 I'd like to start off before I talk about the rest retreat by acknowledging Veterans Day. This is such a deeply personal day for many of us who have family who've served, but I think all of us share a deep respect. We honor and have great gratitude as we recognize and thank our veterans. I have a favorite quote that I like to use when I am acknowledging our veterans. And that is, we don't know them all, but we sure owe them all. So I thank you all for joining me in that recognition. So I'm gonna turn to our trustees, Stephanie Johnson, to give us the roll call for this morning. She's muted. Trustee Johnson, please unmute. Good morning. I would like all of you to turn your mute button and buttons off of your trustees so that we can get through this process quickly. This is the Elizabeth City State University Board of Trustees record of attendance, November 11th, 2020. I will call your names and please answer by saying present. Harold Barnes. Present. Phyllis Bosenworth. Present. Kim Brown. Lynn Bunch. Present. Andy Culpepper. Present. Jimmy Chambers. Present. Christine Evans. Present. Stephanie Johnson. Present. Jan King Robinson. Present. Tracy Swain. Paul Tyne. Present. And Kenneth Wilkins. Kenneth Wilkins. He's on mute, but I know he's here. Thank you. Thank you, I will hear Robinson. Thank you so much, Trustee. I would like to take a moment before we start and I introduce one of our esteemed guests to thank Trustee Bunch, who along with our wonderful Abel and Always Present and great Suggestor, Gwen Sanders, in helping organize today's program and of course the Chancellor who's always been there and supporting us. So we hope that it's an invigorating process and we've tried to have a little bit of fun in here and to know that although we're in a formal meeting that it's still a retreat and it's an opportunity for us to just sit back and have an opportunity to commune as well as look at the opportunities that we have for growth in the future. Delighted to introduce our liaison, our Board of Governors liaison, David Powers, who we all know well. You know that he wears many, many hats. He's the Chair of the Committee on University Governance for the Board of Governors and we've all had an opportunity to welcome him in our hometown. He's a frequent visitor and we appreciate that so much. Governor Powers, thank you for joining this morning and having a few words for us as we kick off this retreat. The floor is yours, sir. Thank you so much, Janet Chan. I really appreciate it. Good to be back with you. I hate it's not in person but we'll get there soon enough, I think. I really, before I get started, I wanna tell you that I'm gonna stay with you as long as I can today. This is a busy university week. I have distrusting meeting, UNC Pembroke, UNC Chapel Hill and a faculty assembly meeting this week. So I may drop on and off and you'll see me or I'll be listening as long as I can today. Most of the morning at least. Very proud to be here with such a very esteemed group of speakers lined up today. President Hunts and I have been friends for a long, long time and this will be the first time in a long time I've gotten to share a stage with him which I greatly look forward to. It's always good to be on the same program with Chancellor Harold Martin and he is a true leader around the country. Not just among HBCUs but among all our universities around the country. And Chancellor, if I'm not mistaken, I shared the stage at Lisbon City State with Vanessa Harrison a couple of years ago, did I not, for graduation. And Ms. Harrison and I were on the North Carolina Chamber Board together. So it's good, very good that y'all have her joining you today too with Chancellor Martin. So I know that'll be a good occasion for you. So I wanna talk a little bit about board relationships and working relationships with the boards of trustees and the system office and other aspects of board duties throughout the system. But before I do that, I do wanna bring you up to speed on a couple of things that are going on on the government's committee. One, as some of you know, we finally passed a change in policy on expectations of board of trustee members and board of governors members. We found through a couple of events that occurred over the past year or so that we didn't have adequate policies to police ourselves very well. And we spent a lot of time researching that looking at how the boards do things comparing the boards with the trustee boards within our system as well. And we developed a new set of expectations we have of board members and board trustee members and board of governors members. Really kind of common sense things quite honestly. But like I say, we had some issues with trying to govern ourselves on occasion and we felt like the need to go in and clear up some things. Nothing I think you would find onerous, like I say, it mostly is just common sense things about how people who are given a very great public trust like us and like you, I should conduct ourselves in our affairs on that. We also, while we were doing that, we made some changes in our policies as they govern student body officer elections. Those are campus-based activities and we intend to keep them campus-based activities but we did make some changes to make sure that nobody on our board or no employee or trustee of the university individual campuses could have an undue influence on the conduct of those elections so it truly will stay student elections and we try to create a forum that they could share their own ideas and best practices among themselves. So really pleased with that. We had a couple of students on the board. We had a couple of trustees who were past student body presidents when they were at their respective institutions on the committee. So we had a lot of input from the student perspective and I feel really good about where we came out there. The other thing I'm really excited about is next week at the governance committee meeting, I hope all of you will be able to join by Zoom if you can, we are kicking off a series of activities around free expression on campus. The board of governance committee serves as the free expression committee for the board of governors and we're going to try to highlight some things we're doing very well around the system, maybe look at some things where we've got some room to grow. We're going to kick off our discussion next week with three UNC Chapel Hill professors who have done a study on free expression on campus at UNC Chapel Hill. Hopefully that'll serve as kind of a benchmark of where we're going. We want this thing to be focused on civil discourse. It's not a political exercise. We're going to have every time we have an event at a governance committee meeting, we're going to be very cognizant of having different perspectives represented to three professors that are presenting. One is a fairly liberal professor, one's a fairly conservative professor and one's kind of somewhere in the middle and they work together on this study. So that's what our goal is to make sure we're looking for ways for all viewpoints to be heard in a civil manner. If you can't have a civil discussion on issues on a college campus, we're in bad trouble. So we're going to be really highlighting things we do well, things that we get right and I can say places where we might need a little work but might not do something every meeting but at least every other meeting or so we're going to have one of these free expression events. We'll involve some trustees at some point, we'll involve some students at some point, probably a couple of chancellors and some nationally recognized experts to come talk with us. So we want to generate a real robust discussion and I'm really excited about this and look forward to it greatly. Trustee Tynne, I believe you were still in the legislature when they passed the free expression law a few years ago. Were you not? I don't recall, tell you the truth. I know, well, considering they pass over a thousand bills every year, that's not the sweat slip by one or two of them but so we do have a charge from the legislature to keep our campuses as zones of free expression and we are going to take that seriously but we're going to do it in a very collaborative manner that stresses everybody's input, everybody's viewpoint and truly civil discourse where we can have a rational discussion about issues. Okay, that's kind of a little update but what I want to talk about with you today is relationships between you guys as a board of trustees, us as a board of governors, the system office and even legislators because the principles are kind of the same in dealing with this. I know sometimes y'all, your physical location makes you feel a little remote from what goes on in Raleigh and Chapel Hill. So I think it's even more important that you concentrate on those relationships with board of governors members, with your administration staff, with legislators but to make sure you're heard, make sure your concerns are heard. And when I enter into my job, one thing I try to stress with my members of the governance committee, as y'all know, we serve as liaisons for the campuses. We all have several assignments. But I really stress that first and foremost, there's an old adage about half of life is showing up. I think that's very true in this case. Being on campus when you can, being on calls like this when you can is very important to be an effective liaison for a school. So the onus is on us to make sure that we're as accessible to you, we show up when we can. I can't always be there for every meeting, but I stress to members of my committee that we should try to be there as much as we possibly can. Being there makes you an expert, whether you are or not, because you're the guy coming from Chapel Hill and you're supposed to know all this stuff. So it also puts an onus on us to prepare to know a little bit about what we're talking about. It's not easy to just solve a trustee time. It's not easy to keep up with every issue all the time that goes through us. We get kind of focused on what happens in our committee or what happens and things we're interested in. And sometimes we need to make sure we study up and know a little bit about what's going on around the schools. The other big part of this, and Chancellor Dixon and I have had several conversations about this as I have with all the chance that I work with through my liaison roles. And just so you'll know, my other schools are UNC Pembroke, UNC Chapel Hill, and UNC Healthcare and UNC Public Television. So those are the institutions I work with. A lot of it starts in the first discussions about who you are gonna be, who your trustees are gonna be. And we have tried to be much more intentional about this process and having discussions about what skill sets are needed. Chancellor, I've been talking about somebody from the aviation community for a year and we're gonna find that right person. We're gonna keep going until we do. But that's the kind of thing we're talking about, finding those skill sets that aren't covered, that you need a little help in. And whether it be fundraising or whether it be some kind of business acumen or real estate acumen, whatever the case may be, that the board may need a particular skill in or may need a little more acumen in. So that starts with those initial discussions with Chancellor Dixon and I. And it's not just for our appointments. We often talk fairly deeply with the Senate President Pro Tem and the Speaker of the House about who their appointments are gonna be. So, you know, Chancellor Dixon's always free to express to me some ideas she has about their appointments also. And I'm always happy to pass along. So that's kind of the first part of this Board of Trustee, Board of Governors relationship and even Board of Trustee and Legislator relationships is making sure the Board of Trustees reflects the needs of the school, where you need help, where you need to focus on. And like I say, we've been very cognizant of making an intentional effort about that. And I think to good effect. I think to real good effect across the system. So I really feel good about where we're going there. So that brings us all together. And then what happens? Then you've got people from varying backgrounds, varying viewpoints, varying degrees of experience with a particular university, most little to no experience with the Board of Governors and most little experience with the legislature. So you've got an education process and a learning process has got to start with all of us. It's very easy to disagree about things. It's also very easy to agree about things and focus on those things you agree about for the good of the institution you're serving. But the biggest piece of starting to build those kind of relationships is building that personal side of those relationships. Trustee Barnes and I spent a lot of time together talking at Board of Governors meetings he'd come to before I ever became a liaison to the Lisp of City State. So when I did become your liaison, I had that relationship with Trustee Barnes that I could start building a different kind of relationship. Went the same with Trustee Wilkins who would come to several of our BOG meetings. So those kind of things where I had that opportunity to find some common ground on a personal basis. And start building a relationship. I laugh about the fact that thank God, working the only business left that's all about personal relationships. I don't have any job skills. I'm unemployable if it's not for lobbying. So I depend on my ability to build relationships to perform my job and serve my clients. Same thing true with my service at the university. I depend on my ability to build relationships to adequately be able to represent your interests to the Board of Governors and to the legislature when I need. And I want to depend on your ability to develop your relationships, to build those relationships with legislators. Particularly, I know Senator Steinberg shows up good many times at events at Lisp of City State. I know Representative Hunter and Howard Hunter shows up for events there. You've got a couple of Lisp City State alumni in the legislature that will probably be glad to show up if they're asked in there. You've got some kind of natural allies there to start discussion with. And I think Trustee Tine knows a few people in the legislature and I think Trustee Evans knows a few people in the legislature. They can help too. So you've got a good kind of base to start building that and build those relationships. And dealing with the Board of Governors is never as pleasant as it should be, quite frankly. It shouldn't be any drama. Occasionally we get these kind of weird events going on when they're on our Board that make it a little more interesting than it needs to be. But we're all here for the same reasons. We might have a different way of going about it. But I think, as Governor Smith and Governor Long proved a couple of years ago, two of our Board members who really did get along very well rolled their sleeves up and went to work at a Lisp City State to get some things rolling in the right direction. And a great example of what happens when you're all working toward a common goal. And I just, I cannot stress enough that having that shared goal and realizing what the shared goals are is kind of the basis for really becoming a team as it were on working on behalf of Lisp City State. Yeah, my focus is the whole Board. I know that my whole system, I know that. I always try to be very content in that. Y'all know, most of you know, I went to NC State and I'm a very proud Wolfpacker. And if we're playing on the athletic field, I will be in my red and white and I'm gonna be all in for my Wolfpack. But when I'm on a call like this, when I'm at a Board of Governors meeting, I'm not here to represent NC State. I'm here to represent every school in the system. And I have a special obligation with you guys because serving as liaison to Lisp City State, that gives an extra onus on me to make sure that I become an advocate for you within the system office, within the legislature. I know there again, Chancellor Dixon, I've talked many times about money for the library and boy, it took a lot to get it there. And I had to go through a vetoed budget and find other avenues and all, but that's what we're here to do to help y'all solve those kind of problems too. And I feel like that, I haven't spent as much time as I'd like there, but I have spent time trying to get to know you guys a little bit to enjoy. It wasn't very long at the time. Y'all were in Raleigh and I just came and said, you know, have a glass of wine with you while y'all are having dinner. And those times are, it's always good to get to know somebody in a setting where you're not asking them for something. I really, that's how I approached my lobbying business. I try to get to know legislators before I have to ask them for something. So I'm not just, you know, coming in cold, coming out of left field when I need to go to something by them. So it's really nice to sit and just be able to talk a little bit quietly and, you know, share some moments where you're not worried about that problem you've got in front of you. You can just get to know each other a little bit and help you get through those problems better. And I can only pledge to you from my standpoint that I'll always do what I can to be there or on the phone, talk through issues, to advocate for you guys. I hate COVID has kind of reared its head because the chancellor and I had another little thing we worked on a little bit. We had an exhibition game with NC State and Elisabeth City State, D-Dot. And hopefully when this is all over, we'll get back to that. And one thing I'm very cognizant of trying to make sure that our two flagships, if you will, are good big brothers, big sisters to everybody else because I know it might not seem like a big thing to NC State, but I know how big a deal that would have been for Elisabeth City State to come to Raleigh and play an exhibition game against NC State. We'll make that happen again, we will. So, but hopefully, State and Carolina are gonna take that role a little bit more seriously going forward. I can't do a whole lot to help State and Carolina quite honestly, they do very well on their own. So I'm willing to give them the freedom to run, but they've gotta be willing to help out and make this a true system where they're leaders and they're leaders on a national level, but they're transferring some of that cachet, if you will, to the rest of schools in the system to help them grow and help them build things. So hopefully we'll keep pushing that. Hopefully we'll keep growing. I mean, I can't say enough what a great job all of y'all have done to keep things going in the right direction of Elisabeth City State. Where we are now from where we were four years ago, I mean, there's just no way to compare. And you've got a very capable leader, she's done an excellent job, she's had a lot of good help, staff help, you've had some good student leaders, the ones I've met to help accomplish this and a great board. And I really appreciate you guys being in there and all you bring to her and willing to help out in any way, like I say, willing to help out advocating for something in the system office, willing to help out if you wanna come to Raleigh and meet with a couple legislators. Happy to do that, happy to get involved, help out. I really talked to Chancellor Dixon a good bit about trustee Evans because of that very reason, because Chris and I worked together on a couple of issues in the general assembly. I knew what she could bring to you guys and help and build those relationships. Didn't know at the time that the speaker was going to appoint trustee time, which doubles that effort there. So advocacy is a big part of what you do, you're advocates for the university. We're gonna try to give you more and more responsibility. We've done some things already over the past two years and we're gonna continue looking at things we can give you a little bit more authority over if you will. But you've really gotta serve that advocacy role well. And so far from everything I've seen, y'all have done a great job. And I am happy to take questions, comments, discussion anything that you guys want to do for a few minutes. Thank you very much, Governor Powers. And I would really appreciate that this time for our trustees to ask a few questions and I'm gonna hold mine. I have a couple of questions and some comments. So in the met, I'm going to ask, I'm assuming Glenn, can I see hand raises or whoever sees that? I don't know if I can see that if we could use raising our, okay, I was thinking our virtual hands but our actual hands works. All right, trustee Barnes, you go ahead. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. Ms. Powers, I'd just like to just say that I have appreciated the time that we've had on numerous occasions to just sit down and talk about whether it was just family or how things are going in different places. And I agree that that is part of what we have to do because we don't have to ask for a whole lot if you understand what our needs are. And we just try to build strong relationships and you've been a person that we've been able to sit down and talk to about a number of things. But more importantly, just getting to know you and getting to understand how you see things and just valuing you as a person. And I've enjoyed doing that over the time. And I thank you for giving us that opportunity. Thank you very much, I appreciate that. And the sentiments returned. Thank you. Any other comments or questions, trustees? One other thing I'd like to say since no one spoke up is that I simply believe, and I think we've had discussions about this in the past that the University of North Carolina system should be the best university system in the world. But in order to do that, we cannot have non or low performing assets which include all of our institutions. And as a legislature and as a board and as a community we have to make sure that we provide the assets necessary to elevate every institution up to the level that it needs to be, so that when we talk about the university system in North Carolina, we can say it, the institution itself that encompasses all of our institutions, that it's the best institution in the world. And I think we have that capacity and we have the will to do it. And we just have to get everybody working on the same page at the same time. And I thank you for all of your efforts in trying to make that come true. Trustee Barnes, I'm glad you said that because one thing that's always impressed me about our system and some of you know, before I retired from the corporate world, started my own lobbying business, I was head of government affairs for RJ Reynolds and I traveled all over the country, engaged in legislative debates, working for a tobacco company, every state in the country always tries to solve at least some of his problems by taxing cigarettes. So I've involved in every budget bait around the country and most states number one spin is education. So I saw up close a lot of how other states education system work and operate. And I do think if we're not the best system, we're one of the two or three best, but I think as a system, we are the best. And UNC Chapel Hill and NC State are great schools, but so are Michigan and Michigan State and Texas and Texas A&M and Cal and Caltech where I think we're so much better than everybody else is the rest of our schools, quite frankly. And I think our system, you know, from UNC Charlotte on to the small to the school of the arts, the smallest school of the system, that's where we're better than everybody else. Not taking anything away from state in Carolina, they can compete with anybody. I don't think anybody else's system can compete with ours with our other institution outside of our flagships, but you're right. We do have to make sure there are no low performing assets in there. We do have to make sure that they maintain a high level that they're, you know, at the top of their peer group around the country while remaining near the bottom of their peer group intuition, which, you know, our in cost, which our constitution requires us to do. So I really appreciate that reference to keeping the quality of system up. Because as I said before, it's not just about state in Carolina. Matter of fact, there's a whole lot less about state in Carolina than it is everybody else, in my opinion, because they're going to do just fine on their own. And so I really appreciate that nod of the quality of the UNC system is it may be publicly driven from reputationally by state in Carolina, but an outcome is driven by everybody else more than it is state in Carolina. It really truly is. And I do, I really believe that. All right, thank you. I'm going to go ahead and ask my questions. I don't see any other questions. Excuse me. Chair Robinson, I believe I see Trustee Bozner's hand up. Oh, great, I didn't see your hand. Please, Trustee Bozner. Thank you. I just wanted to say thank you to Governor Powers. We appreciate very much your involvement with our board and your presence. It's wonderful when you come and join us and share with us your thoughts. And it's been very helpful for me and I really appreciate you coming and spending time with us. Thank you. Thank you very much. It's funny, you know, I spent a lot of my career traveling all over the country and I was very fortunate. I got friends all over the country. But I didn't know North Carolina as well as I needed to, quite frankly. And then the last time I've been on the board, now I've got friends all over the state from Collaway to Lisp of City, from Wilmington to Boone. And, you know, just feel very blessed to have been able to build these relationships and work with the kind of people that I've gotten to work with at the universities, on the boards of trustees and then the university staffs. And it's made me a better person. It made my life better. And I really appreciate that. Thank you. Well, a comment and a question for you, Governor Powers. One, I really appreciate your sharing with us as always and the support that we've enjoyed from you specifically. A couple of things that I've noticed over the years and you have echoed this today, when we've had our students come back from their student conferences for all of the students within the system, leaders have gotten together, they come back just so infused and excited about how they can collaborate. And that to me is one of the strengths of the system that I don't necessarily see happening throughout. And it may be that we as a board are not informed of that. We do hear from time to time how our faculty has collaborated across schools. But that collaboration right now, particularly when you're talking about civil discourse. And I loved it because you have just emulated, you know, getting to know people. We can have the harder discussions when we have bent our arms and had a glass of wine or a cup of coffee or a cup of tea together. If we have some kind of relationship, the harder issues and discussions of course can happen with some civility because we have regard and respect for one another. And there are lots of opportunities throughout the system for the harder discussions because we have such great diversity and representation. And so I wonder if from that vantage point, I mean, I love that we're gonna have this opportunity for there to be a discussion about how we have civil discourse. But is there a discussion about how that can be used throughout all the different aspects of this incredible community that we belong to as a university system? Sure, I hope so. That's all I'll say. It's tough, you can't force things on people. And I don't want to force things on people. I want people to build this together. But, as we're looking at the free expression events we're gonna do, we're trying to involve every aspect of the university students, faculty, we're starting the faculty, boards of trustees, chancellors, legislators, we're trying to involve every aspect of this to kind of have that conversation brought. I'll tell you a quick story that this is one of my most meaningful moments to me and system. I served on search committee for Western Carolinas. I don't know if y'all remember, but they had a failed search. We actually went through two searches, same committee. And there was a professor there named Vicky Zabode. Vicky was a history professor with a concentration in climate change in the North Sea in the Viking era. That's about as specialized as I've ever heard any academic qualification. Vicky and I would have a political discussion and I would almost be willing to guarantee you that there might be one issue we could find to agree on. Probably not. But we sat beside each other for three days worth of interviews on two separate occasions. So for six days and laughed and talking about history because we both have a love of history and got to know each other. And this week Vicky and I are doing a presentation to the USC faculty assembly on advocacy and board faculty and relationships. So that's, I love that. The fact that we got to be friends and we got to know each other and respect each other not that we'd have to talk about what we disagree on but we can talk about things we share. And we're gonna do it instead of debating one side or the other, we're gonna do it together. So I'm really excited about that. And it makes me feel good that we can do those kind of things. But like I say, we both love history and we both thought we were funny. So we laughed a lot and talked a lot and had a good time getting to know each other. And now we're doing a presentation together. So that's the kind, those are success stories to me. Quite frankly, those are success stories. Yes, thank you. And hopefully we can pass those on. Yes, thank you. Well, I thank you for sharing and Jess, I didn't know if you had any words or comments you wanted to make before we move on. Well, again, I just, I wanna thank Governor Powers for his continued support and advocacy of Elizabeth State University. And I believe Governor Powers, you made some wonderful points about the fact that we are not the same institution we were four years ago and we're all excited about that. And I never claimed to have done any of this myself. It is definitely the support of the Board of Trustees, our faculty, our staff, my staff here in the chancellor's office and just everyone who has contributed to the success and our students, I can't forget our students because it was our students that really gave us the motivation and the commitment to do all we can to make sure that they have the best experience possible at Elizabeth City State University and also to make sure that we are instilling in them everything that equips them to be successful after they leave Elizabeth City State. And so I'm just quite honored to lead this great university and we are definitely making an impact in Northeastern North Carolina and in this region and we together are building the foundation for the stability of our great and beloved ECSU. So I thank you as our Board of Governors Liaison. I thank the Board of Governors, the North Carolina General Assembly and everyone, even our advocates in Washington DC because we're all doing this together, doing this for all the right reasons. So thank you Governor Powers for joining us this morning and for your continued advocacy and support of Elizabeth City State, we greatly appreciate it. I'll always be there. Thank you very much, I enjoyed it. Thank you Chancellor and Governor Powers, we appreciate however long you can stay in the mix and you're welcome to join in. I'll be on and off, I'll be listening. Okay, great, thank you. Thank y'all. Wonderful, thank you. Thank you for the rest of your day. Thank you, you too. Alrighty, so Chancellor, I think that we are ready for you to make the next introduction of our esteemed guests and we're delighted to have our Chancellor from A&T back with us. Had to take myself on mute. Thank you Harold Robinson, thank you so much for the opportunity to invite a great colleague of mine and I have to say Harold Martin has, as Governor Powers mentioned, he has done a significant job with leadership in North Carolina and beyond, well-respected across the country. And I am just thankful and it's such a blessed thing to have crossed paths with him because he gave me the opportunity in 2008 to come work for him at the UNC system to give me a opportunity to lead higher education from a macro level working at the system. And so I owe him a great thank you for that opportunity and believing in me and my leadership. But Chancellor Martin has always been a dear friend to Elizabeth City State University. Two years ago, if you all remember, those of you who have been on the board for a while, he agreed to host us for our retreat, the trustee retreat on his campus. We were there for two days and he and his board and board chair sat with us and talked a lot about their relationship with the chancellor, with the university, how the board of trustees supports the university and also the completion of their strategic plan. And I have to tell you, chair, and I know you can agree and I know at the time trustee Barnes was the chair, but we came back so energized after hearing from North Carolina AT&T State University leadership. And we're so excited and delighted that Chancellor Martin has agreed to join us again today. And we're also excited that he has with him his board chairwoman, Vanessa Harrison. And Ms. Harrison is the president of AT&T Georgia. She was our commencement speaker as Governor Powers mentioned in last December. So we were very happy to have her on campus at ECSU and she did a wonderful job and inspired our graduates. So I'm just delighted to have both Chancellor Martin and chairwoman, Vanessa Harrison on with us today to share some insight into how they work together as chancellor and as board chair and with the board of trustees and just give us some good things to think about and some good strategies. And so I'll turn it over to Chancellor Martin. Good morning, thanks very much. Chancellor Dixon, it's a pleasure to be with you this morning and have our chair of our board of trustees, chairwoman, Vanessa Harrison, with us as part of this discussion, we'll do this morning as well. And certainly good morning to all of the board of trustee members. We're delighted to be with you this morning and share our perspective about how we engage on our campus with our board of trustees as well. And so chairwoman Harrison has joined us as well and I yield to give her an opportunity to make a few comments as well. Good morning, everyone. Thank you so much Chancellor Dixon for inviting us to be here. It is always a pleasure to be here. I just want to congratulate you and your board for the amazing work that you all are doing there. I think I was there about two years ago just when you were just about ready to get started. And I tell you, you've done some amazing work and we're so proud of you and always stand ready to help elicit city, state, university in any way that we can. So thank you for inviting us. Thank you. And as I've shared with chairwoman Harrison, we'll do a Huntley-Brinkley. Some of those of you who remember Huntley-Brinkley, we will share our perspectives as we move through a few slides to engage in conversations with you. And I echo chairwoman Harrison's comments as well. The remarkable progress that has been made at Elizabeth City State University is beyond measure. And so we're excited about what's occurring there and hopefully what we may have to share will be of some value to you as well. So if we could pull up the presentation, that would be great. Okay. So let's move to the very first text slide. Next slide. So I should say to you as members of the Board of Trustees and EC issue that this is my 12th year as chancellor at North County NT. And one of the things that our board and I have taken great pride in is that we have really worked exceedingly well together. We have always been very candid and open in conversation about what was best for North County NT. We have realized that the direction of our university and the work of our institution is vested in our Board of Trustees. The mission of our institution to kind of get classification of our institution, the success of our institution is really vested in our Board of Trustees. So we've worked very diligently as a collective group to do what we characterize as building a board with the skill sets we need to continue to sustain the work of our university. And so we have worked at intentionally identifying individuals who bring the talents we're looking for for our board, who bring the capacity to advocate on behalf of our institution and who bring the willingness to invest as well some of their treasure in our university as well. And so we never miss an opportunity to nominate individuals for board vacancies through evaluation of board members to ensure that at each opportunity we make nominations to the Board of Governors for re-appointments of board's trustee members or nomination of new members to our board. And we've never missed an opportunity to nominate candidates for consideration initially by the governor and now by the legislature for appointments to our Board of Trustees. We have used the opportunities to work with business leaders, alumni who are doing exceedingly well or friends of the institution who bring the skill sets that we need to help us continue to advance the institution. We vet these board candidates in very candid discussions with our board chair and other key members of our Board of Trustees to evaluate who brings the best skill sets, talents, commitment and desire to help move our university forward. And we focus on diversity, including diversity of thought, political affiliation, background and business skill sets so that we are continuing to bring to the board the very best talent. We have a Board of Visitors that has become an incredibly important group for our university. It's about 45 to 50 business leaders, political leaders from around the nation, high numbers of alumni who've done exceedingly well and local business leaders, political leaders affiliated with our Board of Visitors as well as advisory boards for every one of our colleges. These advisory boards and the Board of Visitors serve as key points of contact for business leaders, community leaders, alumni and alike to connect with our university in some of their first levels of engagement with the institution. And we evaluate those members of advisory boards for our colleges, the Board of Visitors and others to assess those individuals' commitments to our university, their capacity to give and their willingness to give and the evidence that they've given and their willingness to advocate on behalf of the role of our university and the impact of our institution on our community, our region and the state as a whole. Those board members of the Board of Visitors and the college advisory boards serve as the best evidence that an individual will serve as an effective and successful Board of Trustee member. And those individuals will then become nominations for consideration for our Board of Trustees, the most significant and valued board for our university. And we wanted to share that as part of our conversation. This is our process. We just completed a conversation with Chairwoman Harrison and another member of our Board of Trustees just this week in preparation for nominations for the Board of Governors' Appointments as well as legislative appointments that we will be submitting very shortly before the holiday break. Now, once the board is constituted, we are very clear about orientation of our board members, strategic direction of our university, the expectations of our Board of Trustee members and the like. We value a high level of communications with our Board of Trustee members. There are one-on-one meetings with the Board Chair and me in preparation for board meetings. There's never an opportunity to miss engaging with the Board Chair, to prepare for both the Board Chair and for me, ensuring that everything is on point relative to our Board of Trustee meetings and any key items that may be contentious or closed session items or items of importance that the Board Chair has to be briefed about in preparation for leading the Board meetings successfully. And that we never miss an opportunity to ensure that there are appropriate engagements with our Board of Trustees. We have the regularity schedule meetings, quarterly meetings, we have a required retreat during the summer and we will have necessary call meetings as needed with the Board to meet the ongoing business of the university in a very significant way. Now, in terms of engagement with our Board, we have standing invitations to our Board of Trustee members for the standard engagement through commencement, convocations, we have an excellent Chancellor's speaker series that brings global leaders to our campus on a regular basis. We often schedule these speaker series around Board of Trustee functions so that our Board of Trustee members are enabled to attend high levels of engagement at athletic events, football games, basketball games, other athletic events and all major functions where we celebrate the successes of our students, faculty and staff of the university, our Board of Trustee members are engaged and invited. We're also, of course, at all Board of Trustee meetings host a dinner or reception tonight prior to the meeting where we invite select groups of faculty, faculty senate, staff senate, student leadership groups, alumni groups, new faculty hired, staff hired, business leaders, community leaders, political leaders are regularly brought to our university to engage with our Board of Trustees at every Board of Trustee meeting. We never missed the opportunity to socially engage with our Board of Trustees. And I would suggest that my leadership team and I era on the side of keeping our Board briefed about all key issues that may occur related to our university. And so there are no surprises, if you will, where our Board continually is briefed through communications from me to the Board to keep them informed. Big announcements in the media. Unfortunate situations that may occur within our student population. Anything that may occur in the media, it is heard through me by our Board before it ever shows up in the media. I think that's critically important for engagement of our Board of Trustees. No surprises is our strategy with our Board. So I'm gonna pause here for a moment to give Chairwoman Harrison to make some comments to share her perspective across these items. Well, Chancellor, I mean, you said it all. The only thing that I can say is that we look at our role as being members of the university carrying out our fiduciary responsibilities but also helping to steer the organization into a sustainable future. One thing that I shared with Chancellor Martin when I first came on the Board is that you have that it is upon each and every one of us as Board members to tell that story. Too often there's just amazing things going on on campuses but nobody really knows it but the people that are on the campus. And so we have to be the voice of the university by telling the story and sharing the things that are going on in terms of the successes and then also representing the university to ensure that we get the appropriate resources that the university need to advance our agenda. So I look at us as being members of the Board, as being members of Chancellor Martin's staff as well. We're partners in this and we are the voice for the university and so it's a great relationship. It's just a great relationship there. Thank you. Next slide please. So the role of the Board through advancement and I would suggest from a big picture perspective, one of the most important actions of our Board of Trustees has been to approve our university's strategic plan. Our university's strategic plan is a really living document for our university. It has framed the aggressive strategy for advanced in our institution. They are intimately involved in the plan, the peers of our university, the benchmarks of our institution and our intent per our strategic plan to be amongst the top 10% performers of our peer institutions and advancing our institution to be successful against those benchmarks. All of our Board of Trustee meetings then are aligned with progress of our university toward our strategic plan for that year. We extract from our university's strategic plan what we define as a set of university priorities for that year and all of our meetings are tied to benchmarks to realize in those objectives, those priorities for that year. In every committee agenda, it's tied to the progress toward those benchmarks and every one of our senior staff members who represents the liaison with the chair of that committee frames an agenda that focuses on the continuing progress of the university toward realizing those priorities within that committee and the Board as a whole. We also realized our ability to achieve the aggressive strategic plan we put in place for our university that we would need additional resources. The biggest challenge was driving conversation and strategy and conversation with the president and Board of Governors for the university system what our budgetary needs are, what our federal legislative and priority needs are and communicating those in an aggressive way but also the importance of private fundraising. This was a big part of and I would say an under-realized opportunity for our university before it is one of our most successful levels of engagement for our university today. And we took very intentional steps to build out a very successful advancement function for the university that's overseen by our Board of Trustees through the committee on advancement. And it is through that committee that the key work of the university's advancement activities are managed and monitored. To begin this discussion, shortly after my arrival as Chancellor at North Carolina T, we realized that we had a very weak advancement function. And as the consequence and conversations with our Board of Trustees, we enlisted the services of a consultancy group, Alexander Haas, to evaluate our advancement function. Look at every aspect of our university advancement function, staffing, technology, processes, leadership for advancement function and all of the associated entities of our university who had in their mission, raising money on behalf of the university. Our university's foundation, our athletics booster clubs, we had two at the time, our alumni association in this role in raising money on behalf of our university, a Hall of Fame athletics group for our university. All of these were associated entities whose responsibility it was to raise money as part of their mission. But each of those entities were in some point at odds with the university or some aspect of the institution. And as a consequence, we're under realizing their potential to raise money. Alexander Haas came back after a significant level of engagement with our Board of Trustees, with our leadership team and with all of our associated entities with some critical recommendations. And it is through those recommendations that we restructured our advancement function. We essentially dismissed 90% of our advancement staff, 90% of the staff were dismissed. Alumni functions, staff, advancement staff, for example, all were dismissed. We hired a new advancement officer whose responsibility it was to build an advancement team. We gave the advancement function 30 new positions over time to build out a successful advancement staff. We reviewed and restructured the associated entities. Every one of our associated entities, the two booster clubs were evaluated by an external group. We ultimately merged those two into one booster club and challenged them to go out and raise money for athletics function. We restructured our alumni function. Some of you may know that we no longer now have an alumni association by definition. We have folded all of our alumni function activities into our office of alumni relations and created an advisory council to the director of our alumni relations function because the alumni association itself was dysfunctional in helping us build relationships in a healthy way with our alumni for the university. And this new function and structure has helped us build out a much more successful relationship with our alumni. We restructured our ANT foundation and built a new real estate foundation out of the ANT foundation that was raising very few dollars for our university to a real estate foundation over the last three years now that's invested about $150 million in dollars invested in our university that would not have occurred without these shifts in our university. Every one of our associated entities is under the oversight of our advancement function and all of our associated entities have our board of trustees involved in appointing board members of these associated entities to ensure that they are in line with the expectations of our board of trustees so that we mitigate creating nonprofit entities who start out with good intentions but ultimately migrate to being dysfunctional organizations over time that add little value to our university. That has become the key oversight of our board of trustees through our advancement function. So all of our activities related to raising money, building relationships with organizations now fit under the broad umbrella of our board of trustees and are managed through our advancement function. We also realigned the communications staff to report to my office as opposed to the advancement function so that they are managed through my chief of staff and we have a higher level of branding marketing communication strategy as Chairwoman Harrison mentioned so that we tell our story for our university much more effectively. We spend much more money in this area of our university. And one chance, I will add one other thing. Yes. Chairwoman Harrison, I'm sorry. I will just add one other thing in terms of advancement as chair of the board. I thought that it was only fair that if we are asking all of the entities among the university to raise money, to make contributions, that it was only fair that we ask our board of trustees to make some type of contribution. We did not put a level on it, whatever they felt compelled to give. And you know, as we stay in church, the Lord loves a cheer for giver. So we asked them to give, you know, at some level so that the board of trustees would be 100% participants. And that was received very well. And thanks very much. And I think that's critically important because we now consistently see our board of trustee members leading and giving to our university. But we've also set that expectation for membership on our board of visitors. So high percentages of our board of business members give to the university. We've also set that expectation for all of our colleges as part of our college advisory boards and high percentages of advisory boards. It's a culture that we've created today for serving on any board associated with our university. And the board of trustees leads the way in terms of giving, percentage to giving and average dollar amount per board member given to our university. And that's been critically important. Next slide. So as we built out the expectations of the board of trustees oversight of advancement on our campus, we restructured our advancement function in the university. We had to restructure the charter for the advancement committee to be up to date and relevant to the expectations of the board today. And so based on the Alexander Haas recommendations, we have implemented approximately 100% of those recommendations. And so the board advancement committee, external committee is indeed charged with the oversight of the university's programs related to private giving at the institution, alumni programming, communications and marketing strategy, public relations and university communication strategy, external relations at the local, state and national level. And all of the directors of these functions are built into the agenda for the advancement committee and are reported out on those agenda at every advancement committee meeting of the board of trustees. So the board advancement committee manages these activities, demands quality, asks tough questions and ensures that the university through our advancement vice chancellor and I are held accountable to reporting progress in the advancement area across these core areas. And again, we've revised our charter to reflect these increased responsibilities of the committee. Next slide. Chair woman Harrison chaired the advancement committee prior to assuming the responsibilities as chair. And these were part of the core responsibilities as reflected in our charter for the advancement committee. Again, advising the university to our private supported university, assessment effectiveness and making recommendations related to philanthropy receives reports on alumni activities and initiates and makes recommendations concerning alumni relations. As I indicated earlier, we used to have a board of directors for a national alumni association. We made a decision because of the dysfunction of that board that we were not seeing the progress that the board of trustees wanted to see in terms of the relationship building and enhancing the relationships and giving of our alumni. And so the board voted based upon the consultancies evaluation to disband the board of directors for the national alumni association. So that group never does not exist any longer for our university. And one of the things that's important here is that we built out for our university probably as you've done and all of the universities in the UNC system, a number of associated entities per the policy of the board of governors. That policy left 600 gives the board of trustees and the chancellor authority to disband these groups if these groups are not functioning as they should be functioning. If they're creating more dysfunction than they are enabled to realize their mission in supporting the university. And we've used that policy and all the side of the board of trustees to make adjustments to all of our associated entities so that they are all today very progressive, very proactive and much more successful in raising money. We have realigned the expectation that they are focused on raising money, building relationships and enhancing the success of the university. And I want to be clear that we've taken that progressive step to do that. The Advancement Committee Charter also recognizes that as Chairwoman Harrison has suggested we need to start telling our story more successfully. And so built in the charter is reports on our marketing communications and public relations conversation, licensing and external relations for the university. We also receive reports on activities of the State General Assembly and, quite frankly, congressional priorities for our university as well and their recommendations and approval for the university's fundraising capital campaign strategies and we're in the midst of a capital campaign at this moment. Chairwoman Harrison, any additional comments here as well? No. Next slide. I just think that year, the better. One of the core sets of priorities that we felt were critical for advancement activities as well was the reporting of the university activities to the Board of Trustees on our annual fund and capital campaign strategies. And our capital campaign, before we launched the campaign, we planned it and reported it out to the board and the board was critically important to evaluating the potential for success of the capital campaign and approved the steering committee that will be responsible for overseeing the capital campaign and the co-chairs of the capital campaign for our university as well. Our advanced committee overseas, naming of facilities as well for our university and our endowment strategy for our university that's overseeing by the endowment committee. The Board of Trustees also approves the naming of facilities and programs and also removing names on facilities and endowed functions as well for a university. And again, upon the recommendation of my office, the Board of Trustees approves policies related to relationship building university, for the university associated entities again, coordination of all fundraising activities intended to benefit the university in the conduction of fundraising campaigns that are critically important to advancing the institution. Endowment strategies associated with the university. We're now advancing a more aggressive strategy where we now are reporting our expenditures in vacancies and endowed chair professorships as well so that our deans realize that it's no longer left for them to independently focus on field and endowed chair professorships. But that's a university responsibility overseeing by our provost so that we move to 100% of our endowed professorships being funded. That our scholarships raised for the university to support our academic programs are no longer restricted to deans making those decisions but the deans are delegated the responsibility to field scholarship funds to spend those dollars. And if they're not spending those dollars timely by any measure, the provost on the oversight of a scholarship committee will spend those dollars for the university, for that college to support that set of students related to more efficiently spending dollars per the donor's requests, demonstrating greater levels of stewardship of those dollars and ensuring that our students are the beneficiaries of those scholarships as intended by the donors. And so we have a higher level of deployment of scholarship dollars on that campus which are also helping to recruit students, enhance retention, graduation rates, timeless two degrees, but it's also helping to enhance the connection of our donors to our students who are the recipients of those scholarship awards on our campus as well. So we enhancing the stewardship of our university. Next slide. So that's the oversight of our advancement function. These simply provide the key oversight by our vice chancellor for advancement who reports to me. I meet with our advancement officer on a weekly basis leading our fundraising strategy, managing our stewardship, managing the staff, managing the investment in our advancement function, the technology, the relationships, building out, identifying donors, identifying alumni. We are constantly in a research mode of identifying potential donors and building out, finding alumni and connecting with relationships. Two weeks ago, I received as an example, 250 names of alumni who are executives in corporate America. About 70% of them we had no relationship with. 250 senior executives and corporations today. We are aggressively now connecting with these alumni and getting to know them, connecting them with the university, congratulating them on their successes, but finding ways to build relationships, connect with our university, find ways to get them involved in advisory boards, our board of visitors, and in the long term, potentially becoming members of our board of trustees. But equally as important, if not more so, cultivating them for major campaign gifts, alumni relations, gifts to the institution. This is all about raising money and having 250 alumni who are doing exceedingly well, most of whom we had not built any relationship with is a big deal. To say I'm excited about it is an understatement, which creates a tremendous opportunity for us now to go in an excited way to tell these alums of the success and progress of our university and excite them to give gifts and understand that these are potential big donors to our university. And a big donor for us five years ago and may have been $10,000. A big donor to our university today from our alumni is north of $100,000. That's a big conversational shift for our university. And so you have to build out those levels of conversations and research and cultivation that's critically important. You have to build the infrastructure that allows you to be able to do that. So these next few slides talk about how we do that. I'm not going to go through them as intentionally by any measure, but I'm simply saying to you that we have built a process, a structure and we've funded advancement staff who are helping us cultivate friends, alumni, and potential donors for our university who are now making contributions to our university. If you can move through the slides, I'll just give you an opportunity to see them while I talk a little bit. We are in the midst of a capital campaign as I indicated at this moment. This is the second capital campaign in life of our university. We set a goal of $85 million. More than half of that was dedicated to scholarships. We have exceeded that dollar amount significantly. Our campaign will end this December. Again, $85 million a go. We expect them we're going to end up somewhere around $175 million for our campaign. That's a big deal for our university. Our endowment when I arrived at our university was $20 million. We expect our endowment by the end of this campaign will move to about $125 to $130 million by the end of this campaign. That's a big shift. Again, it's nowhere near what we think we should be for university of our size, our brand, our recognition. We have high goals, high expectations. Chairwoman Harrison is unforgiving around expectations for our university. I'm speaking for her but she's smiling but I assure you she asks tough questions and so does our board around raising money in support of our university. But again, our board is taking the lead in giving and demanding high expectations for our advancement function and they give me feedback favorably and unfavorably if you will about our success in this space. And I think it's critically important that you understand that's where our board of trustees is today. Our alumni were given at a rate of 4% 10 years ago. We looked at our peers for our university and our peers on the average alumni were giving at the rate of about eight to 9%. This year our alumni have moved to double digits of 11% giving to our university. That's among our peers. That's among our UNC system peers. East Carolina, UNC Charlotte, UNC Greensboro, UNC Wilmington. They're in that eight, nine, 10%. We wanted to be at or above our UNC peers and our board of governors peers. So when we reach that target, we are realigned that target to move to 15% to 20%. So we are now able to track progress of our alumni giving, relationship building, advancement function, raising money for our university. Our alumni and giving to our university in 2009, 2010 was on the average of $6 million a year. Our peers were raising $15 to $20 million a year. So we wanted to move our fundraising annual giving to our university to that upper 10% of our peers. Our annual giving this past year, annual contribution of all of our donors was $18 million. That's a big shift from $6 million to $18 million raised for our university. We're not satisfied. We're pleased, but we're not satisfied. We wanna move that target to North of $20 million again. But we can set these kinds of targets for our university today because we have intentionally built a board that oversees our university. We've intentionally built an advancement function that we can hold accountable to helping us raise money. We built the infrastructure that is now driving the success of our fundraising strategy. This is why we're being more successful. We still have work to do, but I'm sharing with you exactly what we've done with our board chair, asking the tough questions overseeing our advancement function. So I would move at this moment, giving the timeframe an opportunity to answer any questions that you may have. First, before we do that, let's see if Chairwoman Harrison has any additional comments she'd like to make. No, I think that we've covered it all in our slides. Again, I just re-emphasized the importance of telling your story and reaching out and connecting with people in the community, people in the business community and alumni, you can't overlook the alumni that's gone on to be successful and maybe just haven't connected the dots yet about giving back, and so we can remind them, you know, this is an important step. You know, I would suggest to you as well as you may be thinking about questions. I would suggest we move the slides to questions. But I would say to you as well that two additional things that are connected to what Chairwoman Harrison is suggesting, alumni get excited when they hear successful stories about the university. And so we have taken a big step toward seeking national rankings of our university. And we've identified those more public national rankings that most universities value. US News and World Report rankings, for example, Money Magazine rankings, The Princeton Review, for example, we were not ranked among any of those organizations 10 years ago. Today, for the second year in a row, our university has been ranked among all doctoral research universities numerically two years in a row now, and we keep making progress as we move up the ladder. We're in the upper 50% of nationally ranked universities in America, doctoral research universities that includes the Chapel Hills and NC States, the Stanford's and Michigan's et cetera. We're a doctoral research university and we wanted to be ranked among those universities and we are today for the first time, at the Stanford University, based on the investments we've made. We have ranked by US News and World Report and Money Magazine as the top HBCU in the nation. Money Magazine ranks us among all public and private HBCUs as the number one HBCU in America. That's a big deal for us. US News and World Report ranks us as the number one public HBCU. This year we're tied with FAMU. That's a big deal for us. We love those stories. We share them through social media. We share them on our website. Those successful rankings are things we can crawl about. Our alum love hearing about the fact that we are not only the largest, but we are nationally ranked. That's important to building fundraising strategy with our alums. The other aspect of building relationships with alums is they love winning teams. They do. When I arrived at A&T, our football team had lost two years in a row, all 11 games. We were 0 and 22 in football. We had not won a MEAC championship in a long time at all. And so we made a decision in concert with our board of trustees that we were going to move toward winning teams in athletics. I like winning. No one associated with our university other than my AD and many of my coaches hate losing more than I do. I pout for a period of time when we lose. I'm just saying to you that winning is important. And when you excite your alums around winning because you've hired coaches, you made a bigger investment in hiring coaches and expect a return they will deliver, but you've had to set standards around what winning is about. We now have won over the last five years, 60 to 70% of all MEAC championships, football, track and field, basketball, baseball, so that you know that's a big deal. Our alums love winning and so do I and so do our board members. Our box has always filled with board members and friends of the university now that we're winning. Business leaders, community leaders come to East Greensboro who had never come before because they now want to come and see our football team compete on the playing field. They do, I'm saying to you, winning is important. So finding ways to build successful athletics teams have paid great dividends for our university. Our booster club, which raised $200,000 and $300,000 a year before among two booster clubs, we merged them into one. They raised more than a million dollars for the first time in that history this past year. We're winning, they're excited, they wanna raise more money. So you've gotta find ways to excite donors be they alumni, community leaders, business leaders to want to commit to supporting your university wherever that may be. And that's been our success story in raising money for our university. Thank you very much, Chancellor Martin and Chair Harrison. You have given us an incredible amount to think about. Your methodical systemic approach to how you have revised the entire approach by the collapse and dissolution of several other organizations is something that for a larger school is a big deal. We're a smaller school. But would you speak for a moment about the, that was a huge cultural shift. Over what period of time and how did you manage particularly your alum in making such a decisive and very, very radical change? I think we began the conversation with our alums day one. I have engaged with our alumni chapters and the alumni association prior, the board of directors of the National Alumni Association in aggressive terms and with the alumni chapters on a regular basis. But we have not left our alumni relations and engagement to be built through the board of directors for the Alumni Association and through the alumni chapters. That's only about 30, 40% of the connection to our alumni. Most of our alumni are not involved with our alumni association. And so we have hosted forums with our alumni through our advancement function and our alumni relations organization on my campus all over the country. We have identified our largest alumni chapters and my wife and I have gone to those communities. And where there is alumni chapter, the alumni chapter joined us where there is not an alumni chapter. We hosted the event to educate the alumni about our bold and aggressive plans for the future of our university. Our strategic plan was bold and aggressive. It was a radical departure from what our alumni were accustomed to. And we knew it was going to cause concerns with them. So we had to roll out our alumni engagement with deploying our strategic plan and the elements associated with what that meant. So we had to interpret what that meant with our alums. And that was my job. I did not delegate that to anyone. And we have continued to do that. My travel is intensely defined for engagement with our alumni. Our alumni are probably more geographically dispersed maybe than yours maybe. So I had a lot of travel on my calendar. Chicago, the West Coast, Dallas, Houston, Raleigh-Derm, Charlotte, Washington, DC, Maryland area. I was always in those communities. And when we started, there were few. There were not as many who turned out now we have standing room only meetings with our alumni. They have bought into the changes that are occurring because they are seeing the success. They were not as inclined to be supportive initially because they were afraid of where they saw the university going, but that's okay. We had to help manage the change with our alumni. And so that shift has just started from day one and answers your question. And it became more progressively intense in engagement with them over each year to now the same level of engagement, same level of travel. But fortunately now we can use technology to engage our alumni. That 250 alums that I talked about that we have gotten a recent report on that I have a spreadsheet on at this moment. We're now defining how we're going to engage with that group. Those are alumni. They're not associated with any chapters, for example. So ideally what I will do is have a forum of that group of our alumni. Imagine having an alum that's in the C-suite of 25 global companies at this moment that we didn't know in the C-suite that are driving conversations that can open the door for us to have access to a one-on-one conversation with the CEO and technology leader for that company. And what that means for us as a possible conversation. So that's the kind of conversation that we are intensely creating today with our alumni that's not tied directly to the alumni association. So you've got to build out the importance of valuing, having tools that allow you to do the research to identify your alumni that your alumni association will not be able to help you do, for example. I'm now big in Twitter space. Stepping into Twitter space was a big step for me. I am now a big engager in Twitter space. I have just recently moved into LinkedIn and I will use LinkedIn as a tool for me to connect with our alumni because these 250 alums that we've just identified are all on LinkedIn. And we have identified them through LinkedIn because otherwise we would not have been able to identify them. So you need to have an advancement officer that understands the tools and technology. You need to have a communications person. Our communications person is very technologist too. I meet with our technology person, our advancement officer and our communications officer with my chief of staff on a weekly or bi-weekly basis because it is through them that I challenge them, go find alums, go find people that I need to engage. That's not my job, that's your job. So I have a team of people who are working with me to do that today that builds out these types of functions. And I'll share this more intensely with Kerry as the chancellor of Elizabeth City to begin to help talk about this. Now, how do we fund some of these things? Some of it we've cut out budgets like everybody else but you have to prioritize where you think the most important investments are. This is an important investment for me. I've also not only used state funds but we use title three dollars. And we've also used, we get a return on our endowment. Our board of trustees approved using 1% of our return of our endowment to support staff positions. And so we're using instead of putting that money in scholarships today, although that would have been an important investment, we've felt that building the advancement team with these dollars instead of putting them in scholarships, the advancement team would help us go out and raise more money for scholarships which is what they're doing. So being smart about how we're using our resources is helping us build the infrastructure, hire smart people and hold those smart people accountable to doing their jobs, quite honestly. So more of my time has been spent meeting with our communication staff and advancement staff, with my chief of staff and my director of external affairs today than ever in the use of my time. So that you know, my provost is taking on more and more the responsibility of engaging the strategies for a university. Very good, thank you very much. Trustee Tyne, you had a question? I did, and it's similar to yours, but more specifically, what I'm wondering about is what your process for assessment look like with your foundation and alumni boards when you first came in, when you were trying to look at how effective they were, what your expectations were of them and then how that sort of transitioned into the next steps that you took. Observation when I arrived as chancellor was that there were within all of our associated entities, the associated entities because they were nonprofit entities with their own boards, there was a perception that those boards were independent, they controlled the money that they had raised, they could give it if they wished, if the university aligned with their wishes and if the university didn't align with their wishes, they would hold the money. And when they were angry with the university administration, they wouldn't give the money. And that's where I found our associated entities when I arrived, our foundation that hails some of the dollars for the university that was related to scholarships, for example, they would say, well, we're not gonna give the money unless you fire a sword and so or unless you do death and so. We say, well, that's not your call, that's not your responsibility. Well, the athletics folk would say, we want you to get rid of football coach X because they're not doing a good job or we want you to fire basketball coach Y because they're not doing a good job or et cetera. Now I'm saying, well, that's not your job, that's not your role and et cetera. And so we began to realize that those entities were misaligned with their responsibilities. When you go and look at policy 600, you started realizing these contankerous members of those boards, they were not rotating their board members, they were not refiling their reports, they were not doing that nine nineties, they were not acting as business functions. And so we decided that we needed to change the makeup of those boards. We constitute their mission under the oversight of the Board of Trustees because that's what policy 600 gives you the authority to do, to realign those boards, realign their mission, to begin to raise money and support the institution and create a healthier relationship between the university and those associated functions. Now, from my perspective, every one of those associated entities needed to go through an external consultancy review to give us the kind of recommendations to help us build the right structure for those associated entities. Every one of them is now under oversight of a new board, new charter, new mission and are raising more money on behalf of our university. Thank you. Thank you. And Chair Harrison, I don't know if you had any further comments on that, but we would be also interested in how you track to ensure that your board members, not only engage, they're interested, they show up, but in terms of the giving, because you said that there was an amount that you all had determined would be perhaps a bottom line amount. Could you speak a little bit to that? Yes, we didn't really determine an amount, specific amount, but we said that it was very important for the board to be 100% participating if it was our expectations for the staff and the other agencies to be contributing to it. And so if we're out advocating for money, then it was just the right thing for us to do. So we haven't really set an amount of how much, but each of our board members have felt very compelled to participate. And so that we track it through advancement as to whether we have 100% or not, if we don't, then we give a general reminder to the board meetings that we need others to step up and do it. And I have to tell you that they were very receptive to it. And you've heard the changes that Chancellor Martin has talked about. And sometimes people are afraid of change so there's a little bit of resistance in the year. But once we got the clear understanding of the goal and everybody shared that common goal, things just kind of fell in place. And that's the same way it is with our board. It's very important for us to make sure that our entire board is informed and that we have shared goals. And then it just kind of fell in place. But it didn't just happen overnight. We had to have conversations and get the opinions of others before we just decided, okay, this is something that we're gonna do. Excellent, thank you. And I thank both you and Chancellor Martin for taking this time this morning. You've given us a lot to think about. I also think you have a model that might be useful throughout the system and beyond because that was some very, very strong strategic use with a vision in mind. And that is something that everybody does have to be on board about and that takes a lot of intention and skill. So we thank you so much. And I am so delighted I have gotten word that we have the president of our system joining with us. And I invite you both to stay on as long as you can with us today. And I'm gonna toss the ball to our chancellor to introduce our next guest. Thank you, chair. And again, thank you, Chancellor Martin. Thank you, chairwoman Harrison for spending time with us this morning. Everything you said, we are gonna definitely take the heart and think about how we move forward strategically. So we are grateful that you were able to spend time with us this morning. So thank you so much. Now, I might say hello to President Hahn because we haven't seen each other talk since you've changed positions and you and I was on the board over at the UNCTO, education initiatives. It is absolutely wonderful to see you again. Well, it's wonderful to see you, madam chair. Thanks for your service to the system, to A&T, to the state, the country, Go Mavs. We're so proud of you and all your success. We just can't wait to get you back here permanently. Permanently, I know Chancellor Martin joins me in that regard. Thank you. Well, thank you again. At this time, I would like to introduce our president of the UNC system, President Peter Hans. Peter and I have known each other for a long time since he served as chair of the UNC Board of Governors as well as a member of the UNC Board of Governors for many years and just recently transitioned from being president of the North Carolina Community College system and President Hans knows that we always keep our relationship with the community colleges at the top priority. And we know it was a big loss for them but a great gain for the UNC system to have him at the helm. And so thank you, President Hans, for joining us this morning at our Board of Trustees retreat and thank you for your continued support and advocacy for ECSU as well as all of the UNC campuses. We greatly appreciate your taking time out of your busy schedule to join us and give us some remarks. So thank you again, President Hans. I turn it over to you. No, thank you so much, Chancellor. I wish that I was the warmup act for Chancellor Martin and Chair Harrison though. I think we got the order reversed here in terms of most interesting and entertaining engaging speakers to dear friends and to people I admire greatly. So what a wonderful opportunity for the trustees to engage in this conversation. Chair Jankin Robinson, great to see you this morning. You're looking well. I've got so many friends here on the board and a little bit old home week. So it makes it very comfortable. I hope you all will feel comfortable with me. I might make some opening remarks and then we'll just talk if that's good with everybody. We're eight full months into this pandemic era and I'm still getting used to the Zoom chats that these are events, but I know that's the case for all of us. I really do appreciate the chance to visit with you though this morning because things are on the move at Elizabeth City State. And I know you're a big part of that success as are all the trustees who dedicate their time and talent in public service. I served as Chancellor said, 12 years on the board of governors, six years on the state board of community colleges before that. So really 18 years as a trustee, if you will. And if anybody appreciates your leadership and the volunteer service that our trustees put into the system, it's me, it's me. As Chancellor said, I became president of the system in August, still sort of my freshman semester on the job, if you will. It feels like several lifetimes ago, given all that has happened since August. Normally one of the first things that a new president would do is travel around the state, visiting campuses, meeting all the extraordinary people and make the university run. And I've been eager to get to Elizabeth City State. Now, happily I've been there on a number of occasions and look forward to being with you in person when it's safe for all of us because I love that part of our state. And I'm excited about the progress and see so many possibilities to increase your impact in Northeastern North Carolina and well beyond, well beyond. I was thinking about your baccalaureate aviation program because had gotten some news about positive movement in Washington on funding the runway. You've got the only baccalaureate aviation program in the state. It's a great example of how Elizabeth City State is driving student success and economic opportunity at the same time. I wanna help you strengthen not only that program but others. So I promise you're gonna see a lot more of me in the off-screen world when we can gather safely. In the meantime, I do feel fortunate that this isn't my first experience serving the system. In addition to my time on the Board of Governors, I've had the great fortune to know all of my predecessors in this role from President Friday through market spellings and worked very closely with several of them. And frankly with Chancellor Martin along the way serving as a bit of a mentor at times. And I've had the great pleasure of working with Carrie Dixon. I just admire her so much. She's a star. She's a friend. She's a partner, a great colleague. I just can't say enough good about Carrie Dixon but I wouldn't be telling you all anything you already didn't know. I can't resist the opportunity to brag on her a little bit. I think you will find given my long time involvement with the system that my direction as president will largely reflect the continuity of substance even as we work for reset in tone. I wanna see more students from across North Carolina going to college and graduating on time. I want to keep tuition firmly in check. I want to keep the UNC system out of the headlines unless we're sharing steady progress on our educational goals. And this year that involves settings of very clear legislative priorities in a time of deep economic uncertainty in the state. I told the Board of Governors last month that I think we have right now the most concise focus set of priorities in a long time. First and foremost, we want to fully fund enrollment growth. Thanks to the remarkable efforts of our faculty and staff on the campuses, system-wide enrollment is actually up this year, defying predictions. But especially so at Elizabeth City State. And so impressed by that, given the pressures of the pandemic, changing student populations, enrollment growth that Elizabeth City is going in the right direction. And I really commend Chancellor Dixon and her team, strong leadership in moving the needle here. And not only are you growing enrollment, you're also increasing retention as well as the transfer student success through the co-admission and articulation agreements with your community college partners. As you can imagine, as Chancellor mentioned, that's a passion of mine. I know it's not enough just to get students in the door. We have to get them out the door with a degree and opportunities for real success. So incredibly proud of the progress you've made. Another priority for us is showing some real support for faculty and staff. I think I see Gwen up there. Gwen, how you doing? Yeah. Good morning. That's right. Good to see you. Good to see you, President. You know, our faculty and staff have done extraordinary work over the past several years and yet haven't seen raises in quite a while. I know our long-term success depends on recruiting and keeping talented teachers and researchers across the system. And we're facing some real risks on that front. After years of stagnant salaries, and I know in your area of the state, having competitive salaries is especially important as you compete with large urban areas just over the state's border for the very best talent. So we also know increasing funding for our infrastructure needs is a priority. We're gonna ask the state to fund building maintenance, building reserves so we can properly maintain some of our most important capital assets in North Carolina. I know this is particularly important at Lisbon City State. You've got some critical infrastructure needs. We're trying to think through very carefully with Chancellor Dixon and her team, find ways to address that. And I'm committed to working with you to do so. I don't necessarily have the answers today, but you've got my commitment. We're gonna figure it out. I'd say also probably especially important to Lisbon City as part of our system-wide legislative agenda, continued advocacy for funding of NC Promise. It's done so much to put higher education within the easier reach for thousands of families in North Carolina. And I'm a big believer in financial aid. We want to actually effectuate some reforms to state grant program to make it more simple. But there is no better recruiting tool for North Carolina's public universities than plainly affordable tuition. And that's what NC Promise has delivered. Now, I heard Chancellor Dixon recently say NC Promise really is Elizabeth City State's scholarship program. And its impact on your enrollment growth leaves no doubt that that's true. If we can maintain that program and enhance it over time, we'll continue to make real progress on access, student debt, on time completion, all the things that are near and dear to our hearts. So that's why the Board of Governors and I are committed also to holding tuition flat for this year. In general, in the years following the Great Recession back in 2008, 2009, we saw a pretty rapid increase in tuition, both across the system and really even more so nationwide. Our campuses were still a fantastic value, especially when you compare them to peers. But the cost increases sent a message to students and families in the middle of an economic downturn that hurt our credibility with the public. And it drove up a lot of anxiety about student debt. So I believe we have an obligation to handle this season of hardship differently. No question they're gonna be hard choices for the university in the months ahead, just as there will be hard choices for everybody in this economy. But I don't want to make it any harder to go to school at a time when we desperately need more college graduates and more adult learners will be looking for options to improve their lives and their careers. And we don't know exactly what the budget outlook at the moment will be for the state. Part of this depends on the possibility of additional federal funding. And we can talk about that in as much depth as you'd like. But I think the decisions we've made so far, a budget request that focuses on our core mission, holding tuition level. It sends the right message to our lawmakers and the public that will do our part throughout this crisis. Now, I don't think there have been any real silver blindings to the pandemic, but I do think people have recognized higher education is essential work. And I hope that you'll take every opportunity you get to sing the praises of our faculty and staff and students who've found a way to keep this incredibly important enterprise running under extraordinarily challenging circumstances. And the very low positive case count at Elizabeth City State throughout the semester, very impressive, the speak so much to the culture that thrives at Elizabeth City State. I get asked all the time about how we've made decisions about campus operations and the right balance of in-person and online. And the short answer, as you all know, is we've done the best we can with limited and fast-changing information. And we've tried not to take a one-size-fits-all approach recognizing that each campus is unique and has different resources and challenges. So we've always touted the diversity of the system as a strength. I think we've actually seen that in response to this pandemic as different campuses have been able to chart their own path, given differences in infrastructure, the community environment, student expectations. And I'm sure you'll continue to see nuanced campus-specific policies throughout the spring. Across the system, I think we've done a reasonable job of balancing public health with public education, the necessity really of continuing to provide a world-class education to our students. There was never really an option to simply put people's lives on hold until all of this goes away. And we're all praying for that. We're all praying for that. But the only choice was to find responsible ways of delivering opportunity while protecting lives. So while we haven't had a lot of good choices for how to navigate this year, I think we've chosen the less bad options. The declining enrollments at other universities across the country with students putting plans on hold because of the pandemic has very real and very long-term costs in terms of life opportunities. And it's the most disadvantaged students who are most likely to suffer from that. So keeping our institutions operating online, in-person, a mixture, that's been hugely important. And I'm really, really proud of Elizabeth City State how managed through the fall semester with those low-case counts, high levels of student compliance with personal safety protocols. It takes hard work day in, day out to make this happen. I'm just so impressed with the remarkable job that's been done this fall. And I know that all of you as trustees feel these responsibilities and the associated decisions intensely. And one of the things I hope to see over the next few years is a move towards greater operational responsibility for trustees while the Board of Governors continues to set strategic directions and provide oversight. We're actually working on some budget reform proposals here that would see trustees taking a more active role in approving operating budgets in line with each campus' strategic priorities. And I know you've got a new strategic plan and you want all that to be well aligned which makes complete sense. You've already seen the Board of Governors move to delegate some authorities around capital planning and other campus-specific decisions to the Boards of Trustees. In an ideal world, the campuses and the Board of Governors would work together in setting a strategic direction and then the trustees would take a more active role in executing that strategy, working very, very closely with the Chancellor and her team. So I look forward to hearing your thoughts, ideas, questions on all that in just a moment. But again, I want to thank you truly for giving your time and expertise on behalf of this great university. We're all adjusting to new challenges in both work and home life right now. It means a lot to have smart, dedicated people continuing to get back to our public institutions. There's never been a really easy time to be in public service, but the challenges and the pressures of this moment are extraordinary. And not just the pandemic or the budget situation. It's about the tone and the tenor of our public life because we've seen eroding faith in public institutions and it often feels like diffusing controversy has become the thing that we do. But I saw some really encouraging results in a survey done last month that was conducted by the Walton Family Foundation. They looked at the attitudes of young people around American society, education, economic mobility. And you know what they found? I mean, we tend to think of young people today as being the media stereotype, being discouraged or less engaged. But you know what this survey found? They found earnest faith in the American dream, overwhelming majorities of young Americans from all walks of life still think they can achieve their goals. If they work hard, they still believe that educational opportunity is the most important way to make that happen. They worry about the quality of their high schools. They worry about the cost of college, but they haven't lost faith in the future, their own or their countries. And we've got to be there for them. I know you are. I know Elizabeth City State is. And I'm in your corner right now and for the years to come. So with that, Chancellor, Madam Chair, I'm going to take a pause, take a deep breath. I get to preach it, but we'd love to have conversation with the trustees. Thank you so much, President Hansen. Preaching is right. Please preach on. And we are right there with you and very excited with your taking the lead now of the system. I would love to open it up to the floor for our trustees before I make any comments. So I'm going to ask Gwynn for her help in identifying those who raise their hands. I believe I see Trustee Barnes waving his hand. Okay. And before we get to Trustee Barnes, President Hans, do you want to say something? I want to say something. Sure. Y'all saw I had my Viking colors on. Oh, we appreciate that. I don't know if you can hear on the dark clear days of rainy and everything. So noted, Viking pride. Thank you. Trustee Barnes. Yes, Trustee Barnes. How you doing? Good morning. How are you, Mr. President? Well, sir, hope you are. I am doing peachy, sir. Thank you so much for being here today. I have two quick questions. One is doing great times. We're not doing the COVID error. We used to have opportunities during the course of the year for trustees to meet and mingled and discuss with other trustees across the system. And that was very, very helpful several years ago when we were trying to get our act together and moving it up with trajectory. It's to sit down with trustees from state Carolina, Weston, and Bevel State, and be able to cross-pollinate to find ways that we can coalesce together and share ideas. And the best thing that it did, in my view, was it gave those schools, especially the larger schools, without a specific vision of what Elizabeth City was like, it gave us an opportunity to talk to them about that. And so under your administration, will there be opportunities to pursue those kinds of things as well? That's the first question. Yeah, absolutely, Trustee Barnes. In fact, Chancellor Dixon had told me that you all had engaged with various other boards and chancellors and had those kind of discussions. I think that's brilliant. I mean, kudos to you all for that. Would love to return to the practice of years gone by where we tried to bring everybody together, share best practices, have those conversations. So we're all singing off the same page of the Kimmel. Yeah, it's clearly, we're probably talking a year away to be able to do that. I hope it's sooner than that. I hope it's sooner than that. But yes, I do hope to return to that. Thank you. The second question is, because we are in, I have a lot of tier one counties in our area, and the average ACT school and SAT may be lower than what we require to enter our institutions in many instances across the board. And so the pathway to ECSU may wind up being through a community college. And then finishing two years there and then coming over to the four-year college. I do know there was some questions a few years back about whether or not our system was more technical college as opposed to community college in terms of having those foundational courses and support systems that we need. You've been on both sides of the ledger. Do you see how we can enhance that process? It's good as it's there now, but how we can enhance the process of transitioning from a high school where the student may not be ultimately prepared and through the community college system then over to the four-year system, are there things that we can do to enhance that process? You know, there were silos before and I think you came to the Board of Governors and many times and talked about that and how we can bring down those barriers. And so what's your insight on that now since you've been on both sides? Well, thank you, Trustee Barnes. I mean, you get my sweet spot now because I didn't ask you to ask me that question, but you're so right. When you look at community colleges, there has been even internally a little bit of a difference between the college transfer programs and the more direct to vocational, often short-term workforce training efforts in addition to some basic skills, et cetera. They've moved so much into dual enrollment with a number of high schools providing college-level coursework to high school students, enabling them to attain credit that can transfer forward towards an associate degree and later towards a bachelor's degree. And I'm enthusiastic supporter of that because the quality of our high schools, if we're being honest, varies from place to place and we want to be able to provide those students with as much opportunity as possible and they can get a rung on the ladder and keep climbing. I do think the more coordination between the university system and the community college system benefits everyone. So I appreciate very much of the transfer pathways that have been laid out in partnership from the community colleges to Elizabeth City State because it's a great way for students to get some credits under their belt, get used to college-level coursework, stay close to home, save some money, small class sizes and then transfer into Elizabeth City State or some of our other great institutions and the sky is the limit at that point. So I think that better reflects these students and their potential than a test score. It's not to say a test score isn't useful in trying to differentiate, but at the margin, right? I think every human being has potential and that can't necessarily be captured in one test score. We've got to lift everybody up if we're going to get where we need to go as a state and a nation. So this is one way to do it. Thank you. Thank you. Trustee Tyne, you have your hand up. Yes, thank you. So my question is- Representative Tyne, good to see you. Nice to see you. So my question is about the overall organization of the system and I asked this question for two reasons. One is we've all had similar goals as institutions, the most recent being rural students bringing them in. We had the same similar goals of percentages as Chapel Hill or NC State. We sort of ignored the roles of the different universities and whether you strategically located and staffed. Also, with our strategic plan, we have put forward a mission to the Board of Governors to have our new mission, which then empowers our chancellor to align the staff, align the students, create an effective message, which keeps being put off we're being told that there's gonna be sort of an overarching mission of the university system and a role that we might play. So my question is, what does that process look like for developing what each university's role is going to be? And if I'm misinterpreting the signals that we're receiving? Well, so great question. I think this may refer, and Carrie, if you'll help me out on this to make sure I don't miss the signals here, but what you may be referring to is the systems, strategic plan efforts to identify areas of excellence at each institution and to, at the same time, identify those areas that are of interest to all of us, like more on-time completion, graduation, and less student debt and efficiency and spending and that sort of thing. So what it recognizes is that we share common goals and a common framework, but there are individual areas of distinction, aviation being kind of a obvious one. I think as we discussed, the community college transfer pathways are another and Dr. Bunch and others can speak with a great deal more authority to that than I can, but there's so much to be done in Northeastern North Carolina and beyond where Elizabeth City State is gonna set the pace and we recognize that region of the state is gonna be different from the triangle and different from Southeast and Far West and we name it. So it's to have a common framework, but individual goals that reflect your capacity to grow and the needs of your region as well. Did I leave anything out there, Chancellor? No, I think you definitely addressed that quite well and how the board is approaching this, but I also think in reference to Trustee Kahn's question, there is a process of approval as far as mission statements at the Board of Governors level and President Hans, I don't remember the last time it was done, but I know it's a cycle, I believe that the Board of Governors looks at mission statements from all 17 campuses to make sure that we are truly focused on the mission for which we plan to serve our region and also our institutions and what we're providing to our community at large. And I think it was also brought up at the Board of Governors level, if I recall correctly around making sure we're not duplicating kind of what our focal areas are. Do you recall that, President Hans? I do, so you've helped prompt me, thank you. A couple of things from a board member. I'm gonna put my board member hat back on here and ask you to sort of think about it as if you were a member of the Board of Governors, that you're getting mission statements from 17 institutions, and there, understandably, is gonna be a lot of overlap, a lot of overlap to the point where if you don't see at the top that this says UNC Wilmington or, you know, you wouldn't necessarily know it was them. And there is always an effort, and again, this is also understandable, for institutions to expand beyond what is identifiably a core mission to get into things that are more expensive and we have often tried to balance, limited resources with the need to get the fundamentals right to make sure that each institution is fulfilling its mission before they want to, we've often defined success as more buildings, more programs, more this, more that. And then people say, well, why does higher education cost so much? Well, it's because there's always this effort to do more, and it comes from a good place, but when you have a system of 17 institutions, one of the benefits of that is some specialization. And when I think about Elizabeth City State being focused on serving Northeastern North Carolina and beyond, but in particular, the region with specialized programs like aviation, clearly with needs in health and education, desperate need for improvement in both areas, that that's a little bit of what the Board of Governors thinks through when it sees these mission statements. And here's the aspirations, and this applies less to Elizabeth City State than I would say some others, but we've got to match resources with missions in a way that makes sense for the system in the state. And I appreciate that, and I know that you're stepping into it at this point of the process, but everything drives from your mission. It's your center point that you build your strategic plan. And unfortunately, because the chancellor was brand new and we had to have a strategic plan immediately, it all sort of came together at the same time. So we weren't handed a mission to then build the strategic plan. We had to look at the whole thing at the same time. So at this point, as things continue to get pushed down the road, the chancellor and this, and I'm speaking solely as a trustee and not in her behalf in any way, but the chancellor deserves and the trustees deserve to have what is our mission? If it's not what we're saying it is, then we should be told some sort of response back that no, we want you to be looking, because everything feeds down below that, our strategic plan, we could be spinning our wheels if all of a sudden the direction is gonna be changed for us as we head down the road. So I just hope as you're looking at processes and different priorities, to me, that's one that I hope we can resolve that we know what our mission is, because to me that seems pretty important. Yeah, no, absolutely. And what I might suggest is that Chancellor, if you and I can follow up to make sure we can synchronize this because I wanna address that. And as you all know, there's no more persuasive, effective advocate for Elizabeth City State than Kerry Dixon. So if she can't talk you into it, it probably can't be done, right? So we'll get together and see if we can't address that. Because you're right, I wanna be clear about the missions and everybody to be aligned. Thank you. And President Hans, we have submitted the mission statement that the Board of Trustees approved in alignment with our new strategic plan, and Kim has that, Kim Ben North. Oh, okay, good. Maybe you can share it with me and then we'll discuss. You know how these things go, it's like the only things that work their way up to me is like it's a problem, right? So. It might have been why I brought it up. Right, right, right, right. So, we'll get it resolved. Thank you very much. Very much for that comment, Trustee Tynan. We know that we were taking over a little bit more of your time, President Hans, but I have one follow-up on what Trustee Tynan said. Both of us are very process-oriented. He and I, and I just wanna flesh out so that what he's saying for me is that our alignment with the alignment of the overarching mission of the system must be in sync. And one of those things that helps us benefit for being in a system is having more of a system approach to knowing what the resources are, what the leading practices are, and having these overarching standards that we all get to benefit from at every single level. And so, we see some of that benefit with our students. We see some of that benefit with our faculty, some with our staff. I have not experienced so much of that necessarily with our trustees. Now, this is the second time that we've called on Chancellor Martin and the chair of his board, and it is not this, you know, just to the next level. It's fantastic, the resources, the manner in which he thinks, the processes that he's put in place, and we're grateful for the Chancellor's relationship with him as with you, that we, you know, get the opportunity to have this time with you. Any time, any time. But we also know that there is a reservoir of excellence in the system that we don't have necessarily a systemic way of getting to. So we don't necessarily know where those leading practices are in all of those respective parts that we have as corporate individuals, we've had the experience of seeing those resources and how they are systemically shared. And as I talk about a system, I think it is important that we recognize that here we sit in the South with this leading institution with all of these HBCUs and that there should be a way that we, for the country and beyond, can utilize the fact that now we've heard Governor Powers talk about, well, we're getting ready to talk about what civil discourse is about. What does it need to listen for understanding as opposed to getting your perspective across? Perfect for a university system. How are we galvanizing the richness that we have? And I have not ever heard those discussions being had at our level. So I just bring that up to add to your list for opportunities for us as the leadership. I mean, this is the level that the 40,000 foot level that you want your trustees having those discussions. And that's something that I think couldn't be more important. This is next generation, right, for our young people. Well, no doubt about it, Madam Chair. And I think it loops back to Trustee Barnes' point about getting everybody together so that we can have those discussions a little bit more easily. And there's gotta be a good way, better way, improved way of sort of a readout from Board of Governors meetings to trustees, making sure that, and I know Chancellor Dixon does a lot of that. But, so you had conversation with David Powers earlier, and he, like the other committee chairs, will tend to have conversations about topics of most of interest to them, some of which gain momentum and some of which necessarily, because we can't do everything. If everything's a priority, then nothing is a priority. And we wanna maintain focus on what's achievable and attainable and what's best left to the campuses. Because while there are great benefits to being in the system, we don't want to take a one-size-fits-all approach, necessarily, or try to centralize too much. I mean, there's a lot to be said for letting 1,000 flowers bloom at our institutions because they are so different, they are so diverse. So that balance between let's derive the benefits of being in a system and support one another and advocate for one another and share and collaborate without, okay, well, some funny-looking guy in Chapel Hill said, we ought to do this, and it doesn't necessarily make sense for my institution versus another. And that's something that we struggle with on a daily basis. Yes, yes, let's thank you. Do you have time for one more question from one of our trustees before we let you go? Thank you. Trustee Colpepper has a question. I'll get my mic off. President Hart, you're fairly new to the job and we just had an election and so we've got some new legislatures. One of the things we've tried to do is have a good relationship with the Board of Governors. Have you got some suggestions on how we continue that relationship with the Board of Governors here at the Lisbon City State? Well, I think today's a great example of it by including David Powers. I hear frequently from my board chair, Randy Ramsey, that he has talked to members of the trustees. I think there is an enormous amount of support amongst the Board of Governors for Lisbon City State. They're incredibly proud of the progress that's been made with Chancellor Dixon, with NC Promise, with so many of the efforts underway to revitalize the institution. They take great pride in that. So I think occasionally inviting board members to these discussions, writing notes, building those relationships, very helpful because that's fertile ground and there is enormous support there for continued success at Lisbon City. I salute the efforts you already have underway. I think my only advice would be to continue and enhance them. Well, 90% you're so much successful. I don't want to be forgotten by the folks in Royal Field which we have tended to be happening in the past. Look, I understand, it's a long haul from Raleigh to Lisbon City, but you have to understand, I come from little crossroads in the West called Horseshoe, North Carolina, which is further west than Asheville. So I understand where you're coming from. That's my background. When I think about decisions we're making when I think about Horseshoe. Because really Horseshoe is like, I don't know, Windsor, except we're not as big as Windsor. We don't have to stop light or anything like that. But it's thinking about those areas in North Carolina that don't necessarily have that voice and that platform and yet every bit as much potential as anywhere else. And the way forward is education. It's a little bit like in real estate. It's all location, location, location. I say this state's future is education, education, education. So we're not gonna forget, Elizabeth City, we're gonna continue to help you keep rising. I promise you that. Fantastic. Thank you so very much and for giving us this extra time. We really appreciate you joining us on our retreat and we just look forward to continue discussion and engagement with you. Thank you for all of your support, President Hans. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. I enjoyed being with you and I look forward to seeing you soon. Thank you. Thank you. God bless. Bye bye, God bless. Well, trustees and staff, I think probably a little water break, refreshment break is in order. So why don't we take five minutes and then I think we've have a lot to unload. What has been presented before we break is that we're gonna go into a little breakout room so there'd be smaller groups for us to talk and maybe untax them of what we heard today as it applies to what we might do for enhancing our own work and efforts here at ECSU. The other option is to come back and to just talk as a large group. Are there any preferences one way or the other? I don't think our group is that large that we couldn't do it all together. That's just my point. Do it all together? Okay. And we're not shy and intimidated by anybody or anything, right? Neither do I know of. Okay. So everybody's gonna speak up when we come back. All righty, well- Chair, Chair Robin. I'm sorry. Yes, go ahead. BC Goodson, go ahead. No, I was just gonna say, I'm a little scared of Derek, but that's okay. That may be a healthy thing, Alan. So Chair Robinson, I just wanna understand. So after the five minute break, we will just stay as one group and I can sort of do a roll call for comments if you like and or acknowledge Ray's hands. Will that be the process? I think that's great. Thank you, Gwen, once again. So I'm gonna, let's hold two to our five minutes. I have 1202, so let's be back 1207. Thank you. See you shortly. Thank you. Chair Robinson. All right, we're good to go. Okay, great. Well, welcome back everyone. I am first wanted to start by saying a special thank you to Trustee Bunch and to Chancellor Dixon. Because when we were planning the retreat and we were thinking about who we might have come talk to us, Trustee Bunch said, we had such an incredible experience when we went to A&T with the last retreat that wouldn't it be great if we could get Trustee Martin to talk about some of the board changes that he's made and structural changes. And Chancellor Dixon, because of her longstanding relationship with Chancellor Martin, he agreed. So we just appreciate that we got him. I think that there is opportunity to unpack some of the things that he said and how that might apply to us as we're looking at what we can do, particularly as a nice segue into our self reflection on the results from the board performance or board assessment. So I would like to invite the board to jump in and staff where, you know, called upon or if you have an idea, we'll ask you, but board, I'm looking to you to see where did this conversation or where did the sharing from Chancellor Martin Chair Harrison and our President Hans, how does that impact your thinking about the direction that we're moving in and the opportunities we might have? And I'm opening the floor. Gwen, I'm gonna look to you to help how we're gonna acknowledge folk. Sure, okay. Well, I'm gonna go by the attendance roster and I'm going to start with Trustee Barnes. Thank you very much. I think what I gleaned from what was said by Chancellor Martin would assist us so much in terms of we have such a small institutions but we probably have just as many silos as some much, much larger place. And I don't think we can afford to waste time and energy fighting over turf or getting people on the same page. And I think we would definitely need to consider how to consolidate the various entities that we have, including the alumni association, the foundation and booster clubs and that kind of thing. And I think we can benefit from that kind of process better than what we've had in the past and spending time trying to work through all of these issues with the various groups that may not all be pulling in the same direction at the same time. Thank you. Trustee Johnson, I saw you wave. I'm mute. Trustee. I can't hear you. I just want to share in terms of what the Chancellor said in regards to the alumni. I have stayed very closely connected with the graduates from my class of 74. And, you know, at first it was, I'm not giving because I'm not getting any information. That's no longer an excuse people can use because we get so much wonderful information from the university now. The marketing department has done a phenomenal job of getting that information out to everybody and we're not seeing that growth. So I'm not real sure where the issue lies but it is not in communication because unless they think a magazine comes out every month and they don't get one, which it does not, there is a real disconnect between, and I'm not really talking about the alumni who's serving on the national boards or that the, you know, those particular groups. But what I made in my business to do was whenever we have an alumni meeting which we had one last night for my chapter, I may in my business, I always make it my business to call Elizabeth City and find out five great things that are happening so I can share that information with the chapter that I'm a part of. And I don't know what others are doing but I've always been struggling with why people don't give back. They're not giving back. And it's not like they're not in a position to give back. So, you know, the fact that we have COVID, that doesn't have anything to do with what's happened in the past. I had a friend who called me last night and said, you know, they gave, their alumni gave 3.5 million dollars just this year. So the giving, I don't know what we have to do but there is a disconnect. And I would love to see us find ways to get back, get to a place where they see all the great things that are happening here on television. And yet, I think it has a little bit to do with this statement that people always used to call us little lids, little lids thinking we're not growing but we are growing by leaps and bounds. So that's just something that stays on the top of my mind but he really brought it out today when he talked about the rearrangement of everything that he did. Thank you. So, you know, if you wave your hand because if you're following a train of thought we want to recognize you not necessarily have to go in order. So, yeah. Any other comments in terms of anything that was said this morning? Trustee Tynes. Trustee Tynes, please. Well, I saw Trustee Evans first if she'd like to comment. Oh, okay. I just following up from Trustee Johnson I think it's the engagement and the development of that relationship. So we have the beginning of that relationship but it's, you know, the additional engagement and them really buying into our mission and there are going to be a number of folks who do that. There are some who will never give but there are also a number who we just need to remind them of their love for the university and why they want to see it prosper. And that takes an extraordinary amount of work and organization and follow-up. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Trustee Tynes. So sort of piggybacking what Trustee Barnes said, you know, I feel like we've been looking for ways to work together. I don't feel like we have looked at what is the best strategic structure to meet our goals and then are structured that way. And I think that it is entirely reasonable and according to the Chancellor within our purview we have the right to say, are these organizations meeting what our expectations are? And we have the responsibility to say these are our expectations, right? And say this is how we expect you to operate with us. But that takes a process of, you know, I might have my thoughts, Trustee Robinson may have her thoughts, you know, we need to, I think, take a look at it and say, how should we be structured? And then are we, you know, can we operate that way and meet our goals with our current structure? Thank you. This is Trustee Bosenworth. It seems to me like we don't have to reinvent that wheel that Chancellor Martin buying someone who was able to help direct them and put them in the right direction and challenge them to make these decisions. And so I think that the process would be to get help doing it. And I don't remember who the person was that they got, but he would, perhaps that's something that we should consider. I think engaging the alumni is important. And Trustee Johnson said, you know, maybe they don't understand how often they should be touched. It may be that they want to be touched once a month or some of them may only want to be here from the university once a year. But finding, you know, talking to the alumni and finding out what they want and engaging someone who is a professional like this to guide us seems to me would be the way to go, but I'd love to hear what the Chancellor has to say about this. I'm sure that's been on her mind. Yeah, I'd like if we could hold the Chancellor for a minute and I would like to hear from as many trustees as we can. Yes, Trustee Bunch. Of course. I agree with Fella somewhat, she just said. The group that they used was called Alexander Haas and I just took a moment and looked him up online. Okay, a bit of it, it's a very small company, but it looked like from the people that they had on their staff that they had a variety of expertise. I thought it was interesting when Chancellor Martin talked about when he addressed the question of how it affected basically those that were already members of the alumni and of the booster clubs and things. And I think in a very polite way, he said, we took some people off, but success begets success. And as he experienced success with the new organizational structure that they came around. And I may have read into that, but to me, that's what he said. So I'm always inspired when he speaks to us. I thought it was interesting too that he mentioned basically that they used a Title III grant to pay for this. I know we have had some Title III grants in the past at ECSU. I'm not sure that we have one right now. I have some experience with Title III because that's how I started my career was with Title III. And we did have an activity that dealt with advancement. So I just was really interested in that. The other comment I'll make is off of this thread, but it was still something else that Chancellor Martin talked about. And that was his communication with the board. I thought that was interesting, some of the things that he mentioned. And I would love to have a copy of his slides that he used during his presentation. One other thing, and that is policy 600. I've never heard of that. What is that? Alan, do you know? It's the associated entity policy of, I would say probably a few years ago, the Board of Governors, they updated that policy and it just set minimum guidelines for things that your affiliated entity needed to do to be considered an affiliated entity of the university. For example, you have to make sure that you get your financial statements audited every single year, right? So it put in sort of those type of floor requirements. It did not, however, go as far as to dictate goals or to dictate fundraising requirements or so on and so forth. It's really just putting in a structure where one, the university retains more control over an affiliated entity. And two, in order for you to be an affiliated entity, you have to be doing the things to ensure that you all are operating soundly. So that was the goal of that particular policy. Alan, he actually stated, and if you could, because this is very important for us to know, that the Board of Trustees had the authority to disband those other entities. Is that correct? I'll have to go back and look who has the authority. It's either the Board or the Chancellor. My understanding was that it was the Chancellor, but I can take a second look at the policy. But through the Board working relationship, I'm sure the Board has some level of oversight over it. So I can look. So if it were something that the Board initiated and then the Chancellor adopted, and this is something that we'd want to be really clear on, other comments? And we asked the Council, if he would go back and take a look at that and give us a report in light of what Chancellor Martin said, how would that apply? And what authority would we have to make changes easier? Yes, thank you, Councillor, for that formal request. Yes, Trustee Cole-Pipper, you're on mute. There you go. I'm not an alumni, but I know that Alumni of ECSU is a very pride organization. And I think from my hearing about them, I think they carried ECSU for many years when Board of Trustees was weak and we weren't getting much help from the state. And I think we need to go very slow in any process to change the situation. So I think studying it long and hard before we do anything with them would be my advice. They're not giving what I think they should give, but they've supported this university. Their heart's in the right place. I've never seen a group of people that loved their school any better. But most of the alumni that are my age, not y'all's age, my age, they love this university and they give, they just don't have a lot of money. Most of them graduated as teachers. And unfortunately, now if I'm stepping on anybody's toes, I don't want to. As a general rule, teachers don't make a lot of money, but they give hard what they make. So you gotta be careful with them. It's all in my comment. I'll quit with that. Thank you. I think Trustee Chambers, I'm sorry. Okay. Go ahead Dr. Ducey. I was just gonna say, when I spoke about the alumni, I was really not talking about the National Alumni Association, the people in it right now. I'm talking about finding ways to go after those people who are not participating at all who are not giving at all. And you're right, Trustee Cole Pepper, they are die hard in this vicinity vikings. They will do anything to carry this university along with myself. But we are talking about finding ways to get to those people who have not been an active part of our association. So on the one hand, we're talking about, he was talking about changing everything. On another hand, I was speaking of how important the alumni is and how we can gather more people together to give because instead of giving you zero, they can give 25. I started out as a teacher and you're right about that. But we can always give something. We can give, but we're finding that we're not having enough people that are giving that could give. And we need to find out what those areas are and find out how to communicate with them. And the great things that are doing that we're doing down at Liberty State University. Thank you. Thank you. Trustee Tine. That's the chambers I think was next. Oh, I'm sorry. Trustee Chambers. Thank you, Gwen. Trustee Chambers. As a overall, just to think about what Chancellor Martin said, one thing he said was something about the atmosphere. So on campus, we have to think about what is that atmosphere? Like, yes, I understand this year is not a regular year because of COVID. But what is our core values? What do we set ourselves apart from other institutions? So that's what we have to think about. And like when we have like foundations such as like, we are very diverse to HBC. So when we have foundations like that, we have to promote those foundations that we can't change up from those foundations. So I think as just when we promote in ourselves to alumni, to students coming in, we have to show that. I know yesterday, BC Walton said that one time, one of the donors said, they only hear from our university whenever we're asking for money. So one thing I talked to her about yesterday is how could we change that? Sending thank you cards to them, random times throughout the year, just to say like, we're here, how you're doing and things like that. So just to change the narrative whenever we're reaching out to them, asking for money. Like, yes, we need money from them, but let's not always just reach out to the town to say, hey, we need money for this and that and the third. Thank you, trustee. trustee time. So I don't think anybody is saying that our alumni are unimportant or aren't huge partners of the university. I think the question is, how do we best organize our interaction with them? And most universities today do not leave it up to an outside organization to be the interface with alumni. Most of them are very purposeful and have staff that are engaged with them. With my alumni, it's all internal staff driven. And then the social side is more of the alumni association side. And that's how you network and see each other and things like that. But I think what some of us are asking is, are we organized the right way and staff the right way to really gain the maximum of that interaction with our alumni? Thank you, trustee Evans. Yeah, I think we're all saying the same thing, but the common interest is in the love of this institution, the recognition that ECSU is moving in an incredible direction and how do we support that and how do we support its continued success? And I think, Alexander Haas sounded interesting or somebody similar who could come in and help us coordinate those thoughts, have an objective look as to what we're doing and all at the table figure out where we move forward. So everybody is recognized and valued and can participate in the best way possible to support the institution. Thank you. And this is part of our self-examination too. We look at ourselves as trustees in our giving history. That has not been stellar in the history of the school. The time that I've been on the board and I've been able to see the statistics, we have not been consistent givers or even participants when we've been trying to get 100%. So we're looking at, as trustee Tyne and what just was saying too and Evans and Bunch, that this, I'm sorry, Barnes, this is about every system is designed to get the outcomes that it has. And so our system is perfectly designed to get what we've got right now. So looking at the literal systemic structural change that one person, one leader invited his team to go through, that was Chancellor Martin, got the results that he is now getting. So I'm sure there's lots of iterations but in that process it is, and he didn't really answer my question, I wanted to know over what period of time and all of those changes that he made at a much larger institution, probably can make in a shorter amount of time but it is labor intensive because it's about relationships. If the alumni understand that they have a driving center field role, but we're not gonna have them as an outside organization that is going to be telling the university what it will and will not do. And I don't know that that's actually true of our situation or a foundation that is doing something else. When we're all under the same umbrella, we're all aligned to the same mission, look out. It's the same thing we were talking to President Hans about are we all aligned as a university, as individual universities with the system mission and how are we achieving that and holding ourselves accountable? So I think that if we identify this as a priority and we need some more information about policy 600 as we've asked, but if we identify this as a priority, then we get to be educated about what are the best routes and have the discussion with some of the leadership from the national alumni and the foundation at the very beginning at the table as we're educating ourselves. So it's not something that we're just saying, hey, this is what we're gonna do. No, we're bringing you in. Look at this institution and maybe there are others that have done a wholesale reorganization and what it has done. One thing that we get to see over and over again and we've certainly seen it with Chancellor Dixon we've seen evidence of it with other chancellors at our school is we're not a huge ocean liner. When there is intention and some resources to make a change, look at what we've seen in a year and a half, two years under Chancellor Dixon. So that is one of the main reasons why I find it so exciting to be a part of smaller institutions because we get to be a part of that. We get to be part of that engine. So I think that this is worth our consideration to look into. And so while I know we're at a retreat, I would love to hear, I think have we heard from every trustee about whether it's your will for us to get some more information and further investigate this. And Gwen, this is where I'd like for you to go down the roll and then also open it up to the Chancellor before we go down the roll and any members of the team, BC Walton, if you want to add anything before we just hear from the trustees as to whether we should put some time and energy and by we, we mean the Royal Week as we're going to be asking you all. We want to put some time and energy as to whether this is something we should further investigate. So open it to the floor. Yes, Chancellor, please. I would like to yield my time to BC Walton since I'm on the agenda to speak next. So I would like to yield my time to her. She has any comments. Thank you. Thank you all for your, thank you all for your feedback and all the comments that you all have made. And so what I will share is just insight and information just based on, I guess, study and practice within the field. So you all know that I've worked in advancement for a while and certainly have found the work that North Carolina A&T and Chancellor Martin and his team to be very informative, very forward thinking over time and a model for many institutions. And as I've listened to your questions, just kind of wanted to give you some information. One, Alexander Haas is a consulting firm, of course, that's still around and it is very well-known, very well-respected within the advancement profession. Many members of the team there are still individuals who do a lot of teaching and instructing and are individuals that you can call on for consultation when you need something. Dr. Casillas does a wonderful three-part series on the art of the ask, has done it a lot of conferences, the room is always filled and running over. So just a wealth of knowledge and that is who was a part of that assessment for A&T. John Taylor, who's on the team is really kind of the inventor, Godfather of advancement services. And it is just a phone call away to answer any questions that we even here at ECSU since I've arrived has answered. As we looked at our policy for naming, really kind of helped to answer questions that I had before bringing it to you all to ensure that I was bringing a document and information to you all that could stand. So an excellent firm for the test of time. ECSU has had an assessment that was conducted by Alexander Haas, the assessment was conducted, completed, the report is dated December of 2015. I do have that in my possession. And someone asked about the timetable for North Carolina A&T's progress. I can tell you that as I have kind of followed and studied that model and how they've kind of taken that on. One of the things Chancellor Martin mentioned was the change in staff, alumni relations in particular. They elevated the alumni director's position to an associate vice chancellor of alumni relations. And the position, the first person they hired in that position started in the role, in the new role on June of 2014. I remember that because the person was a non-graduate of North Carolina A&T, which was the first time they had someone in that role who was a non-graduate, and she came from University of Maryland. And I just remembered that because I thought it was a really big deal. And so I believe they were actually kind of doing the assessment maybe about a year or so before. I remember talking with folks who were on the assessment team because I think I was at North Carolina Central at that time, just to kind of get a perspective on culture of the institution. So 2014 was one of the first hires in really design of the organization. So I hope that information is helpful and insightful. I look forward to working with all of you. I'm certainly listening and taking notes. And I'm happy to answer any other questions that you might have. Any other comments? Yes, trustee Barnes. Yes, trustee Barnes. Just like to ask with respect to the report that we have from Elisabeth Hoss, can we share that with the board? I believe so. Yes, okay, I'm sorry. Are there any recommendations at that point were similar to what they made with respect to A&T or were they different? I'm not sure. I would be to review it. Again, it's been a while since I looked at it. Thank you. Okay, so just so I, we're doing something here that makes sense. Do we need more time to, as a board, talk about whether this is something we should investigate? We see we've got something that happened five years ago. Maybe reading that and then coming back and then that's a recommendation. There's one recommendation on the floor. Anything else? In terms of how we, if we're going to advise our advisory council. Yes, go ahead, Phillip. It seems to me that we write our goals for five years, five years out. If that's a five-year-old assessment, that a lot of things have changed at ACSU in the last five years. Certainly, I think, looking at it and reading it, studying it somewhat, but it doesn't seem to me like that would be necessarily relevant to us. But of course, we need to look at it first, but just my thought. I mean, the work of this information process. Yeah, the recommendation that I was making was, based on what we heard this morning and the takeaways, is this something that we should get more information on so that we can then start looking at how might we bring the foundation and the Alumni Association in the learning process. So that when we sit in the position, if it bears out in policy 600, that we get to make that recommendation, that they already were a part of the learning process. I mean, what we heard this morning was incredible. It was massive structural change and now we've seen what the outcome has been. And those are kind of the brave, bold moves that if you're willing to do it, but you gotta start everybody together learning because they're gonna be outliers or people that just don't wanna do it because it's changed, period. So just talking about a process and how we might move forward in this process. So I guess, Gwen, what I'm asking is if you'll do roll call and invite the trustees to say if they'd like to move further in learning more about the process and then next steps to come out of that. Okay, so Trustee Harold Barnes. I would like to move forward in the process. Trustee Phyllis Bosenworth. I would like to move forward in the process, yes. Trustee Lynn Bunch. I would like to move forward in the process. Trustee Andy Culpepper. Move forward. Trustee Jimmy Chambers. Trustee Chambers, you must have stepped away. Trustee Christine Evans. I would like to move forward with the process with a recommendation for a timeline. Okay, I'll come back to that. Trustee Stephanie Johnson. I would like to move forward with the process. Of course, Trustee Jan King Robinson. I'd like to move forward. Trustee Paul Tine. I'm on mute. My butt is a little bit worked in there. I would like to move forward, along with the timeline, who's responsible for this process? Are we directing this or is this a committee within the organization or within the Board of Trustees? Those are things that we need to consider. Absolutely. And after we come through this, let's come up with a recommendation as to what that process, who's gonna lead that process? I'm sorry, go ahead, Gwen. I believe I've captured everyone, but I don't think that Trustee Kenneth Wilkins came back on, so. Okay. So thank you all. That was unanimous. And Trustee Tine, it appears that that would fall under the Standing Committee of University Advancement. We have a strategic initiative right there. So that would be the trustees that are on that committee and V.C. Walton that would lead that process and sort of iron out what that would look like. In terms of the inquiry, does that make sense? Any objections? Yes. Since it was sort of direct to me, it makes sense to me, it's just, I think we need to be clear in what we're asking. I mean, we've talked about generally looking into a process to generally see what we're doing with advance or with alumni relations. All right, so let me take a shot at what I think we're saying. Thank you so much. Right, this is why I really enjoy you. Yes, this is right. So what I believe we're saying is that based on the presentation this morning of consolidation of the National Alumni Association, the Foundation to embolden the ability to have a really solid university advancement program, we're looking at what that consolidation, meaning the elimination, I didn't wanna use the word elimination, the consolidation, bringing them under the umbrella, what that process might look like, whether that involves bringing in this consulting assistance again or another consulting assistance, getting more information from someone in Chancellor Martin's, on Chancellor Martin's team, but looking at what would those building blocks look like so that then that committee under university advancement would that trustee would then come back and provide that information to the board of trustees on some of the steps that we would take. Does that sound like a fair, not too fuzzy clarification? I'm asking this of all the trustees in terms of the general direction we're going in. I don't particularly like using in any way the phrase of getting rid of anything. Right, consolidation. Very moment we say that here today, then by the moon, you know, so let's just eliminate that what we're trying to do is to optimize the process. Optimize, that's right. Fundraising and engaging the stakeholders. That's right. It's the re-envisioning and he talked about consolidation. So there's still a critical have to have, absolutely. Okay, any other comments? Yes, trustee. I would say we, I think yeah, it's much broader than that. We need to identify an advancement plan. And we need to put a structure in place to, or a process in place to being able to implement that plan. Well, the advancement plan has already been envisioned by our new VC. We're talking about a structural change. Right. Which we're going to find out from Alan where our role is in that. Chancellor. Maybe it's how we're going to help them implement that. I think it's. Right, then our role becomes how we become a part of supporting that. But we're just talking about the structural change. Because what we heard earlier was broader than just the affiliated organizations. It was, not only it was how they operate together, how they work together, the communications plan, the reporting requirements, how everybody's held accountable. That's. It's a process that creates a whole other level of firepower. But it's still running. It's still, we're talking about making a suggestion or recommendation, because we're an advisory group for structural change. And then the chancellor and her team will say, yes, this will do this or not. But it's going to be at our behest that we're making that recommendation. Do I have that right, Chancellor? Oh, thank you, Chair. Just a couple of comments. So I think the chair would hit the bell on the head in regards to the process. And I think, you know, what we have to think about is the fact that Chancellor Martin and his board went through this for a while, for it was a process that kind of led them to this. One thing to think about, because if you know, he also said there were changes in the board of trustees because they were looking specifically for people who had certain skill sets to fill gaps in order to do some of these things that he's been able to do to change the culture. And I think we have to be mindful that any conversation about our affiliated entities, if you notice, he did say that the trustees developed this advancement committee. So they became the lead on navigating these relationships in conjunction with advancement and alumni. So that's bringing more to the plate for all of you as trustees to take on, because that arm that exists now has to be consumed by the current governing structure, which is the board of trustees. So you have to be willing to do that as well. And that's what has made it so effective at A&T because the board of trustees is looked to as the major fundraising arm and the coordinator of all these other different people to bring money in too. Because you remember they started out with $4 million and now they're at $18 million that they have raised. Well, a lot of that has to do with the restructuring and changing governance in that regard, but it took the trustees taking on a whole lot more responsibility as it pertained to fundraising and coordinating fundraising activities with these different groups that previously existed. Perfect, that's a beautiful segue into our self-examination, but I would like to recognize Provost Ward. Thank you, Provost Ward for joining us. Absolutely, absolutely. I'm delighted to see you. Yeah, it was presenting, so I wanted to make sure I was present. Yes, thank you, thank you. All right, well, we're gonna segue then to the chancellor and her comments. So Chancellor, you've got the floor. So thank you so much, Chair Robinson, as well as ECSU trustees and my team that are on the phone and all of those listening today to our retreat. I just wanna thank my trustees because you make my job easier from the standpoint of your support and your advocacy for the university. I never, as I mentioned before, used the word I because it's all about us and we do this together. And so we've come a long way in two years to the point where some people are saying it's miraculous to see an institution transform as we have in just two years. And so I'm excited about where we are and I'm excited about where we're going. And to the support and leadership of all of you, we have a dynamic strategic plan that's gonna take us through 2025. And so your work on that plan is our roadmap to where we want to see this institution going. The pieces that we have discussed today around the fundraising piece, a role of trustees, role of chancellor and how we work together are critical to our success. And I have to say the board that I have today is energized and ready to make the bold moves that we need to make as an institution. And I'm happy to have all of you serve. I just wanna take some time, even though our guests are gone to thank our guests, Governor Powers and President Hans and Harold Martin, Chancellor Martin and his board chair, Vanessa Harrison for joining us. And I especially wanna thank our chair, Dan King Robinson for her vision in this virtual retreat and for making sure that everything was in order. And she and vice chair Bunch, making sure we had the proper speakers and logistics in place in conjunction with deputy chief of staff, Gwen Sanders. I thank you all for bringing us together at this point to have some of the discussions we've been able to have. But chair Robinson asked me to talk a little bit about expectations that I have of the board and then expectations that you should have of me. And I think a lot of what I heard today really echo what I'm gonna say or talk about because Harold hit on a lot of these things and so did his board chair and how they work together. But if we think about the most productive way to move forward, it is basically being on the same page and keeping the lives of communication open. And though we are in unprecedented times, I am very excited about all that we have accomplished regardless of this pandemic that we're experiencing now. We've never missed the beat through this pandemic and I don't expect that we will. I do expect that we will have a story to tell about the success of our campus, making it through the fall semester. Because comparatively, as president Hans mentioned, we have the lowest or some of the lowest number of COVID cases. So when I say our campus was committed to minimizing the spread of COVID, everybody pitched in, everybody was committed. And I especially thank my senior staff who you all see on the Zoom and those who are not able to join us for their leadership in helping us pull this together so that our students were welcomed back, our students, faculty and staff welcomed back to a very safe campus. So a couple of expectations. And I have to thank deputy chief of staff, when Sanders for giving me some insight on some of these things that were discussed between the chancellor and the board of trustees at a previous date and derived from some of the resources out there with AGB. But there's a couple of things to think about when you as board members, there's some expectation that even was mentioned today that I want you to consider. One is acting on behalf of the best interests of Elizabeth City State University, staying informed on university updates, both positive and those that present challenges. And what I mean by that is you're not gonna know everything that's happening at the university. I just can't, if that was the case, I would be calling you every day all day or every other day and you would get tired of hearing from me. But you will hear from me as I go through the chair first anything as Harold mentioned, he referred to it that anything that would hit the newspaper. But there are things that I will as chancellor, depending on what it is, the level of seriousness that we're facing on whatever it may be, I want you to know because I don't want you to be blindsided on anything. I don't want you reading about it in the newspaper or hearing about it from your neighbor is something that I want to make sure that you know because you represent us, you represent ECSU in the community and in your jobs and friends and wherever else and whoever else you speak with. And the next one is respect the most important principle that the chancellor works for only the board as a whole. So thinking about the fact that we respect each other and I have no complaints in that regard because I feel the support of this board, I feel the energy of this board, I'm not gonna say it was necessarily there when I first started, but we've come a long way with the energy piece, not the support, because we're always there with support, but the energy pieces and what accomplishing what we did not know was even possible. So I thank you all for that. Also remember that the chancellor speaks on behalf of the university and the board chair speaks on behalf of the board and avoid surprises by avoiding public utterances. And so I think we've been doing great with that. Chair Robinson definitely has spoken on behalf of the board when asked to do so and has done a dynamic job in doing so. And I think this wasn't expectations she put in place in regards to what she expects and protocols for the board of trustees. So I respect that. And she and I talk about different situations that we need to provide any type of message, always make sure that she's informed. Also maintain confidentiality. The board is the sound, this board of trustees is my sounding board. And I want to be able to bring you anything, anything I'm even thinking about. And I think we've done a really good job of keeping these things confidential. So I thank you for that. And we will continue to do so. Also be the example in personal philanthropy. And many of you have talked about fundraising and your personal contributions to Elizabeth City State University. Any conversation about, you know, taking on the affiliated entities or anything like that, we still, the board has to be the role model. So people have to see that the board is giving 100%. And they have to see that to trust and believe that we are being good stewards of whatever they decided to donate. And sometimes people donate based on who they see donating. For example, with our latest campaign, the 1891 campaign, I had a couple of alumni as well, let's miss Walton call me and say, Chancellor, when are you gonna donate? We need your name up there because when people see that you donated, they'll donate. And, you know, I went ahead and did that because I said, oh yeah, I got to hear it and do that. And so when I did that, then there were more people who saw me as Chancellor, my husband, my two daughters, all of us donating separately. And that, you know, prompted them to want to donate. And when they see others, their classmates, people they work with, when they see that they have donated, they will donate. And so that's a big piece of what we need to concentrate on is making sure that as a board, we are solid or you all are solid as trustees and your financial giving to the university. And then support the chancellor and the leadership team. We have great relationships, my leadership team with the board of trustees. And I tell you, I am grateful because not all chancellors have this great relationship with your board. I hear stories all the time from chancellors and presidents who say, you know, I, you know, my board is awful. My board won't support, you know, these things. And I don't have to say any of that. And I am grateful and it's truly a blessing that I have a board that supports the mission and supports the leadership of ECSU. And that's what's critical. Also be the voice and ears for the institution. If you hear something out there that's not true, correct them. Don't hesitate. Don't feed into it. Don't spread it, especially if it's something negative, call me. I will tell you what's actually going on if you're hearing something out there because, you know, we all live in a world where people like to talk and not when they see you doing something good, they wanna throw something bad on you or try to make up something. And I think, you know, I have to trust that the trustees, the alumni, the faculty, the staff and the students know and believe and love your institution so much that they will correct that misinformation and really add a positive light on the university. I'll tell you right now, I think I was talking to Jimmy or one of the other students. And I said, you know, I'm on Twitter, I'm on every single social media outlet. You never see a negative tweet or post about North Carolina A&T State University. You never see it. Why? Because they handle their business inside their institutions like family. That's why you don't see it. And so I think, you know, as we are hearing these things, you know, ask for, ask any of us, anybody on my leadership team, myself, and we will give you the proper information needed to correct whatever you're hearing out there that's untrue. And lastly, I just mentioned support and advanced emissions. That's what we're here for. That's what you have me in place for leading the institution, leading, you know, into the future, all of us building a foundation that will sustain this great institution for the future. And that's really, really important for all of us. So what should you expect out of me? So first, I should provide data and information that is comprehensive, accurate, and useful. I think we've come a long way for our board chair, Chair Robinson, as well as our former chair Barnes who wanted the information provided at the trustee meeting to be more comprehensive for us to give you more information, more things to talk about, be more transparent. And so we will continue to do so and continue to work towards doing even a better job at that. And I have asked my staff, I've set that as an expectation for them as well. Also, I will respect the board's fiduciary and other responsibilities to hold the institution accountable to the general public. I want to do all I can to lead this great university in the proper way. I want to do everything that's possible to make sure that you understand where we are from a financial standpoint, where we are with any financial challenges that we see or anticipate. But working together through leadership, Trustee Colpemper, your leadership has been superb. Working together through these things is how we get through them. And hearing from you, your advice, your suggestions, your guidance, your expertise, that's why you are on the board of trustees because of all those things. And we need to hear from you. So don't think you don't have a voice. You have a voice and I appreciate that voice and I want that voice. So please continue to be there. I will be an academic leader. I will be savvy when it comes to the politics and an effective fundraiser by consulting as much as practical and appropriate with constituents. So I am also fundraising. Also having conversations. V.C. Walton, I'll tell you, my two years of being here, I've not had as many meetings as she puts me in now with potential funders and that's a good thing because I've always, I had always questioned when I started at ECSU, why am I not meeting with donors? Why am I not meeting with alumni? And she has definitely jumped in and really took that ball and ran with it when it comes to this. Every time I look around, V.C. Walton is telling me I need to be on a Zoom with some company or someone to talk about ECSU and I'm quite happy to do so. So more things to come in that regard. Gracefully assess style decisions of opinion. I, of course, support and respect all of your opinions. You will never see a time where I don't listen. We may not always agree, but I will listen and we will have a good conversation. And that's what I appreciate a lot about Chair Robinson because she and I can have some really good conversations sometimes if we don't always agree, but we're good. You know, at the end of the day, we're both focused on doing the right thing for the university. And I appreciate that about her and her leadership because that's what we need. We need someone to ask questions and to, and to make sure that we're on our peas and hues and doing what we need to do. Also, I will avoid surprises and form the board on matters right away, as I mentioned before, use the boards time efficiently. And that goes back to, you know, being mindful that you all are doing this out of the kindness of your heart. You are volunteering to do this. And, you know, and I appreciate that. And I don't want to overwhelm you and I don't want my staff to overwhelm you with things. I want it to be very intentional and specific around things that we need to bring to the board and how we can work together. And lastly, work closely with the board chair to educate and lead the board. And I think we've been doing a good job of that board chair. I think, you know, you and I have worked closely with that and coming up with ways to engage and to really have the board be there for us throughout this whole process. So, together, we must embrace the shared vision. And I think we've done that. We have our five-year strategic plan. We must implement and agree upon the plan, which we have done so, and commit to being advocates, telling the story of ECSU, being good fundraisers and recruiting students because we know that's how the university gains operational budget and our budget at large with the number of students we enroll and we want to continue to recruit students. So, telling our story, being strong advocates in the community will draw potential students to you, which in turn will come to the university. So, those are some things I want to mention. So, I will pause there because I know I've taken a lot, but Chair Robinson, I hope I met the expectation that you had and what you wanted me to talk about. I thank you all for your service. I thank you all for your support of ECSU and me as your chancellor. And I look forward to all the great things that we're gonna do because I tell you, they ain't seen nothing yet. So, I'll hand it back. That was great. I love that. I love that. Thank you very much, Chancellor. I'm sorry that was improper English, but I had it. Sometimes that's what you need. That's a point across. Sometimes that's just what we need. So, thank you very much for just hitting the nail on the head there. We must continue to challenge each other and the board needs to look at, we've tried to put some things in place, but we need to have these kind of open and frank conversations. And also in terms of timing and what we're trying to do, before we move, the board has given me the go ahead to just move on through with today's meeting. So we're gonna skip the formal fun part. And I don't, you know, Gwen had a great idea, but we're gonna save that for another time as the board is ready to keep moving. But I do think it's important before we move into looking at a review of the trustee's self-assessment, that we just take a moment to recognize that the Chancellor, her team, the faculty, the staff, the students have done all they have done through a pandemic, through a massive social justice upheaval in our country and an election cycle that's not been at this device of, I don't know, in the history of time. So here we are. And still the trains are running and for the most part on time. And so every now and then I think it's important to come back in and just look at that perspective. And Chancellor, know that the trustees are aware, we talk about that. We're following the numbers. We're talking to students and faculty and staff because we're in this small community and we hear. And it is remarkable in the context that we're not hearing about COVID, we're not hearing about disruption. We're not hearing about concern that I'm not gonna be able to go to school and meet my goals. So it's a Herculean feat in an unbelievable time. So just wanna say kudos to you and your team, everyone, it's just an amazing job. And I know that you're recognizing your staff, your faculty and your student at every chance because I want them to know the board's aware. We're aware. So moving to our self-assessment, I would just like for the board to consider that we look at maybe four of the questions that were asked because we were pretty much in agreement except for maybe four questions. And then looking at those, that was number one, the time we spend on issues of greatest consequence. We had six members who agreed that we do spend sufficient amount of time and five members that agree we do not. And so I thought we'd look at that. And then number two was individual performance. We had five members who agreed and six who thought we needed improvement in terms of understanding the needs of our students. And then under that same area, number five, the understanding the needs and concerns of our faculty. Three agreed and eight felt that we needed improvement in that area. And then on the areas of improvement, there were some issues around financial support and timely information. And then I would like to save the comments for the last. So if we could go through those areas and if I've missed anything of those areas other than the comments, please let me know because we do have the time to discuss. But I'd like to take it one at a time. So on number one, that the time on issues of greatest consequence, there was, you know, 50% were saying that we need to improve that. Would any member of the trustees like to address that? What number on the? That is number one. Let's see. The number one, what number? Board performance number eight. Number eight. Yes. Thank you. Trustee Bosmour. But any member like to comment on that? That we need to better spend our time on issues of greatest consequence to ECSU. This is our opportunity. I'd like to say something about that. I think that because of all of the issues that we've had to work through in terms of getting this train running in an effective and efficient manner. And I think we all include the chancellor have done a great job of that over the last several years. But from a board of trustees perspective, at some point, I think we would need to step back from being as engaged as we have in the past in the day-to-day things that the chancellor's involved in. What he did is that we delegated to her the authority to do some things that the board of trustees would always have to wind up approving and that kind of thing. But I think the board from a macro point of view should be looking 10 to 15 years out in terms of what we think this institution ought to be. By that time, we probably would have gone through at least one or two other chancellors because as much as we would love for chancellor to stay here for the last the next 20 years, she's not gonna do it. Now let me say it again in her English, she ain't gonna do it. But in other words, I think from a board perspective we need to be looking at what we want this university to be 20 years from now, 15, 20 years out and then start to at least raising those questions so that we don't always be in the position of handling problems as they come up or things we've already thought about. We put the framework into place and even though we may not have implemented that plan, at least we know it's out there. And so the matters of complexities and neutrality and consequence of the things I think that the board should be focused on in a large sense. Now, obviously we do what we have to do at this point in time, but I think from an overall board's perspective, we need to be looking at those kinds of things as well. Thank you, Trustee. Any other comments on that item? And that's part of our policing ourselves. So if we get into the minutiae, we're getting into management for one of us to remind us that we need to go back up to the 40,000 foot level and that that's us making sure that we're spending our time on what's gonna have sustainable growth. All right, if there are any other comments on that one, I will move to the next one. And that is question two, individual performance items four and five. More than 50% of us believe that we understand that we understand, don't believe that we understand the needs and concerns and perspectives of the students. Would anyone like to comment on that? Wasn't just doing the same thing, let me say that I think that we could benefit from at our board meetings to have different organizations on campus as well as others to come in and to just do a presentation and an update on what's going on on campus and that at least every board meeting with one student group serve as our guest at that meeting that one, they would attend the meetings to the extent they can and to be our guest at lunch. So we can hear directly from the various groups that are on campus and that we're all familiar with each other and are able to appreciate each other as we go forth. And that's... Yes, trust, thank you, trustee Bunch, trustee Tine. I just don't feel that I know, other than what trustee Chambers does an excellent job of bringing to the board meeting. And this may be COVID related that there's just not very many opportunities to hear from students and interact with them and hear what their life is like and what's going on. And when we had the meeting or when I was listening to Chancellor Martin, it was, they're very intentional about their board meetings and interaction with the university and events and things like that. I feel like I show up, I meet with all of you, which is great. And then I leave. And that's, there's just not as many. And again, it could be more COVID related. I could be more sensitive to it right now, but just having more of those opportunities to interact with students and staff for that matter. I don't really have a chance to hear from the professors and the folks on the ground that are getting the work done to... I feel like we're making decisions without knowing more from them. So that's why. Yes. I'm Trustee Lent Bosworth and then Trustee Colfeber. And I would agree with him about that as well. But I think some of that also falls on us and I haven't been particularly good about it, but going to events on campus where the students are there and we get invited to those things, but sometimes the middle of the day I'm working and we have other obligations. But I think that maybe more intentional, some more intentional time for us to be, to meet with the students and also the faculty for us to actually be there and interact and it might be something we could work on and work toward. All right. And I know that the Chancellor, we don't see her, but she is listening to us. And I see, is Dr. Wilkins still here as well? Do we lose him? He said, great. Because this is something that when it's happened, we've all very much enjoyed, but maybe there can be now a more formalized part of our board meetings where we're hearing from faculty and students and also having the opportunity to sit next to and engage at lunch. Because you did that a few times, but maybe we make that a standing part of our meetings. So I'll look forward to chatting with you all about that. I'm sorry, trustee Culpeper, I'm sorry, sir. And Chamber. I'm praying for one of those folks who, who voted that we don't have enough time with them, but I'm not sure that that's part of our job as trustees. As long as we only have one day of me meeting a quarter as trustees, we can't spend a lot of time with the students and we can't spend a lot of time with faculty. And I believe that's something that we're not supposed to do. The trustees have a broader job to do. It's a bigger job to do. The students and the fact, I mean, be nice. I like trustee Bisonworth's approach. We do that in some other event, but not in trustees meetings. We've gotten more important. Well, I don't know whether it's important or not, but anyway, it's the way that the system is structured where we have certain committee meetings that we have to go through and that we have to do. And that takes a full day. And I don't know when we're gonna have time to get to know the students and get to know the faculty. Thank you for your comments. We have trustee Chambers and then trustee Tyne. I'm gonna let trustee Tyne go first. Alrighty, trustee Tyne. I couldn't more strongly disagree than those last comments. Because we're responsible to the students and the region that we serve. So knowing, let me finish. So not knowing what their viewpoint is and what their hopes and aspirations are and are we meeting the things that they're supposed to meet? And I'm saying just some more formalized ways to interact, like just sitting at the table, or once COVID's over, being able to meet with them at a social hour afterwards. And again, I said it's been more difficult with COVID, but I think we are, it is imperative that we know what the people that work in the institution and utilize the institution think about the decisions that we're making. Thank you for your comments, trustee. Trustee Evans, you wanna go ahead and make your remarks. Yeah, if you don't mind, trustee Chambers. Thank you. Because I'm going to say I'm sure that this was all planned by starting this out with Governor Powers and his discussion about relationships and being able to talk to folks and for the first time not going for an ask. But so I think it is important to be part of the community, to hear the pulse of the community and that's from the students and the faculty and things like that. And I really think that COVID has really been a part of that and that's the angst that I personally am feeling that if I wanna get up and drive out there and I have to do it a little bit, I have to be able to plan since I'm in Raleigh, but and go to a basketball game or go to those opportunities that are presented to us, that ability and that comfort level is just not there right now because we wanna keep that low COVID rate down at the university. And I would have to agree with trustee Call Paper and in terms of the appropriate time for our board meetings, there may be particular topics that we can get feedback on and things like that. But I think it's about, and it is important to hear that in a formalized manner, but I think it's as much if not more the opportunity to build and develop this relationships and just feel that pulse like Governor Powers was talking about earlier. Thank you, trustee Evans, trustee Johnson. Yeah, trustee Johnson. I think if we, each one of us adopted a student, with that meant that would mean that we wouldn't have to interact at board meetings or whatever. And I don't mean to take care of them or whatever or that kind of thing. I'm just saying adopt a student to talk to that you can interact with and keep and it helps you keep engaged on what's happening with the campus, because that's the only thing I can think of right now that will be sensible to do. I always adopted a student. The young lady I adopted four years ago, she's graduated now. She's, you know, she's working and she's a math and computer science major. So they're great things going on out there. And then she has a sister that's there and I interact with her constantly and she's doing well. So I'm excited because as a trustee, I feel like I have an obligation to interact some kind of way. I don't need you to tell me how to interact, but I know as a trustee, I need to interact. It was nice to go to football games because you could interact there a lot. But I have to trust trustee chambers about what he's sharing with us. And I think he's very honest about what he shares and what the needs are. So that was just a suggestion of mine that each one teach one, each one learn from one. So that's where I am with that. I love that idea. Thank you, thank you. Trustee Chambers, I think we've all spoken. Well, I appreciate the feedback that you all gave. So just a hint on some of the things. Like trustee time said, like you, we as a student, sometimes you have to meet us halfway. Like yes, I give you all the opportunity to come to our town halls, but maybe I could beef it up some more and just have a set event where it's you all as a panel and I have students come in, they can put Q and A's for you all. So maybe I could probably do something, different outside of lines of you just coming in on a town hall, you know? So sometimes we just have to think outside of us. It's not always that, you know, the time conflict and we could just always come together and think of a time what works for all of us to hear student needs. So you know what you need to really advocate for. Thank you so much. Yes, I understand like you can come to sporting events here and there, but still meet, sometimes you have to meet the students halfway and that's something I'm still learning. You're like, yes, I'm a student, but I'm learning as I go on and on more in my position is you have to meet the students halfway. So that's all I ask all of you just to, you know, think outside of box, meet the students halfway. Thank you. Thank you. And I would just like to say that we very much enjoyed when the students would come and maybe that can become more, you know, part of presentation where you're telling us about things, maybe the people who are involved can tell us just cause we'd like to see and hear from them. And then also if it's possible to have them, you know, maybe three or four join us for lunch, but that's something that maybe you and Vice Chancellor Brown can discuss as a possibility cause some of us do get out onto campus more and others of us only when we're at the board meetings is that our opportunity. So thank you. I'm going to direct us to question five, moving right along here. What are the areas which the board could improve? And the first one is the financial ability of trustees to support ECSU. And the wording of that, I'm just going to sort of throw it out there, but I think that there is the opportunity based on the statistics that I've seen that's not just the amount, but the participation. When we had our campaign 1891 strong campaign, I think it was four trustees, is that right, V.C. Walton that participated? And what the point of that was is to show the support of the board. And that's why we said, you know, if you got $8.91 or $18.91, whatever, you know, five dollars, we wanted to get your name on the board. And on the, when I say board, you know, what was going to be shown. And that was because it does speak to people and people do look to see our involvement. And I think sometimes, even though we may be giving, when we have those kinds of campaigns that are just showing participation, we don't really understand the importance that that may have. But there's also meeting our agreed upon goal of a minimum of $3,000. So we said we would do that as a board. And this is our first year. And I've asked V.C. Walton to please advise because we've got until June, is that right? To make that goal. Some people have surpassed that and that's incredible. And then some folks aren't on the board at all in terms of the, when I say board, I mean, they're not on the roles. They're not, they have not given yet. And whenever people give, there's no problem or issue about timing. But when we're asking about trying to show participation, we are trying to show that we are involved and we are engaged as we are. When we're trying to meet our agreement that we're gonna have a minimum amount, that was just the amount that the board voted that we thought would show that we're all in. I was told and I'm gonna ask, I don't know if it was Trustee Wilkins that was helped me with this or another individual. But I got to see what the giving, and I asked last couple of years ago, what was the giving amounts of other HBCUs and some of the majority schools, PWIs, that was asked. And I was under the impression that A and T did have a minimal amount. And it was significantly higher than the amount that we were asking our board to give. But there was a very high giving rate and there was a much larger percentage of the board that was giving. And so this year I'm asking that, whether it's the amount that we decided or some other amount, larger or smaller, that 100% of us are giving that that helps us with grants when we can say 100% of our board has given. So I just wanted to preach a little bit on that one. If any other board member has any other comments about that particular item, Trustee Culpepper. I think it would be helpful on the, to make sure that we're all giving in these various fundraising events we have. That at least, I know that the university is on a June 30th physical year, but most of us individuals are on a December 31st physical year. And if we could get a list of the numerous fundraisers we're gonna have in the 2021, 2000, yeah, it'll be 21, 22 school year, when they're gonna have, then we can set aside some money for each one of those fundraisers. Whereas some of us prefer to give one check and that'd be it. Then we can meet these various goals, but if the Advancement Committee would give us a list of those fundraisers, then we can make sure that we have some money available for those fundraisers. Second thing I'd like to point out is if it was $3,000 minimum, I think we should go up this year to at least $3,500 or $4,000. I think the ANT minimum of their members was $50,000. At least that's what the judge told me when we met up there and I've known the judge a long time and I was surprised that he had $50,000. But that's what he told me. So he's a judge, I assume he told me the truth. Thank you, Trustee. We have Trustee Tye and then Trustee Johnson. This one I completely agree with Trustee Colpepper. We had this conversation last year in our last retreat where one of the key things when you're giving to any organization is predictability and ease, right? And we talked about, okay, these were the three things that we were gonna make sure that we had money set aside to come up to our 3,000. And so if we're gonna change the expectations, then they need to be brought to us so that they change the expectations. And the other thing is when we discussed the minimum he wanted higher last time and I asked him to start at a lower mountain that I would support him vehemently in upping it the next time. And so he has my full support. Thank you, Trustee. Trustee Johnson. Yes, first I'd like to probably, I don't know if I need to use the word apologize, but I was not made aware of how you all were doing this. And I thought about Pastor Wilkins when I came up with this scenario that at my church, when I give and they say, well, give for women, they give for men, they give for this, they give for my birthday, I say, if you can't take it out of what I gave, which was a lot more than what I would normally give, a person would normally give, then sorry. But what I'm saying is I've been blessed to be able to give a substantial amount over and consistently. I did not think twice about 1891, but if you as my chair had said to me, had given me a buzz and said, listen, you're not on a list, can you do 1891? Of course I can do 1891, but my first thought pattern is, you can't get it out of what I give, but so I understand better now, but I will not, I'm still gonna act the same way with church, but with the university, I'll break it down a little better if that's what you want me to do, or I'll give more because in my mailbox, every day there are five groups of organizations asking me for something. So, because I make sure to do my best with Elizabeth City, I don't think about the other giveings. I remember someone calling me one day in the last couple, maybe two years ago and said, this is the day of giving. I know you give, but can you give some more? Okay, if that's what you need me to do, that's what I'll do. But I really am apologizing because I didn't realize that my name needed to show up here, here, here, here. Yeah. Because my name already shows up here, so thank you. I appreciate that. I sent out an email, but I sure can call y'all. I don't mind calling and busy with y'all. Well, call me because I get 500 emails a day too. I can call you. All right. Any other comments about that, Ida? Yes, one other comment. Yes, trustee. Wouldn't it be easy enough if we had a process that would allow, as the trustee called Pepper said, one check to be written and that it can be spread by advancement over those things that come up during the course of the year rather than asking for four or five different things in the course of the year. If somebody writes your check for whatever that the amount is in January and says, whatever is going on in the course of the year, can you a lot, 10% for this, 5% for that, whatever, and make it a lot easier for people to remember. Okay. Thank you, sir. Alrighty. Yes, I'm sorry. That seems like a lot more difficult for the bookkeeper, but maybe not. It seems to me like your suggestion, along with trustee Johnson, if we just know about it and that that's what we want to do is have everybody's name on there shouldn't be that difficult to write an extra one, you know, an extra check. But if the, Harold, if the accounting is easy to do, then that would certainly make it easier for everyone. I just don't know how difficult it would be for the accounting people. Anyway, that's all. Chair, Chair Robinson, may I say something, please? Please, Chancellor. Okay. So just in listening to this, I agree with Trustee Bosenworth that and Vice Chancellor Walton can correct me, but it will be an administrative challenge to try to keep up with that for sure. But one thing I just want to mention that my husband and I do is we have a set amount of money that we give to ECSU each year. And Vice Chancellor Walton knows what I want that amount of money to be each year. So what I do is put that money aside and I give as different things come up. So I kind of manage that myself so that I'm keeping up. But as long as I get to by December 31st, as Trustee Cole Pepper said, as long as I get to that full amount that I said I'm going to do for the year, then that kind of stays in my management to make sure that I'm taken from that fund to give to the university for the total amount that I said I was going to give for the year. Does that make sense, Trustee Barnes? I mean, I know that's probably putting a lot of, more responsibility on the trustees, but if you say 3,000 a year, then maybe you put your 3,000 aside. And then when day of giving comes up, you may give $1,500. Then when another campaign comes up, you keep dipping into that 3,000 so you pay your whole 3,000. That's what I'm trying to describe. That does make sense. I think the other way would be less stress on board members, but that certainly makes sense about allocating it that way. Alrighty, yes, Trustee Evans. I think if we could just have an agenda item at the beginning of each year, talking about what the upcoming campaigns are, and then we can all decide how we're going to distribute it. And at that point, if there's a particular request that all the board members participate in a particular campaign, that can be brought to our attention. I can't wait for next year. We're going to knock it out the park. Thank you. Yes, we see you all too. Chair Robinson, can we start ahead of next year? Because we have been. We certainly can. They are giving it coming up. What is it? December 2nd? Is it, Anita? Giving Tuesday. Giving Tuesday. That's great. In your upcoming board meeting, you will see that we have the solicitation plan that we're sharing for the rest of the year. Moving forward, if I'm still here, you'll see it sooner. But the solicitation plan would be laid out a year in advance until you'd be able to see what the plan would be. So you'd be able to see which opportunities you had to give. Some of them are more public than others, meaning they might have a public roster, like the 1891 campaign where we want your name to appear. Like they are giving, like giving Tuesday. And you could see those in advance. So you would be able to plan. But in December for the December Board of Trustee meeting, you will be able to see the solicitation plan for the rest of the year through June 30th of 2021. Alrighty, thank you. Okay, I think we can move along to the next one. And I believe that the chancellor addressed this issue, timely communication of the chancellor between full board meetings. Is there any comment or discussion anybody would like to have on this particular issue in terms of how we can improve based on what our chancellor just shared with us on the information that she's giving, the information that you have been receiving. Any request for any additional kinds of information? I do try to send emails to you all every now and then. If there's something that's come up that the chancellor wants you to know about, I will call you. You've all been very, very accommodating when I've called. I don't try to call you a whole lot so that when I do pop up, it's usually something that requires your attention. But I am certainly open to any recommendations for more or different kinds of ways of communicating. The floor is open. All right. I have one comment on this particular issue. And the chancellor provides us a lot of information, especially as it relates to how we rank in various areas in various periodicals. And I know historically, and that used to be one of my pet peeves, is that when you raise issues about the university six, seven years ago, and then what the university would tell us about, well, we ranked number one, and this ranked number two in there. But what I'm saying now, our ranking is equal to what we are producing. And that's so important that when we're ranked as number one in the list of that, but we've got a poor graduation rate, a poor retention rate and all of those kinds of things. But I'm glad that we were able to marry what we're doing on campus with whatever financial ranking, the best quality education in terms of cost and all of that. Now we have facts and data to back up those rankings. And I'm glad that we've done this. So thank you chancellor and the board. Great, thank you. The next one was professional development, more opportunities to meet that. And so that is something that, we're open to suggestions. Vice chair Bunch and I talked about this with the chancellor, like what were some of the opportunities, what did the board want to hear? We went with development this time because that's so critical to our existence. And we think we have lots of opportunity there. But in terms of having retreats, right now, correct me if I'm wrong chancellor, we have at least one retreat a year. Sometimes we have two, is that correct? That's correct. Yes, but typically I think the last couple of years we've been having the one in the summer. Right. Right. So that is professional development. And so if there are other modes or means, articles, I used to send articles to you all, but I wasn't so sure that you were loving that. But if you would like more information on things that we're reading, I am a reader, I can up my game on that. But if you have specific areas you'd like some professional development on, if you would let me know, it would help us in our planning. So I open the floor, if there are any comments now on that particular issue and our opportunity to improve. Anyone? Okay. I think we can do some additional fundraising to do it. But I think it is invaluable for trustees to have an opportunity to go to AGB meetings because you meet trustees from all over the country. And there's valuable insight that you can gain from that. Obviously that can be a cost of proposition. And but it's something that we need to work toward making sure that we are able to attend some of those conferences. Obviously we can't do it all together as one board, but that's a valuable thing to be able to do. Yes. And I think once we hit some of those and exceeds some of those advancement goals, that might be more of a reality. So thank you for that. I know our chancellor has to leave at two. So I'm just going to touch these very quickly. I think we've got 10 minutes or so. The next one is demonstration of greater appreciation for governance versus management. Improve BOT giving to 100%. We've talked about that and giving at a higher level. Improve participation and identification of cultivation potential givers. Talk about that. Greater focus on partnerships that will help build increased streams of revenue. The demonstration of greater appreciation for governance versus management is what we'll be doing for the rest of our lives as we serve on boards. All of us have been in management and so it's very difficult to get ourselves out of the weeds. And so we just need each other and the chancellor's team and they've done a great job. Alan and Derek have really pulled me aside. I've given them permission to a couple of times to let me know when I have been in the weeds and to go back up to the 40,000 foot level and they've done it with love. And I appreciate that, guys, as long as it's with love. And I think we can police each other to do that. But that's part of what being on a board is, is making sure that we are on the governance end. And I really do feel that our board gets it more right than not. Is there any comment on anything within that statement that anybody would like to make? Y'all ready to leave with the chancellor. Okay, the last one. We have a suggested amount of money that each member should contribute. I think we've talked about this. Encourage members to be ambassadors for ECSU, being prepared and seek understanding of what the issues are. I think we're there. Any comments on that last one? Everybody is good? All right, I'm gonna make some. Yes, Phyllis, please. Trustee, one of the trustees suggested that we raise the amount to 3,500. Was that a, was that a, is that something we wanted to talk about or is that for later? I think that that's something that we take back to the committee and we make that a committee that then brings it to the full board and we can have a full body discussion about that. I think that's a very real recommendation. So we wanna work that through our committee structure. And in December. Great, there we go. I trust that Colby, trustee Colpeber is gonna make that happen, right, trustee? Yeah. Okay, that is his committee. All right, before I make my closing remarks, Chancellor, we wanna leave with you. Has anybody had any last thoughts on anything we discussed today or anything relevant to our mission? To be the best stewards to our schools? I'd like to share with Dr. Dixon that I know as a leader, you have some hard decisions that you have to make. But I saw a decision that you made for the university that brought our numbers up as far as students were concerned. And I just wanna personally thank you for that because that's extremely important to have more students so you can have more staff so you can have more students, more people graduating, become productive members of society. So it is tough to change around and make decisions, but if you keep on doing what you're always done, you keep on getting what you're always got. And that did not happen. And that was through you and I thank you. Thank you, Trustee Johnson. Thank you very much both, Trustee Johnson and Chancellor. Any other comments anyone would like to make? Thank you, Chancellor. And thank you, Chair, for the great work you all are doing on our behalf. And we love you to life and not to death. Well, thank you very much, my brother. Alrighty, I'm gonna just say to our trustees, it really is truly a pleasure to be on this team with you all. I'm sorry we didn't get to play because I also know that you all like to play. So we'll make sure the next time that we'll carve out a little time for some fun, just as we get to know one another a little bit more. Always thank you, Chancellor, the team, the faculty and the staff. We don't know everything you do, but what we do know you do, we know it's a herculean effort. And we see the results are matched. And so we just thank you so much. And we ask you never, never, never, never hesitate to reach out to us individually or as a group as to how we might make your jobs a little easier. Definitely. So we all keep showing you love. And there might more demonstrative ways to show our love. So let us know about that as well. Thank you, trustees. To everybody, please continue to be safe and take care of yourselves and your family. I'm being Lester Holt right here. I love he says it every night. Love y'all. God bless you. Thank you all. See you next month. Thank you, Trustee. Bye-bye now. Thank you, Trustee. Bye. Bye. Bye-bye. Thank you, Gwen Sanders. Yeah, she always deserves a thank you. Yes.