And it's been a little bit different this past year, given the situation we've been in a lot of work has actually been conducted directly by the board. But historically much of the work is conducted by the committees. And typically it's considered good practice to follow a committee's recommendation unless there's a compelling reason not to do so. Basically, you don't want to have the board redoing the work that's already been done in committee. And trustees that don't sit on a particular committee should be comfortable with that an appropriate and adequate process was followed at the committee level. The next few slides are looking in more detail at certain aspects of the board's responsibilities. I appreciate how tiny the writing is on here. We will be providing these slides to you afterwards. They'll be they'll be available. So just looking at a number of different areas. So strategic planning, for example, in this slide, we just run through what the statutory authority is, where where in the bylaws it's mentioned, the trustee handbook, the VSC policies, and then if there are other authorities, rules, regulations, et cetera, put those in the end column. So so you have a sense of, you know, how this how these things come into play. So the board does play a critical role in defining the mission, vision and strategic priorities of the Vermont State College system, as well as overseeing and approving the strategic plans of the individual institutions to ensure that those plans are consistent with the system. And this is one of the board's most important roles. Under our current policy, which is policy 505, the board reviews the mission, vision and strategic priorities every three years for the system. And the Chancellor has responsibility for updating system priorities at appropriate intervals and presenting any revisions to the Long Range Planning Committee for review, who then forwards it on to the board for final approval. And we did just go through the strategic priorities in the fall. At the institutional level, each president shall establish an institution-specific strategic planning process that includes both short-term and long-term planning and all revisions to the institution's mission and vision statements are reviewed by the Long Range Planning Committee and then forwarded the board for final approval. By policy, the Chancellor and the Presidents are to report annually to Long Range Planning Committee on the progress of strategies and objectives as outlined both in the system and institutional strategic plans. So this is important to bear in mind because we obviously will be thinking about the mission, vision and strategic priorities of the to be created new entity that's going to come out of the common accreditation of Northern Vermont University, Castleton University and Vermont Technical College. So that's an important role that the board has in front of it. Turning to the next slide, we're looking at academic programs and policies. And again, there's statutory authority. As noted, the board explicitly, it by statute, has authority to prescribe courses of instruction and educational standards. And then again, there's information in the bylaws, the trustee handbook, a variety of policies which I know the EPSL committee is familiar with, as well as other sources here. So we have both information in our full-time faculty collective bargaining agreement regarding faculty governance, shared governance over academic programs. And then also NETCI, the New England Commission on Higher Education. These are the standards, the accreditation standards that we have to abide by and standard. Ford talks about the academic program. There's also standard 3.15, which I didn't add on here, from NETCI, which states that the institution places primary responsibility for the content, quality and effectiveness of the curriculum with its faculty. So again, the faculty do play an important role with regard to academic programs. According to policy, new degrees and majors require approval by the board. That's policy 102. Existing programs are reviewed annually by presidents for enrollment, retention, graduation and cost. And the presidents then present any rational closure of any program to the Chancellor. The Chancellor provides recommendations to EPSL regarding program closures, which are then voted on by the full board. And that's policy 109. The other key policy that I just wanted to flag for you here was also policy 101, which is called PRECIP, the program review and continuous improvement process. And that policy provides for an annual review of four to six disciplines annually to ensure quality and relevance. And all programs should be going through that cycle at least once every five years. Other examples of academic policies that the board has considered, I'm just thinking of one recently, which was the policy on classroom recordings. So for example, that was a concern that was raised about potential violations of FERPA, which is the Privacy Act governing student records in connection with recordings of classes. That concern was raised at the campus level and there was a recognition that there needed to be a consistent approach system-wide. So a policy was drafted, shared with internal stakeholders and then revised based upon input received, was approved by the Chancellor and the Council of Presidents, considered by the EPSL Committee and then forwarded to the full board for final approval as a new board policy. And that's policy 112. I just reflect that because it just gives you an example of sort of how policies come into being. On the next slide, we've got laid out the financial policies broken down into two slides. The first one talks about budget and resource allocation. Again, I'm not going to go through all of these in my new detail, but the Chancellor essentially recommends a system-wide budget to the Board of Trustees annually and the board is responsible for understanding, reviewing, approving, and monitoring compliance. And I do want to emphasize that. Nechi changed their standards at the beginning of this year and one of the revisions to their standards was in standard 7.7 where they emphasized that the board, the governing board, has to understand the institution's financial plans before they just had to review and approve, but now there's actually an expectation that the board understands as well the financial planning. The board also has the authority to shift resources if needed. Again, we have a resource allocation policy under 403. I'm not going to go through all the individual policies in great detail here, but again the board approves the annual operating budget over three passes beginning early each calendar year and we're going to be talking about the second pass of the budget later on in this meeting. The board also the Chief Financial Officer is responsible for directing and supervising all financial and business affairs of the corporation and the CFO and her team serve as the Treasury Officer and oversee all cash management functions. Again, their work is governed by board policies and the board as mentioned before does approve tuition and fees so the institutions propose tuition fee room and board rates to the board of trustees annually. The board typically approves not to exceed maximum rates for these values and then the institutions are responsible for setting financial aid in consultation with the Chancellor that supports the overall strategic goals of the VSC regarding affordability and accessibility. Discount provisions for each institution must be established within the confines of the system-wide and institutional budgets. So the second financial policy slide talks about capital expenditures and debt instruments and again annually state funded capital projects are proposed to the board of trustees typically those capital projects relate to health, life safety, accessibility and other major maintenance and decisions regarding the purchase sale or disposal of facilities are also the responsibility of the board of trustees with recommendation from the Chancellor. Decisions regarding the issuance of poor refinancing of debt instruments is the responsibility of the board of trustees upon recommendation of the Chancellor and again we have a host of policies that relate to these and I think you're all fairly familiar with with these pieces particularly sale of real estate but I know finance and facilities addresses a number of these different policies and we can certainly talk about them in more detail if there are questions. Finally administrative policies so we have a host of administrative policies these are set out in the different the board policies are numbered and so there's a numbering guidance in terms of 100 is academic and 200 is students and etc 400 is financial so throughout the the policies there are a number of administrative policies at those different levels and some of the ones I've highlighted here are for example a policy 207 and 210 that deal with conflicts of interest both for offices and trustees as well as for employees policy 211 are whistleblower policy and then of course ones that you're you're quite familiar with because we're often coming to the board to discuss them policy 311 and 311 a relating to discrimination harassment sexual assault and then the new policy 316 that came into effect I think about a year or so ago which related to protection of minors on campus and again typically administrative policies are drafted at the chancellor's office they're drafted in response to an issue problem or change in the law that has been identified by the board the chancellor's office or college personnel policies are reviewed and revised by appropriate internal stakeholders before they're finalized and submitted to the applicable board committee for approval the administrative policies really are intended to make sure the system is in compliance with laws and regulations and also that there are consistent policies and practices between the institutions on key matters terms of employment are actually largely governed by collective bargaining agreements or the personnel handbook so again we've we've got some examples that we can discuss but just touch on briefly you know title nine when the trump administration issued new new regulations governing how campus sexual assaults were to be handled the office of general counsel drafted revised policies and procedures last summer with the assistance of outside counsel we we provided those two internal stakeholders and then they came to the board for approval ordinarily they would have gone to EPSL first but there was insufficient time given the date the implementation date that was required by the the regulations the protection of minors in mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect policy 216 that was created really in response to a demand from our insurance company united educators based on what was happening across the country you know scandals regarding Larry NASA Jerry Sandusky and other ones so that was a an example of a policy that was created due to an outside request another one was the recent tobacco use reduction and prevention policy and that was created as a result of a request from the Vermont commissioner of health we had a presentation to the EPSL committee and the board directed that a policy be created and the chancellor's office drafted a policy and we passed that again just to sort of think through how all these things work for example on that particular policy once it had been passed we did have one of the bargaining units requested to impact bargain over the policy given that it affected the working conditions of employees so that these things do go hand in hand there is also a bargaining units to consider as we think through these things so finally just on a final note the board is the Vermont state college system sole fiduciary and although the board may delegate responsibilities to the chancellor the president's faculty and staff the board does retain the final authority to plan supervise administer and operate facilities for education at the Vermont state colleges and that's pretty broad authority that's being provided by the legislature I do want to flag that you know I think this language has been in there since the 1960s it is my expectation based on the work that's being done by the select committee that it's likely that the legislature will take another look at our enabling statute next legislative session in next January and I wouldn't be surprised if there were some changes made to that statute regarding what the expectations are for the Vermont state colleges and also for the board so if that happens obviously we'll be updating you on that in terms of fiduciary duty just to touch on that I mean being a fiduciary means being a steward of public trust acting in the best interest of the organization not in the best interest obviously of individual trustees and as Patty has noted trustees need to exercise reasonable care and all their decision making without placing the organization under unnecessary risk so that is our presentation I do understand there's going to be additional training for the board coming up on a number of areas including strategic planning board culture shared governance and also labor negotiations so but if there are any questions Patty and I I'm sure would be more than happy to to answer those and Jim I'm sure will be available too if folks have other questions thank you Sophie thank you to Patty Turley are there any questions on any of this sounds a lot there and again just so you didn't have to scribble everything down we certainly will be making it available so you can digest it more slowly okay we'll start with Megan and then go to Bill Lippert thanks and I I had a question Patty when you were going through towards the end of your section you talked about four bullets of board responsibility and one of them was course of instruction and I think there was another piece in there about quality and then Sophie later in the discussion you talked about and emphasized the faculty role in setting course of instruction and overseeing quality and I would just I'd love to better understand the interplay of how those authorities work together and are there clear lines that we can look to if you can just talk a little bit about the those two areas I mean I can just I mean so under our accreditation standards there is an expectation obviously that faculty play a role in the content quality and effectiveness of the curriculum but also the board does have explicitly in statute that it gets to has authority over courses to prescribe courses of instruction and educational standards so there is some tension there under our collective bargaining agreement with the full-time faculty contract the president has final determining authority on curriculum issues and but has to consult with the faculty assembly so I think there is there is a way to address this as we as we move through you know looking ahead I think am I understanding again I'm happy to have Jim weigh in on this as well but you know the board can set direction can set expectations for things for example the board did charge the colleges in terms of general education that work came out of the VSCS forward task force so sort of said yes that recommendation that the VSCS forward task force came forward with on creating a common general education core the board said yes we accept that recommendation and then sort of then turned it back to the colleges to do it and I know we've Yasmin on here Yasmin can probably talk through sort of how that process has worked so I think there's a way these two pieces come together so Yasmin are you comfortable just explaining how that works certainly I think that's a that's a great example that Megan I think addresses your question right the board ultimately charged that this work happened and directed the chancellor then who in turn delegated to me and and the next step there for me was really to convene a group of faculty across the colleges and they have been the ones to say okay how do we most effectively do a general education core they've designed the learning outcomes they're in the process of getting feedback from their colleagues on it so that's and and and ultimately those the new proposal is is right now before faculty assemblies for final approval so that's that's how that works anything else on that okay we have Bill Lippert followed by Jim Maslin you're muted Jim Bill so interestingly enough I have two questions but interesting enough the first question I had touches on the exactly uh are some of the same areas that Megan was raising which as I was listening and as I read the article that was shared one of the comments was that the board should have a regular should have a relationship with its accrediting body which is nechi for us and I have to say that I that's we can we'll talk about those gaps later uh but uh one of the things that struck me as I as I listened to this I said thought to myself well what's the relationship between uh the board and quote the academy as such as it's often referred to i.e. the you know the faculty the the role of of faculty etc and it struck me that part of that is actually defined through the accreditation process which is what you're I think pointing to as well that the credit that we have to have an accreditation and the accreditation has standards and the standards require uh engagement with faculty uh in some manner and I think that's something that is has been less explicit in my experience and is helpful to be thinking about uh and the examples that you you just put forward are I think helpful and I think will be helpful to think further so I I just wanted to note that I that I think the relationship between accreditation standards for accreditation and the board's authority are important to begin to understand more fully as well the uh the second the second uh comment or observation is that there's there's a saying within the world of the of legislating that policy is really stated by where you put your money and I mean if you don't you know money is money is really the explicit statement of policy and uh and the idea that we set policy as the board for everything about the state college system is in fact on paper accurate but when it push comes to shove the people who provide us with the money i.e. the legislature and the governor the executive branch and I think it's very important that we not just think it's the legislature uh which is a really misnomer that's been used so often in this process it's it's the executive branch and the legislature together which uh put the money in place for the system uh and that ultimately uh they they i'm speaking of them not you know the legislature the legislative branch of the executive branch have full authority to set all kinds of policy and they do so through the appropriation of funds and conditions and stand and statements that are attached to those funds and so I think there's there's there's often this the formal authority of the board and then understanding what the actual authority of the board is at times and maybe that's a bigger discussion with Jim Page and others at some point in time but I think it's just an observation that I see regularly happening uh within the world of appropriation of money I would just add and we'll talk about it a little bit later but I mean bill is correct in terms of the budget right now there are there is language associated with the the budget bill um relating to expectations for you know for the Vermont State Colleges as a sort of quid pro quo for getting the money so um that is something to be remembered that um we we do have uh the the state that's funding us also gets to sort of tell us what what it expects from us as well and and and just in that really larger uh perspective to recognize that is not unique to the Vermont State Colleges I believe me as we've just approved the general the budget over the last few days there are many places in which the uh the legislature and the executive branch together uh appropriate dollars but within a certain condition uh because in fact it's the public's money yeah I'd like to add to that I think the other group of people who have a lot to say about our policies and our courses and all sorts of things involved with what we do are the students and their families and the people who actually pay the tuition and they speak they they vote with their feet they go where they're going to go they're going to do what they're going to do and um we have a fiduciary responsibility to listen to them as well I don't know what the percentage is but I suspect it's mostly the students who have the money policy uh partnership we have here at the moment although the state is certainly trying to improve on that um Jim Maslin followed by Adam Grinnell yep thanks um first of all Sophie and chancellor's office this has been an excellent presentation um explicitly clear and linear which some of us like it all makes very good sense um I have some comments about the role of Epsil which I offer as sort of hold harmless comments what way me may very well be useful um which go as follows when before we the state colleges sorry about the cat um before the state colleges hit the wall financially and with regards to um COVID um the role of Epsil was pretty simple we were largely approving um new courses and degrees what not brought forth by the various um institutions and it was pretty easy work um now it's clear I think even though we haven't said so explicitly that which which which courses are offered which may be cut um what the degrees turn out to be going forward becomes far more important and while Epsil could participate more directly in that discussion that's not what Epsil is is doing I don't think and um as I said I offer these comments home hold harmless um but I was mildly frustrated from time to time and spoke to um Megan about that about the fact that um Epsil hasn't participate hasn't been used shall we put that uh in that terms as um use hasn't been used as programmatically usefully um as might be helpful um to to change the role of Epsil much without changing the statutes in our bylaws those are all perfectly clear would involve I think conversations between Epsil chancellor's office and the college presidents about where are you going uh and what not and generally or completely um at at um trustees meetings we all get to see the sweep of where we're heading but many of us don't participate in ways that might be helpful if these if we had a format of structure for that sort of participation in um we know what kind of jam we're in right now and we also know that the um the larger the committee the longer it takes to decide anything but I think that to reiterate and then pipe down um there may be a larger role for Epsil if we can decide how to do that most functionally and um I think that that may be helpful for the for the chancellor's office it might be helpful for the presidents and it also might be helpful as we try within our own constituency or out and about to articulate where the state colleges are heading and how we're going to address that most of the most of the what we've been talking about lately as bill is very very well have been financial matters but really we're talking about educated and Vermonters for the next several generations and that's the bottom line particularly for me and I hope for all of us so thank you for listening any comments okay thank you jim uh adam granalt yeah thank you so really following up on jim I was taking notes so I'm not sure if it was policy 305 or maybe 101 where um you referenced Sophie uh I believe it was in your presentation going back every year and pulling forward three to five programs for just sort of an audit or review for alignment in value so I'm curious is that a practice that we've been doing and if so are there actions or results that have come from that that would either grow or shrink or make some modification I'm just curious sort of our past practices and if we envision doing that somewhat differently if so certainly have been doing it but I would let Yasmin chime in because I think it might have been we did not do as complete a pre-sep review this past year given COVID but I Yasmin may have more information on that from the UPSL committee sure it's true that we we have revised things just a little bit for this year with COVID but actually the five-year cycle that Sophie mentioned earlier it is policy 101 that's our continuous improvement process and all programs go through that so on a five-year cycle they're reporting on what did they learn from their last analysis of how students are doing in their programs what adjustments have they made to improve on those outcomes and and that's that's what goes into that five-year review so I think we regularly see programs making changes to curriculum for example a lot of work recently and implementing more hands-on learning experiences capstone experiences making sure students are really exiting programs prepared I think that's been a big push in many of our programs so the real specifics come out in those in those reviews and we do have external members sitting on those review committees to have a dialogue with the program leadership about those thank you guys man can you explain a little bit more about those external people sitting on those committees survey or what are they sure so the the committees are are comprised of peers so if we're doing psychology for example last year had faculty from each of the psychology programs across the system and then we might look to a graduate program faculty member to serve on we might look to a employer who would be hiring graduates coming out so it's it's typically that kind of mix of external external members okay thank you are there any other questions Lynn yes Mary not questions I'm having significant difficulty with my connection today and Jen's been helping me so I wonder when we finish the next section if I could give the two reports that I have input on in case I kept getting phone stuff yeah we can do that sometimes it helps if you turn off your video and you keep your sound on I'm not sure if that will help but that does sometimes help one of the things I want to ask is that these are our legal statutory things these are the things that we have in our policies the next part would be what has been our practice in the past can someone describe we talked a little tiny bit about it but Bill do you want to say something first yeah without I just want to name yeah we just want to name an issue that as we were listening to the formal role and authority of the board under the statutes and it references our role with regard to institutions and presidents the board's relationship through the chancellor to the presidents and the institutions and that and I think as we think as we as we're looking ahead and thinking in terms of the transformation process that is underway and set in motion that we are transfer that the again the accreditation process is going to move us as from a a structure with uh institutions with multiple presidents at least three is that what's what's in place and in process to a president of that singly accredited institution as well as a president of the community college of Vermont though there will still be the relationship of presidents to the chancellor and to the board but it's interesting again to think in terms of where the authority lies to transform through the accreditation changes that we have set in motion that it's not the closure of an institution but it's in fact the transformation of three institutions into a single accreditation which I think is to say one institution I mean I just want to make sure that we all appreciate and understand I mean I know we're we know where we're going in that sense but it's but it fits within our it fits within our structure but it's a different again accreditation is a part of what is driving and responding to our needs are are okay thank you and Sophie I don't know whether whether we want the chancellor or Yasmin or Jim Page or there have been practices in the past that have not necessarily lined up with our policies is this something we need to I mean it seems like the select group had a a series of comments in their in their reports that talked about this Megan people I would yeah certainly the select committee recognize that you know the board has a lot of authority but hasn't always exercised the amount of authority that it actually has the other piece again which we'll we'll touch on in a little bit with the legislative update is one of the metrics or requirements that the legislature is looking to put on us is to make sure that we are following through the policies and procedures are being followed and that if they're not being followed there's a reason you know that there's a recognized understood documented reason why we're not following a particular policy at a particular time so for example we know that 403 the resource allocation piece and and the was suspended last summer and there was a discussion about that and the decision about it but that we're not sort of ignoring policy so I think that definitely is a need for us to start going through the the policy manual and making sure that we don't have you know I know we've got some policies in there that are from like 1979 and whatever I have no idea if they're still in effect or but I think it's probably worth us as working with the board but to review the current policy and I know for example just off the top of my head there's a policy regarding CCV instructors well that has now effectively been mooted by the CCV contract the union collective bargaining agreement contract the CCV adjunct so it's it's in effect a redundant policy at this point so I think there is some work that can be done there to go through the different you know again all the different levels that the different series of policies and just do an audit of them to see which ones perhaps need updating or maybe eliminating I think that definitely would be a valuable exercise for us to do again time permitting given everything else but so I think there is an a sense we haven't always followed through I did try to provide some examples of sort of how policies have come to be you know I off the top of my head you know I'm sure their trustees have particular ones that are of concern I think historically there's been concern about whether or not boards or committees have voted on particular things and has that actually happened so I think that's another piece as we move forward is making sure there's an accountability piece so if if it's decided that certain programs are going to be closed for example that then there'd be a cycle back that okay you know at a follow-up meeting you know what's happening with that what's the status with it to make sure things are happening so I don't think there's been you know policies have been ignored explicitly I just think that hasn't been the sort of report back and I think we all know given how busy everything is if you don't have a deadline or a reason to report back you know those things tend to sort of fall to the bottom of the list rather than staying as a top priority so that would be one suggestion I have in terms of moving forward anyone else Jim Page you've been listening to this you wrote the articles or anything that you would like to add at this time not really in talking with the Chancellor and the General Council earlier the goal was simply to establish a baseline of the point was very well made by the General Council that said we're undergoing a we're entering a transformation BSC is entering a transformation it's imperative if that's going to work well that there be clarity around who needs to be at the table with what authority around the various decisions and those are often fairly complex procedurally fairly complex but it's important that the Board know what the bottom line is in each of those and I think that the presentation today it was an excellent first step in making that clear there will be details that emerge as the group gets into the real world exercise and they'll have to be looked at again and looked at in various ways of refinement but I think this has been an excellent excellent start I really appreciated Bill's comments that the accreditors here are a group that have an enormous amount of influence on how these these pieces work and they are a they're a partner just de facto but they can be a real strategic partner in helping through these changes and I think the system is well set up to engage with Nechi and with the individuals there to assist with that and I also take the point that I think Bill made again that this is transformation but within a framework in the framework is one that may evolve will evolve in terms of policies in terms of what the legislature requirements might be or not but the framework is there and in his work well for very well for you over the last year it's coming into its high test period now as you begin to implement your strategic changes but I would be I'd be very optimistic with how things how your your staff and team is setting this up and how you'll approach these issues very methodically very logically and very comprehensively in the coming weeks a month so thank you for the opportunity to comment on that but my basics is well my basic is well done thank you thank you to the chancellor and the general council bill I guess a little bit of apology for speaking so often but I feel like in again in reviewing the article that Jim and Barbara wrote frankly there were a couple things that struck me that are not quite acknowledged in the article and so I say this with appreciation for the article but it just struck me that it's it starts from a point of view that there's the board I've never seen a board that is static and this board is certainly not has not been static there every board is an evolving structure is an evolving group and I think that speaks to the issue that it's it's incumbent upon us as the board to bring new members into understanding all of what we just talked about and understanding what the what the evolving agreements have been amongst the board as new members come into the board and in fairness to potential new members to brief them prior to accepting stepping into a board role it anyway at this I think my point is that the board the board membership is a dynamic process not a static process and it's therefore not a static entity and requires some attention to those issues and I say that again with appreciation for because it came to my mind as I was reading and thinking about the analysis and gap analysis and that so I just and then it goes I think attached to that is who gets to constitute the board again a key issue if you in fact are thinking that the board that are not thinking but if the board has certain important levels of authority at all these levels then those who are appointing the board membership have a very important role which is not always articulated it seems to me it's not not always fully articulated stepping back and saying well what is the perspective of those whether it's the board itself now it's ourselves and it's the governor and it's the legislature and I think those are kind of pre-existing influences which are very important to bring into the conversation as well okay thank you anyone else have anything to add to this seeing no one else raising their hands here that I can see I'm going to move on Mary has asked I'm going to ask for an adjustment to the the agenda instead of going into the executive committee item on the agenda we're going to go down to number I know it's four whatever the number is um and Mary I'm going to have you start if you would hey I don't have an agenda in front of me because nothing's working so what item is that okay well your number five and we would next go to number four which is the diversity your number five with the diversity equity and inclusion committee we have materials on the board from you okay committee if you want to give that report yeah I think I'm going to do my best without any materials here and I also have the the award fellow award thing to report on yes so we had a very good meeting Patty joined and Yasmin was part of it so if I lose connection those guys can speak up we talked about the sorry I'm trying to do this from memory we had Miles Smith and Jesse Ventura from NVU spoke about work that they're doing up there were they a oh I'm so sorry anti-racism pledge and it was really very good conversation and they updated us with what's going on at NVU and very very impressive and if anyone else who was on that meeting wants to speak that will be fine we talked about the inclusion and this is where Yasmin was helpful of diversity equity inclusion language into the hiring process as well as into I don't know what to call it the healthy Yasmin the faculty the general education requirements the general education requirements and the language was there so the conversation about adopting the charter voting on the chart we decided or came to the conclusion that would have to go to the faculties in May before it could be officially adopted Yasmin is that correct again for the general education right that's the consideration right now okay yeah anything else from anybody who was there that I may have missed Mary by May just just one piece that I thought was interesting was was also learning about some of the tech updates that were underway all right you make the the backbone systems more reflective identities and so forth so that's an ongoing conversation I think we'll have more updates in the future but that was helpful to hear from the tech director and others thanks so that was Doug Yasmin Dylan so talked about gender identity and making the language and all of the VSC documents and materials be consistent and and correct Megan Dylan okay Jim thank you it was a good meeting that we had recently Theford Academy which is our local designated high school faculty and students came up with a policy that deals pretty much directly with the subject matter that we're talking about and I will forward it to the board it's uh it's not exactly or exactly linked to the direction that the committee and the students faculty are going but I think you all might find it useful to read thanks Jim thanks for your contribution to the meeting it was very helpful yes we do have we do have requests for a motion and a vote on the proposed committee charter this is the charter that we received in our materials we do have input for the general education requirements that will be approved or reviewed by the faculty I think we can approve this charter ahead of that do I hear any motions on approving the the diversity equity and inclusion committee charter even that Lynn I would make that motion please okay Mary Moran has made that motion do I have a second I'll second Jim Maslin will second it okay any further discussion on it I think the information on the materials was actually very good any questions at all okay all those in favor of approving the diversity equity and inclusion committee charter is presented to us by that committee please indicate by saying aye aye aye aye anyone opposed okay Mary now you had another thing you said you had to do on the trustee keep losing oh yes me keep losing my thank you we're okay were you under it said that you were going to make a presentation the I'm losing what we called them but the honored the people that are being honored ah yes faculty fellows the faculty fellows it's a really yes so we had a good meeting on that of those materials those bios are in your materials yes and um we have we had Helen mango who was evidently not included timely last year that we approved Helen's at Castleton since 1991 and you know I won't go through a lot of detail here but in there because you had their bios in every case these faculty members are scholars contributors committee members community service folks they're practicing in their field and they're wonderful teachers as well as contributing on campus so I could enumerate each one but I think you have the materials there so from last year Helen mango from Castleton and this year Inga Smith-Lewis from Provant Tech nursing and paramedic and incredible community contributions and Pat Shine from Lyndon aka now NBU I love one of the quotes from one of the recommendations she is quote a really amazing instructor and she also has been involved in many many committees and service on the issue of social justice we did have a third nominee which was a little well came in too late and we would we're recommending that Jonathan bring that person forward next year that's Christopher Betcher Castleton he as well had a very impressive resume but it came in after the process had been completed so we have the committee's recommended to Jonathan that he agrees that Chris should come forward next year but having worked with some I'm not personally familiar with any of these folks but having worked with faculty members at BTC Castleton and CCD we have amazingly talented faculty and who as I said they're not just qualified in their academic fields they're wonderful teachers the end okay thank you Mary any comments this is part of the EPSIL report this was this was just part of the EPSIL report number six Megan do you have anything to add to this? I don't have anything further out of the faculty fellows other than thank you Mary for taking on this important role and working through those nominations but I do want me to give the full EPSIL report well you could you could we could just go down and finish that nobody has any questions we do need a motion to we do need a motion to approve the faculty fellows correct yes yes thank you very much on that yes so we need a motion for the approval of Helen Mango from Castleton University Pat Shine from NVU and Inga Smith-Lews from BTC Karen so moved so moved Karen is seconding that okay any further discussion I thank the presidents and the people from the institutions for coming forward with this information and helping us and I know some of these people are here do I believe Patricia Shine is here anyone anyone of the candidates want to say something again I think I was actually going to put it in the chat I want to thank you all very much for this honor and for supporting the work of social justice I'm really excited to be working on our NVU colleagues but colleagues throughout the VSC so thank you very much thank you Pat and anyone else anyone from the presidents Pat thank you I just also quickly want to thank you very much for recognizing Inga Smith-Lews in this capacity the work she's going to be doing around simulation multi-discipline simulation is going to be really beneficial for the college so thank you for giving her this opportunity thank you go ahead Elaine I just wanted to say to note how competitive this year's process was at NVU there were multiple candidates that is rare and everyone you know I I had a call people to talk about why I chose Pat as the person that we were moving forward everyone understood how important the work that she is about to do is for the system and for the university and and just kind of wished us well and said they'd apply in a following year so I thought that spoke highly of Pat's respect on campus and the work that she's doing and lastly I can just affirm from a personal level that I've attended book groups that Pat has coordinated restorative justice circles and also diversity training and it is absolutely top notch so I thank Pat for the work and I thank you so much for recognizing it thank you thank you how about you Jonathan you're from Castleton thank you Lynn so much Mary kind of alluded to the fact that we evaluate faculty really on three indices there's teaching there's scholarship and there's service and all three of these nominees are just so terrific and I rise to speak for Helen Mango at Castleton she's just gives and gives and gives to the university and to the students of Vermont she's universally beloved on our campus I might note that she's also never shy about telling me what to do and that's a good thing not a bad thing she's just great recognition so thank you Mary thank you the committee and thank you Lynn for allowing us to recognize these these really great great members of our system well thank you to the committee and everyone involved okay thank you now we will go to number six which is the Epsil and Megan you can start with that so I thank Lynn and just to report out quickly the only action item we had for the board was the approval of those at ratification of those faculty fellows which actually I'm sorry did we close did we just take a vote on that I'm sorry no we didn't no but thank you very much good reminder so we have a motion on the floor we've had a second any further discussion hearing none we will have a vote on the acceptance of these three faculty fellows all those in favor please indicate by saying I opposed all the faculty fellows are acknowledged okay Megan go ahead now this is mostly what I understand is the RPK groups report yes I just wanted to cover off quickly on three just to make the board aware three topics that we've been focused on so the committee has been discussing data dashboards and metrics and KPIs and I think you'll hear how those continue to tie into the work of the overall board and I think some of the discussion that happened at the committee meeting you'll hear even in in Sophie's report out we're starting to pull together with with the broader metrics we're looking at but really Jim to your point of thinking about that role of Epsilon going forward and Jim I appreciate I've appreciated your thoughts and your direction here in thinking about how Epsilon can really step up and make sure that we are serving our our role here we're focused on building broad understanding which is that focus on data and KPIs to make sure that we have an under a framework for understanding the work that's been going on so I think that is a piece of it and then picking up topics that are important to the board so the data conversation will continue the second topic we've been focused on is early college and I know many of the board was in attendance at that meeting last week we will continue the discussion around early college programs we heard at our last Epsilon meeting about the good work that's going on throughout the system in terms of partnerships and early college we also heard a bit about the challenges and the barriers to expand that so when we meet in late May Yasmin is putting together a summary of those challenges and barriers and we will also hear from another system we'll have a guest speaker at our May meeting where they are pushing early college programs and some technical programs really in partnership with the high school so we will hear a bit more about that at our next meeting and then lastly we are last being heard an initial presentation from the RPK group which is a consulting group that the system has hired to take a look at the academic programs and again Jim I think this will come back to your point which is how do we as a board engage effectively in our role in overseeing academic programs in a way that truly respects that understanding and partnership with faculty and the role of faculty governance so the RPK group is very well respected in higher education and I think they will serve us well in that they are taking an approach that really partners with faculty to understand what's being done and are going to bring back to us as a board a framework for thinking about academic programs going forward so Yasmin if you can talk a bit to close out our EPSL report here on what you're expecting from RPK and what the board's role and what EPSL's role will be in that process going forward Thank you so at this stage in the analysis RPK is sort of starting and then talked with EPSL a little bit about looking at that full range of what we do we have over 200 programs just looking at the three institutions of Castleton Northern Vermont University and Vermont Tech and they're thinking about those programs to try to say well what really is making sense in terms of from a student demand perspective from labor market perspective and then what is what is a sustainable array of programs so that the first kind of full pass of their analysis is something that they will be sharing with of course our chief academic officers but then a system wide faculty academic affairs focus group which has already heard kind of the first stage of how they were structuring the analysis and working through their methodology so that group will will have a first chance to hear about the work and and provide some feedback we expect them to do a further presentation that'll be available system wide for faculty as they're as they're working on refining recommendations so what the board what what they will ultimately be bringing is a is a final recommendation on what an ideal portfolio would look like for programs to give the board a sense again of how those what those programs look like in terms of student demand in terms of labor market alignment and then by sort of cluster area of programs some recommended next steps for action and again you know going back to the board kind of authority and responsibilities conversation from earlier you know a lot of the next step work you know the the questions of what and the questions of program is a is a is a area of board authority but the the next step after that we're asking them to think about recommendations in terms of what would be supportive of guiding faculty work to say okay how do we how do we move forward with some of these what the what looks like so that'll be a a next step to come out of out of the work of our pk group any questions there was a two page description of what they presented at Epsil in the packet and if anyone has any questions this is what they followed during that meeting I thought it was well presented anyone have any other thoughts okay we don't need a motion on that we're going to go back to number four for the report from the executive committee this was a committee that we held March 4th and we do have some motions that come from this we had a discussion of the long-range planning committee we're putting that on a temporary hold for now because so much of what we're doing as a board is actually long-range planning actually short-range short-range planning and long-range planning and because we've been meeting every month plus committees plus special meetings whatever the point is is that we really have to give ourselves a little bit of a rest and one thought was too for the time being we would put a hold on the long-range planning committee we're certainly that's what we're doing literally at every meeting anyway so that is and they basically all members of the long-range planning serve on both Epsil or the faculty and facility and financial committees anyway and of course many times almost everybody in the board goes to those meetings so it's something that we think right now is a little redundant that doesn't mean it's dead forever because it will have an important role in the future so Sophie have I as a chancellor have I covered just about everything with that discussion that explanation I think so yes okay so I would like to entertain a motion that we suspend the long-range planning committee at the present time so move thank you bill okay a second on that Jim Maslin seconds that okay any further discussion or questions seeing none we're going to ask that they those who approve of suspending for the time being the long-range planning commission please committee please indicate by saying I opposed okay we have suspended that for the time the present time the other thing is and I think I need some help from the from the chancellor on this but we have a recommendation to retain live stream recordings until the minutes of the recorded board or committee meeting have been approved at the following meeting we have been making recordings of minutes and recordings of meetings that are plentiful maybe more than ever just like everybody else has but the chancellor may want to go into a little bit of a discussion of this to explain how we're going to deal with it yeah so a question had come up because we have so many recordings on our live stream website so and there's been confusion where people have wanted to go and sort of watch a meeting and then they've halfway through realize they're in the wrong meeting and so a question had come up as to how long we should be holding on to those recordings when we moved to doing zoom I guess a year ago we didn't really talk about how long we would hold on to those recordings I think they've been really valuable I think people have really been engaged doing our meetings this way has really enabled people to participate and to watch rather than taking the trek to a campus across the state and then sitting in a room or whatever and I certainly really appreciate all the attendance we've had from trustees and I've got to think that in large part that's also due to this format being easier for folks to participate in so we did have a discussion at the executive committee about how long we should hold on to recordings and the suggestion was made that the minutes are the formal record of a meeting so once we have the next meeting and the minutes are approved for a particular meeting that then that recording would be taken off the live stream it doesn't mean they go away they are still available if somebody wanted to request you know I want to see what happened at the long-range planning committee meeting that you had last July we still have those recordings they're still available and can be requested it's really just a question of what's publicly available that people can just click on right away so that was the suggestion we had talked about whether we should do lengths of time but the suggestion was doing it so for example this meeting would stay live until we have another meeting at which the minutes from this meeting are approved and that way it kind of covers things like audit committee which maybe doesn't meet as frequently those minutes would stay up maybe several months until the next audit committee meeting a committee that meets more frequently they wouldn't stay up quite as long because once the minutes are approved that posting could be taken down so that was the thought but again we want to be transparent about it we want to make sure everyone understands what we're doing why we're doing it so it seemed appropriate to bring that forward for the board to consider okay we need a motion to that effect that we will be holding we're going to retain the live string meetings recordings until the minutes of the recorded board or committee meeting have been approved at the following meeting I need a motion on that so moved from David any second second from Ryan Cooney any other questions or discussions about this Bill yeah I just want just Sophie so that's helpful your explanation to be honest we're so involved in doing similar things only on YouTube as well in the in the legislative format so these are recordings that are maintained on zoom is that right is that I'm not the right person to ask that we have a website where they're all where they're all retained so they're not retained in zoom I think it's through YouTube but if you go click so on our website if you click you'll the same way you do for the legislative sessions you'll see a whole host of meetings all pop up channel is that yes it's a YouTube channel and it's on vsc.edu slash live okay thank you any other comments or questions okay saying none all those who approve to the retain in the live stream recordings basically until the minutes have been approved in the following meeting please indicate by saying aye aye aye anyone opposed okay that had that motion has passed there really was nothing else discussed at the executive meeting the next thing we have is the the granting of an emeritus status to John Knox from VTC would the president of VTC like to take the floor and discuss what we're doing here with John Knox thank you chair Dickinson we do very much appreciate the board's consideration of John Knox for emeritus status faculty emeritus status John was 100% committed to his craft as a dedicated faculty member here with his first priority being the students hence his teaching at Vermont Tech for almost a half a decade math also is a gateway course for Vermont Tech students it's critical in literally every program and essential in so many math is something I'll speak for myself not a lot of us get terribly excited about particularly young folks who would just as soon avoid it but John seemed to make it a course that students enjoyed he gave it context to what they were learning in their regular course content those aha moments are so important to help students understand why math is so important and you have the write up that we submitted which I think speaks for itself but I just thought I'd share with you a few comments from some of John's colleagues I won't name these faculty members but this is from a fellow math teacher who who speaks of students at Vermont Tech's benefiting from his skill and caring teaching practices for over 40 years a particular salience now is that he taught the very first course that Vermont Tech offered over Vermont interactive television in the late 1980s it was a calculus course originating in the VIT studio in Randolph Center and delivered to students in Newport he went on to teach summer calculus over VIT most summers for over 20 years to all studios around the state John is also generous with his colleagues when I started to hear in the fall of 2004 he shared with me the resources he had created for the courses that I was going to teach that semester whenever I had a question or needed some guidance related to my work he's always been available he's dedicated to the success of students at Vermont Tech to the success of his colleagues and the success of the institution we have an English professor who wrote of a reporter from Boston Globe coming to one of his first VIT classes and an article in the Globe about that work which was pioneering at that time he taught VTC or got VTC classes to every high school student by a Vermont interactive television and even these recordings were copied on VHS tapes for those of us remember what those are that were mailed to students who needed to take math class in the summer the last rendition of those classes before the learning management software took over was a transfer to flash drives that were mailed to students John was amongst the first faculty to teach classes on site at businesses such as the create program at IBM which he taught on site at IBM for many years he was the first recipient of the Harry works master teacher award and all of John's accomplishments pair in comparison to his influence on students through the years we will remember his teaching his desire to help them succeed and his passion for the Boston Red Sox what more do you need to know the last faculty member who is an architectural engineering faculty speaks of I teach an engineering field that is highly mathematical I spent hours talking with John about mathematics instruction and the integration of mathematics into my course he was always pleased when he would see that I was having students apply what they learned in the mathematics course John would also occasionally provide a mathematics puzzler in one case a program that he had not solved nor have I yet that appeared paradoxical many years ago John and I served on a task force for our local high school on the topic of improving math instruction to better prepare students for college is this type of academic inquiry and just interest that makes him a role model for faculty and thus I believe the status of professor emeritus is wanted with that I will let the letter we sent to the chancellor speak for itself we think John would be a model professor emeritus he is not aware that this status may be bestowed upon him and we're hoping to present that at a future board meeting should the board approve his status today thank you thank you president malton and yes at some point in the future we will hope to be meeting in person and we will actually be able to congratulate and applaud John Knox for this award that there any questions or anything about is anyone here other than the president who would like to speak on behalf of professor Knox seeing none thank you very much pet that was a very that was a really helpful exciting presentation about a math professor so we congratulate him we need a motion to award the the emeritus status to this faculty member John Knox do I have a motion no move Linda Milne moves a second sure why not oh David thank you okay we go ahead Jim and Megan are competing okay we'll give that to Jim any more discussion any questions okay hearing none all those in favor of awarding the faculty emeritus status to faculty member John please indicate by saying aye Megan did you want to say something all those opposed seeing none we have awarded this thank you very much to president Pat Malton thank you very much for this honor for our Vermont Tech faculty member who is just recently retired so thank you well that's great I mean it's too bad he's retired because sounds like we could use more like him okay now we're going down to the next item on the agenda which is a legislative update we're going to have two parts of this one is going to be from the chancellor and Catherine Lavasser and the other will be from Sharon Scott who will go through the second pass of the budget so shall we start with the chancellor yes I think Catherine has a slides that she will be sharing and I think she's kicking it off so it's a team effort here thank you I guess I'm picking it off I think you're starting Sophie so yeah so we've had a remarkable first few months in the 2021 legislative session and we have been working closely with legislative leadership the Joint Fiscal Office the governor's staff and members of the administration and our committee liaisons to advocate for our students our institutions and our future in the FY22 budget ask and you may recall that back in January the governor had recommended that the Vermont State College System receive a one-time 20 million dollar appropriation to support system transformation on top of our 30 million dollar base appropriation and that was a tremendous first step in the budget process and we were very thrilled to receive his support and today I'm pleased to share with you that thanks to the hard work of our team and the support of legislative leaders committee chairs our liaisons and more the house is recommending a record an unprecedented 97 million in dollar investment in the Vermont State Colleges for this year so we've you know we've we've hoped this was coming for for some time but it is officially here we know we have a long way to go but we are very very excited about this so as you can see the investment consists of a combination of state and federal funds it's made up of the 30.5 million which has been our standard base appropriation a five million dollar permanent increase to the base which is critically important to us because again the select committee had recommended getting us up close to 48 million over time so this is a step in the right direction that we're very encouraged by 21 million in bridge funding 20 million in transformation money and 20.5 million in critical occupation scholarships and workforce development so the house completed their work on the budget yesterday and voted unanimously to support it so our key takeaways for you today are that the proposed permanent increase to our base appropriation of five million dollars again bringing our base appropriation up to 35.5 million in future years the proposal to pre-fund four years of transformation costs totaling 20 million the investment of the 20.5 million in student stipends and scholarships which we're going to talk about in more detail here in a moment which is an enormous benefit to our students and really I think will help us with the affordability and accessibility pieces that that we're working on as part of our strategic priorities in addition the house proposed legislative requirements for the Vermont State College System Board and the Chancellor as an accountability mechanism for receiving the increased funding that we need moving forward so we'll talk about that in a moment as well so as you know from the February Board meeting the Vermont State Colleges sought 20 million dollars in transformation costs from the legislature of which eight million dollars were designated for FY 2022 due to the incredible influx of federal funds this year and other factors the legislature determined that pre-funding our transformation request was a worthy investment for which we are tremendously grateful the critical occupations scholarships came about because we had many conversations throughout the session about the students that we serve the communities we serve and our role in workforce development for Vermont we listened carefully to legislators ideas and thought about how we can fit in proposals for free tuition workforce development and especially in how we can make a college education more affordable to our students the critical occupations proposals outline investments for a successful future for our students the state of Vermont and the institution of the Vermont State Colleges in developing this proposal we considered who our students are what Vermont needs and how we can fill these gaps successfully there is tremendous need for upskilling reskilling credentials and degrees in Vermont's workforce we see ourselves as critical to closing that gap which is why we proposed these critical occupations programs to the legislature in addition to serving the affordability needs of our students these program ideas balance where programs are taught how they are taught and their workforce development value to the state these are investments that will strengthen us as we work through through this transition through enrollment incentives transfer student incentives and adult learner incentives additionally several of these programs will close equity gaps between students by providing internship stipends to those enrolled in high needs occupations the first proposal was for welcome home scholarships and these are proposed for Vermonters transferring to Vermont State Colleges institutions from out of state institutions or for those returning to school after exiting in 2020-2021 this program's mission is to incentivize students to come home to Vermont or to return to complete their degree if they left school without finishing last year the scholarship would provide up to $5,000 per year or $2,500 per semester to full-time students so those taking 12 credits or more and $3,000 per year or $1,500 per semester for part-time students so that's those enrolled in six to 11 credits and this is a $4 million investment by the state legislature and we believe will serve approximately 575 Vermont State Colleges students the second proposal is a degree completion program and that is a $3 million investment that serves approximately 200 students this investment recognizes that the state has a goal of 70% of adult Vermonters obtaining a credential of value by 2025 and the degree completion program is targeted at Vermonters who have a gap in attendance of at least two years and those with at least 40 existing credits the reason for this is that there is a high cost benefit calculation for an adult to return to school to complete a degree a person with at least 40 credits under their belt would either be able to achieve an associates or get most of the way to a bachelor's degree with 30 credits paid for there are approximately 54,000 Vermonters with some college and no credential or degree who could benefit from this scholarship next is the critical occupations graduate internship scholarships and that is a requested $2 million investment that we estimate will serve approximately 100 students this scholarship proposal is designed to target graduate students in fields of study that are of high need to the state of Vermont but tend to have lower pay for graduates so those in the education and mental health counseling programs these programs have an internship and practicum requirement that students are not paid for but the students must have the college credits to support the internship paying for the internship credits and providing hourly compensation to the students reduces barriers to access and incentivizes more students to pursue these critical occupations in the future the proposed scholarships would support the graduate credits required for the internship practicum up to 12 credits plus compensation of approximately $15 per hour for up to 240 hours per semester the critical occupations undergraduate internship scholarships are a requested $1 million that serve approximately 300 Vermont state colleges students and like the sister graduate internship scholarship this program would provide a stipend for undergraduate students enrolled in critical occupations in the allied health and education programs this reduces barriers to access and enables our students to pursue their studies in these critical occupations it also enables students who need income to support themselves and their families during school to be able to draw on the stipend while they complete the required internship work on top of their coursework the scholarship would provide approximately $15 per hour for up to 240 hours per semester the free tuition for critical occupations careers we were for that we requested $5.5 million and believe that we can serve approximately 500 students this proposal provides last dollar tuition for one year for students enrolled in specific critical occupation career programs we compile the proposed lists of programs that include the McClure Foundation's best spent programs and others that are essential to the state's future workforce needs these include the bookkeeping certificate at CCV the IT service desk specialist certificate the certified production technician certificate the grad graphic design certificate software and web development program the practical nursing program electrical and plumbing apprenticeships childcare the child care programs both at CVU and VU and Castleton University the allied health certificate the nursing programs at Castleton University Vermont Technical College or the allied health certificate at CCV mental health counseling care medicine dental hygiene the certificate in accounting small business management radiologic science and respiratory therapy this program would be available to those in currently those currently enrolled in these programs as well as to new students and the workforce development initiative 2.0 is modeled on the successful CRF workforce initiative that the legislature asked the VSC to complete last fall you may recall that that program enabled us to provide nearly 1400 courses and trainings to over 971 Vermonters whose employment was affected by the pandemic in addition to covering the tuition for the courses we provided wraparound services so this is services for textbooks transportation technology childcare assistance and more the 2.0 proposal doubles the numbers the number of estimated students served to 2000 and additionally it caps the individual participation at six credits or two courses and we estimate the cost of this program will be approximately three million dollars and lastly the long-term care facility practice practical nursing program requests an estimated two million dollars and will serve approximately 40 students this program is designed to address the skilled nursing shortage in the state and is for two million dollars to be appropriated to the department of health to establish a partnership program between skilled nursing facilities and vermont technical college that would bring the lpn program to five skilled nursing facilities across the state to train current employees such as nursing assistants to become higher level providers the funds would cover trainees tuition and fees and provide a stipend to meet their living costs such as housing and childcare while they attend the program the funds would also support VTC's instructional program at administrative costs while additional nurses are needed in all practice settings the need is especially great in the long-term care facilities and lpn serve a critical role in delivering care directly to the residents of these facilities helping existing employees such as nursing assistants to become lpns will enhance vermont's healthcare workforce and advance these individuals career and economic well-being we are incredibly pleased that the house recommended funding for all of these proposed programs for a total investment in student scholarships and stipends of 20.5 million dollars this is a remarkable investment in our students and we look forward to continuing to advocate for them throughout this process as i mentioned before the house is also proposing i guess i should say that given the investment in our students they are also requesting that their investment be met with certain accountability metrics and reports back on the progress as the system undergoes transformation so just to run through the requirements first the house bill requests that the vermont state college system become a fully integrated system that achieves financial sustainability in a responsible and sustainable way they've identified affordability accessibility and relevance as the key strategic priorities for our success and of course we're obviously pleased that those aligned with the board adopted priorities of affordability accessibility quality and relevance last fall second the house has proposed increased oversight by the general assembly in the form of certain requirements that the vermont state college system will need to meet as it undergoes system transformation as well as metrics that we are to report back on in our annual presentations to the education appropriations and economic development committees in the house and the senate these requirements include that we reduce our structural deficit by five million dollars per year for five years through a combination of annual operating expense reductions and increased enrollment revenues for a total of 25 million by the end of fiscal year FY26 we will be required to report the results of these structural reductions to the house and senate education and appropriations committees annually during our annual budget presentation in addition we must develop and implement a 10-year strategic plan for managing our physical assets that is a fiscally sustainable and maintains reasonable net asset value and meets the needs of vermont learners the board will need to approve the plan and we will need to present it to the house and senate institutions committees by March 1st of 2022 we'll also be required to maintain our current present campus locations as educational and student support centers while recognizing that changes in governance and operational structures as well as program and service offerings may change as circumstances require additionally beginning next year we will need to brief the house and senate appropriations and education committees on enrollment levels in courses offered by the vermont state colleges and they're looking for us to report on the basis of courses with fewer than five students courses with five to nine students courses with 10 to 14 students etc along with the relevant information about the enrollment data and that was something that really came out of the select committee report in order to demonstrate accessibility they're also asking that the percentage of courses and programs offered by the vermont state college system on a statewide basis and the formats in which they're being offered we also need to report on an assessment of affordability and accessibility with the vermont state colleges and recommendations on how to improve both affordability and access for our students we need to report on retention statistics with corresponding trend lines and benchmarks and enrollment statistics with relevant industry benchmarks that pertain to the student enrollment efforts authorized by the fy 22 vermont budget bill with the student net student revenues generated and discount rate applied in order to enroll the students aggregated by cohort and demographics of student enrollments aggregated by full-time part-time students additionally to help optimize student opportunities we will complete implementation of seamless general education credit transfer between all institutions by the end of fiscal year 2023 and to ensure that we're meeting our responsibilities to vermont businesses and communities beginning in fiscal year 22 we're asked to report to the house and the senate economic development committees on advances in workforce readiness and meeting employer needs and this includes reporting on employer and institutional partnerships with the vermont state colleges the progress in meeting critical employer needs and the number of degrees and credentials of value awarded we will also need to provide the house and senate committee on education and appropriations our profit and loss statements based upon the annual october financial statement and a report by institution on the overall net student revenue and institutional discounting of tuition metrics with relevant trends regarding the deficit reduction plan we're being asked to report the activities that have generated expense cuts and activities that will result in enhanced revenues as well as future plans to continue both efforts along with information that demonstrates the status with trends and relevant industry benchmark information we're also required to ensure that all vermont state college board of trustees policies are adhered to and that we establish policies and procedures to implement the transformation plan and that we report back on the status of these also as part of the chancellor's annual budget presentation to the house and senate committees on education we know the requirements are significant but we do recognize that the proposed investment that's being made in the vermont state college system is massive and it's unprecedented and we know we not only can transform to become the higher education system the state and the students are looking for but we must do it so the legislature reasonably enough seeks to hold us accountable to that goal and to the public dollars that we are being made stewards of and I look forward to sharing progress with you and with the legislature in the coming months at this point I do think it's important to acknowledge where we are in the state budget process we received the governor's recommended budget in january the budget has now passed the house of representatives and in the coming weeks will be considered by the state senate after the house and senate reconcile the differences in their budget proposals the bill will then proceed to the governor for final improvement before enactment on july 1st the start of the next fiscal year while the signals we've received up to this point are tremendously positive and we are so excited about some of the programs and opportunities proposed by the legislature we do have a long way to go before we reach the finish line I am looking forward to our continued work with the legislature and with the governor as the budget moves forward and next I will turn things over to CFO Scott to share an update on the FY 22 budget projections so the second past budget of the vermont state colleges persists at between 32 million and 45 million dollars in deficit there has been some modest movement in areas where we have firm definitions of changes so for example we have a firm understanding of our medical insurance rates and we have been able to apply that though as we've all seen with all of the movement that's going on in the environment it's very difficult for us to make a significant shift away from our worst likely scenario or from our best likely scenario though much of the news that we've discussed in the last several slides gives us some very positive indications the actual deficit as shown here is between 32 and 45 million dollars before the application of FY 21 carry forward the higher education relief funds that we just spoke about earlier today and the FY 21 budget adjustment act or any of the activities that we've just discussed here this deficit is composed primarily of two factors the first is covid related revenue losses estimated at approximately 20 million dollars and the structural deficit of approximately 25 million historically the vermont state colleges have received a general fund base appropriation excluding allied health and global commitment funds of 30.5 million dollars for the current fiscal year in addition to the base appropriation the vermont state colleges received very generous funding from the legislature and governor including 28.8 million dollars in one time bridge funding 22.8 million in corona virus relief funds to address business disruptions due to the public health emergency 2.3 million in crf funding for the workforce development program chancellors adot need just discussed and five million dollars in additional crf from the fyi-21 budget adjustment act while we are were required to return some of the crf monies due to the very tight spending restrictions on corona virus relief funds we are very grateful for the support of our legislature and the governor as their support has really made this year possible the select committee on the future of public higher education in vermont recommended a 17.5 million dollar increase in the base appropriation to address capacity and affordability of the vermont state colleges the select committee expects that this amount of additional base funding which could be built up over several years would offer adequate capacity within the vsc to allow us to evolve over time and approve affordability in the vermont state colleges thus addressing barriers for access for vermonters as discussed in earlier meetings the structural deficit is estimated at about 25 million dollars the select committee recommends reducing the structural deficit over five years at approximately five million dollars annually via a combination of decreased costs and modest increases in revenue transforming the vermont state colleges system will take both time and money and as discussed earlier in this presentation transformation is estimated at 20 million dollars and is divided up over four years as shown here the fyi-22 portion of transformation expenses is approximately eight million dollars in total the vermont state colleges estimates needing 81 million dollars in funding over and above its operating revenue to operate in fyi-22 before the use of other funding sources and deficit reduction activities to offset this 81 million dollars in required funding for fyi-22 the vermont state colleges estimates being able to apply approximately 15 million dollars in one time funding to this issue first the vsc anticipates using five million dollars in crf funds authorized by the legislature as part of the fyi-21 budget adjustment act to offset additional expenditures related to business disruption the vsc will use these funds to cover such items as public health and public safety employees COVID surveillance testing and increased cleaning and sanitation next as discussed as part of the second quarter process the institutions within the vermont state colleges have taken strong measures to reduce current year expenditures as of the end of the second quarter we expect to have five million dollars in carry forward funding from fyi-21 available to assist with fyi-22 the higher education emergency recovery act HRF-2 was approved on December 27th 2020 as discussed in the finance and facilities meeting from earlier this morning these funds may be used to defray expenses associated with coronavirus as well as make additional financial aid great grants to students the vermont state colleges currently anticipates that approximately five million dollars of these funds will offset the anticipated deficit for fyi-22 the vermont state colleges need after application of anticipated carry forward higher education emergency relief funding and the budget adjustment act is therefore 66 million dollars as shown here as noted earlier the historical base appropriation for the vermont state colleges is 30.5 million dollars the house has approved an increase in general fund base of five million dollars and bridge funding of 21 million dollars to address our remaining structural deficit additionally the house has budgeted 20 million dollars to cover the full cost of transformation for fyi-22 the vermont state colleges anticipates spending eight million dollars of these funds as shown on the right side of the slide and finally the house has budgeted 20.5 million for critical occupations programming the vermont state colleges anticipates that it will receive approximately 1.5 million in net additional revenue from these efforts during fyi-22 the total budgeted appropriation as was mentioned earlier in this presentation as noted by the house is 97 million dollars for fyi-22 this corresponds to the vermont state colleges need of 66 million dollars as shown on the right side of the slide we are extremely grateful and humbled by the outpouring of support we have seen by the legislature and the governor throughout this process we recognize that the house's budget is just one step in the long road to the end of the legislative session but it gives us significant hope as approved by the house the appropriations budget for the vermont state colleges fully addresses the worst likely deficit it is important for us to acknowledge that if approved this funding comes with significant requirements and expectations for action the vermont state colleges cannot and will not remain as we are today rather we must transform to meet the needs of vermont vermonters and our region we must become more efficient and fiscally sustainable and we must take these actions now to set ourselves up for a better future we are grateful for the very strong expression of support by the house and we look forward to the future thank you Sharon any questions any extra comments David you did not review this second view of the budget the past in your committee we did this as the full board is that correct that is correct anybody have any questions go ahead Linda I clearly as you as management stated there are requirements which come with this funding at least those that sounded on reporting key performance indicators other monitoring statistics those sounded to me as though they would be very much in keeping with what we as a board want to be monitoring anyway didn't sound in that way a sort of financial performance as though there was anything out of the ordinary or extreme that we wouldn't already be looking at is that a fair does that is that how you as management also perceive it or did I misunderstand what I was hearing yes yeah generally speaking that's that's correct we did work closely with our liaison with the house appropriations committee his concern was very much not to not to make more work for us than we needed to do he did look both at the select committee report and at the work that the board has done the strategic priorities work that you've done and tried to marry the two up so this was not duplicative work certainly from his committee there were other other members of the appropriations committee that had other items that they wanted included in there so it was a little bit more expansive than perhaps we had hoped but these generally I believe you're right these are well aligned with what we've already been talking about in terms of strategic priorities and key performance indicators so it will be yeah it shouldn't be generating a huge amount of additional work for us it will just make sure that we're held accountable for what we already were planning on doing anyone else Adam I'm just curious why the so little of the critical career component would be in FY22 in how that gets spread out over the years yeah I think the funding is not limited to FY22 is one piece of it the other pieces it will take us some time to get things set up you know in the fall we rush to get the workforce development piece set up so we will have a little bit more time but I think the anticipation is that these programs will get the bulk of them will get set up soon that I know for example the LPN long-term care one I think is a couple of years in the making so I don't think that goes into effect for another year but because there's a significant amount of work that needs to happen but I'll let Sharon chime into because there's a net revenue issue here as well so many of the programs that are proposed have significant value to the state of Vermont in terms of advancing workforce needs but they may not have a contributing net revenue component so what we've shown on the slide here the slides that we just showed you is the net revenue spin-off that we would anticipate coming from the programs so for example if we look at the two sister programs regarding internships there's actually no additional net revenue spin-off from those programs but they're highly valuable to the state because it helps us advance the workforce needs of the state there so what we anticipate from the overall value is about 25% of the net revenue from that and in terms of total program value so just follow up on that so the of the 20 million not necessarily all 20 million would be spent within the system some will be spent outside of the system some some will be spent on things like wraparound services so those don't have a net revenue component it's a pass-through so money comes in and it goes directly out but we would still be budgeting for that that would be budgeted once we we actually in one of the reasons why we did not come forward with the full F and F with the past due budget is because so much of our budget is wrapped up in how the final appropriations bill will look that it will yes it will ultimately be budgeted so we will need to be able to budget that thank you Karen I I just want to thank the key people here and in the legislature who work so hard to bring this to us and I would just tell you just a couple of thoughts first in the in the history of man many times many times positive transformational things have come out of very unfortunate circumstance and suffering and this would be a prime example of that lots of things that that many of us had dreamed about happening at the VSC are now possible to be done that didn't seem possible before and that we didn't have the attention to do before so I would make that comment and I understand I don't think the requirements are onerous I think they're reasonable and necessary and good so as a citizen of the state I'm pleased that we have those requirements and I know there are lots of details here that we're not going to cover now I do have a question about education there was a comment if I if I understood correctly is is there a component here about teacher education can someone answer that is that part of this program as well yes it was included as part of the critical occupations project list on the graduate internship so again there are some of the programs we have educational programs are expensive for students to complete and when they leave they're not going into very high paying jobs so the thought was to make it you know cheaper for students to obtain the education to come out of it with less student debt and then encourage people to go into those fields moving forward so education was one of them in terms of the practicum that's required for for students in education what were their content areas highlighted highlighted or is that open to decision and discussion there weren't specific areas within education it was for both graduate and undergraduate but it wasn't by particular topic area within within education as a whole just again just thank you everyone and I know this was a heavy lift and Catherine you're brand new to our system and to get thrown into this the way you have we're so lucky that you had all the experience you had and came to us with the legislative experience you were a godsend thank you thank you it's been my pleasure to help the system Adam you're next thank you so just following up on the critical careers just understanding how that's going to be marketed when those scholarships would be available you know we heard in the presentation the number of students who could be assisted and when those students will those those scholarships will be available so I don't know if today is necessarily when when that has to happen but it'll be helpful as a trustee to understand when that'll get rolled out and and how that'll be marketed I mean we still have to complete the legislative process but I know I've met with their workforce development team that from across the system that have have continued to meet following last fall's workforce initiative and I've made clear to them that they should start planning for some of these now because we you know it takes time to set up and we need to start thinking about it so they're already thinking about that we're already thinking about what are the business processes to support to support that workforce initiative 2.0 but I'm sure we will be following up with that we don't want to wait until you know the very end and some of these are going to have shorter lead time some of them will have longer lead time so we definitely need to be planning ahead it's another reason we'll talk a little bit about the transformation update but it was one of the reasons that I'm glad we have been exploring whether to move up accreditation for the new combined entity by a year and when we were exploring that you know it became apparent that it wouldn't wouldn't be possible to do it but I was also thankful that we made the decision to stick with the current timeline of July of 2023 in part because of these additional projects we want to make sure we do them successfully and that people have a good experience with the BSE when they go through them so we want to make sure we do it right anyone else David I think the requirements of the legislature are appropriate and things that we would do ourselves to hold ourselves accountable the one item that I think is a very heavy left and painting specific numbers on it is fraught a little bit and that is reducing our structural deficit by five million dollars per year to put a specific number on that given the fact that some of that comes out of expense but some of that is also driven by revenue which is very very difficult to predict I think it's an admirable goal but not but but that will not be achieved without effort and pain and I think that we need to be cognizant of that going into this that this is not going to be an easy thing yeah and that was certainly that five million dollars per year is something that came out of the select committee recommendations so it's you know along with you know the select committee did recommend significant increased investment in the Vermont State College system but also did recommend that we look to cut that structural deficit by five million a year but I hear what you're saying Trustee Silverman in terms of how do we quantify that and how do we do how do we show it the other thought that was behind some of these you know the reporting requirements was really in our favor it was the goal was to make sure that we we you know we're invited back again to the different committees next legislative session and that they you know they see us we've got lots to report on so I view some of this as well as being of benefit to us because it hopefully will make sure the legislature doesn't forget about us and we gave them a lot of money last year so we should be all good and we don't need to continue a conversation with the Vermont State College system we've been trying to be clear with the legislature that's taken us decades to get into this situation we've been in it will certainly take us some time and and money to get us out of this situation as we move forward and we don't want to get forgotten as we move forward so again I see these reporting requirements is also serving the benefit of of putting us in front of the legislature and having conversations with them about how we're doing thank you okay Bill and then Karen yes I I want to say a couple things one is that in terms of the net revenue value of some of the workforce investments that are being made while there are not in each instance a quote net dollar value to the institution there is incomparable value in terms of the partnership between the legislature's goal of addressing workforce issues and having having the Vermont State Colleges firmly in mind as the agent who is able to partner with the legislature and the executive branch in achieving workforce goals for Vermonters so that the value that comes is far exceeds just the net revenue which which is also important there's no doubt that's also important it also goes to those Vermonters who are going to have the experience of up-training and changing their employment opportunities for them their families through the Vermont State College system again a tangible and intangible value to us going forward and lastly I would just mention I happened to be highly invested in the legislature in healthcare workforce issues and we have advocated for a number of years now there's a desperately we desperately need additional healthcare workforce I'm particularly familiar because that's where I'm focused right now and so we were very excited to support even before this all cascaded into where it is now the state college is having a role in healthcare workforce is an important ongoing investment we could train every one of the folks listed here and the same number of folks and many more are needed in our healthcare workforce in Vermont we should position ourselves to be an essential and key trainer of the entire work healthcare workforce industry in Vermont so I'm and I maybe lastly let's not forget our federal delegation who frankly brought home money to Vermont disproportionately to the size and population of our state and we as we as we move forward as Karen so properly said out of the tragedy that we're in the midst of of COVID there has become opportunities that we would never possibly have dreamed of and our federal delegation it has played a very very important role as well thank you Karen just just to continue David's concern when I read that I read that as a a very heavy lift and one that won't be met without tremendous suffering but I'm pleased that it's there and I'm pleased that it's there because it will keep the board and the system focused on a reality that must be met in order for us to be sustainable the gift so to speak that we've been given with this great opportunity will be lost if we don't focus on sustainability and that won't be reached without significant change which is going to cause some discomfort perhaps suffering for people and the system so I'm pleased that it's there and I'm pleased that we're our feet are going to be held to the fire and I would like to add something here you know as we talk about workforce and I'm going to make a pitch that isn't directly related to the BSC any of us who have had to access program that is managed by state personnel there's a shortage of those people so I don't know if there are more legislators than even those here if you're trying to access and I've heard that complaint you can be on the phone leave messages that are never returned and and very difficult to access general programs right now and I know Bill's smiling he knows that there's a our state workers are overwhelmed by what's going on right now and we need some assistance to make all of this work so again thank you anyone else have any comments I do have a couple of observations and I just want to give a thank you the observation is that many of these critical occupation and scholarship programs are geared in fact toward precisely the population that we are trying to reach these are non-traditional adult students people who have some college who don't go on to college there's a large number of people who have no credentials or no way that they can find of going on to get further education after high school and that's what these scholarships and these programs that were outlined by Catherine are designed to attract and to work with the internship scholarships are primarily aimed at adult students who have to work and go to school and when they have to do student teaching or do a practicum or go some kind of a clinical rotation or something they can't do that if they're working so they have barriers that need to be addressed so they can actually afford to continue their education so I think that I'm very thankful and I think that we did we got a great service out of our administrative team and our and the various people on our campuses who put this together because it addresses exactly the items that we've talked about in advanced Vermont and in our programs to get to increased accreditation increase credentials increased degrees for our industries and for our students and our forever monitors and I personally would like to thank Catherine for putting together a really well done introduction and that she gave to me that she just repeated now that was very very good to present on the floor and I am eternally grateful nobody else could have done it better so thank you Catherine that I think takes care of that piece do we have anything else to say about legislative update before we move on if not we can move on to the update from the Chancellor on Transformation Planning we have one more thing report from the Finance and Fills Facilities Committee it's already been touched down a little bit David would you like to talk about the HRF grant requests indeed I would love to I think many of the trustees were at the Brief Finance and Facilities Committee meeting earlier and of the two action items we had one of them was to review and approve recommending to the full board the acceptance of the HRF grants that have been promised to our individual institutions Sharon would you mind giving a little color not at all I'd be happy to so the HRF grants as we discussed at the Finance and Facilities Committee meeting are intended to assist the colleges with defraying the expenses or offsetting lost revenues of associated with the public health crisis in addition the grants also offer the opportunity for the institutions to be able to supply funds to students in the form of financial aid grants that can be used for a variety of activities including any component of their cost of attendance as well as other things like emergency housing food a transportation and other activities there are no downsides to accepting these grants there is no match from the federal government there are significant compliance expectations as there are with any federal grant but we're very excited about the possibilities of being able to accept these excellent thank you so the committee is recommending that the full board approve these grants and I would make that in the form of a motion okay we have a motion on the floor to accept these grants do we need a second Adam Granalt has a second Bill would you like to discuss something you're muted I think it might be helpful to have a sense of the scope of the grants in terms of dollars but 12 million dollars yeah I'm not sure everyone who's attending now might have understood that that's divided between the institutions and student aid okay any other questions or discussions seeing none all those in favor of approving they have two grants for the colleges please indicate by saying I no no one's opposed the motion has passed now we can go thank you David and Sharon now we can go on to the transformation update from the chancellor please yeah so I this should be relatively brief I just wanted to sort of fill you in on what's been happening it's been almost four almost five weeks since our February 22nd board meeting at which the board voted to accept the recommendations of the legislative created select committee to seek a common accreditation for Carselton University Northern Vermont University and Vermont Technical College maintaining a physical presence at their primary locations along with aggressive coordination of administrative services system-wide so in thinking about a transform Vermont State College's system we seek to transform the organizational and operational model of the Vermont State College system into one that's fiscally sustainable and fulfills the Vermont State College system's mission of meeting the needs of students and the state of Vermont the vision is to have two strong institutions the community college of Vermont and a single unified university with a balanced portfolio of academic programs and re-inversioned residential programming we are seeking to expand access across the state to our degree programs as well as to credit and non-credit bearing certificates and credentials of value and in doing that we're also looking to transform our administrative operations with a single set of business processes policies and practices system-wide where possible the goal is not to replicate our existing processes within a single accredited institution but to take the time to plan and think through how we can do things better and operate more efficiently and effectively in the future so to date we have held a project management orientation with the senior leadership teams from all of the institutions and the chancellor's office we have posted the position of the Vermont State College system director of transformation as well as posting an RFP for a firm or consultant to bring professionalized project management to the transformation and just to be clear with that the goal is not to hire both the goal was to cast a wide net and see what kind of responses we got and then make a decision as to whether we would do this as an internal hire or hire an external consultant to assist us we have established a hiring committee and we've already received over 500 applications in response to the posting so that was as of yesterday it may be more now the hiring committee is being chaired by our chief financial officer and chief operations officer Sharon Scott we also have Mike Stevens the director of facilities from Northern Vermont University who has extensive experience in project management when he was working for the state we have Katie Mobley the dean of enrollment and community relations from the community college of Vermont we have Kathy Koslik the dean of the college of business at Carselton and then Bob Zeider the director and chief executive officer of the Vermont manufacturing extension center at VTC VMEK so the hiring committee will be responsible for initially vetting and screening applications and their first kickoff meeting is I believe is going to be on Monday the goal is to have interviews and presentations from the finalists towards the end of April with a final decision being made by April 30th if any of the trustees are interested in being included in the final round of vetting please go ahead and let me know that the program array analysis work is progressing as we touched on before with RPK group so in addition to presenting at the last Epsil committee meeting the RPK group also met with senior leadership from the colleges and the chancellor's office last week RPK is planning to meet with the academic advisory group which is composed of chief academic officers and faculty during the week of April 5th they're looking to hold a system-wide informational webinar and solicit input during the week of April 19th and they're looking to present a recommended array of programs and identify the next steps for working with faculty on the program curriculum to the board at your next meeting on May 10th we've already touched on the single core of VSC general education requirements earlier but just to reiterate that's still under consideration by some of our faculty assemblies for final approval but it has received preliminary support for planning an initial implementation next year and that proposal includes adding DEI learning outcomes across the curriculum and you know that's going to require additional support for faculty development in connection with that work for the general education requirements also following the last board meeting we undertook to explore the feasibility of moving up the timeline for seeking a common accreditation for the three institutions from July 2023 to July 2022 in order to do that we held exploratory meetings with four key groups the admissions, marketing, financial aid and registrars in order to vet the feasibility of a shorter timeline based on the information we received it was clear that the risks of moving up the timeline were significantly outweighed significantly outweighed the benefits so we decided to stick with the timeline that we had presented to you at the February 22nd meeting however as a result of those meetings a lot of positive things came out of that and so those groups have identified a number of immediate projects that need to be undertaken they've also identified a number of sequencing pieces of what needs to happen before something else can happen and we're going to continue to work with those groups and develop project charters for them in the near future in addition we've had a number of other groups across the system who either have already been collaborating again I had mentioned the workforce development continuing education folk earlier there are other groups that have expressed an interest in starting to work with their colleagues across the system and so some of those groups include disability services the development and alumni relations and our student life folk as well at this stage what we are looking for is to encourage people to consider what is the best of what we currently do and what would we want to include moving forward that we currently do but also to imagine and dream what the future could look like you know what are the possibilities and to think creatively rather than just seeking to replicate existing processes and existing structures in the new transformed Vermont State College system so we really also want to give people the time and space to have those conversations and to think ahead and to have a stake in what we look like moving forward we also have a number of projects that are still ongoing so work is continuing on creating a system-wide virtual library and there are a number of information technology projects as I have mentioned to you and have sent a communication out across the system Kelly Campbell who has been the chief technology officer at Vermont Technical College has has stepped into the chief information officer role she's been working closely with IT staff both at the chancellor's office and across the system on rethinking our current IT organizational chart and how we're delivering all the different services that IT provides there's also there's a lot of IT work that is going on including work on a system-wide help desk and upgrading the BSE portal since our last board meeting we've had additional conversations with Nechi, our creditor as well as Sharon and the financial aid officer and financial aid directors met with the U.S. Department of Education regarding the proposed unification of the three institutions and both of those calls were helpful in our thinking about what we need to do moving ahead and to make sure that our submissions when the time is right are both timely and well received we have come a very long way in the past year I think we've referenced that already in this call we do recognize there's a significant amount of work ahead of us but with the support of both the legislative branch and the governor the executive branch I am confident that we can plan and implement a successful transformation and do it in a way that is thoughtful inclusive student focused and demonstrates to the legislature that the Vermont State College system is worth continued investment in looking ahead we're going to be seeking input and again I had referenced with faculty working on the program array but we're also going to be launching a form on the transformation website for people to provide feedback and we do have another student forum coming up on April 6th we also will be continuing to work with the legislature and the governor to secure the funding necessary for successful transformation as Catherine explained we're not there yet we still have the rest of the process to get through also looking ahead we're planning to adjust the transformation timelines and the board's decision-making chart that we had provided at the February 22nd meeting those need to be updated based on the additional information that we've received we're going to be looking at putting into place a decision structure for each project drafting project charters and creating project teams for the various key areas we also need to start work on planning for hiring a new president for the combined entity and also the process for selecting a name for the new entity as well as developing communications plan and a strategic financial plan so that is where we are we certainly will be providing additional updates you know as we go along at the board meetings but if anyone had any other questions about the work to date I'm more than happy to answer any questions any questions for the chancellor that sounds exhaustive it's been exhaustive and exhausting I will say between the legislature and transformation it's been a very very busy few weeks we appreciate all the work that everyone in the system is doing thank you very very much for that and the other questions if there aren't any we will go on to the presidential updates we will start with CCV is Joyce Judy here she was going to get up to have to step away for a little bit I know I'm here I'm back I was gone just a short time so thank you for letting me give you a few updates from CCV there's just two or three things I'd like to mention one I would just and I know Karen Luna was on this and I don't know if others have put we've been doing this abnackey speaker series and this is one of the silver linings from COVID so we have been we've had three we had three speakers in this series and we've had two so far we have one more and they're an hour long presentation by three different people representing the abnackeys and we have had between two and three hundred people participate in each of those sessions and you know if we had done this in a face-to-face and even in Wenuski we might have had 50 maybe 100 on a good night but the fact that we could remove geography and have so much participation so I think you know there's some things that we are going we need to take forward from COVID and that love being able to engage people throughout the state in this and and it's been so just enriching so I wouldn't we have our our third series on April 15th and I would encourage if anybody is interested it's from five to six and it's you just it's a very simple you just register there's no no it's all free and but it's just been really really phenomenal but the response has been equally impressive so that's been that's been sort of just a an aside thing that we've been doing uh secondly we are about to start our summer registration and just for the board's information our summer schedule is going to look very similar to what we've done fall and spring we're offering five different formats with all of them having a very strong remote component we will offer the majority of our courses will be online a significant thing and growing this is another one of those things that we need to take from COVID our the combination of synchronous and online is growing in popularity far beyond what we thought it would be so it's a combination of having some time virtually but scheduled with your class and your faculty so it might be every third week on a Tuesday night from six to eight but then the rest of the time it's online but it's a way to have some structure and some a chance to meet your colleagues not face-to-face but zoom to zoom and so that's been very interesting so we're doing online synchronous online then our accelerated courses our flex courses where they have five different start dates and then we are doing some hybrids as we have we were doing this spring particularly with lab courses and then as we get ready to move into fall we are planning for a ramp up into on face-to-face we will not be doing as many face-to-face as we did pre-COVID but we will be doing a fair amount of face-to-face we're trying to figure out the right balance but we also know that our students are really enjoying being able to remove geography and time from some of this so for our adult students it's been interesting so we there's some lessons that we're trying to make sure we're paying attention to and learning from and then the last thing I just wanted to let people know that we are planning a virtual graduation ceremony and I think it's going to be we're really trying to find ways to have it be very honoring and very celebratory but also in a safe environment so one of the things that we've done is we are going to it's it's totally virtual but we are going to launch it on the same day and same time as our graduation would be so on Saturday June 5th we are going to encourage graduates to get together with their families and walk they can watch it then of course it'll be available anytime after that but we will we will launch it on Saturday June 5th at two o'clock so we look forward to that and I have I want to give a nod to NVU we have NVU did a really wonderful virtual ceremony and their folks have been working with our folks in terms of giving some good pointers things to learn one of the things we're finding out is it's a lot of work to launch a really good virtual ceremony because if you want to make it personal there's one thing just to put up you know a 20 minute thing but to make students feel like they're really honored is very interesting and the other thing we're going to be monitoring closely is you know normally at a ccb graduation we usually get oh maybe always more than half never more than three quarters of our graduates attending it'll be quite interesting to see if we get more engagement with all of our students throughout the state by doing something virtual and so then if we do how do we make sure we think about that in the future never to replace our face-to-face graduation but is there some other thing that we also need to do and the final thing I will just say as another lesson we did our student orientation I think I might have shared this at a committee meeting we've been doing our student orientations now virtually we did them in the fall we did them in the spring and we did three this past spring and we had over 100 students at each of the each of the online orientations and so we had between 300 and 400 new students go through our orientation and in a good year when we did our face-to-face ones we would not have had that number spread out over 12 centers so there's some things that you know we need to be paying attention to as we move forward I don't think people people are going to behaviors are going to be completely different and so how do we capitalize on that and be attentive to it so I'll stop there and if there's any questions I'm happy to answer them any questions Bill just quickly are the presentations about Abnecki people of Vermont are they recorded in Canadian accent subsequently just so yes yes they're all recorded love to access that even if they're not weren't able to join you virtually thank you yes and you know what Bill I will I'll send you a link there it's on our website but you're welcome I'll I'll send you a link directly okay yep now I I would just put in a plug I just did the one with Don Stevens Chief Don Stevens last week it was it was great it was so informative really enjoyable so it's an hour it's definitely worth people spending time on it Karen likewise I was able to to attend Chief Stevens presentation and I would tell you that as I grew up in Swanton educated in Swanton all my childhood that's my hometown and there's a very strong Abnecki presence in the Swanton Highgate that general area and I was always aware of it growing up and it's it's a different subset of Abnecki than Chief Stevens but I learned I I learned a whole lot listening to him and I had made mentioned to some some people in our system when the whole issue of diversity came up I said you know there are going to be people of color visible color who sit near someone and think that they're sitting near a person you know all the new sociological terms white privilege ad nauseam okay not knowing that the person they're sitting next to has Indian maybe French Canadian culture you talk about intersectionality of of a legacy of suffering and these were the people while there weren't many blacks in the state of Vermont to target for the KKK these were in fact the primary targets of the KKK and I could go on and on but there is there's a lot of generational suffering that's not easily recognizable from a cultural and religious and ethnic standpoint that I think we in Vermont and we in higher education need to be mindful of as we talk about diversity so I'm gonna that's another conversation for another time but I wanted to make that point but I think this is wonderful Joyce absolutely wonderful and that's a very rich part of our heritage that needs to be acknowledged anyone else have any comments about CCB thank you okay next on the list Castleton University excellent I'd like to take two minutes to give you brief updates on enrollment and COVID and Nechi first enrollment against all expectations our enrollment this spring keeps going up thanks to our very hardworking and creative and flexible admissions team our FTE enrollment now stands at almost 1800 that's down just 100 compared to last spring before the pandemic it's quite remarkable and by the way if you look at headcount our spring headcount is 2400 that's actually one of the highest we've ever had I think it's due primarily to our talented team at the Castleton Center for Schools Center for Schools provides professional development to Vermont's educators teachers, principals other administrators it's a shining example of how the VSCS can provide workforce development that directly improves the state's professional infrastructure that's the spring similarly enrollment for the fall is also looking very good even though on-campus recruiting visits are down almost 100% for obvious reasons applications for the fall are up 20% compared to last year acceptances are up 26% which is important because it shows that these are quality applications now because I never feel comfortable being completely optimistic in the bad news category we are seeing an uptick in positive tests for the coronavirus we haven't talked about the pandemic a lot today it's not over and our uptick mirrors the experience of some other colleges and towns in Vermont and it does coincide as you know with the arrival of the new more transmissible strains of the virus it may also reflect some extracurricular activity on St. Patrick's Day I don't want to exaggerate the situation the number of our cases is still in the single digits but we're keeping an eye on it I will say despite the recent activity overall we are having a safe semester we're in constant contact with the Department of Health and the experts there confirm that our protocols are robust and are working I guess I'd like to highlight in this connection not just the expertise of the Department of Health and the excellent excellent leadership of our governor but also the unprecedented communication and cooperation between the VSCS and AVIC that's the Association of Vermont Independent Colleges Middlebury St. Mike's Bennington Norwich and so forth if you don't know you should know the higher ed community in Vermont has come together as never before this year and it's I think an underpublicized but crucial reason why we are all weathering the storm number three finally it gives me great pleasure to announce that Nechi, our creditor just completed its year-long review of our new locations at Killington and at Bennington and we passed with flying colors Bennington is where we opened a branch of our nursing program last year and it's also where we are currently exploring some very fruitful synergies with VTC's nursing program so Bill Lippert stay tuned for I think positive news in the months to come about that and Killington oh my gosh Killington is the site of our program in resort and hospitality management it's a great program where the students earn their degrees in just three years while living and working up at the Killington resort so they earn money to pay for their education while getting their education and when they graduate they have a 99 percent placement rate in the resort industry the leaders of that program testified last month before the house tourism caucus and the legislators I think were I know were very impressed and agreed that the Killington program really could be a model for workforce development in Vermont so there I ended optimistically I'll stop there and happy to answer any questions any questions for Jonathan Sparer or Castleden congratulations those are nice things to hear thank you Lou yeah I am I have spoken to people that we have heard from a lot of people in the hospitality industry because this has been one of the most highly impacted areas in the state during this COVID situation I'm glad that the students at the Killington program are both able to continue to do the program and continue to get jobs I know I've talked to people previous to COVID who really wanted to go and get these resorts and we're looking for people to work in these resorts which have a variety of job opportunities career opportunities and they really were trying to emphasize that we could do more and so the Killington program I think is a it's a real bellwether of what we want to try to continue to do so thank you and I mentioned the governor and the department of health Mike Salamano the leader of Killington and PICO just done an amazing job keeping those resorts open and thriving and safe yes thank you you know just this impossible year so yeah not a great leadership okay we now have any questions for the Castleden University presentation okay we'll move on to Northern Vermont University Elaine Collins morning everyone thank you for the opportunity to give you a brief update so our numbers also at Northern Vermont University we've seen a lot of great interest and a record number of accepts so we're looking forward to our fall semester spring semester was also a very strong semester for us I reported that in our last report regarding COVID we have conducted 6061 tests and had seven positives across two campuses I think that it reflects our students really buckling down on our processes and procedures the good work of our staff we're still optimistic that we are going to end the semester with very low numbers and I think it speaks to all of the great work that's happening on campus we are successfully offering and continue to offer face-to-face courses and while keeping these numbers low and again I think that speaks of volumes for the work that our staff and students are doing and everyone is doing I think post COVID as I think about it and the delivery I think that we've learned a lot faculty have learned a lot we've all learned a lot regarding remote delivery and I'm looking forward to see what we are going to carry forward after this is all over meanwhile we have greatly expanded our access to events performances and lectures and I think during the COVID time it's really important to make sure that our community is also taken care of and we have through our two theaters new increased live stream capability I'll talk a little bit more about that in just a second another success which I thought was kind of interesting I think it's my Greek heritage driving my interest in this in this topic which is food all right in terms of our dining services Sodexo just gave us a report that across the nation the average in terms of student satisfaction with dining their dining services is 75.4 both of our campuses scored in the 90s in terms of dining satisfaction 92.4 and 93.2 so that's just amazing and speaks to the great work of our Sodexo staff Tom, Mike, Kip and the NVU team as well a little bit on strategic planning and you know speaking as a commissioner on the NETCHI commission it's been interesting throughout this COVID time to see that many schools have not been able to make great progress on their strategic planning initiatives and so it's typical you know if you're saying we don't have any staff so therefore we've put all of our goals on hold I hear that quite a lot of times in contrast we've been able to push our goals forward and I think the good work of our provost Nolan Atkins for helping with us we have now completed or put in progress 85% of that strategic plan and just a couple of highlights that I think are just really noteworthy first is that we have completely launched now our Center for Teaching and Learning we've hired a specialist in professional development to kind of help faculty through this new period in terms of teaching remotely we have made serious advances in our social justice related work I think Pat is one of these advances to just all the fine work she's doing that I spoke to earlier but also two other faculty have reviewed all syllabi at NVU with an eye towards social justice they have they're writing a paper or they have written a paper on their findings and they will be working with faculty so that we can ensure that all of our classes have a lens in this the important area we've also spent a great time increasing our internal and external communications through e-newsletters just to make sure that all our stakeholders are always informed and that everything that is happening at NVU is transparent in terms of our learning and working community we have pushed forward with the posting for a learning and working coordinator partnership engagement and workforce development we have that has been posted we are now in preliminary rounds of interviews and have found several very highly skilled candidates and are looking forward to finish that particular search I mentioned that I shared just a little bit more about cultural activities again I'm hoping that you can even watch along with us all of our events are live-streamed we have a special site set up it's NVU Performance YouTube channel and you can find it at northernvermont.edu backslash performances again it's northernvermont.edu backslash performances so just this week we hosted a jazz trio earlier in March we hosted Zana Davis she is the first executive director of racial equity in Vermont and that was extraordinarily a very great performance additionally in April we have a Vermont comedy hour we have the Abby Sherman rock band Craftsbury Chamber players master classes that you can take and we also have Dr. Nicholas Rio he is a citizen of the Sault Ste. Marie tribe of Chippewa Indians he's also associate professor of Native American and Environmental Studies at Dartmouth and he'll be presenting a lecture as well and you can follow along with us some other information related to what I've been up to recently I've spent a great deal of time speaking to a large number of different groups both internal and external on my kind of understanding of where we're going and also the advantages of moving in line with the Enchamps proposal we've had a lot of great questions a lot of great discussions but I really feel that it's important to bring our community along as all of these important discussions are happening all around us so that's been taking a lot of our time or my time also virtual commencement we are planning a virtual commencement we're also planning you know I've heard a lot about identity and maintaining identity so you know thinking about all the wonderful traditions that we have at our Lyndon and Johnson campuses we are now planning an honors convocation at Johnson and a virtual roving ceremony at Lyndon these are all virtual but they still even in COVID times we've been able to maintain the identity of each of these campuses and the wonderful trends traditions that people look forward to and I think that's a plus in terms of athletics I do have just a couple of things that I wanted to share first and and this is a special a special accomplishment Lyndon Hornet men's coach Dave Pasiak did score his 300th career win and it happened when the Hornets defeated the Norwich Cadets I love saying that 99 to 83 on March 6th finally at Johnson we have completed a an NVU Johnson wellness suite campaign it involved 109 donors from 17 different states it was a $500,000 campaign and the wellness suite is now in use finally we had a 2021 support your sport campaign and we are a 79. percent through the goal of 30,000 with four days remaining on that particular campaign and I know that Nolan would be unhappy with me if I didn't mention that we finally submitted the EDA grant for nursing really looking forward to hearing back from the grand tours we did receive a $50,000 pledge that we have been using as a matching fund for the EDA grant and additional 30,000 of that being used toward the needed equipment for the lab so looking forward to hopefully giving you some good news about that very soon and that would conclude my report be happy to answer any questions any questions for President Collins again it sounds exhausting that sounds very good thank you thank you anyone else I'm not hearing any we'll go on to President Pat Moulton of VTC good afternoon Lynn and and other members and thank you very much for the opportunity to present to you today I too would like to update you on a few things first is how is our spring semester going and so far so good as you're aware we did have one incidence of so positive test amongst a residential student as a result of our surveillance testing that resulted in quarantining five students and the one positive in isolation I'm pleased to say all remained asymptomatic throughout the period of quarantine and isolation and they have well been released we are also continuing our surveillance testing of all our students residential and commuting students we're also fortunate to be hosting every Thursday here in Randolph center a vaccine clinic held by the Vermont Department of Health and that means it's much more accessible as various bands of eligibility are opened up so that's working out well students will finish their semester here on campus on a Friday, April 16th and then they'll have a break week of April 19th and then complete the semester remotely from home and not return to campus after the week of April 19th so we are in the last few weeks and holding and hoping everything remains smooth we too are planning a virtual commencement this year we want to make it a lot more personal than the virtual we did last year and I also would like to say great thanks to NVU and the work that they've done we too are working with NVU to try to make this a more personalized virtual commencement this year we also will be having a virtual convocation for our honor students once again, not happy we have to do it virtual but better to do something than nothing for fall 21 we are planning to be full steam ahead opening as normal as the protocols will let us we want to have as many heads and beds and full classrooms and labs as we can possibly have vaccination is going to be the key to that and we're strongly encouraging our students to get vaccinated as a means to have the most normal college experience they could otherwise have we are going to ask an optional question of our students of whether or not they've been vaccinated and we'll see where the law goes in terms of those requests I'm also pleased to say our enrollment is looking pretty good for the fall we had a fantastic enrollment year fall of 19 so it's a little hard to beat that but our current deposits are exceeding last fall and exceeding our five-year average for the fall so we're pretty happy that that's happening I also want to update you on the construction of our new additive lab here on our Randolph Center campus this is our $12 million expansion and innovation around additive manufacturing we had a lot of work to do to get ready for construction we had to move our IT department to new headquarters and that is complete newly renovated space for them we have an entirely new data center that Kelly Campbell gets all excited about it's what makes IT people happy but I'm excited about it too because we were able to purchase with the DOD money an entirely new set of updated servers and to accommodate additional equipment which will help the new servers will help us accommodate the additive equipment but also keep our existing IT moving smoothly construction has started and it will include a new HVAC system on the first floor of moral hall and we're going to be replacing the current wet sprinkler system with an argon gas fire suppression system which is far more palatable to the type of machinery should God forbid we have an accident and of course there'll be installation of equipment that we're ordering we have we've been working with additive subject matter experts with America makes which is a federally funded national accelerator for additive manufacturing working across the country to try to entice more additive work particularly in the area of defense those consultants have proved invaluable to us as we look to outfit our lab we're also in the process of hiring a lab director and very pleased that we have a number of good candidates including some folks here in Vermont I'm also pleased to say we are moving forward with our sale and right sizing we have a contract for the sale of the enterprise center in hand signed ready to go that's great we also have a contract to sell the house adjacent to the Norwich Farms facility and we're excited about that actually at offer above asking price site unseen which seems to be characteristic of the market in Vermont these these days we also have several parties that are looking at the six acre parcel with the dairy processing lab the four bedroom house the barns etc that we refer to as Norwich Farm also our transformation at Vermont Tech we have been very busy we have five very active charter groups working on those five charters around transformation this work will really position us well for unification so we're pretty excited about it just to refresh your memory the five charters are one physical plant really looking at right sizing the Randolph campus that includes starting a master planning process that is presently underway and looking at permanent work from home options and shared offices to another means of shrinking our footprint and minimizing the property that we're maintaining the second charter is reviewing all of our academic programs looking at how to reinvent some of the lower enrolled programs or possibly discontinue and how can we enhance the remaining programs but at this point that work is ongoing we had been coordinating with our pk and will continue to do that as appropriate the third charter is looking at non-traditional delivery this looks at how can we best deliver our comprehensive applied education programs through remote delivery such as low residency and or decent decentralized delivery possibly partnering with career and tech ed centers I'm pleased to say our school of engineering and computing is ready starting this fall to offer their 1000 level courses both synchronously and asynchronously as a means of trying to attract non-traditional students into that program we've got a lot of work to do in that way in that that realm but where we're making progress the fourth charter is looking at enhanced enrollment pathways looking at how to grow pathways from career and tech ed high school and also ccb and our other sister colleges and the fifth charter is a business analysis charter which has really two parts first is an in-depth analysis of all our business and operational functions of the college similar to some of the work we're doing around program review we want to apply some of that same financial analysis and qualitative analysis to all our other business operations and the second part is a comprehensive look at different pricing models for our programs and that would likely be done in conjunction with the system as we look at unification but we think that's an important analysis to be done doing and last but not least and not really a charter is our ag and food systems transformation planning we're really getting down to the nitty gritty and the analysis of the curriculum and programs that we've had subcommittees working on and we've had continue to have the 45 folks who God bless them volunteer their amazing amounts of time to work on this these are subject matter experts around ag and agricultural education who've been working up with us for nine months and I just I don't know how to thank these people enough because they take time out of their very busy days to devote Solway to Vermont Tech we hope to come and give a presentation about that outcome in the near future as we finish our financial analysis and and get the board up to speed of what that ag and food system transformation looks like so with that I too am happy to answer any questions anybody might have about my presentation or anything else going on at Vermont Tech any questions for President Moulton okay we look forward to that presentation from the ag transformation that you're going to do anything else thank you very much thank you pardon just thank you very much for your time yes thank you all of you we now are going to move on to the next item on the agenda which is a executive session do we have a motion do you have that Megan I do have that okay I move the board of trustees enter executive session pursuant to 1VSA 313A1A to discuss contracts 1VSA 313A1B to discuss labor relations agreements with employees 1VSA 3131AE to discuss pending or probable civil litigation to which the VSC is or maybe a party and 1VSA 313A1F for the purpose of receiving confidential attorney client communications made for the purpose of providing professional legal services because premature general public knowledge of these discussions would place the VSC at a substantial disadvantage it is appropriate for the committee to enter executive session along with the members of the board present at this meeting in its discretion the board invites the chancellor and the general council to attend no formal or binding action shall be taken in the executive session we have a motion on the table do we hear a second second from Linda Melton a discussion saying none all those in favor of the motion are stated to move into executive session please indicate by saying aye by no one's opposed let's move into executive session we will be out of this as soon as we can seven seven seven do we have everybody here one two three four five six seven eight eight I count eight is that a quorum anyone two yes it is I think you have nine Megan's back yeah okay we think we have nine it's a quorum okay okay um it's now a little after 11 and we are back out of executive session we do have some motions that need to be made we have we have a a agreement that's been negotiated for the one of the unions I'm going to ask the chancellor or the general council to explain what that is what that what that group is briefly but we have a motion we can have a motion on the table for accepting that agreement that is now going to be ratified by the board Patty do you want to do that I move that we ratify the labor contract the ratified labor contract ratified by the labor union that Pat's about to explain to us okay we have a motion and a second Patty you want to explain who this group is so we have an idea of what's gone on with it absolutely it's the PAT SUB S-U-P unit which means professional administrative technical and supervisory employees it's two it's two separate units but we've historically we've negotiated the contracts together so we sort of refer to them as PAT SUB it is technically two separate contracts but the the language is more or less identical in both okay and Beth is the president I see Beth has appeared okay so we have a motion on the table anyone of any questions on this ratification of this contract okay seeing none all those in favor of ratifying the this new contract please indicate by saying I anyone opposed seeing none we have now ratified the the PUT PAT SUB contract we also have some guiding principles that we that we have got for future negotiations as a board we made a resolution that said we wanted to do this these are general guiding principles would anyone like to make a motion on that Mary okay and second Sean okay Sean okay so we have a motion the chancellor or the general counsel would you like to go over briefly what those are this certainly would you like me too Sophie that would be good that would be fine and we can I mean these can be included in the meeting materials too they'll be publicly available so they'll be yes yeah that's right so the statement these are guiding principles for labor relations Vermont state colleges respects the rights of employees to seek representation by a labor union as provided in the Vermont state employees labor relations act trustees and management of the bsbs are committed to working collaboratively and in good faith with all union representatives in support of Vermont public post-secondary education that is affordable accessible high quality and relevant in our labor relations we are guided by the following principles students and their success are our singular goals to focus on student success we will foster a workplace that provides education for life and a lifetime be responsible stewards of our fiscal resources be a leader in our Vermont communities collaborate with our workforce for effective and efficient operations make well-informed decisions based on objective data metrics and evidence and seek to continuously improve the delivery of education for the benefit of Vermont okay are there any questions or concerns about that okay hearing none all those in favor of the I don't think you have a motion do we yeah we did we did I'm sorry yes in a second Sean seconded yes so we have the motion on the table all those in favor of Karen do you want to speak no I just want to vote I've got it I've got it everywhere I've got to leave okay all those in favor of the motion please indicate by saying aye aye opposed okay thank you now we have we're coming to the end to your folks we have additional businesses or any additional business that anyone has seeing none we do have a comment from the public anyone who wants to comment from the public this is the opportunity I don't and we did not have anybody sign up for this okay I don't see any hands okay so the next thing would be to have a motion to adjourn so moved Mary second second okay we have a motion in a second or at all any discussion all those in favor of adjournment please indicate by saying aye aye aye aye aye aye thanks to everybody Lynn you did a great job and thanks to our members thank you all again be well everybody all right thank you Sophie thank you very much everyone I appreciate all your hard work and your time we'll be in touch thank you thanks everybody