 So my name is Sandy Baird. I'm one of the members of a small little group who's trying to construct a new kind of educational institution called the Vermont Institute of Community and International Involvement. The original name of Burlington College, which was also a small little college devoted to an alternate form of education. We've been doing these discussions every Wednesday night, sometimes in partnership with the People's Law School and the Attorney General's Office and sometimes just with our own sweet selves. So I will introduce tonight because for numbers of reasons, Julie Roberts, who will talk to us a little bit, I hope, about what's happening with UVM in all of its recent, at least it appears to most citizens, confusion, put it nicely, I suppose. And we did a similar group discussion about a month ago in which a lot of people who are interested in UVM as citizens, we don't know much of really what's going on there, but we did that and it got so much interest that we wanted to do a repeat and an update on what's happening at UVM right now. And we invited Julie Roberts, the head of the United Academics to speak to us tonight and to lead a discussion and to answer all your questions. So thank you, Julie. Again, I've lost you, somebody's okay, Julie, thanks for being here. And I would just begin by saying that I believe that UVM is so important to the whole state of Vermont and the cuts and particularly the cuts in the humanities is heartbreaking in a way because a great university, of course, should be always committed to the teaching of the humanities and I find the current and I think citizens across this state are very upset at the thought that we will lose some of our great humanities. So maybe Julie can give us an update on what's happening. She is the head, as I said, of the United Academics. She's also a linguistics professor. She received a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. Correct, Julie? That's right. Okay, so here's Julie and anytime, I don't know how you want to do this, Julie, if you want to be interrupted with questions or if you want to wait till the end, whatever it is that you want to do, why don't you? No, I don't mind being interrupted, but I can't really talk and look at my notes and monitor the chat at the same time. So at least until the end and then I will look at the chat. First of all, thank you for inviting me. It's really great to be here and it's so fun to see some emeriti faculty who I haven't seen in quite a while. So it's great that you're here. I wish we were here on a more positive topic. It is, I was here last month when Senator Phil Baruth spoke. He spoke, of course, eloquently as he always does. And I think filled you in very well in terms of what was going on and is going on at UVM. So as difficult as it is to go in his footsteps, I will try to give you an update about what's happened since then or at least what we found out about since then. And I wish I could say that things were getting better, but I think they are actually getting worse, not only because we, as I said, new things are happening but also we're starting to realize some of the things that were happening behind the scenes that it took a while to figure out. The most upsetting thing to me now is something that my colleague, David Fiorzegh, calls murder by suicide of departments and programs. And what this means is that you all heard from Phil that classics, religion, geology and a number of other small programs were being eliminated. We were kind of counting, not really counting, but hoping that the shared governance process as battered as it is at UVM would still be available to us to try to work against these cuts and eliminations. What we found in the last month is that in fact, individual departments and programs are being forced into, in most cases, deals with the administration to cut their own programs and therefore presumably save their jobs. Obviously I am all for saving everyone's job, but they're put in a really untenable situation in which the only way to save even tenure track jobs and tenured jobs is to make these deals. So as far as I know, religion has agreed to join the anthropology program. I don't believe that is saving their major. So even though in some ways this may sound like a step forward, I know those of you have taught at UVM, you realize that without the major, it is quite difficult to do your research and exemplify the teacher model that we've all been, everyone is told that UVM is famous for. I'm not sure about classics, but perhaps we have someone here who knows. I did speak with a professor of geology who had been very hopeful that they would be able to move to another college and has found out recently that that's not going to be allowed and they are losing their masters as well as their bachelor's degree. And at least that's the state of things right now. They're being pretty much starved out. All their money for teaching assistants and research assistants has been pulled back. So they can't really recruit new graduate students which has effectively killed their master's program. Their bachelor's program, they have been from what he said today, they have been given I believe two years to graduate as many students as they can and then that's ending as well. So as I said, things are even more grim I think than you may have heard last month because we're just finding that the administration has gone on to really subvert the shared governance process and force these changes through as uncontested changes which means it would be very hard to stop them at the faculty senate level as we were hoping to have the opportunity to do. I also heard about a new program shutting down which I don't believe Phil told you about last month. I think it's been a bit newer than that or at least slower to come to public attention possibly because it's not in the College of Arts and Sciences where most of this started out and that is the elimination of the degree in early childhood special education and they are keeping their master's program as I understand it, but losing their bachelor's degree and this is terrible news for several reasons. The first is that there is an unending need for early childhood special education. I mean, I don't think I have to present charts and graphs to convince you of that it's ever increasing. And although they are keeping the master's degree it is possible and in fact it's not, well, let me say it this way, it's not necessary to be able to teach in this field to have a master's degree. You can do that with a bachelor's degree and a teaching endorsement, which is what undergraduate students were receiving in this program. So now in order to be a qualified teacher of early childhood special ed and be educated in Vermont, they will have to go beyond the bachelor's degree and get a master's degree, which of course is extra expense that many people can't afford. So that is another in my mind tragedy I'm gonna switch gears a little bit and just tell you about where we've been working and that is with trying to gain more access to the board of trustees and to the legislators. So in a couple of working groups we've had, we have two projects, one of which has been going on for a while, the other of which is newer to do letter writing and other campaigning in these having to do with the board of trustees. UA has been pushing a house bill 362, which is one, the goal of this bill is to democratize the board of trustees by adding faculty and staff to the board because right now the board is over half either gubernatorial trustees appointed by the governor or what are called self perpetuating trustees, which is pretty much as bad as it sounds, meaning they just replace themselves as they leave. And these are primarily the people that UVM is counting on for donations and so on. So they're primarily business people of great means. There are legislative trustees, but and we've talked to a lot of these trustees. Unfortunately, they feel marginalized on the board. They feel powerless. I don't think they're quite as powerless as they think they are, but just the fact that they've decided they're powerless takes away a good deal of any power that they have. So we're hoping to add faculty and staff voices to the board of trustees. This bill has been introduced in the house. We're still looking for a sponsor in the Senate. It is sitting right now in the house education committee. So the thrust of our program now is to get at least during this session because the session is rapidly ending and we know it's not gonna go through in this session, but at least get some kind of discussion of it in the committee. And this has been tremendously difficult because people are focused on COVID and understandably. But there are some other things that are discussed in committees and we would love for this to be, as I said, even for an hour, it would be wonderful. The other thrust of this is newer as I said. Oh, the other thing about the board of trustees, sorry, before I say that, is that the board of trustees are particularly inaccessible. They're, in spite of the open meeting law in Vermont, during COVID, these meetings have been not videoed. So if you wanna listen in, and I've tried this and it's almost impossible to know what's going on, you can call in to a number and listen, but you don't know who's talking. You can only hear some of them. And you, as I said, you can, and of course you can't say anything, but that's typical. They do not keep video archives. So these meetings have become quite secret, frankly, and much more so than they were pre-COVID. So another thrust is to call on the board of trustees, and this is what some of the others of us are doing, to open up those meetings. There's no reason that these meetings can't be videoed and people can't be watching on video just as we're doing right here, right now. And this, in fact, is best practices at other universities. This is typical of what we do. Susie. Julie, can you contact trustees individually directly? Some of them, yes, some of them, no. We've been able to, through our little espionage networks, figure, find the emails of some of the board of trustees. And of course, the legislative ones all have legislative emails. However, if you wanna go, be a good doobie and go the regular sanctioned way of contacting the board of trustees, you can, but these emails are vetted and some of them are sent on to the board and some of them are not. And Susie knows this very well. I've had many, many, many complaints from faculty who have sent emails to the board of trustees as well as to the president and provost and have had no reply whatsoever. I will, I'm gonna actually ask someone from that other group to say a couple of words, but first I wanna tell you that I am going to put in the chat for you. Two things from our legislative campaign here about House Bill 362. One is a press kit that we compiled and it has suggested emails, tweets if you're on Twitter, Instagram, you name it, we've got a way to do it and a message for you to send out. Also a link to a website that Caitlin, who's sitting here is, has compiled on our UA website and this gives us, it gives you the text of House Bill 362 in case you don't wanna endure something without having seen it. And also some additional information, including other universities who are doing exactly this. So we are not, I'm not gonna tell you that most do at this point, but more and more are adding faculty and staff and other stakeholders to their boards. So what we're doing is not radical as the administration would like you to believe. As I said, I think, Ken, are you here? Yeah. Okay, great. Ken is part of the working group that's also, that's working primarily on the other end and they're just getting started, but I wanted him just to say a couple of words and then I'm happy to take whatever questions and I have other colleagues here who can help out too. Go ahead, Ken, thank you. Yeah, I mean, I'm glad to answer any questions that anyone might have about the kind of the work and the approach that we're taking, but I wanna keep my comments really short here. And basically just invite any of you who might be willing to help and participate in a writing campaign that we've started, we need to keep it going, we need to increase the participation in it. And probably the easiest way to get you connected is we just, I posted in the chat a link to email address at stopuvmcuts at gmail.com. If you just send an email to that address, give us a little bit about what your interest would be and what you'd be willing to do and we'll help to sort of coordinate and point you in the right direction, give you contact information, sort of give you some, whatever you might need to write your letters, but we would certainly appreciate any help that you might have to offer to us. And I just also just wanted to say thank you so much for showing up and participating in this conversation and just help us to get the word out about what's really happening at UVM right now. Thanks. Ken, I don't see, I would love to have that email address and I don't know, I don't see it in the chat, but I'm not very familiar with making chats work. So. It could be that it looks buried in a longer message. I think it's the very first chats. I see it. I just put it out again, Ken, in a separate. Yeah. And really all you need from that is the email address and I'll just say it again, if you want to take a second to just jot it down, but it's stop UVM cuts at gmail.com. All right, thank you. I really would like to address the question of what citizens could, what they should do at this point, but maybe somebody else has something else to say or questions before that. I noticed that Megan Emery is also here from UVM and maybe she can enlighten us also with what's happening or your ideas of what's happening. Yeah, thank you, Sid. I'd be happy to add onto what both Julie and Ken said just to say that I have spent the last two weeks informing myself about what's happening with our basic sciences at UVM. We talk a lot about humanities and I am a part of that being a French faculty member, but we have restructuring discussions going on and I am also a member of the Faculty Senate Curricular Affairs Committee and I am on a subcommittee for biochemistry and chemistry. And in both of those discussions, I was with chemistry, mathematics, biochemistry, staff and Cal's as well as in the College of Arts and Sciences as well as the school, the Larner School of Medicine. And across the board, our basic sciences are being hollowed out across the board. And the reason why is because of our budget model which is called incentive-based budgeting, IBB, which was put in and Julie or Ken correct me or Susie, if I'm mistaken, by believe was put in in 2015. Prior to that date, our basic science programs that our graduates, they go on to Johns Hopkins, Pfizer, we all know about Pfizer now because we're all getting vaccinated, right? We have tremendous programs. Prior to IBBs being a part of this very competitive model in order to compete for funds, they had direct lines to the provost office, right? That the purse strings of the provost, which as I learned in the subcommittee for the Faculty Senate Curricular Affairs Committee, that is the usual thing because you should not have these basic science programs competing for funds when they need to maintain these labs that are expensive to maintain but even more expensive to build back up. And we are teetering on a cliff here for our basic sciences at UVM. And that is the word that faculty from University of Connecticut and Boston University used when I was in that meeting last week that we are nearing a point of no return where these programs could implode and where if we wish to build them back again, it would be exponentially more expensive to do so. And all of that is because of this budget model that was put in place. Now there's one program on campus that has direct access to these purse strings of the provost office, military studies. What? Military studies. All land grant institutions have military studies but prior to IBB, chemistry, biochemistry, biology, biological sciences were all tied to the provost office. So when we see the draining of funds from our programs and I took part, Ken was in that working group and UVM finance is exposed in that press conference on April 12th and we see the surplus year after year on the books. And we see Moody's AA3 rating, bond rating with a stable outlook. We know that the funds that are being drained out of our most successful programs are going somewhere. Now the rest is conjecture, perhaps this will come out soon but in any case we should be demanding where those funds are going. So I'll leave it at that. My colleagues have said quite a lot. So I'll leave more time for others to speak or questions. I see a question from- You wanna jump in? I have- I have a question on the chat. Sorry. What fast, go ahead, what? Steven has his hand raised but you all, so I just wanted to make room for you. Oh yeah, thank you. Thanks for having me this evening. I actually wanted to pull up Steven's question in the chat about the Board of Trustees meetings and about how, if they can't be accessed and they're not complying with that law, can they be sued by the populace? Or has that been tried thus far? I guess that's a question for Sandy. Well, I mean also say that we have looked into that to some extent and we've been told anyway that because they have this phone-in thing, they're kind of barely complying with the open meeting law, so as soon- Oh, oh, oh. Working, but Sandy, if you have better news, I'm happy to hear it. Well, I have at least thought for a very long time that this phone-in stuff really does deny most citizens access to a lot of our public buildings. And UVM, and I did a lawsuit against UVM numbers of years ago against the Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees was meeting, the night before the Board of Trustees was meeting, there were huge protests about trying to divest, I believe, from South Africa, big protests. And UVM, the next day, had a Board of Trustees meeting and they, because of those protests, would not let students attend the board meetings. Students used to be able to attend the board meetings and watch these suckers publicly. They would be, then, I believe, more accountable to the public, if that could happen. And we did sue them and in that lawsuit, we did find out that UVM is basically a state public institution and therefore subject to the open meeting laws and what are called the sunshine laws. During COVID, most of our rights to open meetings have simply gone away, we don't have those. But I believe that maybe could be a case and that's kind of what I'm asking. What can citizens do about this university that is a public university, a state university, receives state funding, although they would argue it's minimal, but I do believe it's worth looking at. I don't believe that the Board of Trustees should simply blow you off if you write something or try to talk to those guys, they should respond, shouldn't they? Yeah, definitely. And not to mention that these inadequate phone-in options are also against the ADA, because people who are deaf, for example, so... Not only deaf, think about all the people in the... This is true of City Hall, too, Barbara McGraw, by the way, she and I are involved in city politics. Okay, but think about the people, the poor people who don't have computers. Yeah, valid. But what are they doing? I mean, we have, through this crisis, we've really lost a lot of democracy. And I think, UVM, that's why I think this meeting is so important. I think citizens should have a direct say over what's happening. Susan, is that... I think you put your finger exactly on what the most important thing to me is about this. I am the vice president of United Academics. I'm a social work faculty member. And democracy is at stake here. Yes. And in almost every capacity, the way the board is actually composed, the lack of access to the board, and then all those procedures. I also wanna say, this is obviously my own personal opinion, but it's shocking to me that we rely on people who gave us the 2007, 2008 economic downturn, almost a depression, that we're allowing them to rule the university. I don't understand that at all, but I think what we're trying to do is democratize the board of trustees by adding faculty and adding staff. And that's to me, it's like the big take home message here. All of you, first I wanna say that, I wanna say thank you to all of you who are part of this group for all you've done, all the activism you've done over decades. I've heard many of your names for years and years, so it's finally nice to see the face that goes with the body and the reputation. But you've been here a long time, a lot of you, and you know a lot of the political people, and your personal contacts, whether you know maybe board of trustees members or other movers and shakers in the community, I think are as important in this situation as the letters you write. To be, there's sort of the phone calls you can make to people that you know, and people who know you are very, very important to this. This is Vermont's University. Right. And it's going down the tubes fast. Right, right, right. Scutter has something to say. Well, I'm not an insider, I'm sort of alarmed by what I hear about going on. But I'd like to just invite you to sort of tell me in two sentences, what do you think the vision behind this is? Everything that I've heard, I was on Phillips, you know, heard Phillips talk and I've heard Julie. It sounds, and Megan, it sounds, everything that's happening sounds profoundly stupid. So what I want to know, you can't really just win a campaign by saying they're being stupid. Right. Excuse me, but I don't think you can. What is the vision that they're trying to implement in a, you know, sorry to do it, but what's your elevator speech about this? What is it that they're trying to do that we can actually use to communicate to people? If I just say they're cutting humanities programs, which it sounds like is not all they're cutting at UVM, I don't think that's enough to mobilize people. What is it, what are they, what's their vision of where they're going and what they're trying to do? A lot of the things you're talking about are good strategies on an interim basis, but I don't think they're enough to mobilize people outside the university, holy shit, what's going on here? Can I speak to that? Yeah, sure, Julie. Yeah, I guess on my, if you look at some of the things that the president and provost say to the legislature, the vision is to change the university towards something that more students like. I think the translation of that is to change it into a university that primarily focuses on applied programs to the exclusion of not only liberal arts, but for example, geology, and I'm not saying that they don't do applied work because they do amazing work in the state, but I think their degree programs are thought of as sort of more pure science than applied science. And I think the idea is to make us more of a professional training school. Also on my worst days, I would say that it is political with a capital P and there's some right wing stuff going on here as well. Like, okay, Megan, did you want to comment, Megan? Can't hear you, you're muted. I'm in the middle of uploading a document, but I'll pause that. Yes, I totally agree with Julie that there is something very much ideological going on here. We know that our president worked for the National Sciences Foundation. He was appointed by our previous president. I forgot his name, President Trump. And it's now a luxury that we can't take for granted. And we also, I'm gonna share it again. I've heard from colleagues that our provost and her husband are perhaps not climate science deniers, but at least discouragers that dismissers. It's not something that we need to focus on. And this comes to great consternation for our earth sciences faculty and our environmental sciences faculty, especially when the provost has those purse strings, right? So I think that we see a shifting from UVM's reputation, what UVM established its reputation on. When I got my job in 2002, I, you know, a great uncle who lived in Northern Wisconsin, right? He said, oh, a great environmental university. That was the reputation that UVM had when I got my job in 2002. A great liberal arts institution, right? A public IV more that I believe is deserved. Those are deserved, you know, reputations. And for the board to hire people who are steering it away from a model that not only is what UVM, you know, is known for, but I would say is working. We have seen, and I studied Moody's. I looked not only at this year's Moody's, but I looked at 2020, 19, 18, 17. I looked out at Nevada and other peer institutions. And compared to our peer institutions, we have done phenomenally well under COVID. We hear of all kinds of budgetary issues. And that is true because state appropriations, like in places such as Nevada, they were decreased by 30%. Well, here in Vermont, you got a bump of $10 million. And so it's just, it's not credible that this is financially, you know, generated. That this crisis is not a crisis. This is a crisis of leadership. This is a crisis that comes from ideology that comes from a lack of confidence in what has been a winning formula for UVM over generations, over generations. And so to answer, was it Mr. Stokes or Mr. Parker? I don't recall, I'm sorry. Mr. Parker. Who asked, yeah, who asked what they're doing. I think we need to ask them because it's happening and they are telling us. And this is your university as much as it's my university or the university of UVM students. This belongs to our state. And we have to demand that they tell us. That's my message to you all. Barbara, do you have your hand up, Barbara? I think Scott or Parker asked a key question and your answers are really revelatory and things that would move the community, I think, if they knew it. In other words, I think you have refrained from really making this a knife fight, which it has to be. Right. So the ideology of the changes that they're basically fascistic in nature, that you have a Trump appointee as the president, that you have a climate denier in one of the decision-making roles, these are things the community should know. Right. That's the reason for this meeting, actually, I think to figure out is, I think Megan hit the nail on the head and the others. This is our state university. What are we going to let them get away with? But we have to know these things. And in terms, I said last time, and I will say again, really has to be a good analysis. If it's the board of trustees that is going to make these decisions, who's on there? What is their self-interest ones are for you? Which ones are against you? How do you augment the people that are for you? And how do you destroy the ones that are against you? Who are the wealthy donors that graduated from these programs that might have their ear? Stuff like that. And the union should know this is basic organizing. I probably do. Ian, why don't you say something? Ian? Well, my head's full of questions, but an internal to the university, I think this is raising a fundamental question about the role of the administration. And I think administrators really are seeing themselves as not being responsible to the faculty. The question is, do the faculty and staff work for the administrators or do the administrators work for the faculty and staff and students? And my sense is that the administrators have a sort of self-aggrandizing view of themselves. And I don't think they're at the top of the stack. But I mean, external to the university or state-wide. I really like to go back to this issue of what is the state university? And especially in the context of Vermont, where the university is a land-grant university and it gets the state appropriation. And what I remember from some time ago, maybe this is out of date, but the university administrators anyway say, well, we provide the extension service. So that's sort of the role for the land-grant. And then we provide tuition, reduced tuition for the mantas. And so that's the quid pro quo. That's the return on the state appropriation. But it seems that a state institution, a state university should have a wider view of things than that. And this really raises the question of, well, because of the reduced tuition for in-state students, it means that the university is sort of scrambling to attract out-of-state students. And I think it's about 50%. So is that detracting from the ability of the university to serve the needs of the university? That's really, you know, my question is, what's the, what is the role of UVM as a state institution? Scutter, Scutter had it. I'll say one more thing. It's really not my place, I guess, to talk about this because I'm not inside it, but you're not gonna win this fight based on the faculty fighting with the administration. You're not gonna win that fight. It seems to me, you need to say something like, the Board of Trustees is systematically spending Vermont's intellectual capital and dissolving it. That's something, you know, maybe that's not the full formulation of it, but it's something like that. We've been a leader, this has been a home of leadership in the state and the nation, and they're eroding that and making us, again, I don't know, I don't wanna be classist in saying this, but making us something just a technical school. You've gotta put it starkly like that, or people aren't gonna grab it. They're just gonna think, oh, those are those academics fighting with each other. I agree with you, Scutter, but I don't think, with all due respect, I don't think people should be saying, you should do this, we should do this. Citizens of this state should adopt your argument. I think. I'm sorry, totally agree. I have to apologize for the imprecision. No, no, no, I don't, I mean, anyway, I think this is a struggle of citizens. I really do. And I think that coming forth with a good argument and a strategy is what citizens have to do, because as you point out, if it's just between faculties and the administrators, most people are gonna say, they're a bunch of elitist intellectuals and who gives a damn. We have to extend it to the citizens and they have to own that this is our university. But all he's saying is to involve the citizens, you have to find a way of framing the issue that will grab them to do something. I agree, I agree. Who's, oh yeah, Julie, Julie. Yeah, I was actually just gonna suggest something that you could do in the short term as citizens or that we could do as citizens. And that is, I think that the Board of Trustees, it's possible that they could be embarrassed into opening up the meeting a little more. I think if citizens of Vermont who are not insiders started asking, why can't we watch these meetings? We hear the things that are going on at UVM. We don't know what it is. We wanna see what happens at the Board meeting. The next one is June 4th. Why can't we see a video? And if we can't come and see the video at the time, why isn't there a video archive kept that we can watch at a later date and comment on? Or whatever. Why can't we watch it, period? Because they don't allow anyone to watch. I don't even think they video it, honestly. But anyway, there's no video access. There is only phone in and phone in is, I don't have, I don't get compensations for hearing or vision or whatever. And I can't tell what's going on from that phone feed. So, okay, but keep that in mind. Keep that date in mind. We maybe should do something on that date in some way or before. Because I think at least what I saw in our little case against the university was that the university is subject to the sunshine meeting laws. And maybe, Scuddy, you're an attorney, aren't you? No. No, I thought so. Your wife is, right? Yeah, I'm married to one, but that doesn't... No, it doesn't rub off. It doesn't. No, I know. I can pretend if you'd like, but... Yes, yes. Well, what does everybody else think? I have a hand up. Who's that? Oh, yeah, Susan. Susan? Hey. You're just... There's a consulting organization called the Euron Group that they've been paying money to. And as a consequence, I've done a lot of consulting myself in the past. My PhD is in organizational behavior. This is like a textbook case. They have a consulting organization that is basically guiding them on how to go through this process. And what they've done basically, it's almost Trumpian. It actually is Trumpian. Just like Trump did, he threw stuff everywhere. It was a whack-a-mole. You couldn't figure out what you should actually pay attention to. There's been so many different things that they've done that we've tried to respond to. We're just following the trail of their latest reaction. But this is not something that I don't believe is just cooked up by the president and the provost. They have help in this behind the scenes. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So in terms of the letter-writing campaign, you said this stop UVM cuts. Is that... Is somebody collecting or have a set, like Scott was asking about, a set of talking points that we would encourage, if people want to write a letter but really need some help writing it. I put the link up. There are two links there. And one of them is a whole press kit with talking points on at least most of this. Great, thank you. You're welcome. Yeah, Beth, I would say the letter-writing campaign and such is sort of entering into phase 2.0. There's already been a couple of campaigns. One was really focused at this getting trustees on the board from the staff and faculty. And we've been pushing that out to legislature members, but we're really sort of wanting to enter into a new phase. And so we're just sort of collecting right now information about people who want to write. And then we're going to start working on our message. And I mean, we have some messaging now, but we're really moving to a second phase. A big part of what we did at the beginning of our efforts was the administration was really pushing this narrative, this financial crisis that it was- Oh, yeah, yeah. The narrative that we address right now. And that's why we have to move so fast. And what we showed, that that's not the case. And in a meeting of the faculty senate, just like we, the director of finance actually said, there's no imminent financial crisis at UVM, right? So now that that is sort of done, we're now going into sort of a second phase where we're saying, okay, so what is your justification? Where is this coming from? And what is your plan? Because so much of what gets me is I understand that organizations have challenges and they have to respond to them. UVM is not unique in that it has challenges, but rushing into this process is very likely going to lead us into irrational decisions. And I think what we're really looking to do right now is slow this thing down and give the faculty a chance to do what the board of trustees has empowered us to do in our constitution and bylaws, which is to have input into this process. And that's kind of where we're starting to transition in this new sort of writing campaign. Steven, is that you, Steven? You muted. Just to start with Woodgal, CS, S8, please turn off their mic. So I kind of disagree with Kenneth a little bit about the going slow thing. My vision is who would be, first of all, who is the organizing committee? If you have one, that organizing committee needs to be planning for how do we get people on the street demonstrating? That's the first question. And you need to consolidate your message. I think what's the way Scutter Parker framed it was a really excellent start and then you need to, you'll get your key points and start recruiting your constituency. That would be the students of UVM and the community at large, because obviously UVM is a community asset and it needs to be developed in the model of success in which it has been functioning for these many centuries, a couple of centuries. So that would be my vision for how this should go. Yeah. Where is the organizing committee? I want to just clarify. I wasn't advocating that we, our working groups slow down. We're trying to forge full speed ahead and keep our momentum going through the summer, which is difficult. We want to slow the administration down. Like they're cutting off the purse strings to these programs right now. So that even if they don't, the programs, they're basically starving them out. So what I want to say is right now, you need the fastest possible action that you can create because this engine is running and it is in high gear. And you want to be throwing sand in those gears and stopping that motor. So the only way to do that is to make noise that the media will hear and report on so that they are asking, why are these people throwing sand in the gears? And you have to make it embarrassing for legislators to ignore you and really get on it. And if you need some good political organizing, you might want to check with Black Lives Matter. Anyway, anyone else have something to say? I think we're going to have to do this ourselves. Megan, yeah. I'm in a working group with Ken and I'm in a working group with a master's student in social work, so Susie's program. And this master's student is a phenomenon and he is not only phenomenal for research, he's phenomenal with regard to strategizing for how to get people out in the streets, as Al Rich suggests. And Ken is I think someone who spearheaded a resolution in the faculty Senate after the administration single-handedly removed the Black Lives Matter flag from the Davis Center flagpole. And ironically, and Ken, you can certainly jump in here. We're in a process where we're trying to create more, just ethos in favor of diversity initiatives on our campus. And this is when our administration takes down the flag and when Ken's group in the Senate says, well, here's a resolution. And it was the Student Government Association, I believe that was the origin of this resolution. The administration imposed blackout dates. One half flag, blackout dates for when that flag should not be flown. Which is, it blows the mind. There are certain days when that flag should not be flown. So I think there are students who are very, very much ready to come as long as we give them that date. And so the student, his name is David, and I are working on creating the conditions necessary in order for there to be a big outpouring of emotion and passion. About what though? We have to have a demand. Power never seeds without a demand. Yes, well, our dear president has some baggage. He comes from an institution where he was very much involved in research with human subjects. What kind of research? Well, we had, I come from Chicago, from the Chicago area. And I, let me just give this to you all. And as you know, in South side of Chicago, where Michelle Obama grew up, there are populations that have a very difficult life. And we have Purdue University, which is in the state right next door. We have rural youth in the state of Indiana. Illinois also has a very rural part to it, right, there's Chicago and then rural Illinois. And this was a National Institutes of Health grant that was for the defense industry. Very concerned that military recruits coming from, you know, impoverished areas such as inner cities and rural areas that they were not the fittest or the finest as previous generations have been. And so I put in the chat there, I believe that it is, let me just make sure YouTube. Yes, I should have done it differently. About this camp that was held at Purdue University, where you had teenagers coming from inner city Chicago, as well as the cornfields of Indiana. And the only activities prepared were there three meals per day, maybe some blood work and maybe a little bit of treadmill work. Teenagers left to their own on a university campus. Watch this video, violence, sexual assault, and who was in charge? It's the Rush Garamella. Oh wow. Executive VP for research and partnerships. He was in charge of these human subjects. It took him a month, a month with police, fire, every kind of imaginal service coming to campus. The police chief saying, this has to close down. After the police chief said it, it took them three days to close this camp. Well, what are you suggesting, Megan, that somehow this be used at this moment to what, try to get rid of him, is that? When Garamella was brought to campus as the newly coordinated president without any vetting, Camp Dash was raised and the board of trustees said, oh, we've looked into it, everything is fine. Well, there's a lawsuit going on. There is one going on now. Terrific. And these families will not settle. So this will make its way into the press. And... That's good. Yes, so I'm watching that process very closely along with Dave, my partner, and we're preparing. We're preparing for when that will happen. And when everyone here in this group and outside of this group will become fully aware of the failure of leadership that this president showed at Purdue, as well as a failure of leadership that he is showing right now at the University of Vermont. And I believe, if I come back to Alrich, that that could potentially lead to people getting into the streets and demanding action. If I could just say, that might be very helpful. You need to get the story written first. Right. This isn't gonna do the story for you. No. You have to write the story about what's happening in Vermont and this leads into that. But you've got to tell the story about what is happening with Vermont. And then the shock of the story confirms and moves forward what you want it to do. But this wouldn't do it on its own. Yes, yes. Just hold onto your hats, gutter, and press pause, and we'll get together hopefully soon. Well, who else has something to say? I guess, I guess that I think that we need to keep talking more than anything else and coming up with a strategy to, as Scudder says, to address what's going on right now. If you agree, if everybody here agrees that the university is being essentially ruined, correct? Why can't we as citizens have some sort of a strategy to expose it even? I mean, you guys, you faculty, people, and the staff, I think have done a terrific job, but it has not caught fire among citizens or residents. It just hasn't. People regard this as a fight between intellectuals, I guess, or between eggheads, as most people would call people. Sandy, can you hear me? Yeah, who's that? It's Sharon Busher. Oh, hi, Sharon. I've been listening. I mean, and I attended the last one, but I didn't know how to speak at the last one. I finally figured this out. I just wanted to say that in the first meeting, there were people from the legislature, and I seized the moment and wrote to them because I think it's not only a university issue. It's not only the future of the university, but it's a state issue. The state benefits from the expertise that the university has at like Paul Bierman and others who have that expertise that not only bring it to the students, but share it with the state so that we make better decisions collectively. So the state has a lot at risk also. And so to me, the legislature really needs to join in this battle about saving the university. And when I got defeated, but I was there when the new president came on board and I had one meeting with him with a couple of other counselors, and it made me incredibly sad because he had, I'd asked about cogeneration and he had already decided, he read one article and he decided that this was a bad idea and case closed and he shut the conversation down. And I thought the head of a university should be much more open to understanding all aspects of a topic and being open to potentially changing his mind. And so to me, the individual is a real problem also. And I wanna just say one other thing, Sandy. Other people have said, I thought about, I graduated from UVM and I know some really big donors that really give millions of dollars, but my challenge is, as Scudder said, how do I get them to understand that they should stop donating because the university is going in the wrong direction? How do I get them? How do I have that conversation with them? And I'm not sure I know how to have that conversation that's convincing. And to act in mass, not just individuals, bunch of them. Right, exactly. This is Steven again. Yes. I would just like to say, we should have a meeting planned. I mean, this meeting here tonight should not end without. Right, I agree. Adrienne and Donna gathering, including the academic community folks so we can have a community-wide response. What about though? I totally agree with you. That's why we didn't leave the last meeting without another conversation scheduled. Because once that happens, if we lose momentum the whole, whatever movement there is out there will be totally lost. And that's particularly true in a Zoom meeting. We have to really think about the immediate next step. Yeah, Joanne, Joanne. Yes, I have a question about the chat, the information on the chat. How does one keep that? Is there a way to recover that once I leave the meeting? There's a little, if you open up the chat dialogue, you'll see on the lower left-hand corner, three little dots. You select the little dots and it says save file. Oh, okay. Great, thank you. Then you fill the follow link to where the folder is. Thank you very much. Okay, so we're kind of gonna be out of time zone. What should we do next? There has to be some kind of a next step or we will all be lost. I did put a recommendation in the chat if you could write to the trustees, even though it gets vetted and request access to the next meeting on June 4th. That's fine. What is this group gonna do? Why, when are we going to get together and have another conversation as Stephen is suggesting? Two weeks. Two weeks, maybe? Yes, and I think you're right. Julie, we can all write, but so what? If we all write, it's gonna be again lost. I think what Stephen, this Stephen says is correct. There has to be a group, I would say a mass, but I hate that word. Organizing committee. And yeah, there has to be some kind of group that is responsible for thinking about and putting forth some kind of a strategy. That we could at least make public that this is a citizen's concern. That has not happened as far as I know, has it? No, it hasn't. Is it happening? We talk to people who don't respond to you. Yes, Sandy, one of the things that I would suggest is that we, and the question was asked in the group tonight, what is their plan? Yeah, they're not talking to us as faculty and staff. So what might be helpful is that those of you who are not faculty and staff ask for a meeting with Garamella as concerned citizens and as leaders in the community and ask for his justification, then you have an entree in the beginning of a relationship that then talk about your concerns about what's happening. That's a good idea. Who would do that though? I mean, okay, put that aside for a moment, but I think it's a good idea that citizen should be talking to this guy, not just the faculty, not just the staff, not even just students, but citizens should be saying, what's going on? Now, how do we do that? That's a different question. I mean, I'd be happy to construct some kind of a letter, but he's not gonna pay any attention to me unless I have some power behind me, which means other people, really, right? Who's the attorney for the university? Anybody know that? Anybody? I'm not sure. I can find that, Sandy, a look. But what do you suggest? Who should write? I think, first of all, we should decide, are we gonna have another meeting ourselves to strategize about this? And then secondly, should that meeting be in person? Should it be in Zoom? What? Well, they're not likely to do a face-to-face meeting, so probably would be doing it. I'm not talking about him. I'm not talking, I'm talking about us. Yeah, can I step in here? The silence on the board is really a little bit stunning. You're right. If you want to make a change, you're gonna have to plan for throwing sand in the gears. All you folks in the academic group who are seeing all of the blatant violations of democracy and the undermining of your institution, if you don't step up now and say, yes, let's have a meeting, let's plan this so that we are the organizing committee, you're gonna fail. What about a print? You told me, Megan, didn't you? Or you said at one point that you did a press conference, correct? How did that work in the age of COVID? It used to be that you could go to city hall and just call the press and they'd all show up in person. But how do you do it now? Well, I have to give credit to my colleague, Nancy Welch, who's the professional of this. So she taught me, and I'm still learning, is that you have to prepare a press pack and you send it out to members of the press inviting them to, and in the age of COVID, we've done it online and we have a Zoom meeting where the press is invited, linked to a YouTube. A YouTube. That's what happens here. Yes, but it's live, it's done live so that the public is watching YouTube and that can be livestreamed on Facebook, right? So it's live streamed on YouTube but the press is inside of the Zoom meeting. Well, so they RSVP and they have the link and they join and it's quite impressive. Yeah, no, I know it, but how many people watch it? The teaching was over a thousand. I don't know, I have to go look. I have to go look. Lots of people and most probably the faculty watched it because first we had to convince our colleagues of what was happening, right? Yes, of course. So this is a really great idea for the kind of thing that can be done but you need an organizing committee to make decisions and to make the gears turn. So I see two ideas. One is to have a press conference though, right? I think that the subject of a press conference would be there is now a group of citizens who are demanding access to the Board of Trustees. That would be a whole subject of a press conference I believe in itself. What does that everybody else say? That would be even news. I mean, there's no real news in this town anymore. It doesn't seem to me. Everything is in secret, including City Hall. Everything is in secret. And the courts, I had to battle with the courts. They're being done in secret. Everything, we've lost democracy. It would be interesting to have... News to have to get the media to cover it. Yes, right. It would be interesting to have your connections throughout the state, the activists of all kinds throughout the state get together on this. All of you have relational connections probably around the state from having been here for a while and being activists. So it's not just the local folks. Yeah. What should we do next, basically? Why don't those of us who are interested, maybe in putting together a press conference, why don't we have another meeting? And I think the subject would... I mean, wouldn't somebody write about it that there's a bunch of citizens who are demanding access to the university, to the board of trustees and to the plan, or would it? Is that worth it or not? I think it is. I think so too. It seems like quite... I think that's a great idea because, I mean, part of this is, a lot of our attention is focused on Guerramella right now, but really, Guerramella is... He's just the board of trustees guy. Yeah, yeah. He's carrying out the will that the board of trustees wants to see happen. And so even if Guerramella was gone tomorrow, they'll just get another guy to replace him, another guy that's their guy. And so like, you're right. The focus in this is to persuade the board of trustees and to do that, you got to get in there and you got to be part of their meetings. Right. I love your approach. Wouldn't... Well, go ahead, Scutter, sorry. Wouldn't one goal be to get... I don't know who's left these days, but seven days or digger do an in-depth story that really lays it out and is kind of the anchor that you get to refer to in your organizing work. It would seem to me that if you're gonna do a press conference, the goal is to have them pick up on that and write an in-depth story. And someone helps them write that in an informed and focused way because you got to get the Pentagon Papers out there to sort of anchor the resistance. There have been a couple of... Julie, what's... Okay, I'm sorry, Julie. No, I was just gonna say, and I can send them, but there have been a couple of good stories, not unfortunately, they're kind of dwindling. So I think getting something going is good, but there have been a couple of good stories, one particularly in-depth in seven days, but also a good one in digger. And every time a story comes out, somebody of the university comes to try to combat it, somebody of the university realm is writing an opposition to it. Of course, but they can't oppose citizens. That's why this is perfect. But I don't know how to do it. So I think we should have a strategy session. Those of us who are interested should have a real strategy session and figure it out. My idea, though, is to... 50 many years ago, put it that way. I would have called the press conference. When I ran for mayor as green a million years ago, and we would be able to call a press conference, and because the press just didn't have a whole lot to do that day, probably, they would actually come and listen to stuff that was pertinent to citizens. I don't know if that will happen anymore because it's all on Zoom. I don't know, I just don't know. But I think that that would be the start of a strategy, is to have a press conference in which you'd announce. Here are the citizens. UVM is a subject for citizen scrutiny. And the citizens are gonna explore what is really happening at UVM, and we're demanding that the Board of Trustees make itself transparent. Isn't that a big word these days, transparency? So Kenneth just put up a post in the chat that says contact us at stopUBMCuts.com at Gmail. I'm wondering if this group, Kenneth, is prepared to be the organizing committee for this effort. I'm willing to try to be a part of a group. Sandy, we know you're interested. I really feel the folks at the university need to step forward. I would love to hear them say, yeah, I'm in this fight, and I'm willing to do this through this. But in the absence of the academic folks in this call, actually stepping forward and saying, yeah, this is my role, this is what I'm gonna do, I'm not gonna get involved. Okay, so all right, so you're not anybody else? No, I will if they step forward. Oh, I thought you were saying, no, oh, I thought, okay, sorry. Well, Ken had to leave, unfortunately. But I am in the same team here. Oh, he's here, oh, excellent. That's awesome, that's awesome. We're here, we're here, we're working on this. Granted, we haven't made as much progress as we would like, but yeah, we've been working tirelessly on this. I know, I know. So, Ken, can you guys, and that's where you can find us now. We're ready to go into the second iteration of our, of our call meeting. I have an idea. Can you call a meeting so that the rest of us can meet with you to do this organizing? Yeah, that's one thing. I have this idea that even if we did a press conference, the press conference I think should be led by citizens surrounded by faculty, surrounded by students if they will come, surrounded by, I was going to say normal people, not that we're all not, well, we're not probably all normal. Wants to be normal anyway, but anyway, surrounded by people from the university, but kind of the press conference put forward by citizens. And secondly, we want to know, we want to know, we are acting in solidarity with these faculty. We are acting in solidarity with the students, but we want to know what gives at the university and why are we allowing our state university to go under? I agree. I think that's a great idea. And I think that, you know, there have been at least two conferences, press conferences that I've spoken at. There have been several articles and some TV news coverage, but as I said, it's slowing down. And I really think your idea of a citizen's approach with faculty and staff and students around you is great. Because that's something we haven't tried yet. I think it's the only way that anything it will ever happen is if it becomes an issue for all of us. I really feel deeply that it is. I mean, if you think about what's happening at the university, frankly, and what I went to the university of Massachusetts and then I went to the university of Wisconsin, they were great state universities. I was a history major for God's sakes. I wasn't in training to get a job, but I thought that I was in heaven being able to study history. I really did. And I swear that most students feel that way about the humanities. As somebody said, Megan said, that was the driving force of UBM. That's where the money comes from. When we're back to democracy again, without those underpinnings, where are we going? Exactly. Who's going to be leading? Right. So does anybody want to have a meeting where we really discuss this further? Yes. Okay. Okay, Beth, I don't know what our schedule is, but we could maybe do it at a different time. I don't know. I guess it has to be Zoom, right? Still? Yeah. And let me just jump in, Robin. Robin, I mean, I think we should make June 4th the, we should direct everything to that and have a meeting in two weeks or whatever it is. I mean, May is upon us almost now to plan for a wider spread protest if they haven't opened up by June 4th. Be up on campus. I mean, maybe they're all on Zoom, but a bunch of the big guys are in the offices there. True. The other thing you could do is public comment at the next Board of Trustees meeting. Right, but let's concentrate on this a little bit about when we're going to plan this press conference. Could we, maybe one thing at a time is always helpful for me because I get muddled. I think it has to be a different night than a day than a Wednesday night. I do too, because of the other, you know. Right. If I could just put out another date, there's also the Senate faculty meeting is May 20th. It's the last faculty meeting of this academic year. Any materials that are gonna go into the Senator's packet to be discussed and deliberated and perhaps voted on at that May 20th meeting has to go in, I believe the 13th. I believe it's a week earlier. So if something could happen so that faculty could be energized by this press conference, I would suggest it happens before May 10th. I think an announcement, just a mere announcement because you know, that's kind of feels too much pressure for me to come up with a packet for the Senate. But if you could even announce at the Senate that the citizens of this area was going, we're going to lead a press conference demanding, even if there was that announcement, we might get some of those senators interested. Yes. Oh, I think so. Another thing of interest is that the staff is that a staff are voting for a union this week or voting on whether to have a union and not for the first time. And how that plays out may change things again. It's a little strange. I mean, I'm used to seeing opposition, a lot of opposition. And it's been fairly, and it's been pretty mild. I mean, the time has been more constricted. I'm not sure if the university is feeling complacent or what, but it's anyway, so anyway, so that's something else to consider. Could I just ask, is the meeting on the 13th public meeting or accessible? Is it Zoom meeting or what? What's the 13th? I don't even know what the 13th is, Robin. It was just mentioned that the faculty Senate, and yes, it is, it's an open meeting. We comply with open meeting laws. So we could, so citizens could Zoom in? You mean, Julie? I don't, certainly citizens, I'm a former Senate president and certainly citizens could come. So I don't know that people have tried to Zoom in, but I don't know why they couldn't. And I think it would be probably illegal to deny it. Okay, so why don't, how could we get the invite then? I'll look into it. Okay, and then if you could tell me, I would Zoom in. I would love to see what happens of those guys. People are beginning to peel off. We need to set a date and time for an organizing meeting. Okay, and I probably think it should be sooner than later. I'm wondering at the next week for Vicki, we're going to do a presentation on small claims court at six. I'm wondering if we could maybe do this meeting, Beth. Beth is a wonderful person who sends out invites. Maybe we could do an organizing meeting at five. Next Wednesday? Yeah, do it. What do you think, Steven? I have a meeting. We need you, Megan. About seven after the other meeting. Yeah, we could do it at seven. Seven, 15. Yes, or seven, 10 or so. What about at seven, Megan? That works, yeah. How about the others? How about for the others? Beth, would you mind? I mean, I have to ask Beth if she could do the invite because I don't know how. Yeah, yeah, no problem. Okay, so you want to do that next Wednesday at seven and I'll try to think about what people should be invited to a press conference. Okay, is that all right? We do have a press list that I think we could share with you. Yeah, yeah, well, it's not just me. I hope it's everybody that, you know, that will be. Yes, so we. The multiple you. Yeah, right. Yeah, and I just wanted to say just, you know, I think I know who's here. The journalist who we've been working with, he is willing to meet with an organizing committee if need be in order to strategize. Why don't, who is that? Jasper Craven. Great, yes. So somebody will, could you get in touch with him, Megan, maybe? Oh, I am in touch with him, yes. And you'll tell him about this meeting at seven, correct? I will. Great, wonderful. Okay, so. May I ask, does everyone who's on this call had an opportunity to say something? It seems to me that Stephen Boulot, are you a student? Do you, what do you think about what we've been discussing? Yeah, definitely. I mostly remained quiet this evening to listen to the conversation. I am a new student coming to UVM, but both my sisters got their undergraduate degrees at UVM back in one graduate in 2009 and one graduated in 2013, no, 2012, I believe. And that was in international relations and the classics. We all grew up in Vermont in Weitzfield, but I escaped the state because I was like, I don't like this small state, mom. And I ran away to Virginia and Germany for undergraduate and grad school. But then I learned that I love Vermont, I love UVM, and I want to get my PhD here. I eventually want to pursue medical training and legal training and combine them all and develop a new type of study in a new institution at UVM. Yay, yay, yay. Yeah, it actually comes from my classic studies. I want to reinvigorate and reincarnate or resurrect the Renaissance because it's definitely needed nowadays. We need it badly, yeah. And it just breaks my heart to see everything happening with UVM. And I've been working tirelessly to develop like Socrates cafes to get the youth involved, kind of like Christopher Phillips's work. And yeah, so it's definitely a cluster of moving dynamic parts, nonlinear fractal, whatever, but let's see what we can do. I'm really excited for next Wednesday. I'm also going to give it a thank with everything that was said tonight. So thank you for involving me and let's get the students, the populists and everyone involved. And Ali, I always like to say wreak havoc. Yeah, but kind of like organized havoc, okay? Yeah, I think they call it good trouble. What is it called in organizational psychology? Disruptive innovation. That's a name for a group. You hit it, Steven. And anybody else have anything to say before we see each other next Wednesday, correct? At seven, about seven, 10, because we have to finish the small claims thing. Okay, Kate. Oh, I like this idea and I'm on board. And I think something to think about for the press conference is to do it in person on campus and spread because I think with all of those new meetings and kind of where we are with vaccinations and whether like, I think it would be, you know- Revolutionary. Yeah, to have an outdoor and maybe you know, Garamella's, you know, it's his house, it's his area and we never see him. We don't hear from him. So having something that's kind of, you know, on campus and inviting him out of his, out of his home. I don't know. I think that would, I think press is important for that. I definitely have seen that the press seemed eager to see people in person and put them on. Yeah, they should, yeah. Who doesn't? Right, right. Yeah, isn't it? Walk to his house afterwards. He's only a few blocks away, right? Yes. Hey, he's right there. The other date to put on people's radar is, is May 21st, which is the graduation date. And I had floated the idea, faculty are not invited. They're not invited for graduation. That we do a procession, perhaps of College Avenue in our robes and crash commenced. Terrific. I don't have a role. I like the idea. Good idea. So is there somebody who would like to step forward as the secretary to receive suggestions for an agenda? I think this, I mean, it's coming up needs and agenda. I don't want to do that. Any of somebody else? I'm going to send out the invitation. So I would be happy to do it. And I'll, and you all, I put my email in the chat, but I'll tell you as well. It's just Beth Sacks at BETH, SACHS12 at Gmail. And I'll need your addresses. So please send them to me. I'm not sure I have them all for the invitation for next week. And go ahead and send, send ideas for the agenda. That's great. Thank you so much. And I want to say thank you to everybody. Thank you. Apologize for being so adamant and strident, but I'm sorry. You got my blood going. Well, obviously you've got mine going too. Everybody right, but UVM should get all of our blood running. I think. Okay. Thank you very much. So see you next week. I hope. Thank you everyone. Thanks a lot. Thank you everyone. Have a good night. Bye. Thank you. Bye. Bye.