 I'm going to call the meeting to order. Good afternoon, everybody. This is the August 4, Vermont State College System Board of Trustees meeting. I'm going to start out with the housekeeping note that there is a link to sign up to provide a public comment. It's available on the agenda, published on the VSE website, and it's posted in the chat. And we will get to that later on. There's a proposed amendment alterations to the agenda. We're going to move up the additional business and public comment to before the board training session so people who want to make a comment can do so earlier before we get into the other piece. And we have a proposed revision of the VSE policy 301 policy on determinant of in-state residency for tuition purposes to the agenda under additional business. It's in response to a recent change in federal law regarding in-state tuition for veterans. So starting with that, I will just call everybody to order welcome. And thank you for being here. We start with a resolution this morning, excuse me, this afternoon. Honoring President Elaine Collins, I will read the resolution. It is a resolution of 2021-019, honoring the exceptional service of Dr. Elaine Collins. Whereas for six years, Elaine Collins has led transformational change at Johnson State College, Lyndon State College, and Northern Vermont University, bringing her strong values to work every day. And whereas Elaine Collins has successfully led the unification of Johnson State College and Lyndon State College, which has become a national model resulting in routine consultation on other active and proposed mergers. And whereas Elaine Collins has provided tireless leadership to ensure access to higher education in our rural communities. And whereas Elaine Collins has served as a NETCHI commissioner commencing in the fall of 2019, which provided her with an experience and perspective that has served NVU and the VSC well. And whereas Elaine Collins has overseen the implementation of the first NVU strategic plan with 85% of the planning goals complete or in progress. And whereas Elaine Collins has during her tenure stewarded donors resulting in a $3.5 million private gift, the largest gift received in the system and two USDA grants to support teleconferencing equipment linking NVU programming to 60 sites across Vermont. And whereas Elaine Collins values the transformative student experience and has during her tenure received an $1.8 million title three strengthening institution grant focusing on student success founded the inaugural women's triathlon team at Johnson, provided leadership in the NAC and served as the NAC president and with a strong commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, she initiated the first DEI task force on the Johnson campus. And whereas Elaine Collins has a strong commitment to advance innovative professional and liberal arts education, founding the Center for Teaching and Learning, excuse me, successfully secured COPLAC designation for the Johnson campus prior to unification and established several new degree programs including the innovative and an interdisciplinary performance arts and technology program, data science, digital communications and a master's in leadership, as well as acquiring the master's in mental health counseling program that is established in Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Wisconsin, and Alaska. And additionally, expanding the NVU online division and whereas Elaine Collins has provided exceptional community leadership and advanced the economic viability of NVU by developing the due north co-working space in Lindenville and securing the forestry accelerator grant, developed a partnership with the Vermont Woodworking School and developed a partnership with VTC to provide northern tier communities greater access to nursing programming. And whereas Elaine Collins has provided exceptional leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure a safe learning and working campus environment and therefore be it resolved that the Board of Trustees of the Vermont State College System values and celebrates the contribution of Elaine Collins to Northern Vermont University, to the system and to the state of Vermont and wishes her the very best dated this day, fourth day of August, 2021. Do I have a motion on that? So moved by Mary. A second. Is that Karen? Okay. Lots of motions and seconds. Elaine, Elaine, we just, we hope that this is an example of our appreciation. It may not be much, but I'll tell you, we certainly feel indebted to you for six years of incredible work. Is there any other further discussion or questions on this resolution? Seeing none. All those in favor, please indicate by saying, aye. Aye. Aye. Any dissent? Seeing none, Elaine, congratulations. I hope you are looking forward to a really good quality retirement and we're gonna miss you. And the communities are going to miss you. Anyone else have anything else to say? I know that there was some folks invited to share thoughts as well. And I think Elaine wants to say something. So go ahead, Elaine. Thank you. I'd like to thank the board for this recognition and also for your trust throughout the six years that I've been here. I remember when church laughed, he talked about by the numbers. And I just figured up, I added up some numbers. This is actually my 38th year full-time employment as an educator, 25 years in higher education administration at the level of Dean, Vice President and the last six years as president. I'm grateful to all members of the Johnson and Linden communities for your continued commitment, your grit and your determination. You've shown me time and time again that together we can make the impossible possible. Suzanne and I will be forever changed by the JSC, LSC and MBU spirit. It has been an honor and a privilege to serve beside you. And we wish you the very best as you move forward with this transformation. Thank you. Thank you, Elaine. Anyone else? Don't be shy. I'd love to say something. Okay, go ahead. Go ahead, Tyron. Six years ago during her tour of Johnson State College as a finalist of the succeed outgoing president, Barbara Murphy, I asked Elaine Collins if she thought public higher education was a matter of social justice to which this first generation college graduate responded with gentle ferocity that I have come to know well. You bet I do. As chair of the JSC faculty assembly and then of NVU-Johnson's assembly until now, I've stepped down from that position. I have had the honor of working closely with this extraordinary leader in person through times none of us had hoped to see or even imagined. I have been with her at several board of trustees meetings, retreats at Lake Moray as she fought tenaciously for the survival of NVU as a two-campus university and therefore for real and meaningful access to higher education for the Northern tier of Vermont for, in a word, social justice. I can only hope that the emergent university to which we all now have a stake will preserve that vision. She has walked the walk, talked the talk, always with unadorned directness and passion. She is who she is, thank God, and the VSCS and the state are better off for it. I remain in awe of the grit, grace and gumption with which she has navigated this time of rough and unpredictable transformation. Godspeed, Elaine, we owe you a lot. Thank you. Tyrone, I'm gonna start us here at the top with Nolan Adkins. Well, I got to say it's hard to follow my very articulate colleague Tyrone Shaw. But here we are. So, Elaine, I'll speak for myself, but I know I speak on behalf of your executive team, both members that are currently with you are those that have been with you over the past few years, but I would just say that it's been an extraordinary honor and privilege to work with you and particularly to learn from you over the past few years. We are extraordinarily grateful for your tireless, tireless commitment to our students, to our students, our community, our institution. It's extremely clear that you've poured your heart and soul into this job, into the success of our unification of Lyndon and Johnson, unlike any other. Our success is due to your extraordinary leadership, for sure. You have this, I started writing down attributes that I thought of when I think of you. And a couple came to mind, but I think it's actually the coupling of these attributes which I think make you extraordinarily unique. And that is you're an extraordinarily thoughtful academic coupled with this bulldog-like intensity that I think has served us and the institution well. And that's what I'll remember. So, we're extraordinarily grateful for everything that you have done for the institution. We wish you and Suzanne the very best with whatever comes next. So, best wishes. Okay, Penny Hargan, next, followed by Sarah. Elaine, this is a sad day for us, but I speak on behalf of Patrick Rogers and the entire admissions team. And I wanna thank you for your passion and commitment and leadership to Northern Vermont University. I know you've told you before, but from the day that you interviewed for the presidency of Johnson State College, we knew you were the best candidate to lead us forward. Little did we know then the challenges that we would face together. In the words of Maya Angelo who said, I've learned that people will forget what you say, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. Elaine, you made us all at Johnson and Linden believe in ourselves to do the impossible. You listened to us, you empowered us and you led us. And most importantly, you reminded us that everything we do, teaching, supporting, serving, coaching our students, whether they're Vermonters or students who come from across the country or around the world, we do it to provide access to a high quality education and help transform their lives. You are the Ellie Purrier St. Pierre of the Vermont State College system and you deserve a gold medal for your extraordinary achievements in higher education. We wish you the best in retirement, whatever that may be, some well-deserved downtime with family and friends, reading books, playing music and walking your dogs. Thank you again, we will miss you, but know we will continue to do the good work you set us on the path to do, serving our students to the best of our abilities. Be well and good luck. Sarah, can I have some followed by Greg, please? Hi, hi, Elaine. So, February 11th, 2015 was a very good day for us. That was the day that the announcement went out. You had accepted the position. I had the honor of being on the search committee for the president's position and I can tell you that my inbox was flooding after that announcement went out. So many people were so happy that you were selected and I'll never forget the day that we interviewed you for the first time, the Zoom interview. You had your big earphones on and you showed up and you were a presence, but we were all blown away by what you had to share. And I feel like, and Lynn was there as well, I feel like we knew pretty much right then, you were the one. So, you came, you wowed us all and we were all excited for you to arrive for many reasons, a couple of them were your data-driven approach and that kind of nature that just brought Penny to tears. And you didn't disappoint. You definitely followed through on the things that we expected you and the way you sold yourself in the interview. And you have led us well through these difficult times. You've always remained positive and kept us remaining positive. A little metaphor, you shared a dream. Actually, I'm turning it into a metaphor. You shared a dream with me once where you talked about being in a river and there were big logs that were bumping into you. And I remember thinking if I was in a river with big logs bumping to me, I'd be terrified. And your reaction was, oh, another log, oh, a log. You didn't seem at all concerned when you were telling me about the way you experienced the dream. And I think that's a metaphor for your leadership. You take things seriously, but you don't freak out. And that has been really helpful for us, your calm, steady nature, thoughtful process. And you've been a great mentor to me and many people. So I wish you the best in your next adventures. And thank you so, so much for your six years with us. Hey, Greg, Ackman. Thank you. Hi, Elaine, hi everyone. I just wanted to, from the MBU Athletic Department, Johnson and Lyndon, just thank you for your dedication to our student athletes and their experiences here. You've supported both campuses unbelievably well, has provided great opportunities for our two campuses to compete against each other, whether it's in the president's cup or different MBU classics games. There's always been a very healthy rivalry between our two athletic departments and campus, but it was really fun to bring the extra added incentive of competing under one banner. So that was amazing. The support you've shown out through your six years, especially in the last couple of years, within our shape facilities, to make sure not only our students, but also our staff, faculty and community members have a great wellness opportunity, has really provided a big uplift, especially in times when folks haven't been able to get out. And our campuses are just beautiful and having those facilities open and available is just great. Our student athletes just feel greatly supported from you. You're an unbelievable competitor. I remember meeting you when the welcome barbecue and you were fairly open that athletics was not something you've had much experience with. And then two years later, you're tracking us down in the halls, figuring out conference standings and who's gonna make the playoffs and what if this happens and that happens and it all goes along to your day to driven. There was very positive things about that. And I had no clue it was gonna question about percentages to make playoffs. So whatever our students did, whether it was in dipped in or there's the art students or the meteorology students, you've always been their supporters on many different levels. And lastly, just wanted to really thank you for your work in diversity, equity and inclusion. We were able to add some different leadership opportunity for our underrepresented students within the athletic departments. And it's just great having a platform and giving our students a voice and knowing that they have a first generation leader at the top really meant a lot to them. And your support that you've shown them by giving them a voice and the support goes very far for what our students feel like and why they like to call NBU Johnson and NBU Lyndon Athletics Home. So from all of our coaches and from all of our support staff and from all of our athletes, it's been fun competing for you. It's been fun wearing the Badger and the Hornet logo. And you made us very proud. So thank you very much, Elaine. Yeah, President Joyce, Judy followed by Elaine. Elaine, I just want to thank you as your colleague. I know that you came to Vermont to lead Johnson State College, but then you graciously transitioned to leading and creating NBU. And your leadership is watching you do that has just been amazing and how you brought the two college communities together and created NBU is nothing short of miraculous. So I want you to know that on behalf of the Community College of Vermont, but also all of Vermont, we are grateful to your leadership. On a personal level, I'm really going to miss working with you. I'm going to miss the texts and the emails and the phone calls that you and I have had. I'm going to miss your voice. I'm going to miss your leadership. I'm going to miss your steady hand in council of presidents meetings. But, you know, we will move forward and you will move forward. And I hope you will stay in touch because you have helped lay the foundation for the VSC transformation. So thank you. Elaine Harvey. President Collins from one Elaine to another. I just wanted to thank you for actually inspiring my doctoral work coming back to NBU after leaving briefly after you started. It's one of the best decisions I've made professionally and it was mostly because of you and your advocacy on behalf of our students. You've inspired so many educators to advocate. You know, Jamie Ventura always says we're educators first, but I've added to that that we're educators and we're advocates and that comes directly from you. So thank you and we're going to miss you greatly, but I'll not be disappointed to accidentally get some of your emails every once in a while. So will the aplomb. Thank you, Elaine, for your leadership during our unification and all that has followed. I have so enjoyed working with you and we have been through so much creating the brand of NBU, finding our message islands, laughing, always keeping our vision front and center, keeping the students front and center, sharing our love of music and cooking and culinary history together and so much more. Thank you for your belief in me as a leader and for your enthusiastic reception and belief in the work of the marketing and communications team. The entire team has so enjoyed doing NBU's marketing and communications work for you and we will miss you. We have a couple of comments in the chat session. If they want to speak publicly, Beth Walsh and Stephanie Cravetti. I don't know if they're still here. There you are, Beth. I would like to say something. I really do appreciate your support of all of us on our campuses and in our communities. And whenever we met administration on your side and union on my side, I always knew that we were fighting for the same things and we cared about our staff and faculty, students and communities. So thank you so much. We're gonna miss you, but good luck. And Stephanie. I would like to say something too. I can't seem to get my screen, my video to play. But can you hear me? Mm-hmm. All right. My comment, I'll just read my comment because there have been so many wonderful and well-deserved comments, but Elaine, I will miss you very much. Thank you for all that you have done in your six years to enrich the experience of students, faculty, and staff of JSC and NVU. Thank you for all that you have done to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion on our campuses. All best wishes, Stephanie. Michael Fox. Hi, Elaine. Thank you so much for all of your work. I wanted to come back today and as someone who stepped away from the Vermont State College System, I want you to understand just how unique your approach is and how much it's appreciated. I feel like I was a student throughout those many years that you've talked about where I've taken so much away from the experience as one of your executive team members and working with you. I think we've all benefited as many of the articulated from your approach, from your tenacity, from your belief in a student-centered approach. It's such an important thing to realize that we're here for the students and that never was something that kind of swayed away from any of our initiatives that we took on. So thank you so much and truly wishing you the best as you move forward. And Sandra Noyes. Elaine, I just want to say thank you from the union point of view. We were so happy to get you when you said that you had worked with unions before during the interview process. That was real important to us. And I also want to say thank you for making us keep the positive attitude to just keep trucking on forward. When things were looking so rotten and your positive outlook has just helped a lot of us. Now, you know other people probably said that but you need to hear from us too. So thank you very much and good luck with everything. Is there anyone else? I would just like on behalf of the board to say thank you, Elaine. You've been just a positive presence. I mean, everybody has basically said all the things that I think we all know are true and that we really appreciate you but went out and searched and inserted yourself into the communities and got to know the people and got to work with them and involve yourself in a whole lot of other things that were not necessarily related to the college but really added to the atmosphere and the commitment from the communities to your college. One of the things that I've always appreciated about you is your dry sense of humor. Out of the left field is the statement that comes out that's really very funny, a unique way of seeing the world. And I just wanna say I really always appreciated that. It reminds us of our humanity and our humility if we have a sense of humor. And I just wanna say that we're gonna miss you and we're going to continue to do the work that you started with all of your administrators and staff and for the students and we hope we are as successful with it as you were. And thank you very much. Is there anyone else? Elaine, have fun. Thank you, bye-bye. Okay, we've got the next thing as the approval of the minutes of the June 16th Board of Trustees meeting. When someone would like to make a motion on accepting those minutes, who's gonna do that? Speak up please. Oh, Jim, okay, Jim is making the motion and a second on that, Mary. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion on the minutes of June 16th? Hearing none. All those in favor of approval of those minutes, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Okay, opposed? Hearing none. Now we have a presentation by Storbach Search on the presidential search and a screening committee and the work they're going to do. I'm going to turn this over to Megan Clover who can introduce our guests. Well, thanks, Lynn. And I think I'm looking around the screen here and just looking, oh, there's Matt, excellent. So I will turn this over very quickly to Matt and Steve but very grateful to have their guidance as we begin the search process and particularly their help in making sure that we're bringing the diverse voices that make up our community to this search process. So looking forward to launching it today with an overview of where we're going and we'll turn it over to you, Steve, please. Thank you, Megan. Thank you, Lynn. Thank you all for inviting us in to this conversation. I'm going to share my screen in a minute and go through a formal presentation but essentially what we are hoping to do is give you some overview on what a typical process looks like, give you a sense of who we are and I'm going to introduce myself a little bit more formally and ask my colleague Matt Punting to do the same and give you an idea of what the market for presidential searches looks like today and well, in the last few years and of course today is much different than the last few years. This is primarily designed to give some conversational start to the process as opposed to a full facilitation on what you're looking for. That's going to come a little bit later in the fall but we wanted to have an opportunity to introduce ourselves and talk a little bit about what we see are the key points in this presidential process. We've had an opportunity already to coordinate with Lynn and with Megan as well as Sophie and we're hoping that we can begin the process to find a great leader for the newly consolidated entity and we're also eager as I'm sure everyone else is to discover what that name might be. So with that, I'm going to share my screen. There will be an opportunity at the end for Q and A but if there are questions as we're going through this please do not hesitate to jump in. My screen is a little screwy, I have to admit so I may not see your hand raised if Lynn or Megan if you want to jump in and you see a hand that I don't respond to I would appreciate it but I'll get started and we can see where we go from here. So what we would like to do is again focus a little bit on the process here and to start us off, tell you a little bit about our firm. Starbix Search has actually was founded in 2007 I was one of the founding partners just about a month before the COVID crisis hit we merged with another firm called Diversified Search. Diversified as well as Starbix share a history of being founded by women being focused on social justice and not for profit and with a very specific goal at our founding to increase the opportunity for women and people of color to participate in senior leadership roles. In our case in higher education diversified a broader corporate not for profit world. You all receive a copy of this slide deck so I'll touch on a few of these pieces but I won't bore you with just reading off all of them. A key point that I want to emphasize though are the last two bullet points which is the fact that over the course of our history we have a very proud history of not only being active and doing work so that there are strong pools of candidates but the people who ultimately become successful candidates stay and are successful. And the work that we have done has been positively viewed with our clients so that they ask us to come back and do work for them beyond the presidential level. So we are very proud of that. And I personally believe that that is a marker of success when people want to continue to work with you. So a little bit about myself. This is actually my 25th year of recruiting. The last 20 years have been specifically in higher education. I have worked in almost every conceivable type of institution from community college institutions to research ones, public, private, small liberal arts, medium size, regional comprehensives. Throughout the United States I think there is one state Hawaii that I've yet to do work in and then also some work overseas as part of partnerships with American universities. I am really excited to have the opportunity to be with you today and be a partner in this very important process as well. And I'm gonna ask my colleague, Matt Bunting to introduce himself as well, Matt. Hi everyone, thanks, Steve. I'll keep this brief as you can sort of get a sense of my background from the slide. But I'm a managing associate with Sorbet Search and have conducted all manner of searches as Steve has and all manner of institution over the past 10 years or so. And as an FYI, I've lived in South Burlington, Vermont and my father Chuck Bunting was formerly the chancellor of the Vermont State Colleges from, oh boy, I think it was 1986 or so to 2000. So this is a pleasure for me on several levels to visit with you folks today and be a part of the search. Thank you, Matt. He's very humble, but we could not do the work we do without Matt's good work. And as a small aside, Chuck Bunting, Matt's father was also one of my mentors early on in my career as well. So there's a strong Vermont connection in our firm. So I do want to give again, give a brief overview of the process that is not atypical. In fact, I would argue is pretty typical of presidential searches because this is a new entity bringing together distinct institutions. There will be an emphasis in our recommendation would be an emphasis on what I define as the outreach of the front end part of the process where there is a strong level of engagement and discussions with individuals and groups on the campuses and throughout the community. But I want to give you a broader sense of what that can mean. And I want to make a particularly strong emphasis that these presidential searches by statute as well as practice begin and end with the board. And let me begin there and talk a little bit about the role and the responsibilities that the board has and how it's important for us to be aware of that, discuss that because the board begins the process, the search and screen committee effectively is an important board appointed committee and ultimately receives the end, which is to identify and select and then negotiate with the preferred candidate. So I just put in two quotes on this slide that reinforce the role and the authority of the board. And the bottom one, perhaps the most immediately important that is the statute that affords the board the responsibility in the top is the bylaws that play that out. But I don't think there's a way to overemphasize this, that the board is central to this decision, the board makes the final decision. Therefore, we need to start with the board to start beginning the discussion about the needs, the wants, the challenges ahead for this president. To give you a broad sense and a very quick overview of what a typical presidential search looks like, we put this chart up again, you'll have access to it as well. This is a pretty standard process, but we are really looking at, I wanna make a few points as it relates to the board and I'll come back to that again. We are of course, we're not even yet on this schedule because we're in August, but we are hoping we could extend that to August through October in the first few bullets there in terms of initial consultation and outreach of the community, the board, the presidential search and screen committee, which that term will come up over and over again and it's important to recognize that the search and screen committee as empowered by the board is not the selection committee, is not the hiring committee. It is required or asked and charged by the board to conduct the search, attract candidates, screen them and then identify a slate of recommended candidates for the board to consider and ultimately select from. So much of this process is actually search and screen committee oriented, but I wanted to give you an overview of how it will end as well or what we'll reach it in. Historically, I have found that some of the greatest challenges that we want to avoid has to have to do with the fact that sometimes there's less than an ideal amount of communication between the search and screen committee and the board so that at the end of the process, the board essentially receives three names or whatever number ultimately is asked of the search and screen committee without context. And so one of the goals that we would have throughout this process would be regular updates from the search and screen committee chair to the board so that board members who do not serve on the search committee have a real good understanding in context of what's happening so that by the time the decision comes back to the board, people feel informed, people feel that they have the information that they need to make a decision, of course, along with the interviews that might take place. So very quickly we'll begin, ideally in September, October getting the search and screen committee in place, beginning that discussion, advertising, recruiting, that process will continue through December into January when the search and screen committee will begin their interview process. So in December, January, the search and screen committee will review the applications that we have been able to solicit on their behalf and select a group to conduct confidential initial, probably Zoom interviews. Maybe even a second round interview, depending on how the committee feels strongly or not about the pool that they have. We will also be doing references and background checks at that final stage to ensure that the candidates who ultimately come to the board have been fully vetted. As part of that final stage of the process in March, February, March timeframe we're suggesting, the finalist candidates would make public visits. We're hoping in person, but you never know where the world will be at that point. If we need to do it virtually, we've over the course of the last year and a half, we've become quite experienced in managing that, but we would love to have the opportunity for the finalists to actually visit the campuses, meet people in person, visit the communities in such a way that there's a good exchange, as well as an opportunity for those people who have had a chance to engage with the candidates to provide feedback directly to the board as that part of the process. Ideally, yes, Linda. I'd like to, I'm starting to interrupt right here, but there was something that you discussed with a couple of us early on, and that is the very first bullet for initial consultation with PSSC and key campus constituencies. There seemed to be, can you elaborate on what you're going to do? I know you said before you started. That's a great point. You're going to have stakeholder meetings with a variety of different groups that represent the campus and their communities and their people in the state. Could you elaborate on that, please? I can, and that goes right to my next slide. So thank you, that was great transition. So our focus really here on this search needs to be engaging with as many people who want to be part of this process as possible. Not only because this is a newly constituted institution, but because the role the presidency is now all consuming and people really expect the president to represent them. So for the first phase of this process in September and a good part of October, we're envisioning a multi-step multi-engagement process that would involve an online survey to ensure that everyone who's had an opportunity to share their thoughts has an opportunity to do that. A series of open forums, small group, large group meetings with staff, faculty, students, community leadership, the current administrative leadership of the institutions as well as the board and the system leadership as well. We, this is going to be a very, we're proposing, I should say, a very engaged open process at that early stage where we are able to get the information we need as a practical sense so that we are in the best position to represent you in terms of what you're looking for, but also to make sure there are no surprises. I am a strong believer that this is not a magical formula. It's a very clear process. The slide I showed before, in terms of the timeline, there is no mystery here. There should not be any surprise on what we're doing when we're doing it. Confidentiality relates directly to the identities of the candidates themselves, not to what we're doing. And so I want to use our outreach efforts not only to glean the information we need to effectively identify good candidates and help the search and screen committee process them, but also to ensure that we're answering questions that the community members may have. And I am a firm believer in bending over backwards to ensure that everyone has a chance to have their voice heard and be engaged in that process. So that list is not all inclusive. Of course, it's going to be added to as we get further in the process as well as it never ends. So I can easily see a situation where as we're continuing to recruit, as the search and screen committee is beginning the process of reviewing candidates that we have more for, to allow for continued updates, not only on more of the processes, but for individuals to tell us what they're looking for. I don't think there's a too late sort of discussion there. So that is just the beginning, but we really feel that becomes the starting point that the board can hear, the search and screen committee members can hear, as well as we can hear on what people are really thinking about and their hopes and dreams and expectations for the next president. So building on that, as I alluded to, I'm a firm believer in communication. Again, there shouldn't be a whole lot, what's going behind the curtain sort of situation. I really believe in an extensive amount of transparency. I think that's better for the process. I think it's better for candidates. It's better for everyone in the process itself. That starts with a presidential search website, which we will work with the system folks to develop. And it serves multiple functions, not only to provide regular updates to the community, but information for the candidates. And as we hit milestones, I think there is an opportunity for good, solid information on what the search and screen committee has done. And the more information we have out available, and that includes at least in our thinking, not only the broad timeline, the position description, when that becomes available, but also the reports that were drawn up by the legislature, by the system that detail what this effort's all about. So being able to share with not only candidates, but the community, what's the basis for this process? I'm hoping can provide us the best opportunity to ensure the best possible people are attracted and they match with the expectations. And as I mentioned before, and I alluded regular updates to the board by the chair, just to ensure that the board is engaged and aware of what's happening and in the best possible position to make the decision at the end. I threw the confidentiality piece in not to counteract anything or negate anything above it, but to remind everyone that some of the best candidates, in fact, I would argue probably most of the best candidates, especially right now where we are in the world, are probably not actively looking. They're typically engaged directly in doing many of the things you want them to do somewhere else. And the burden is on Matt and I to identify those people at your direction and encourage them to apply. But if they are actively doing some great work elsewhere, I can guarantee that they do not want their name released at a stage when it could undermine the work that they're doing at their home institution or wherever they are. So confidentiality until that final stage is absolutely essential for us to be able to draw the best possible people in. But it shouldn't take away from the communication that we are going to proceed with. It's just a part of the process to remind people. I want to pause there because the next stage I want to talk about is data that we have on what the market for presidential or what the presidential profile looks like today and how that may or may not be different from what you're looking for moving forward. So I'll pause there if any of the board members have any questions. I'm happy to go back or address any pieces before I get into the next stage of the presentation. Does anyone have any questions? If not, why don't you continue, Steve? All right. Someone? Oh, someone? No, okay. I thought I heard someone say something but feel free to jump in. So I want to share with you just a snapshot of what the profile of presidency and a presidential candidate might look like or more specifically in the numbers I'm about to share. The American Council on Education runs a regular survey of sitting presidents. The last time they did this and were able to publish this data was 2017. So just keep that in mind as you look at the numbers because the last year and a half has skewed some of those figures and I'll share what that means. So of the 10,000 college and university presidents in the United States, including community colleges all the way up, this is a survey of every president. The disaggregated data doesn't vary too much from the overall picture. So in 2017, this is what a typical president looked like. They were 58% were age 61 or over, 30% were female, 70 male, 17% were from underrepresented minority groups. The average tenure was between five to seven years, so six, just saying. And 81% of the sitting presidents served as faculty at some point in their life. That's what it looked like at that time. More information just to give you a sense of what position did that president who answered that survey have immediately before they became president in their current role. Most of them came from, as I indicated, most of them came from higher education. 15% came outside of higher education. What was a significant trend then, which we are continuing to see now, is that of the 85% who were in higher education, only approximately half came out of what has traditionally been the primary pathway, chief academic officers. That number has actually been declining for about 15 years pretty consistently. And it has not been replaced by the people coming from outside of higher education. That 15% number has actually stayed pretty stable for almost 20 years. What has shifted within that are two things. Number one, that top bullet, increasingly we are starting to see people take on more than one presidency. And so someone becomes a president and then their next move is not necessarily retirement. It is another presidency. But the area of greatest growth has actually come from those people who are in higher education, but not in the academic side. So chief financial officer, development officer, student life officers, that those senior leadership roles, other cabinet level roles in higher education has started to become a greater and greater source of presidents and certainly candidates. So that has to do with the changing nature of the presidency. 25, 30 years ago, I could safely tell you, I think you could safely assume that there was still a bit of the romantic vision of the intellectual leader of an intellectual community. Today, this role is much more of a manager, strategic planner, financial mind, public relations expert, crisis manager, you name it. It is much more of a holistic leadership managerial role than it has been in the past. That is why we start to see this diversification in the sources of potential candidates or candidate prospects. Of course, the last year and a half has scrambled all of this because these numbers were four years ago. But the trends are still continuing. As the first bullet in that two slides ago indicated, there is an aging of the presidency. People are staying in this role. They come into this role later in their career and they tend to either retire or for maybe some of them move on to another presidency. The decreased length of tenure, possibly of a second or third presidency, we are expecting that COVID is going to multiply that trend pretty significantly. In part because the last year and a half has just exposed a lot of vulnerabilities and highlighted areas and skill set that perhaps not every president has, or maybe some presidents do have, therefore they're attracted to other opportunities. I would love to say that the next two bullets have been consistent themes, but the reality is the percentage of women, the percentage of people of color serving in presidencies have seen the plateau in the last few years. In spite of every effort otherwise, the number that we shared earlier has been consistent for the last five, six years. Leading up to that, there had been pretty significant increases, but we are seeing a plateau, which is concerning, but I'm hoping that with the last bullet, the retirements and resignations in the wake of COVID, we have an opportunity to really change that. That last bullet though, I think will be perhaps the defining trend of the next three to five years. And how it will impact us in the immediate aspect is that we are anticipating and we're already starting to see it, a huge wave of retirements and resignations leading directly to other searches, leading directly to competition for us. The advantage that I think we have is that this is a unique opportunity of helping to develop a new unit, a new entity out of historically several. And so what I am anticipating is there will be a lot of other presidential searches. We may in fact find ourselves in a position where we might be competing against others, but I do think we have an exciting opportunity that will attract people. So with that, I wanted to thank you for your time in terms of that presentation. There's a lot that we could cover and go through again and I can repeat or emphasize, but I wanted to share with you a few quick items, not so quick unfortunately, but a few quick items that we felt were that much more important. So I'm going to stop screen share and just open it back up and ask Lynn or Megan if you wanted me to emphasize anything or speak on other topics. Are there any questions? I think one point, Lynn, maybe just to emphasize or come back to if you could, is what is the timeline around when folks in the community should anticipate outreach and just what's the timeline of what the board should be expecting next? Sure. So let me answer, well, the two questions. So let me answer them in the order you shared. We are hoping to begin our aggressive engagement outreach to community members through on all the campuses and virtually probably likely immediately after Labor Day. So in September use most of September for that outreach, those discussions, that interaction that will lead directly to the second part of the question that you asked. Our next big milestone is the board retreat at the end of September where the board will start really the process or start and finish the process of defining the profile for the next president. And so the information that we are going to gather in starting in September, but also into October will help define what that profile is going to look like both in the formal sense of a document, but also in the less formal sense of what we need to target or the types of individuals we need to target to attract good quality people. So from a board perspective, I know that there will be some discussions in terms of starting to put together the search and screen committee and those discussions will be starting very quickly, but the major board discussions will take place in late September as part of that broader outreach and engagement effort. And I will say that as to kickstart that process, we have started in initial discussions with Lynn and Megan, we have put together a draft and we're going to work on it of a board questionnaire, which is designed to facilitate some thought process to better facilitate that discussion on what you're looking for in September. So for board members, stay tuned. In the next few weeks, you're likely to receive a online survey that will ask you a few questions in terms of values and leadership areas. You really want us to focus on things of that kind, just to help informally set the tone for that conversation later in September. Okay, thank you. So any other questions or concerns on this process? Steve, I just wanted to clarify, you had also indicated that there would be a survey that would go out to community members as well. That would be a separate survey, but that would be soliciting input that way as well. Correct. Yeah. So the board will receive one again, just focused on helping us to facilitate those, that discussion at the board retreat. There'll be a larger more broadly designated survey that will go out to the community and broadly speaking. When I say community, I mean everyone affiliated in one way, shape or form with any of the current independent institutions that are being consolidated into the new entity, staff, students, alumni, faculty, administrative board, administrative leaders, community leaders. We want to make sure that everyone who has an opportunity has an opportunity, wants an opportunity, has a chance to comment on that. So that would be sent out and then probably sent out a few times over the course of September to make sure everyone has the access to it. Okay. Thank you. Okay. That is a very helpful thing. We now move on to, if there's no other comments or any questions, we're going to move on to the transformation update from Wilson. He has a PowerPoint from Wilson Garland. And we can move ahead with that. Lynn. Yes. I'm very sorry. I may have to sign off. I've been having a medical problem and I'm waiting to get some calls for some appointments. So I may have to sign off. It's not for lack of interest and I appreciate your understanding. That's fine. There was a, there was documentation in the, the papers that we sent out to everyone regarding Wilson's presentation. So that's helpful. If you have any questions, just let us know. I'll get back in touch if I do. I think, I don't know, but it's, it's not going too well here on the back. That's okay. We understand. Thank you. Jim, do you have something? No. You're still, you're, you're okay. Go ahead. Go ahead. I guess Wilson, you're all set. We can start listening to your presentation on the transformation update and your project management. All right. Well, thank you for the opportunity to talk with you again this month. We've been doing a lot in the, in the way of, of transformation and getting the work organized. And I know we've also done a lot in terms of communication and outreach. So I know many of you have been involved in probably reading and receiving and, and offering feedback based on those other ways that we're reaching out during the transformation. So I invite you to continue doing that as we go. I gave a fairly extensive update at the, at the last meeting and we'll have an even more extensive update, most likely at the, at the next meeting, but did want to give you a quick update on some of the things that we have going on related to transformation. As we talked about at the last meeting, we have a new cross functional approach that we're implementing as part of the, as part of the transformation and trying to align the, the work of transformation around the four core process areas that we talked about. And we have a number of the core process teams already kicking off. And they've drafted their charters. They've identified objectives and deliverables. And now we're convening some sub teams to help with that discovery work. That's really the first part of the process. We have an administrative operations team and, and sub teams that are being formed. And those will be kicked off shortly. And we're also then across all of the teams, providing a status dashboard update to sponsors and stakeholders just to keep the lines of communication that are so important as we go through the transformation open. And we're getting feedback from the, the relevant parties in that process. As we talked about it, our, our, our last meeting, we are also working to introduce some additional project management tools into the process as we go, not wanting the processes to take over the process itself, but really making sure that we have the tools in place where we can manage tasks, timelines, dependencies, and those sorts of things. And we'll have a more extensive update on the project plan and timeline at the next meeting. We're also working across the teams really to provide that level of detail. I think in the past, we've presented a very high level view of the project plan. And now we're trying as we work with the teams to take it down the level and really get the level of detail that we need to ensure that we are recognizing all the timing dependencies and system dependencies and other things that we need to keep in mind as we're going through this process. And with that, some of the key dependencies that we're putting particular focus on are things that really need to inform everything that we do with the transformation process. So for example, in a few minutes we'll be talking more about the mission and vision work that is going on to help inform the work around creating this new combined entity. And that's something that not only is important from an accreditation perspective, but in doing the transformation work, we really need to know what it is that we're aiming for as a new institution and really looking for opportunities to include the unique features of the institutions that are being joined to form the new combined entity. We also know that there's a tremendous amount of work going on this summer to define the unified program array for the new combined entity. And we have over 85 faculty who are working on really the hard work of trying to identify what those programs are. And a lot of that work is really critical for us so that we understand what programs we're going to be offering, where we're going to be offering them and all of those things that will help to inform the types of processes and supports that we need to put in place across the system and across the new combined entity. We're also developing a diversity, equity and inclusion framework to help inform the work of the teams and be much more intentional about how we work that into the work and both from a discovery perspective, which is the phase we're in now, as well as design and development, making sure we have the right voices at the table and that we're looking at things through that lens as we go through the work. We're also creating a student advisory council and that's going to be convening here. We're going to be inviting and nominating students as we move into the semester and by the end of September we'll have a student advisory committee that will be helping to really inform the process and provide input, particularly as we move from discovery into design and designing the student experience processes as well as the academic operations processes and other processes that help support students in their learning and help support students in their experience at the institution. And then finally, I think has already been alluded to, we have a fair amount of work going on right this minute to try and do the background discovery and research that's needed to identify a new brand for the new combined entity. So I wanted to highlight these dependencies because these are all things that aren't necessarily on the same timeline as all of the other things that we're doing for transformation and in part they're accelerated because they need to inform that work that we're going to be doing as we go through transformation. I would just like to add quickly as well just to reflect, you know, we have been trying to communicate out the transformation work that we're doing. Wilson has held a town hall meeting a week or so ago to provide an overview of the project management process and that was really for people that aren't on these specific core project teams. So everyone has the opportunity to understand what this process looks like and what we're doing. He has also held for transformation virtual office hours where people could drop in and ask him questions. We're continuing to provide the updates every two weeks. As Wilson noted, we have about 85 faculty members currently engaged in the program optimization work over the summer. There are another dozen or so faculty members that are working on a faculty governance planning team. So far we've identified approximately 35 people to serve on the academic operations projects teams about 50 people on the student experience project teams and another 50 on the administrative operations teams. There will be some additional positions to be filled in on some of those teams. And again with the student advisory council we're looking at approximately 20 to 25 students to participate on that, to provide input and ideas on the work that's being generated by the project team. So I just want to indicate this work absolutely couldn't happen without the involvement of so many faculty, staff and students. So we really appreciate all the input and feedback and the participation that we're receiving and there will obviously be more involvement moving forward both on the presidential search that the store back folks were just talking about but as well as the naming and brand identity work that's currently underway. And a lot of these details the chancellors put you've put into your transformation reports along the way as we get every week. Right. And I also we publish those on the transformation website on the main the Mont State College website too. So all the updates are on there as well with links to things. So for example the virtual town hall that it was in the most recent transformation update and as a link to the town hall if somebody wants to go and look at that. Is there anything else? Well that's all I intended to present is the transformation update but then I'm ready to move on to the accountability matrix. That sounds good. Yes, thank you. All right. So the topic that we're going to discuss is an accountability matrix and I know that there's been a fair amount of discussion on this topic in the past. The purpose of creating the accountability matrix is really to align accountability to the strategic priorities that have been presented by the legislature and the board. Those include affordability, accessibility, quality, relevance and financial stability and those are core areas where we need to align the work that we do. So we're going to start out on progress on the transformation objectives and projects which today was fairly brief but we'll be continuing to provide more detail as the teams get deeper into the detail of that work as well. The second thing is really to make sure that across each of these strategic dimensions we've identified the right key performance indicators that will be used to measure the results. The matrix itself shows how the board will be able to measure the results of that work and how it will be able to measure the results of that work and how it will be able to accurately be creating a dashboard and a packet of information that goes with these different key performance indicators in future months. We're also wanting to make sure that we document the ultimate accountability at the institution level for each of the institutions in the board of trustees. So that's an important component of this. But then within that many of these areas of responsibility are delegated by the president or the chancellor or others to a person who's designated sort of as the lead within an institution or within the system and we want to be able to identify that as well so that we have a clear sense of how that accountability transfers. And then the matrix itself then also sets the expectations for frequency and timing of reporting on the different components. As you'll see when we get to the specific matrix itself a lot of the key performance indicators are not things that we can measure on a weekly or monthly basis but they're things that are either based on a semester or based on an annual reporting and so on. So we can see how that sort of plays out. And so the accountability matrix itself and you have a full version of the document in your packet and if it's helpful I can move to that here in a minute and show some of the detail. But as you can see the idea here is that for each of the strategic areas we've identified key performance indicators some of which we have data for today some of which are more aspirational and we're continuing to work on finding a common source of data for some of these particularly as we're doing the transformation work one of the key components that we're working on is making sure we have a consistent definition for these different data elements as we combine the work of the different institutions. Then you see who the designated lead is for some of this activity as well as then how that accountability aligns with a board committee as well as the timing expected for the reporting and we'll need to establish a calendar as we go through this that aligns with the specific board meetings so that we have a clear understanding of what metrics are going to get presented when and align with the different committee meetings etc. And then the accountability at the institution level as well as for the system. So that's the overall structure of the matrix and again the purpose of the matrix is to align the accountability and then we will have a dashboard and some additional materials as we begin producing these different updates. So really our next steps are to gain agreement from the board on this matrix approach and we're hoping to do that today. And then we will be creating a dashboard format for ongoing visibility and I know that some of the committees like Epsil and others have had some updates that began to take a look at some of these key performance metrics but by standardizing around this matrix and then creating these dashboards we'll be able to more standardize the approach to how we report out on these things. And our intent with the dashboard is to have baseline measures our five-year targets as well as current progress to date and then in a following meeting then we'll establish a baseline and targets for those key performance indicators and begin to report out on those as we go first focusing on the existing measures where data is already available but then also addressing areas where there are gaps in available data or areas where we need to bring together the data from different sources and create a common definition and practice for how we're sharing that data. So that's the details I wanted to share about the accountability matrix and I can shift over to look at the specific document if that's helpful. That sounds good. So there is apparently a resolution I don't have a copy of that Well here's the objective for accountability matrix We weren't looking for a resolution on this this was really more just for discussion and input board members had thoughts on this draft and then the thought was that it would be more finalized and presented at the September retreat. Okay, thank you. So I guess we can go into the accountability matrix now. Thank you. So again this is just shows how we've laid it out to address the five different strategic priority, six different strategic priority areas and then also the transformation projects each have an accountability lead there as well as well as institutional and system level leads as well. So in any case you can see the different key performance indicators that we've allocated to each of the different objectives and you will recognize these objectives, these objectives for the most part are ones that were included with strategic priorities from the chancellor last year and then also some of the key performance indicators come out of the legislation that the legislature provided in the most recent update. Any questions or anything on these of the things that we approved originally as a board and approved a while ago affordability accessibility quality relevance and of course financial accessibility which the select group wants us to address. Lynn, I had a question maybe to kick us off. Go ahead, and listen I wonder if we might maybe pull this document down so we could see folks while we do questions and then maybe come back to it if that would work. Awesome, thanks. I'm just wondering and you mentioned that this is going this sort of process that we're going to be working on. There were a fair number of different data efforts that launched in the first year and I see a lot of the work and discussion from the Epsil committee feeding into here. I think I heard your intent was that this is the set of metrics that we will go forward with and it replaces those other efforts so we have one and that doesn't mean that the committees won't be the first place that that information gets presented in many cases but it really is intended to encompass the things like I believe the presentation to Epsil earlier included a lot of different graphs and charts that showed some of these metrics and so it would be the intent for this cycle and this reporting to replace those other efforts. One other follow-on question to that because I know in part of these discussions we've talked about the challenge of gathering data and I just want to get your sense in looking at the list that you put together it is comprehensive. How big of a lift is it and is the lift a burden to baseline this data and then to report out on it currently given our disparate systems disparate data sources. I would say that this is a fairly comprehensive list and we've gone through somewhat of a prioritization and that we've emphasized things that were either included in the legislation or included in direction from the board. Now there are a few additional items that we've identified either through looking at best practices from other states and other systems and some of those may be more aspirational and that we haven't really calculated some of those things in the past but I would say as we go through the transformation work our intent is to really use this as a guideline of where to focus on trying to create common definitions and common data sources but we won't be able to report out on all of it right away and so I want to make sure that we're setting the right expectation of we're not coming with all of these already identified and the data already collected but as we go through the transformation work we are intending to find sources for each of these and really with some prioritization focus on the ones that we feel like are going to be the most impactful and our ability to both track our progress as well as measure our ability to achieve the results of not just the transformation but in general the work that we're doing to achieve our mission and vision. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay. So we're going to keep track of this through Epsil who appears and some financing facilities and others. Yep. Okay good. So we're looking forward to that in the future. We have another report here that we also received from Nolan Atkins regarding the mission and the vision and his work on that and we can listen to that. Thank you. I'm here to talk a little bit about the importance for developing mission and vision. So I guess that's what I'll do and we'll take it from there but essentially we're asking questions in this initial work like what are we creating what is the NCE that we aspire to be and therefore what is its vision what are the purposes of this institution these are really critical questions that we need to to answer and we need to answer soon and Wilson gave two very good reasons for it. The first is they're going to guide this transformation work as we build the NCE some real basic questions like who are we going to serve how are we going to recruit them how are we going to support our students and learners how will we measure success upon completion of a credential what academic programs are needed how they be delivered what physical facilities are needed to deliver programs what are the co-curricular opportunities etc etc etc so to really get at all of that work as Wilson is proceeding with we really need to know what the mission and vision are because all of this work needs to align with the purpose what we aspire to be so that's really the first important reason to be thinking about this now and you know so the the teams that Wilson has created the student experience team the academic operations team the administrative services workforce development all of that work has to service or support the mission and vision that will be developed the second really important reason is it is one of it is the first standard within the NETCHI standards the first standard is mission and purposes and I'm just going to read one of the sub standards because I think it's pretty telling in terms of the importance of thinking about this work now substandard 1.1 the mission of the institution defines its distinctive character addresses the needs of society identifies the students the institution seeks to serve and reflects both the institution's traditions and vision for the future the institution's mission provides the basis upon which the institution identifies its priorities plans for the future and evaluates its endeavors it provides a basis for the evaluation of the institution against the commission standards in other words in all of the subsequent standards you must have your mission and vision in mind when you're developing strategic thinking and your strategic plan in standard 2 which is planning the planning standard you must have the mission of the institution in mind when you're developing your strategic priorities for example so this is really critical that we think about mission and vision now given the fact that the work of transformation is already commenced so I'll just stop there and see if there are any questions any questions for Nolan Atkins if there aren't from anyone else I'm going to ask Nolan you have a lot of work here that you've listed who did you consult with or how did this list for both the guiding principles the vision concepts the other art parts of this document where did where who contributed to that who's contributed there's so having developed an initial concept I have shared this and consulted with the council of presidents the council of presidents or the presidents from each of the institutions have shared it with senior leadership teams on their respective campuses it's been shared with vision point we need their perspective and when vision point is going to in their upcoming listening tour they're going to start presenting these ideas more broadly to gain the input and feedback of the broader community so in fact it is essentially what we're doing is we're increasing the circle of influence here so they will articulate and discuss these ideas in the listening tours they visit each of the campuses really I think we're looking for support of the guiding principles at this point in time so there's still a lot of work to be done and a lot of input to be provided so what we're seeking is we have Nolan again with input from others has come up with a series of guiding principles so what we're really looking for is for support from the trustees on those guiding principles and then as we expand out the work on the mission and vision those guiding principles will help inform that work as we move forward so rather than have people start from scratch on what are we going to do why are we doing that so the thought was it would be helpful to have guiding principles for this mission and vision work and it was also important to provide information when they're doing their audience research and brand marketing to explore these concepts, ones that resonate with future students with communities etc this is really just the very early stages the board will ultimately approve the mission and vision for the new institution but that's a ways down the road this is really at the very early stages here to set the stage and get the conversation going and starting to include more people as we think about this moving forward okay that's helpful there is a discussion here about a resolution on the guiding principles that we need to move as a board to accept the guiding principles does anybody have any questions about that or can we accept a motion to accept these guiding principles for the work in developing a mission and vision I had a question from one of them I think these are the right ones where it states along with CCB the NCE will be the affordable and accessible public institution of higher education for many place bound learners what what is a place bound learner that's a good question we're trying to get at the fact that many learners in our communities and many of our rural communities cannot travel cannot go elsewhere to access higher education so that's what I mean by place bound so meaning that the ability to physically get to a Vermont State College location is important versus remote learning I'm not sure I still understand yeah it's important and it's important to be able to get to a physical location many learners are willing and able to learn remotely others will benefit from that physical presence on a campus or at a learning location some face-to-face mode or some hybrid of the two but that face-to-face physical presence will be important from any of the place based learners or is important I guess I had two comments on that one one is I'm sure you spent a lot of time on wording it but I didn't understand what that meant so I don't know if there's better clarity even with a footnote I also think that statement almost makes decisions if we're going to say that we're going to be physically accessible to everyone it means that we have to have a physical presence in places not necessarily maybe the way we do it today but I just found that one line to really put a pretty big stake in the ground that's my observation I would just share I know at least through the work of the select committee that there was recognition that it's that rural institutions play a very important role in the communities where they are and one of the reasons not only economically but also the access piece because there are students that if you're not physically present will not otherwise access higher education so it's to the benefit of Vermont to have physical presence for students as well again there are multiple modalities where we can open up courses to students across the state is also important but there is real significance to having a physical place in rural parts of the state where otherwise there are people that will not be able to access particularly for your degrees without having those campus locations so I don't necessarily disagree with that philosophy or thinking I just think it comes with implications to the strategy and so I just didn't want that one in particular to go kind of unnoticed by the trustees if we're going to use this as guiding principles and how we do work so I appreciate you calling that out Jeanette from my perspective I think that that is a critical guiding principle and I'm pleased to see it highlighted as part of no one's work are there any when the select group was meeting it was during the course of the winter and during the course of the winter with the last year's academic year there was more remote than there had ever been available to our students were there any lessons learned or any people who got access to education I mean just this is anecdotal evidence but was there more accessibility because we were more remote and they were not available to go to a campus was there did the hybrid situation promote that I mean how did that actually play out I think we do have anecdotal information that there were people that were able to access education remotely last year that otherwise would not have been able to access it and I know one example was that I know one of the faculty members at Vermont Tech shared with me was a 37 year old stonemason in Peachham who was able to take courses last year but then if VTC didn't make those courses available again for this coming year would be unable to complete his degree so having been able to sort of start on a degree through online he wouldn't be able to continue and complete it unless those opportunities were still available to him because of his his work and his life otherwise certainly one of the challenges in certain parts of the state we still have those broadband and connectivity issues so it you know there definitely is still concerns there that need to be addressed and I see Joyce has put her screen on so I am quite sure Joyce has other wisdom to share with us as well well I will respond to Lynn's question about lessons learned because I would say that Janet your question I think is a good one CCD is definitely the outlier in this because we don't believe so much in place based we are trying to really I mean this fall for example only 19% of our classes are going to be in person and our enrollment is so far looking really strong so it's really a difference in philosophy because I believe that CCD has a responsibility to help people learn to learn online because if we look to the future professional development and all of that is going to be you're going to be accessing it virtually and online so how do we think about moving away from and I get that the college campuses are place based and they're such a vital piece of the community so it's hard to reconcile those two campuses so I don't want to influence that but I will say that I think from a CCD perspective we are thinking much much less about geography based and more about how do we make programs accessible in a variety of ways that allow people to learn remotely and some of the lessons we've learned I will say that one of the I think the popular modalities that continue post COVID is synchronous online where people have the benefit of having a classroom experience but they're along with online but they don't have to drive to a location they can access a course maybe every other Tuesday night from six to eight and they're with their faculty member and students remotely and then the balance of the class they get the best of in some ways the best of both without having to travel. Any other discussion Pat? Thank you I just wanted to piggyback a little bit with a slightly different response than what Joyce offered and thank you Janet for bringing this up I mean yes we too learned a lot of lessons during COVID about the ability to deliver decent and well thought out online content however every month tackle up all of our A connection with the hands-on lab experience be it clinical or labs here on Randolph Center campus or in Williston so finding that right balance of what can be remote delivery but still enable students to get that hands-on experience is really critical but we too are looking at how can we offer more remote delivery for example this fall our mechanical our computing and engineering programs will be offering all their 1000 level courses online and the plan is to add 2000 level 3000-4000 so we can eventually provide that in what we're calling what is called a high flex model so that students could be here in person in class in lab or they can take it asynchronously through a recorded experience and then come for low residency lab opportunities so and we're also looking at how might we decentralize delivery of our programs you know working through our career tech ed centers that have lab facilities so I think that non-place based answer is going to be different for various programs also we also hope to maintain an opportunity for a traditional residential experience we know that we've got to open up our programming to be more remote for working adults and other non-traditional students so that's a wave of the future one I would argue we're probably a little behind schedule but we're not on within many parts of the Vermont State colleges but more specifically here but something we want to catch up on quickly so I think it's a combination of place based traditional but also an opportunity to capture new markets by providing other modalities to reach out to students my thought we have Thomas News pew hi thanks at Castleton University one of the things we realize is past year is that the online learning was a real boon to a lot of students who had access at the same time we had a considerable number of students who took a leave of absence or deferred matriculation because their preference was for face to face intervention so the online better serve some students or at least did their access and it discouraged others we also have more than a third of our students are out of state they come here primarily in a residential capacity and it's unclear that we would attract those students through strictly online program delivering option so it's a real mix some anecdotal surveys this is not statistically verified suggests most students want to mix they want to be able to take some courses online and they want some face to face there's recognition of the convenience and the ease particularly around scheduling with the asynchronous online but there is also still a significant demand for person to person same time in place contact to both the comments from the last three speakers from the institutions and I just posted in the chat the line that maybe addresses what I'll call that flexibility or being able to do it this way and that way that's less explicit unless it's implied in the maintain focus on quality access maybe that's what you meant but when I read these the first time and I saw them in place what I didn't see was I almost read it as as not focusing on the other types of learning the remotes and other methods so whether that's implied under the word access or whether it's missing from the list you know that we're trying to also be flexible to various ways to educate I just didn't see I didn't see that unless it's implied in one of the other lines and I didn't understand okay Nolan yeah I Jan I mean that that's the intent the intent is a multimodal solution there is no one solution that will meet all of the learners that the NCE will engage and I thank you for examples from from Tom Pat and others so I guess that's what I mean by access different students will access programs offered in different modalities modalities that attend to these pieces the quality the access cost and relevance so it's it's it's really a multimodal solution is being the intent here any further discussion or questions does that clarify things Janet go ahead yeah I just first of all I support what you said about why these statements are so important because I do believe you use them as decision-making guardrails and so I just want to make sure that you know as trustees if we are going to we have to approve these in whatever format that we as trustees understand that there's guardrails now right and I think guardrails that we can achieve our goals with the system so those are the that's why I think this one on place-bound learners is a very important statement that we have to recognize is there and if access means all these kinds of ways people can learn I can live with that Bill so we we were just talking about the presidential search previously we were talking here about a vision and mission statement for the NCE and I think it's so I think interestingly the very last question on page four of this document says the new president will need to support this vision and have the skill set to advance it and so I think the linkage between this work and the presidential search is really important and so so I think we need to observe that and be aware of that and think about the timing of the two processes because we're not it's my understanding we're not it's not our intent to hire a new president to try to define the mission and vision for the institution we're hiring a new president to implement the vision and mission of the new institution and in order to hire that person we need to have this clarity so that the search process can use it as part of the search process so so I think we need to just be clear and understand the timing of coming to closure on some of this work in order for it to be effectively used in the presidential search process and that we're clear that that's what we're doing and I don't know maybe I missed it or maybe it's clear but I think just to understand that the two go hand in hand okay Nolan I'm going to ask you a question as a follow up to that as the lead person on this mission and vision and what you plan to do as the leader of this process going forward um what are the next steps and what is the timeline as we head into this presidential search starting with say in October that's that's what I'm wanting to try to make sure we understand and have a clarity of how we're moving forward together yeah and I'd also like to have that also lines up with our matrix of accountability and our KPIs I mean this is for Wilson working with you and the presidents and can you clarify that a little bit for us so we understand where we go next sure I think the the next step is to broaden the circle and so vision points going to do that in their listening tour so they're going to gather more input and feedback about these ideas in that process and that's going to help refine these ideas I mean this is a proposal at this point so really we're just seeking support for the guiding principles the guiding principles along with expanding the circles going to refine these ideas in terms of timeline time time is of the essence the transformation work has begun the core teams are meeting the sub teams are starting to meet so our hope is that we'll have essentially a mission and vision to share in October at an October board meeting for your consideration and approval and I think that would dovetail well with the search timeline as it's been articulated the other piece I would add is that we're currently looking at the October board meeting as being when we would discuss brand and identity for the new institution so I think this will bring the pieces together well to have it come back to the board in October okay I think we're trying to get the timeline so we see where we decide what and how they relate to each other anyone else have any questions okay we have the resolution with me I don't know if any I think that said it went out in October on August 3rd the resolution is it is posted in the board materials that are posted on the website I don't know if I have access to share my screen nope I don't but I don't know if Jen is the gist of the resolution is that we are approving the guiding principles to move forward as we work on this mission and vision is that what it if you want I can read it out if that would be helpful that would be helpful thank you so it's resolution number 2021 020 adopting guiding principles for developing the mission and vision of the new university okay there we are we need to listen to me everyone can see that it's resolved that we adopt these guiding principles for developing culture and community for an affordable institutional mission come on further down okay further down is this the inclusion of all of these things we're still not at the place bound learners it's right down yes establish the answer so basically this is a resolution that states that these guiding principles are what the board approves obviously we're they're not set in concrete these are this is a work in progress is that correct it's correct this is to help inform the work as the as people come together to work on the mission and vision okay is there a motion for this okay Karen makes motion second by Ryan any further questions or discussions or have we clarified what we're doing here and I did have one question at the end when you say learn local apply globally what is the significance of that why do you need it in this resolution you know in thinking about the mission and vision a lot of the concept that's being developed envisions learning addressing problems within local communities and so the idea here is that we're not going to create learning experiences that are my optically focused on one little particular problem within a particular community rather they're addressing problems that are certainly relevant within our communities and state but can be more broadly applied to national and global significance so for example you know part of our programming array could have programming in the area of environmental climate related science where students and faculty are working on climate environmental issues in our local communities that are very very significant and will help to solve the problems in our local communities but they're scalable they're also applicable on national and global scales and that's the kind of learning that we would want to support and develop and you don't have that in the rest of the other premises that you could still do the same thing with it's nothing else it's just a catch all claws what I'm trying to get to is that I just find it unusual and maybe it's just me and if I saw this and someone would ask me well why don't you have learned locally and apply globally but that's just it's meant to it's almost meant to be something of a tagline really that summarizes pardon or you could use it as a catch all a catch all that's right a catch all for some of the thinking that follows okay good thank you anyone else we have a motion on the table no further discussion doesn't appear to be those in favor please indicate by saying I I I any opposition okay so Nolan you've got your work cut out for you thank you um we will be seeing more of that again um now we have the approval of federal her funding Sharon Scott we have that with us as we look at what that involves good afternoon thanks for a few minutes I hopefully will only take a couple of minutes of your time over the last couple of cycles the board of trustees has approved higher education emergency relief grants they're also known as hearth grants for our member institutions of the Vermont state colleges um known colloquially as her three were created as part of the American rescue plan that was signed into law on March 11th 2021 these grants have now been awarded to our colleges and require board of trustees approval before we can actually receive them normally these requests as you know would first go to the finance and facilities committee before coming to the board however the timing of receipt of the materials and you'll see that some of them were only received in the last week as well as spending requirements did not allow us to do so in this case so as shown on page 26 of your packet the total grant awards are $22.5 million which is composed of 11.6 million dollars in emergency aid to students and 10.9 million in institutional funds to respond to the pandemic the emergency aid to students will be awarded in the coming weeks and months and the institutional funds will be used to address pandemic related deficits and lost revenues the expectation is that these funds the institutional ones will be result in carry forward for FY 22 into FY 23 which will help us with our budget forecast for the next upcoming fiscal year so the request today is for you to approve the her three grants as shown on page 26 and the total awards if you're looking inclusive of all her funding is also shown on the bottom of that page so we have we need a motion to approve these funds Brian making the motion who seconds it Sean Testor seconds it any discussion or questions of Sharon Scott seeing none all those in favor of approving these funds for the use of the institutions and for student aid please indicate by saying aye aye opposed I assume no one's opposed okay Sharon good luck thank you this money will come in handy I'm sure thank you very much and I know the colleges and the students are very anxious to be able to get started thank you okay thank you um let's see we have um some policies that we received in our packet um um under additional business uh we're going to ask the general council to um go over those first thank you I'm trying to pull it up myself okay so uh we um in in response to a change in federal legislation that relates to the educational benefits available to veterans uh the we are looking to revise policy 301 uh specific to veterans and the residency requirement uh for in-state benefits that they receive in state tuition benefits they receive the um the change in law removes a three-year time frame which was the time frame uh specified by the earlier law within which the veteran must have begun a veteran or a beneficiary of a veteran removes the time frame that they must have begun their um educational pursuits in Vermont and the newest legislation um which is part of a very comprehensive uh and lengthy uh law passed um I believe at the end of last year it removes that three-year requirement so we are removing in policy 301 the three-year time frame uh the federal law now makes it clear that the veteran should does not have to have completed their um their education within the three years they don't have to begun their education within the three years of discharge from military service so it expands the offerings of um of in-state tuition for the veteran for that purpose and it's a pretty um so there are many other changes in this in this law but this is the one that we address within policy 301 I don't believe the other require policy changes at least not at this time and so we have presented to you policy 301 revisions you can see there's a clean clean version as well as an edited version and I'm not sure if people had those in front of them or if they want them on the screen to see what we did um so please let me know what you'd like does anyone have any questions or do we need to put it on the screen seeing no questions we need to have a motion to accept this new version updated version of policy 301 where I have a motion Karen has a motion Ryan Cooney seconds it any other discussion or questions seeing none all those in favor of updating the policy 301 for in-state tuition to comply with federal law please indicate by saying aye aye thank you thank you very much yes I do have a question it's for the presidents in general okay do we have any idea about veteran use of the B.S.C. in general and in particular go ahead Pat why don't you start yes I can't give you numbers right off the top of my head Karen but for example our professional pilots program is a very popular veterans program and I see Brian shaking his head we have other programs that veterans come to seek certification etc so yes we have some pretty significant veteran impact it varies year to year and of course we have agreements with the National Guard around trying to promote the National Guard scholarships that are available to students so that veteran slash military presence is significant for us and I suspect all we'll go to Joyce Karen usually and I don't have the figures for this summer but usually we serve about 300 military military connected students a semester and every year at graduation we do a special thing with the governor and we graduate anywhere between 20 and 30 veterans each year so it's a pretty significant and we actually have some special funding from two philanthropists we have a full-time veterans counselor and have done a lot of work and I'm happy to sometime if the board wants an update I'd be happy to have Kyle Ames come and share what we do with veterans because we're pretty proud of that it's a really important population for us Andy Lane Collins we're also noted as a veteran friendly campus and have programs that are of interest to veterans we have a very active veteran involvement through our veteran summit that is an annual event and has been offered both on the Linden campus on the Johnson campus as well as taken to Burlington for wider participation so very active on the veterans oh Thomas yeah sorry Jonathan Spiro couldn't be here today we enroll between 50 and 70 veterans every semester and we have an active presence I remember a few years ago at one of the CCV campuses we did get some people who talked to us about their efforts for veterans and the concerns that some of the campuses have and some of the colleges have with veterans being able to participate as students sometimes it was it's different from what you do when you're in the service and then when you're an independent person you're actually participating in a class maybe Joyce can remember that presentation yeah and I would just say also there was a really nice CAX clip last week on the veterans town hall and it featured Kyle Ames who is our veterans person I think it was last Thursday or Friday but yeah I mean for all of us the transition and so the as much support as we all can provide to them in that transition whether it's on a college campus or at CCV is really it's really important I think this is very useful information and I recall having conversation about it several years ago but I'd like to request that we keep this particular piece of data upfront and center for us as a piece that we look at with regularity as we look at other things with regularity and if it's possible to I think keeping it in focus means that it's a point of improved efforts that we're always focused on doing if we're doing it well and better I think it's a very important issue and it's a very important population for us not only to serve for them but to serve for the system I think veterans bring a very interesting perspective to the classroom and obviously to society as a whole once they increase their education maybe Epsilon has that somewhere another data point for Wilson Garland and his KPIs I think he has nothing else to do right? I think Epsilon was tracking demographically who our students are so I believe that is something that we've been thinking about but doesn't hurt to make sure we've got it included good point thank you any other discussion or questions on additional business seeing none we are going to ask for public comment and I'm asking Jen if she has anyone who has signed up or anyone who would like to share their questions for us at this time anyone in the public who would like to leave a comment you can raise your hand now I do not have anyone signed up at the website but now is the time public to raise your hand okay seeing none we can go into board training I guess I'll turn this back over to the general council and we can proceed with board training on policy 311 policy 311a and policy 316 that's right thank you I also want to welcome Catherine Santiago who is the assistant general counsel and system investigator and she is the co-presenting this training and Catherine I think that you were going to put the slides up is that right is it working for you it is not it's disabled for me okay I think I one second we can make that happen hold on great that the VSD has to address our obligations with specific legal challenges and we are talking about sexual misconduct discrimination harassment and abuse of minors this training will provide trustees with an overview of these policies as well as provide specific information regarding a trustee's role in safekeeping our communities the overview here so we're talking about Title IX regulations in particular and those changed August 14 of 2020 many of you were here as we went through those policies in detail prior to voting on the changes in our own policies to reflect the federal legislative changes and not legislative federal regulatory changes so the policies that we revised last year are 311a and 311 311a specifically involves sexual harassment and assault other sexual misconduct 311 addresses discrimination and harassment and 316 is about the protection of minors and the relatively new policy that the VSC adopted about two years ago I'm going to have Catherine who is going to lead you through the Title IX regulations as well as 311a Thank you Patty good afternoon everyone so I'll begin with Title IX regulations and so Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 addresses discrimination based on sex and it applies to any school that receives federal monies it also protects all constituents of the VSC and is enforced federally by the Department of Education the current iteration of the Title IX regulations became effective as Patty mentioned August 14, 2020 the regulations were controversial and remain so and are being reviewed currently by the immediate administration so there may be some adjustments in the future as we go on but as at present the current regulations are still in force and effect so the Title IX harassment is distinguished by three areas the first being quid pro quo the next is severe pervasive and objectively offensive behavior and the final one is sexual assault as defined by the Query Act and Query defines it as any sexual act directed against another person without consent of the victim including instances where the victim is capable of consent it includes rape, fondling, incest as well as statutory rape so just some background the Query Act is the gene-clearly disclosure of campus security and campus crime statistics and the aim of the Query Act is to provide transparency around campus crime policy and statistics for any crime that poses a serious or ongoing threat it was signed into law in 1990 it was after an attack in 1986 and homicide of a college student gene-clearly it applies to all colleges that receive federal funding it includes the report of many violent crimes in regard to sex-based crimes it includes dating violence domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking and in the reports the personal information of the individuals involved are not released so Title IX and the current regulations colleges must take action when a three-prong standard is met and so the problems are actual knowledge by the college the prohibited conduct happened in the college educational program or activity and it occurred within the United States so those are the requirements in order to be be able to be go through the specific Title IX process and so we'll move on to how that relates to policy 311a and so policy 311a incorporates the requirements of Title IX into the BSC system and applies to the colleges as well as administration and so the policy is contained there below most of us are familiar with those but it's there for you to review so policy 311a along with the scope of coverage as defined by Title IX is incorporated herein so if you take a look and we're going to discuss the scope of coverage shortly but there's also an emphasis on the newest iteration of Title IX and how it's incorporated into 311a and so the emphasis which is a little bit new is the prohibition on retaliation as it explicitly extends to people who decide not to participate in investigations so that is there was also always the prohibition on retaliation and I think it was presumed that it extended to that but the new regulations make it very explicit that someone either declines to be involved or declines to speak or be involved in an investigation there isn't retaliation that can occur additionally the preferred terms that I think have been best practice for quite a few years have been codified and are now required and we included that in 311a as well and so the complainant is used throughout to reflect the person who was allegedly agreed by the person who is being accused who's known as their correspondent or exhibiting the prohibited conduct and so the complainant is the person whether or not they filed a complaint or came forward that is the person who is identified as the complainant so they're not required to report they will be identified as the complainant so looking a little bit closer at the scope of coverage of 311a so here we delve into some of the factors used to determine whether the prohibitive conduct occurred within a program or activity the prohibited conduct is bifurcated so there is Title IX sexual harassment and that reflects all the requirements of the Department of Education that we previously discussed and then there's non-Title IX sexual harassment which includes the prohibited conduct but it alludes to behavior like this or outside of a program or activity of the college so it allows the colleges to address behavior that may be inappropriate and prohibited conduct that may not have been captured under Title IX sexual harassment so Policy 311a the scope of coverage as to the specific Title IX sexual harassment includes the six general areas which is quid pro quo severe pervasive and objectively offensive which is a shift from prior standards which were not as stringent the next category is sexual assault domestic violence dating violence and sex-based stalking and then in comparison the Title IX as I mentioned before non-Title IX sexual misconduct is mostly the same conduct as the Title IX sexual harassment except for the broader application outside of the program activities so separate from the policy there are the implementing procedures and so just to have you familiarized with the implementing procedures themselves what they do is provide the details for supportive measures the resources that are available to students and employees and it provides the process for reporting complaints selecting an outcome or a route that that complaint could take notices, investigations reports, hearings sanctions and appeals and so all of those are very detailed and followed extensively in the implementing procedures and it gives timeframes it provides expectations for constituents who are going through the process and it gives them a place to refer so in regard to the implementing procedures and the outcomes, the complainant may request a remedy or an outcome and the complainant has a variety of choices so they may choose no action so they may divulge that there was behavior but they are deciding not to take any formal or informal action they may also choose to file an informal complaint and if appropriate deemed appropriate by the Title IX coordinator that will be something that would be pursued and some of the options there to resolve informal complaints or informal resolutions are mediation they could also utilize restorative justice model approaches in order to resolve those and then a final outcome that can be chosen is a formal complaint which results in a formal decision and so in rare that will go through what the formal decision is responsible for the formal decision shortly but in rare circumstances I just wanted to point out that if there is behavior that is egregious enough in rare circumstances the Title IX coordinator does have discretion to move forward with a complaint even if the complainant does not wish to file a complaint and so that is reserved for the most egregious matters but certainly that is something that is well considered and then in that realm the university is moving forward with a complaint on behalf of the complainant so who makes the formal decision if a formal complaint process is selected it results in the formal decision and that formal decision is made by the responsible college administrator and so the assigned responsible college administrator depends on the status of the respondent actually so it's not so much it's the scope of who the complainant is it depends on who is alleged to have committed the inappropriate behavior so if this respondent will look at whether the respondent is a student an employee the chancellor or a trustee and then related to who the respondent is they go to the accompanying as the slide mentions that person or president or the board chair would be the responsible college administrator so contained within the policy there are reporting responsibilities and so our policy requires that all VSC affiliated individuals report behavior that may violate 311a or be prohibited conduct if you become aware of a violation you are required to report to one of the following individuals the first being college title line coordinators and these are listed in the appendices implementing procedures and also on a link that will be provided as well and it's regularly updated because it changes because people transition to new positions or new roles so it is great to double check that resource to make sure you're reaching out to the appropriate title line coordinator but even if you get it wrong or it's not quite the perfect fit that they'll make sure you get to the right person and pass that information along could also report to the college dean of students college president and if it is related to the office of the chancellor the director of human resources so what should be reported what should you report so it's recommended and encouraged if you pass along all information to the college dean however do not in conversations with whoever you're receiving the information from do not elicit further information or try to investigate or conduct the many investigation the reasoning behind that is to reduce the number of times a complainant may have to recount their experience and also to preserve the integrity of the investigation certainly if you pass that information to the college dean the title line coordinator immediately the title line coordinator reaches out to the complainant to provide resources support services and get the necessary information to move the complain along and figure out the route that it will be taken so we wrap up in regard to 311a and so we're going to move on to policy 311 so that is our anti-discrimination process as identified federally and by Vermont law which has broader protections than the federal requirements and so our policy is stated below just keeping a look there if you want to give it a quick read so the discrimination definition is provided here and it explicitly is tied to a protected category so the behavior must have been based on a protected class status in order to find a violation and so I know there are instances where people feel as though they've been agreed and there's been unfair treatment and sometimes they will describe that as discrimination and so although it may feel as though it is discrimination in order for it to be discrimination according to the law it needs to be based on a protected class it just is an unfair treatment based on some other category that's outside the school of the listed categories that are listed here and so these are the federal and Vermont protected categories incorporated in policy 311 and includes everything that would be a protected category but I just wanted to note in regard to sex a protection and prohibition of discrimination based on gender pregnancy sexual orientation as well as gender identity and there are more inclusion but those are the highlights I just sometimes it's not really apparent that sex includes those other categories as well so policy 311 does define sexual harassment and the sexual harassment that does not meet any standard that would fall into 311a that is where this would be able to address some of that behavior so if the conduct is not severe, pervasive and objectively offensive that is where policy 311 sexual harassment could come into address behavior that's problematic or inappropriate and otherwise prohibited policy 311 also has a separate definition for harassment and here what's addressed is inappropriate behavior based on any identified protected category that includes incidents that are verbal written visual or physical or any communication for instance which is very common nowadays which are emails and social media so the harassment that may be exhibited that way are also captured if it's on any social media platform that would be something that would be considered as well so policy 311 also includes a prohibition on particular relationships and so the official title of this policy is related on professional conduct but basically it speaks to consensual relationships that are still prohibited even though they're consensual so it prohibits any relationship between a student and employee where the employee is or may be perceived to have power and authority over that student so here you'll find the link for support measures resources, policies and the Title IX coordinators contact information so I'm going to pass it back over to Patty for policy 316 sure although perhaps this might be a good place just to find out if there are any questions that are specific to Title IX policy 311a or policy 311 before we get into policy 316 it's hard for me to see so if with the screen up it's hard to see so if you have a if you are raising your hand please let us know please speak out so I'm going to go forward still time for questions at the end if you were just trying to unmute yourself so oh yes sorry so my question is in terms of the reporting because this is training for trustees I assume there's also training for staff and faculty and my question is is there an expectation of reporting if it comes to your awareness or is there a mandating of reporting if it comes to your awareness there's a mandated there's a requirement to report for staff and faculty not for students for so anyone any non-student affiliated VSC individual is required to report and that requirement Bill would be the VSC requires it our policies require that our employees, our faculty report if they have knowledge or have heard that there is I think it's important to understand that that's the nature of the requirement I think it's also important to make clear that it's also the responsibility of trustees so if a trustee becomes aware of something and this came up in the Penn State case in it this is really what generated the policy and the requirement from our insurance company that we have policy 316 and we provide training to trustees but it also applies to 311 and 311a if a trustee is aware of a situation of harassment sexual assault, abuse of a minor it's an obligation of a trustee as well to report that to us so we can investigate it because if you're aware of it we will be deemed, the Vermont State Colleges will be able to have notice of it and then if we don't do anything then we are indifferent to it and we face legal liability so part of the reason for doing the training is making sure that all the trustees understand that if they themselves are contacted by somebody about any of these kinds of behaviors that they know to reach back and report those and again we have in the policies there's a list of coordinators that it can be reported to but you could always report it to the Chancellor's office to me, to Patty, to Catherine but just make sure you report it so it gets addressed that's really critical The earlier list of those who are reporting if it's if it's a trustee reported to the I think it was the chair of the board although I may be wrong etc there were two obvious absences but given what we know is in the headlines right now even those at the very top can sometimes be the perpetrator or alleged perpetrator back up one there so that the if it involves an employee you report to the president or designee so what this is talking about is who makes the final determination so you can report the behavior to the Title IX coordinators are any individual who would be able to take the report as Sophie mentioned it could be general counsel it could be me it could be a number of individuals throughout the campuses Title IX coordinators it could be the president of the university it could be a number of individuals but this particular slide speaks to so this is who makes the ultimate finding do you have a slide further on that asks about if you become aware of a violation report to pass it to one of the following yeah so these are some of the places where you can report yeah I just want to be clear that even if it were to be at some point the chancellor the person that they were concerned about or if it was the president themselves there was some place to report that absolutely the other piece I would add to and is we do have the whistleblower ethics point hotline as well so that's always available as an opportunity to report things and this kind of conduct can be reported through that as well you can either do it anonymously or you can do it with your contact information and the whistleblower hotline information is available on the front page of the VSC website so that's another alternative of people I mean obviously as trustees you kind of know who some of the senior leadership people are you know who to reach out to but if there's anyone that's watching this as the live stream wouldn't know who to go to that's also an opportunity that's available to them to report as well thank you we'll look at policy 316 which the VSC adopted just a few years ago maybe two years ago it addresses obligations to prevent the abuse of minors we as Sophie indicated over the last eight to ten years there have been numerous incidents in the national realm where it appeared that perhaps some people knew something going on and so the this is a new policy but it also interacts with 311 or 311a so it really it doesn't stand on its own completely we this is to yeah so policy 316 requires that the trustees report knowledge or suspected abuse of a minor does not need to be sexual abuse it can be neglect or other abuse and you would report similar to the lines that we were discussing before a policy 311a coordinator general counsel president chancellor chair of the board director of human resources so very similar in that sense Bill but it is the report needs to come to someone in a place where they have a role we have a role to move it along according to our policy if they have a reasonable suspicion of abuse that what does that mean so it can mean that they witness something it can mean something that is told to them by a minor it can be what other adults are saying there are many combinations and the obligation is to if you're signaling something is wrong then we would prefer you report it and not be cautious like yeah I'm not sure I should act on that so we prefer that the report happen these why do we have reports on minors well as Sophie indicated these other scandals have happened but we do have minors present at our institutions as matriculated students we have them as dual enrollment students we have campers who come and do special events at the different institutions so we do impact we do have interactions with minors and many we want to ensure that our institutional leaders are informed if there is an allegation if something happens we do not want the institutional leaders to be uninformed the Vermont has a law on mandating reporting and that is Vermont law specifically identifies mandated reporters there's a pretty lengthy list of who is a mandated reporter whether it be state nurses or K through 12 teachers physicians so some of the individuals who work on our campuses might be considered mandated reporters but VSC has expanded that to anybody who does have knowledge or suspicion a reasonable suspicion of abuse we want to limit the VSC's obligation to report to the same categories that are identified through the state we want to expand that so we all VSC employees and our trustees as well are required to report according to the VSC policy if they are a mandated reporter they must also make a report according to law most of the times those individuals are professionals and that is part of their professional conduct so they know how to make that report and we are going to have it right here that you would call this number and that is if you suspect that there is a problem if you think there is an immediate danger to a child then don't wait call 9-1-1 call local law enforcement you still would have to report to the family services within 24 hours if indeed even though you make a 9-1-1 call I think finally the reason so policy 316 came upon us because the issues that were happening in the country brought to the forefront the need to have mandated reporting and then that caused the VSC to also look further at our own policies and provide a specific policy to stop child abuse once again I do want to warn that we don't believe that the VSC trustees or other members of the VSC community should do their own investigation because of the potential to interfere or somehow harm the investigation itself so the investigators will the investigation will be done by professionals but we have an obligation to report I should note that policy 316 is also contained and 311A policies and information is on so that is a great place to look further at this at our policy and I guess that's the end of our presentation but we'd like to open up for questions are there any questions Bill go ahead again so this is training for us as trustees but it also encompasses training these are things which don't apply to just us as trustees but apply to all VSC employees and students just to be clear if a student is an employee I mean if they're not I mean it applies equally to students who are aware I guess it's hard for me to keep track of who's what level applies where but is this these are mandated these are required reporting requirements for students as well as employees in terms of reporting something which they believe is like a violation of these policies I don't believe that policy 316 would extend to students in the case they are not an employee I think that would be difficult to enforce so I should read it specifically but I don't believe right here well it does it applies to students as well yes so apologize for that so are students aware of this I'm thinking of instances where we've heard instances of hazing which in fact sometimes has been physically hurtful sexually hurtful and you become aware of it I don't want to deal with that it is my understanding that students are trained on all three of these policies at the beginning of each year that's my understanding thank you any other questions okay thank you to both of the councils for going through that that was helpful we have any more questions on this feel free to let the administration know and we can review the information again we now are at an executive session Megan do you want to go into executive session please I can the board of trustees pursuant to 1VSA 331A1B to discuss labor relations agreements with employees 1VSA 313A1E to discuss pending litigation and 1VSA 313A1F to discuss the legal services because premature general public knowledge of these discussions would place the VSC at a substantial disadvantage no formal or binding action shall be taken in executive session along with the members of the board present in the meeting in its discretion the board invites the chancellor and the general council to attend assistant general council I mean assistant general council I don't think Catherine needs to join given what we're covering I think it's just Patty and I we'll give Catherine the rest of the afternoon okay well we have a motion on the floor is there a second for that second Karen seconds it any further questions seeing none all those in favor of going to executive session for these reasons please indicate by saying aye aye okay everybody looks like we're all set okay we're going to go into the breakout room thank you everybody else for being here we'll be out shortly we hope okay can everyone hear me now we are out of executive session at 430 and we are trying to vote on some resolutions and some motions can we share the resolution Patty this is a resolution do you want to go over Patty real quick so we can have a motion this is resolution 2021-021 it's an authorizing settlement related to EBS licenses resolve the pursuant to VSC policy 426 the board authorizes from a psychologist to enter into a settlement agreement by which utopian wireless corporation shall publicly market and sell the EBS licenses and divide the processes such sale pursuant to the terms settlement agreement with utopian be it further resolved the chancellor of the Vermont state colleges of their designates hereby authorized to negotiate terms and conditions consistent with the foregone for the transfer of one of both properties I need a motion on that I'll move that okay Sean testers second second second okay we have a motion to second any questions or any discussion seeing none all those in favor of the motion and the resolution please indicate by saying aye aye aye closed okay thank you patty and we also have a motion to accept the contract negotiated for the do we indicate which ones the end of you online faculty you're muted patty sorry end of you online unit sorry about that okay so someone would like to make a motion to accept the contract to bargain agreement with the end of you online faculty and mazlin it moves second second from sue any discussion or questions seeing none all those in favor accepting that negotiation please indicate by saying aye aye closed okay thank you and the last one is a collective bargain agreement with the vermouth state college staff federation we have a motion to accept that negotiation agreement sure seconded by jim okay we have got that motion on the table any discussion or questions seeing none all those in favor please indicate by saying aye aye opposed no opposition okay those have both passed now we are finished with our agenda and I need a motion to adjourn ryan moved who is the second mazlin is the second any discussion or questions I hope not okay seeing none all those in favor please indicate by saying aye aye I think we're all done see you later thank you