 It's 1002, excuse me, 102. And I'm calling the meeting to order for the Board of Trustees for the Vermont State College System, October 25th. As a housekeeping note, we have a link to sign up to provide public comment. It's available on the agenda, published on the VSC website and there's a link posted in the chat. And Jen will be in charge of that when the time comes. Now we have approval of minutes from September 20th, September 21st and September 29th. We'll start with the September 20th. I need a motion to approve the minutes as presented. Do I see a motion for that? I'll move that. Okay, Sean moves that a second. Second. Second, okay. Any comments or questions on the minutes of September 20th, they're presented. Hearing none, all those approved, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, then we have the minutes of September 21st. Okay, we have a so moved to accept. Second? Second. Okay, any questions or discussions on that? Seeing none, hearing none, all those in favor of approving those minutes, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Okay, we also have the September 29th minutes of a special board meeting. It was a listening session. Any motion to accept those minutes? Don't move. Second. Okay, second. Okay, we've got that moved and seconded. Any discussion or comments on that? Hearing none, we're going to vote on that. Anyone who, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Seeing none, okay. We have a report from the DEI committee which met on October 15th. Shirley Jefferson is the chairman of that committee and I'll turn that over to you Shirley so you can present your committee report, please. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon. The Diversity, Equity, Inclusion Committee met on October 15th, 2021 and we have two action items for the board to consider today. Our first action item is that we recommend the board to adopt the anti-racism pledge proposed by the VSCS Student Diversity and Inclusion Task Force and that pledge is on page 16 and 19th in the meeting material. We have invited the task force here today to speak to you on why they were working on this pledge and why it's important to each one of them that we adopt this pledge. So I believe that there are several members here today. I did see Sabra Ann and I think I see Devin if they could give us about a five or six minute presentation and I believe that we'll take questions if that's okay with the chair. So if you could please talk to us today and first I wanna say thank you all for coming and I know that you all been working on this pledge for about a year. So thank you all for coming here today. Thank you so much for having us. Good afternoon, everyone. We are the Student Diversity and Inclusion Task Force representing each campus of the Vermont State College System. My name is Devin Thompson. I'm from MVU Johnson. I'm the SGA Vice President, the leader of the Coalition of Minority Students Organization and I'm the MVU Johnson Women's Basketball Team Captain. My name is Kevin McReel. I'm a CCV student and the leader of the Student Advisory and Leadership Council and I am a student representative on the Academic Council and the DEI Committee at CCV. My name is Cesar Watkins. I'm a student on the Vermont Technical College in Randolph and I'm a student athlete as well here in campus. Sabra Ann, you're muted. Thank you, sorry. My name is Sabra Ann. I'm a new alum of MVU London and so former member of the President's Student Advisory Council and former president of the Cultural Ambassador Society. And I see that Tajé Edwards just joined as well. I don't know, Tajé, if you want to introduce yourself. You're on mute as well, Tajé. I said unfortunately I'm in a circumstance where I'm traveling still, but my name is Tajé Edwards. I'm the president of the NAACP chapter at Cassidy University and I've been proud to be a part of this meaningful and very important cause. Thank you. As you all know, we are presenting not only into the Vermont State College DEI Committee, but also with the Vermont State College Trustees, the Chancellor and other members of the Vermont College system. We understand that negotiations can be difficult, especially in the case of discussing the need of dismantle racism. But as it was recently said, the time for wordsmithing is done. The time for moving forward is today. We would like to reiterate the value and benefits of accepting this pledge for all within the Vermont State College system. This pledge helps build the foundation for equitable Vermont education. It is meant to serve as another tangible tool in providing and pursuing higher education, which is one of the core missions of this institution. And our efforts have not progressed alone. We've worked with professors and staff across the VSCS as well as known social justice advocates, Nevin Caple and Chief Don Stevens. Each of us has made public outreach efforts to connect with both students and each campus SGA. And more recently, this pledge was accepted to move forward to you today by the Board of Trustees DEI Committee. We say this to demonstrate just how many people support the adoption of this anti-racism pledge and how easy it was to work together to make this great initiative possible. We believe the pledge will benefit all within the VSC. There are still several things to find soon, such as the logistics of launching this pledge and maintaining its analysis and accountability. That is why we all are here today. The adoption of this pledge will publicly process, codify the DEI folks objectives and transformation already taking place across all the campuses of the VSC. We would like to take a moment as we did with the DEI Committee to read the pledge allowed to you. So we, the members of the Vermont State College System acknowledge that we must implement and protect educational opportunities for all cultures and their histories. To protect all community members from social, academic and systemic harm, we must initiate progressive standards and actions that promote respect for all people from all cultural backgrounds. Anti-racism is the practice of equitably advocating for all races by working to address and dismantle racism within ourselves and our society through intentional and sustained actions that challenge and change racist ideas, policies, behaviors and beliefs. Anti-racism is a constant educational process. It questions why power is held within the hands that it is, where within us and within our systems, these structures manifest and how we can change these dynamics to create more equitable systems for all people. Here on original Abinac and other Indigenous peoples lands in the state of Vermont, we are not insulated from the plights of racism. Education provides greater opportunities to those who are able to access its benefits. Education is a key area where educational institutions make it a priority to act on core human values where both students and employees feel safer and supported. This is essential in providing, pursuing and achieving higher levels of education. As members of the BSCS, we pledge to continue building equitable education experiences for all members of our community. We must actively involve every student, educator, administrator, alum and policymaker within the system to help make changes for our future. We must also educate the communities in which we live. For the impact of this work does not end at the classroom door nor the state borders. So we pledge to commit to this process. We pledge to provide equitable opportunities for all to achieve a higher education, free from harm and discrimination based on race, ethnicity or culture. Listen to and respond to voices of those who are oppressed and actively speak out against racism and call in our peers when they display racist behaviors even when it is uncomfortable or inconvenient. Our call to action as a member of this educational institution, I pledge to advocate for the implementation of the following actions. Provide and endorse diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice training for all employees and provide educational resources on these topics to all students. Support the integration of DEI education into all general education courses as well as programming for all incoming and transfer students including the first year seminars with the purpose of educating students about social justice with a specific emphasis on anti-racism. Provide dedicated safe spaces, support systems and wellness resources for students of color and allies of students of color. Directly and clearly inform first year and transfer students of the BSC policies and procedures regarding discrimination and harassment. Consistently inform all members of the community of such policies and create a system-wide racial equity audit to be performed and assessed regularly including a review of the processes through which community members report issues and an annual assessment of the progress of these commitments. So with this pledge, we come together to not only understand ourselves and each other better but equally to respect, listen to and learn from one another. I along with the VSCS and all its members agree to reject racism in all its forms by educating ourselves about the history of and continued impact of racism. We can strengthen our efforts to work against racist beliefs and actions. I am committed to fostering safe, diverse and inclusive campuses for all people who are a part of and interact with the Vermont State College System. It is our hope that the board trustees will join us and all those who have shown and spoken for their support for the anti-racism pledge benefiting the future of the entire Vermont State College System and all those within it. So thank you all for your time. Okay, Madam Chair. Len, you're muted. Unmute, there I am. Okay, I just wanted to say if there were any other questions or concerns or discussion on this topic. I was wondering if I could make a few statements while we're public like this just to give some broader context to this work that we're doing and how it affects everything going on in the state and the country. Would that be okay? Take a minute. Yes, go ahead. Go ahead, Kevin. So thinking about what's going on in Vermont, I think there's more to consider with some of the issues that's going on. It's not just talking about the racism that's happening on campuses when we're looking at the bigger picture of Vermont. I know there's legislators here. We're looking at the future of our state and how we can attract more people and support the people that are here so they can stay and we can have a population that's diverse and continues to grow. And with this institution covering the whole state, the work that we do in these areas has a huge effect on the communities in which we are located, which is why we talk about that in the pledge. And I think we really need to think about as we implement this, how we can bring this conversation into these communities because we can do these policy changes and work on from top down, but if we don't support that with a foundation of building new culture and having these conversations with our neighbors and in our school board meetings and town hall meetings, like trustee Jeffstrom was saying, like getting out into the communities and taking this work as an educational tool to talk about these issues that are happening and how we can support people and coming together, we're not gonna see this meaningful change. So that's why I just want everyone to really think about moving forward, how we can bring this work into the broader community. And I think Vermont has a really unique opportunity with our size that we can actually create a blueprint on how to take this integrated institutional structure and reform and bring that to our wider population to move forward, to create a more equitable society for everyone. So I just think in doing this work, it's not just about supporting just students, but what it means for social welfare in general and the progression of our society. Any other discussion or questions on this? Oh, I just want to emphasize, go ahead. Yeah, so I had a question about, I think someone said the logistics haven't all been figured out, but I understand from what you're saying, this would be a pledge that would be signed by employees as well as students. And my question is, what are the consequences or implications if someone chooses not to sign? So those are great questions. And in our public outreach, through talking with our campus presidents, staff, professors and employees, peers that are classmates, friends, you name it. And also a few members of the DEI committee and the chancellor, we have been asked these questions. So that's in the phase that we're hoping to enter next. And so in our conclusion, we were mentioning that we haven't actually accomplished these logistics. So there are things to fine tune as what we had said. And we're fully aware of these. And that is part of the reason, many reasons of why we're here today. We, the students have the power to do the public outreach, get the support and demonstrate to you just how many people and entities want this to happen. We need the support of the board of trustees, the state college system to help us launch this, to help this make it sustainable and accessible. So those things still need to be worked out. And we are hoping that not only will others be willing to join us in the work, we're hoping that we'll be invited as well. So we're hoping that those steps will come forward next. I would also like to add on top of Saber's good points, sustainability concerns have been considered and addressed. As Saber said, we're hoping to reach that next step after today. We think it's best to hire a dedicated DEI coordinator to oversee annual administration of the pledge, data collection, or calls to action being met. And in regards to the accountability process for when discrimination is experienced even after the pledge. Yes, we do have policy 311 and 311A, we would love for this pledge to be an additional step to 311 and 311A. We would like for it to be added as an educational opportunity. When this pledge is implemented, we have the opportunity to not only educate our communities on how the actions done are painful, but how the safety of every student faculty and staff shouldn't be compromised. We have the opportunity to create an educational turning point for the Monstay College system. Any other questions? John, do you have any more? Go ahead. Yeah, I think, so thank you for your answer. I think I'm not sure what is going to be specifically asked of the trustees. And I think it's possible to be supportive of the content of the pledge, but being concerned about the logistics steps and what those look like, either from my, you know, what are the consequences? How does this impact academic debate? You know, what academic debate is considered racist versus intellectual? Like, you know, so there's things that come in my mind that I think there's just a difference to me of being able to support this direction, but being really wanting to understand some of the thorny logistics and enforcement or whatever issues to fully see this through, because I think they matter. Absolutely, and there, no, oh, please, please. Yeah, yeah, the thorny issues are really important and it's actually really reassuring because I've heard in across, you know, within the transformation, these conversations are already taking place. Like what the things that we're saying and are called to action is actually work that's happening on many different levels in our colleges. The idea of having this pledge, it's not a legally binding document. Like we can't create curriculum requirements based on that. We've explored that and the issues with unions and all this other stuff, you know, that needs to be worked out and is being worked out already without this pledge being in place. Having this pledge though is creating a shared language and dialogue that we can have and an open statement that we say, okay, these issues are happening. We're hearing this from students. We know that this need is there. So we are committing publicly to these transformation changes that we're approaching and it can serve as a tool to ground people in this work and to be held each other accountable. It's like, hey, we made these agreements to this. We can check on this. It's coming together as a community more as like a legally binding, you know, policy piece. Absolutely, there's no, I'm sorry to, I'm sorry, madam. I would like to emphasize there are no consequences. Go ahead and do that quickly. Thank you, there are no consequences as to if you don't want to sign or not. As Kevin said, this is an opportunity again to create the education, to start that conversation. Thank you, madam. Okay, thank you. Pat Moulton, please. Thank you. I just wanted to add that I think this is the beginning of a lot of work that still needs to happen. This is sort of the tip of the iceberg as I characterized it during the DEI committee. I mean, we need to get structures in place to know how to address occurrences of racism, what exactly is our training and education program gonna look like and answering a lot of those thorny questions that you're correctly asking Janet. So, I mean, I strongly encourage the board to adopt this pledge because we have a lot of work to do on all of our campuses and none of us are immune from this, but make no mistake. This is just the beginning, far, far, far from the end. And as my friend Shirley Jefferson told us when she came to visit, there is no end. This is a constant effort that you put in and a constant effort to change culture and help educate those who feel differently and understand why they feel differently. So, I appreciate your support. Thank you. Okay, Adam and then Bill. Hi, thank you. So, I support this. I think it's not perfect, it's directional at this point. It's not a policy, but it makes a clear strong statement that's frankly long overdue. So, I'm in support of approving this today. I also just wanted to expand on Kevin's comments about the value to the state as a whole. Our businesses, other nonprofits and organizations without the collective work that's gone into it and the ability to access that really struggle with this, having the resources and support to develop both a pledge, a policy and documents from which to guide their future. So, in regards to the proposed audit, I think other organizations across the state will really be able to benefit from that work. And I look forward to the system being able to help share that. Thank you. Okay, Bill and then Tarjay. So, I want to, as a member of the DEI committee, we heard from the students presenting at greater length than we're going to hear today. And I wanted to assure the committee member or the other board of trustees that we asked some of the same questions that you're asking Janet and that we felt very comfortable with moving ahead with this pledge at this time. I see it as an educational opportunity for the entire system. I also want to say that while I appreciate the emphasis on trying to impact the broader Vermont community and to say that the legislature in my view is embracing that challenge at many different levels and perhaps another time we can share more about what all the legislature has undertaken in that regard. I don't want us to gloss over what was very, very impactful testimony to our committee about the actual hurts and harms that are actually taking place on our campuses at this time. That this pledge comes out of the personal experiences, the needs for students to feel safe, to feel able to be supported, to be able to thrive on our campuses and that we have work to do there that is in addition to wrestling with any specific instances of discrimination or harm. But I think we as a board can embrace this as an educational, as I say, as an educational and aspirational opportunity. And I really want to, I'm going to say that as I, excuse me, as you read the pledge a little bit, I'm not allowed again, and I've read it numbers of times on the print, but as you read it aloud, I'm increasingly impressed with the depth and the importance of the language that you have worked on and shared with us today. So I hope the board will move forward in the spirit that this is being offered. Thank you. Okay, Tarja. So we've been working on this pledge for over a year and while we've been working tirelessly and effortlessly, we know the meaning behind the pledge and we keep telling ourselves, right? Motivating each other like this pledge will never be perfect for everyone. It will never have everything that everyone wants to be included. But we at least want to have the language that tells people that racism is not tolerated here and to show people of all different races that you matter, you're safe here and racism is not accepted here. So that's the main thing that we want right now. And a lot of people have contacted me before I even attended this meeting, like, Tarja, you got this, this needs to happen. So they're looking to you guys for the support. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to point out, I'm not a member of the DEI committee, but I did attend that meeting and I believe one of the comments or questions was that this was a voluntary procedure for students and others. If I'm not correct, I believe that was questioned and answered at the time. I also wanted, I think I've, I think I also asked or somebody asked about the consequences of someone did not agree to sign it. And I believe that it was stated there were no consequences. This was not going to be an administrative record keeping thing. I would like to say as the chair of the board under the circumstances we've been operating under for the past couple of the last 18 months, I can't guarantee a coordinator is going to be hired. We have no idea what our financial situation is. We are working very hard to try to keep our campuses open and our colleges open and continuing. I particularly like the paragraph under education. I think that applies to all of our students regardless of where they come from or what we're doing. I think that is part of what we really want to do as an institution. And I like the last paragraph, basically where we with this pledge we come together to not only understand ourselves and each other better but equally to respect, listen to and learn from one another. I also have a thought and I'm not sure that the members of the committee, the students and their faculty necessarily think of it this way. But I think diversity is not just the color of your skin. It's also a whole lot of other factors. And I think I also made this point that we're not monolithic. I think the Vermont State College system is probably one of the most diverse, is already diverse, very diverse, probably more so than many other colleges in Vermont. We have students from high school students to senior citizens in some courses. We only have adult students, mostly adult students that are nontraditional. We don't just have 18 to 22 year olds. We have students from every corner of Vermont, from every kind of culture and ethnic and societal level that there is in Vermont. Everything from all the economic and socioeconomic varieties of Vermont. We have it from small towns and farms and up to these suburban kids from Chittenden County. And a lot of these towns may look like they're all the same, but we're not. And so there are very distinct differences. And quite frankly, there's a lot of Vermonters that cannot really afford to come here as much as we'd like to get them to come to education because we agree with you that education is really a great opportunity for people. But we do have a high level of Pell eligible students and Trio students, probably the highest in the state, the highest percentage on the state. And so I think that we have to be, when we talk about being respectful, I think it works for everybody. And I just wanna say that I really like those pieces. Is there any other discussion from anyone? Go ahead, Sabra. I just wanted to simply add with all of those points you've brought up quite really important facts about the state of Vermont. I'm a nontraditional student, an orphan, a woman, an invisible illness, I'm a biracial individual. And so I appreciate you signalling out what makes Vermont special and unique. And what I'd simply like to offer is with all of our diversity, all of the different cultures and heritage that make up Vermont because it's several hundred years old as far as, you know, since the 1500s. But then you think of the Abinac cultures and everything just melding together today, here and now. Imagine what this pledge would do for the Vermont State College System and actually openly stating we want to all come together and all lift each other and all work together. So I think this pledge would allow us to begin to pursue those directions and those paths more confidently and with each other. Yeah, I do have another question. Karen has a hand up. Karen, go ahead. Lynn, who has a hand up? After you, Lynn, respectfully after you. No, you go first. You're older, you speak first. Thanks. Yeah, I did have a question. There's one comment in here under the, we pledged to commit to this process where it talks that we're going to call out our peers when they display racist behaviors. What exactly does that mean? Can someone from the committee talk about that? Yes, thank you. Call out, it's just another term to say, you know, address the behaviors. Oftentimes, you know, on the Johnson campus and others, we often turn a blind eye to discriminative practices. And racist behavior, you know, we take it lightly. We call them microaggressions. This pledge would mean that we're not doing that anymore. We're addressing them, hey, what you said was hurtful. Hey, you shouldn't say that this is why. Again, it's educational opportunity in order to create that safe space for everyone. And the language specifically is call in as opposed to call out. Call out can be sometimes seen as shameful or silencing another voice. Calling in is this idea, again, with the educational component and compassion as well. Like I can personally speak as a white male going through all this educational process. I've said some pretty ignorant things and had some pretty ignorant ideas about things. And this learning process has been really formative in my journey as a member of society. So the idea is, again, community coming together, calling people in so we can educate about the issues that are taking place, the harm that's being done, and then we can move forward together and learn together. But Lee and I just, I know Kevin had a hand up, but let me say something what Kevin just said. It works both ways. You can call me out or in. I could say all white people are racist. And you could say surely that is not right. That is not correct. Not all white people is racist. See, people forget that it works both ways when you're talking about diversity. Diversity is just not race and ethnicity anymore. That's 20 years ago. It embraces everything, political, disability, and then you go off into equity and inclusion. It's evolving, it's evolving with us, but you got to remember in order for us to move toward the society that we want to go to where everybody is treated equally. We have to all, all of us, we got to call all of us out in whatever you want to say. And I'm shutting up after that because Karen has had a hand up for a long time. Okay, Karen, go ahead. Thank you, Shirley. And thank you. I have so many thoughts about this. I'm only gonna say a few. First of all, I want to applaud the work of the students. You bring me back to the time and I came to life, so to speak, in the late 60s and 70s. And by God, if you think you've got activity on the campus now, you should have seen it then. This was an age, actually, there was actually, and Mary's, everybody who can relate to that is smiling. We remember. It was a hotbed of activity and some of it truly wasn't peaceful. We had, we had a lot of violence. And throughout that, the one thought that I had or take back is that there was always a lot of exchange of ideas. Even with all that was going on, there were free exchange of ideas on the most conservative campuses, on the most liberal campuses, there was always an exchange of ideas and there was plenty of diversity of thought. If we didn't have a lot of diversity of everything else, we had diversity of thought. So I want to just mention that and certainly when you're in college, that's the time of when passion and zeal and the opportunity, you're close to each other, you can have plenty of discourse and it's an exciting time. And I think what you've brought forth is exciting and it's of our time and of your time. You're going to remember this when you're 80 or 90 that you worked on this and you brought this forward. Now I will tell you, I've been working, might have used different words, but all my adult life, I've been working for diversity, equity, inclusion and equality and used, I'm not going to say what I did and where I was, but to the very best of my ability, I worked toward those things and continue to. So I couldn't be more in favor of all those things and working toward them. I will tell you a great concern that I have just with what's going on in the country. And I don't think the VSC or Vermont is absolved of this or free of this at no time in my life have I seen witness people more afraid to speak their mind. And I've heard many from the committee and I sat back and listened and occasionally I'd talk and then I was sorry that I did almost without exception. I attended most of the diversity meetings and most of the time when I spoke, I was sorry that I did and thought, well, I should have just been quiet. I've never witnessed a time in my life when people are more afraid to speak. People like the, and it's not just in Vermont. There was an article in the New York Times a couple of months ago about a teacher at an elite New York school who for sure was in favor of diversity, inclusion, equity, equality, and had worked toward that and by all measures was considered to be a pretty good teacher, above average teacher. What he was as a person who dissented, he dissented not with the end result but with how it was gonna get there and he was ultimately fired. He was fired because some of you are nodding, I think maybe you've read the article. He was fired because the powers that be said that his words were going to confuse the students. Having another point of view wasn't valued because it was educational or showed a different route. He was fired because it was going to be confusing. There had to be, and I may not be using the right word but it had to be one thing. Not only do we need to agree on where we're going but we need to agree on how we're gonna get there. And if you don't agree with me on how we're gonna get there, I'm gonna get ready. And I think there are a lot of people and I've read about this happening in industry, on Wall Street, people are afraid to speak, nobody wants to be called a racist. And if they just disagree with a process, they're being challenged as not being with the end result. And I have that concern, not just with the BSE when I lose sleep at night and I do, part of it is because I worry, I worry about the state of our democracy. If we can't feel free to express an opinion, even in this meeting, as to what we really think, then we've got bigger problems than racism or sexism or any other kind ofism. And I would tell you that I'm very fearful of that because when you lose that, it's never in one fell swoop. It's little by little by little by little. Even Hitler was elected, little by little by little. You figure, oh, well, this doesn't matter or it's inconvenient for me to stand up now. I can't stand up now. The price is gonna be too high. It really doesn't matter. And before you know it, there's no freedom for anybody. So that's a concern I have. And I'm gonna tell you, I dissent and I'm gonna dissent with part of the pledge and the part of the pledge I dissent with, I think is unclear. It's unclear about what the call to action is gonna look like. If in general terms, we're calling to action to reach a place where all of God's children are treated with inclusion. We have diversity, equity, equality, by God, I'll fight to the death for that. But I don't know what the process is gonna look like. And I don't know if the process that's outlined here, because remember, all the faces that are on this screen, we're transitory, all of us could be gone in a month, two months, even the students, you're not gonna hang around here. You're gonna go off and do something else. But what will be left is whatever we leave in print. And I wanna make sure that what we're committing to, we actually can do and actually want to do. I don't want this group think or one think as to how we get somewhere. And I haven't been happy to be quite honest with you with the, you know, as we talk about racism, and I'll tell you, I'm BIPOC. I don't look at, I got blue eyes and pink skin, but I'm BIPOC. 100% of my DNA was targeted or could have been targeted by the KKK in the 20s in this state. So I'm what BIPOC looks like too. And I remember a time growing up in Swanton, and you're gonna laugh at this. We had a multimillionaire from Canada who used to camp on McQuam and the local elementary school couldn't come up with money for the band they wanted. They didn't have any instruments. So this man very generously donated a tuba with the proviso that no Catholic child ever puts their mouth on it. Now we might laugh at that now. Back in the 50s, the school board was more than happy to take that tuba because they were picking up instruments one by one by one. And I could recount all kinds of things. And even back then as a kid, I laughed because it was so stupid. So I'm just telling you that there are instances of racism for sure and for month that don't involve black people, that involve abnackeys, that involve people of different religious groups. And I've lost my train of thought now. And as James Clyburn's father told him, just don't talk too long. And I've already talked too long. I have a thought. And I'm gonna lean on something that a past president at Johnson College used to do as a matter of course. My thought is this. My thought is that the VSC family, the group think ought to be more inclusive. Barbara Murphy years ago used to do a campus-wide book. It was a project every year. And some of you may remember this. And I don't know what the process was, but they would pick a book. And everybody would be given the title of this book. Staff members, faculty, students, they would read the book. Sometimes the author would come on campus. They would have various speakers. And it was very intense so that the whole campus was involved. And unless you were completely absent, you had to be involved in this in some way. And it was a great educational experience. But it was voluntary. If I were the queen of Siam and I could wave a wand, I would re-institute that or consider re-instituting that. And I would pick books and topics that relate to diversity. That's the first thing I would do. The second thing I would do is lean on Henry Lewis Gates. I'm sure most of you or all of you are familiar with his work and finding your roots. I'm of the opinion that most people don't know what their roots are. And I think it would be very educational and informative. That might be a nice campus-wide project. What are your neighbor's roots? Doesn't matter the color of their skin or their disability or their religion. It might be interesting for them to know their roots, to search and get those answers. And it might be a more diverse background than you realize. And I think sharing that would be educational and inclusive. I've been a long-time proponent and most of the trustees who've had the misfortune of serving with me have heard me advocate ad nauseam for more foreign language courses and culture to be taught at the VSC. I think if you're serious about diversity and global education, you can't do that without foreign language education and culture. I would make a push there. Aside from that, I would tell you that if I jump ahead on the agenda, the mission statement of the Vermont State University says it. The vision statement says it. And I would tell you the Constitution of the United States of America says it and the laws we have in place say it. Are those things perfect by God, they're not. And as a woman who, and believe it or not, I just didn't drop here without facing some discrimination and harassment along the way. I know it's not perfect, but I think it's better than what's around us. So I think we need to move forward, but I wanna know what we're moving forward to. I don't want us to move forward to, there have been lots of societies that had reeducation camps or reeducation efforts and some of them didn't end up too well. You know, it was down a road toward authoritarianism. And anything that smacks of that, anytime somebody tells me that a whole group is gonna take a pledge and that they might not feel free to say no to the pledge, I have tremendous hesitation. And I think the cause is good, but I think we need to be careful of where we're going and how we're gonna get there. And I think we truly need to be inclusive. And thank you for your time. And I did talk too long. We really appreciate everything you shared with us. You're a great storyteller. It's great listening about your experiences. And I would like to reiterate what is said in our pledge. I can understand hesitancy and a little bit of reluctancy and wanting to move all of this forward. As we have all said, this is far from imperfect just as the constitution and other pledges and policies. This has already been wanted by staff, employees. I could list you so many people across each campus of this institution. So when we look at the call to actions that may seem unclear to you, we would really like to reiterate that these endeavors are already happening. Each individually within departments, so educational department, psychology, criminal justice, they're happening cross collaboration between departments and campuses because of the new merger, which will be exciting and new. And because of that opportunity where it's exciting and new, this is a chance to make a first step action into something that we are going to continue to work on together. And when we think about inclusively, inclusivity, we mentioned students from all cultures, all backgrounds, all heritages. We're not focusing specifically on scan. And so I'm hearing that a lot. And if you read our pledge, we're not focusing on that. We want everyone, we want all, it's a we all of us process. This isn't so much focusing on any one group of people outside of us being one functional community society. This pledge is meant to unify us. So I hope that can offer you a little reassurance into what we're asking for in the call to action is solidifying and openly stating that these, we are in support of these actions, which we the students are fully aware is already happening. This gives students, staff, employees a chance to sign on and say, we support this, thank you. And I don't want you to assume that we students the next two months are gonna be off doing our own thing. I can assure you, we are committed and we are looking forward to the next phases. And we would like the opportunity to continue moving forward and working on this. So we have passionate, compassionate, dedicated, willing individuals that are willing to make this work which is going to involve grit and energy and effort and hopefully together we will figure this out for all of us. This is meant for all of us. So I just want to stress that when we think of inclusivity, this is for everyone within the Vermont State College System. Thank you, Sabra. Is there anyone else? And I can say on that point, I hope that in the spirit of the pledge that in the respecting and listening to one another, we can work together to build a culture of listening to dissenting views. Because I do believe that that is a really important thing to be able to receive other ideas with compassion and with the willingness to meet each other and address these issues without saying that these issues aren't an issue because there are harms that are taking place that we are agreeing to work on and address. Okay, Tarjay, we've spent almost an hour on this. I want you to do this very briefly, please. Okay, I just wanted to say like in the pledge, we didn't like focus on one group. Everyone will have the chance to sign this pledge. It's just, this is like the solidarity piece just to show that we're standing against racism and we're all a part of the chance to accelerate change. Sorry, I'm breaking up. Okay, is there anything else? Seeing none, I'm going to have a motion to vote to support and adopt the anti-racism pledge proposed by the Student Diversity and Inclusion Task Force is recommended by the DEI committee. Do I have a motion on that? Oh, move, Madam Chair. Okay, surely Jefferson has moved. Second. I'll second it. Okay, Ryan. Okay, any more discussion or questions on the motion? Okay, seeing none, all those in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Ask for abstentions, please. Abstentions. One, okay. All right, we have it has passed. Now we have a second motion. Okay, I'd like to thank the students for coming today. Thank you all for coming and coming. You're so brave to come and talk to us today about a passionate pledge that you have and I wish you all well and I'll help you in any kind of way that I can. So thank you all for coming today. Yes. Yes, Madam Chair. The second item, action item from the DEI committee is the recommendation to adopt the definition of diversity, equity and inclusion used by the New England Resource Center for Higher Education, the NETCHI, and in its self-assessment rubic for the institutionalization of diversity, equity and inclusion and higher education. By way of background, the council of presidents have approved the use of the rubic as a tool for incorporating DEI into the ongoing transformation work. Following the reception of public feedback, the VSC social justice group, they decided to propose the NERCHI definition. And Karen, one of the comments, well, several comments was about the definition of diversity because it didn't have political. And even the people that people kept saying we wanna hear a marketplace of ideas, a marketplace of ideas because the VSC social justice group didn't have that. And so they decided to follow the NERCHI definition and a copy of that definition of diversity, equity and inclusion is on page 21 of the meeting material. So with that in mind, take it back to you, Madam Chair. Okay, so it sounded like that was a motion from Trustee Jefferson. It's a motion to revoke to adopt the NERCHI definition of diversity, equity and inclusion for the Vermont State College System as recommended by the DEI committee. Is that a motion? Don't move yet. A second? Second. Okay, Ryan, go ahead, Bill. Would you like to discuss this? Well, I wanna just say that I supported this in the committee and I will support it today in rereading the definitions. I'm not wanting to open up this definition for further word smithing today, but I can't stay silent and say that the term gender identity is not included. And that's an increasingly critical and important piece. One, in many situations, the laws interpret gender to include gender identity, but we in Vermont, in fact, have separate non-discrimination clauses that include gender identity and some other terms. I would just like to be on the record of saying that I trust that we are inclusive in that area as well and that we might work with, is it NERCHI? I'm not sure I've pronounced it properly. That I looked back for when they adopted this and I think, frankly, the culture is shifting and I think if they rewrote this today, we would have the phrase gender identity in it as well because that has increasingly come to the fore as critically important and something that we have enshrined in Vermont law. So I support this, but I just wanna say that I hope that we'll work toward working with NERCHI to update their terms. Okay, does that mean it does, my reading includes gender and sexual orientation and gender identity is sometimes included under the definition of gender, but in many laws and in Vermont law, we include it separately as gender identity. Okay, well, that's interesting. Okay, anyone else have any comments or any questions on this? I was just gonna ask Bill, do you want to make that as an amendment to the motion? I mean, I'm not sure you've done it. I'm just hesitant to, at this point in the process, open it up for a conversation and we'll add this phrase at that phrase. I'm comfortable at this point with moving ahead and maybe having the DEI committee think further about whether working with NERCHI is a way to get there or maybe bringing an amendment at a future point in time, but I don't wanna try to do that in the middle of our trustees meeting today. I hesitated to bring it up, but I thought, no, I need to at least say something. Thank you so much Bill, it's very important. There is a difference between gender sexual orientation. It's a very big difference. And gender identity, yeah. And it's a very current and very important issue for many, frankly, our colleagues, both staff, students, faculty, and potential trustees. And I should have caught that Bill. Well, we've got it, we'll look at it more in the DEI committee, I hope. Okay, Karen. Is that something we can quickly and easily adjust right now? Why wait, if it's a- I'll take it as a friendly amendment to that, Sophie, is that okay, the procedure part? Take it- Yeah, that's why I was asking. I mean, whether it made sense just to add it as an amendment to the definition. I accepted as a friendly amendment. Okay, so we're going to, we have an amendment on the floor. Do we have a second on that? Second. Okay, so we have an amendment to add gender identity to the social differences in the parentheses under diversity. Any discussion on this? Hearing none, all those in favor of adding the amendment regarding gender identity, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. So we now have the motion vote to adopt the inertia definition of diversity, equity, and inclusion as amended, et cetera. Everybody agrees that the motion was made by Shirley Jefferson and seconded by Ryan. Any more discussion? No, but I'd just like to thank the VSC social justice group, specifically Hannah Miller, Pat Shine, and Jay Basileer. Thank you so much for working on the definition. Yes, well noted. Okay. So we're thanking both the social justice group and their sponsors and advisors now. All those in favor of voting for the motion to accept the inertia definitions, please, as amended, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? No, that abstains. That appears that that is taken care of. We now have a report from the actual committee, Trustee Kluver. Can I indulge Madam Chair, may I make a quick comment if I may? Sure, go ahead, Bill. I recognize that we've spent much more time than the chair anticipated on this part of the agenda and having chaired many meetings. I appreciate the pressure that there are for moving through an agenda, but I also really appreciate the amount of time that we took. I would say, from my point of view, the issue of bringing forward this pledge and these definitions is working because it's engendered a conversation amongst ourselves and I hope it's a conversation we will continue. And I think that's, so thank you for indulging, not just really indulging, but allowing the conversation that we needed to have. Well, thank you. Okay, and we will now move on to the episode committee. This is Megan Kluver. Would you like to start, Megan? I will, and I will be brief. So we had a meeting about a week and a half ago and heard an update from our faculty and chief academic officers on the progress of the program rationalization. They have moved 69 programs to green status. So green status means that faculty have come together across the campuses and agreed on a path forward, which puts us at the place that that path forward now has to go up in through the faculty governance process in order to become the programs for the future institution. So we have 69 green on that path. We also heard with some detail about the 22 programs that are pending and had some good information from the chief academic officers and our presidents around some of the roadblocks that those are encountering and certainly where they expect to see some progress in the near term at our next episode committee. We'll hear a continued update on those programs and anticipate that we are moving along with good progress at this point. We likely need to have those programs through faculty governance in the May timeline in order to have them in place for the next recruiting process. So update is good progress and tremendous appreciation for our faculty and chief academic officers who are doing the hard work of getting from 250 disparate programs to just about a hundred programs that will be offered across the state of Vermont. Any questions? There are questions, thanks. Any questions or any discussion on what Epsilon's doing? Okay, seeing none. I'm trying to get, trying to work off of. Okay, seeing none, we will move on to the update on the COVID-19 vaccination mandate from employees. Patty Turley and Katrina Megs, Mike's can report on this. I'll start. Katrina and I and many others across the campuses have been discussing this issue. You may be aware that President Biden is anticipated to mandate for employees of more than 100, the vaccine and or some testing if someone is exempt from the vaccine. While we wouldn't normally be subject to OSHA, because of OSHA, we expect that we will be subject to this mandate. We don't know the details, all of the details of it yet. However, what we understand is that all employees and likely that includes remote employees will be required to provide proof of their vaccine. And if they request and are approved for a medical and or religious exemption that they will be required to test weekly in order to remain at work. So there's frankly a fair amount of details to work out with that. We've been communicating again with folks at the colleges. We've been speaking with the unions so that people are aware. A notice is gonna go out to employees to provide them with some advanced warning. We have lots of questions. There are questions about the timeline. We don't know exactly what the timeline will be. But it'll be pretty rapid. It's not going to be many months of lead up for compliance. And we just wanted you to be aware that that is happening. I know Katrina would like to update you on some of our vaccination information, like we, because we did do a vaccine survey as well as talk about some of the other details about how this impacts our work. Thank you, Patty. Thank you all. I think the biggest piece with this mandate is we're sort of in a hurry up and wait state. We've been trying to be proactive in a lot of ways. We had done the employee survey. We now know that we've had about 70% of our employees have responded. And of those 70%, 97, almost 98% are fully vaccinated. So we're going into this knowing at least that statistic. It still leaves about 30% of our employees. And this is full and part time that we're unsure of. So we've been trying to line everything up so that when we get this mandate from VOSHA, we're ready to move. It's going to create a pretty substantial administrative burden. Just the uploading of upwards of 3,000 vaccination records. And then for those who aren't vaccinated, uploading the weekly testing, tracking the weekly testing. So we've been trying to do some research around what tracking mechanisms there are for us to do this and to be able to do it as efficiently and effortlessly as possible, just knowing the kind of burden that it's going to play. But we're trying to stay at least a step ahead of the VOSHA guidance that should be coming out hopefully within the week or two. Okay. Any questions, further questions? Yeah, this is Janet. So why aren't you collecting the vaccination records like now? You're legally can do that. You can have all those records now ahead of the VOSHA rule. And then the other thing is, I don't know if there's an opportunity, maybe the legislators in this game know better, but our business is certainly trying to get ready for this. And one of the biggest challenges is the testing, the accuracy of the rapid tests and or the turnaround time of the PCR tests. To the extent the state creates for lack of a word, better word, a buying group or the state health department determines what the best rapid test is, that would go a long way. Then everybody trying to figure it out. So I think maybe there's an opportunity to go push on the health department in the governor's office on the testing aspect of this, because that in my opinion, is far more complicated than the VAC's record keeping. Janet, if I may, I just want to, the issue about collecting the vaccine records now, it's simply that we've never done that before. So we have no system to collect employee vaccination records. Unlike students where the law has required that we collect vaccine information for years and years now, that's never actually been part of our typical employee record. So it is, we are working on that. And as soon as we have something up and running, we hope to be able to start collecting the vaccine records. I would tell you that old school works, right? We've had employees have to take pictures from their phone and send it to HR and it goes in their record there. And I certainly can connect you with our HR person, but old school works. It's a little complicated, but at least to get you ahead of the curve on all of this, because it is a pain. Yeah, that will certainly be a big chunk for us to undergo. We are communicating with the state about the testing. We also right now, we're still in a contract with the Broad Institute who, and they are on campus doing testing for our students and faculty who have been requesting or requiring testing. So we have that at the moment. Our biggest challenge with the testing is indeed that our funding is running out at the end of this year. And frankly, it's a pretty big lift to have to have that testing available and then have it available in a manner that a supervisor can check to make sure that that individual who has an exemption, but did they indeed test and upload the negative test this week? It is unfortunately not a, we haven't found quick answers to that yet, but we are working with the state and in communication with the state about perhaps coordinating with some of their resources. Go ahead, Pat. Thanks, just one correction from Vermont Tech Patty. We have not been having employees do any of the testing, it's only been students because we contracted for a certain amount of tests at X dollars and adding employees gonna mean Y dollars. And as you have shared, the money's running out. We only have a certain amount of money, certain amount of tests. So the testing does certainly add to the complications probably a little easier in that we are at least doing those tests every week and we can add employees, it just adds the expense. But the tracking of what, right now we're testing students, what students have submitted their vaccine proof, what to have not and tracking them down and getting them to go in and take the weekly test. We're actually looking at certain sanctions, maybe putting a hold on their student account to get them to come in to get the test. Will we have that same leverage with employees is a big unknown. And so this will be a challenge no matter what for us and every employer. Anyone else? I should know this off the top of my head but is that, what is it about $60 per test ballpark? Give or take? Yeah. Yeah, that's my understanding. It can range anywhere from 50 to $60, $65. Yeah, I think it works out to that from road with transportation. I think it's 25 for the test but the time you factor in administering the test, transporting the test, et cetera, you're up in that range, Sean. Okay, yeah, this is a huge challenge for all businesses at this point and it's gonna be interesting to see how it evolves. One thing we did at NBRH was as we ramped up our program, we put a lot of time and energy into figuring out the policies and what the implications of missing testing would be. For example, and I'm sure you're already thinking about it but that required a lot of work as well. So good luck. Anyone else have anything to add to this? If not, we look forward to hearing more about how this is progressing when you get the next steps done. The remorse from the audit committee on October 18th, we have Trustee Zeller who has a report and a motion. Sue, are you there? Sorry, I was muted. I'm getting to my documents here. There it is, board. Let's see, audit finance committee, item five, yes? Yes. Okay, so we met and we had a presentation on the audit and also on the internal operations review. So the motion is as follows. Whereas the Vermont State Colleges contracted with O'Connor and Drew to perform the FY 2021 financial statement audit and the auditors have delivered the draft financial statements. And whereas the board's audit committee has reviewed these materials and recommended that the board accept them and whereas federal guidance regarding the single audit has only recently been received, therefore, so be it, resolve that the board of trustees of the Vermont State Colleges hereby accept the FY 2021 financial statement audit report by O'Connor and Drew and be it further resolved that O'Connor and Drew will complete the uniform guidance single audit report and advisory comments as soon as practicable and be it further resolved that the completed uniform guidance single audit report and advisory comments will be presented for review and approval by the audit committee of the board of trustees of the Vermont State Colleges at its next regularly scheduled meeting following completion of the report by O'Connor and Drew. Okay, so that's the motion. Do we have a second? The audit committee. Back committee. Karen, okay, Sean. Okay, is there any discussion or anything? It sounds like we had a clean bill of health primarily. If we did, and as a matter of fact, they commented that they had no comments to make in the management letter. So that's very clean. That's truly amazing. Okay, any further discussion on that? Okay, we have a motion on the table. All those in favor of accepting the FY 2021 audited financial statements and the resolution of 2021-023, please indicate by saying aye. Opposed, abstained. We've accepted that. Can you go over the actual very done payroll and benefit and internal audit a little bit? What is the status of that? How did that work? Is Sharon with us? Is Sharon here? Is Sharon here? Absolutely. Okay, I defer to Sharon for a little more precise information. Thank you. Excellent, so Barry Dunn joined us and presented on the internal audit of the payroll and benefits system. The audit identified several high priority elements for us to address as part of management's work. And we agree with their comments and we are taking action right now. Several of these things are activities related to the termination of employees and the actions related to doing so. Processes related to really streamlining the work that we are doing. And what we have already started to do is employ and deploy the specific software that's available to us already within our payroll system that allows us to have self-service and automated systems that will allow us to be able to improve the compliance and our ability to be able to make sure that what we're doing is accurate and correct. There are also a number of low priority items that they also identified. And as we go through the next auditing cycle, we will be providing an update to the audit committee at each meeting to talk to you about our progress on resolving these issues. The great news is that Barry Dunn did not find, even though there was high priority items that needed to be addressed, that they did not find that there were any significant errors that required attention. And that's from a lot of due diligence on behalf of the staff, but we really need to automate this work so that we know that things can't fall through the cracks instead of doing it extensively. And one thing I should mention, I would like to mention is both the auditors and Barry Dunn, high compliments for Sharon and her team on the swiftness and accuracy of all the materials that were presented and provided in a remote environment. So kudos to Sharon and her team. That's good to hear. Thank you, Sharon. Thank you. We also have a whistleblower hot light update. We're going to hear from Patty Turley on that. Is that something that would be just an update? This is a function of the audit committee. We don't usually bring it to the full board, but I mean, I'm sure Patty can provide a quick update, but really it's just, again, the chair of the audit committee is copied in on all of the ethics point whistleblower complaint. So it's really an opportunity for us just to provide a summary of what complaints we've received, just so the audit committee is aware of it. There's a pattern or just sort of some familiarity with what kinds of complaints are coming in. I don't know, Patty, if there was something else you wanted to add. No, I would say that primarily the amount of complaints that you received were in line with past years and actually the majority of them six out of nine related to COVID issues, COVID protocol type issues. And from our perspective, they were handed off and resolved by folks at the campuses addressed in the best manner that we could. Nothing was left unresolved. Let's put it that way. Good, yes. So no news is good news on whistleblower land. Good. Okay. Thank you. Is there anything else that we need to hear about, Susan? I don't think so. Unless you, there is a report included from the finance and facilities committee. Other than that, there's nothing really of note there. We received a brief update on the status of capital facilities and equipment and reserves. We're going to get into that into, yeah, we're going to let David and Sharon get into that and finance and facilities. Okay, so you're good then. That's it for audit. Yes. Thank you. Okay, then we do have the report from finance and facilities. That was on October 18th, that same day. And I'll turn that over to Trustee Silverman and then he can turn it over to whoever he thinks is next best to talk about it. Well, whoever's next on the next square maybe. So, yes, we had a meeting of the finance and facilities committee. We really, while we spoke about a lot of things, we really could boil them down as looking at the results for fiscal year 2021 and then talked about the strategic financial plan. Looking at results for 2021, but for one-time funds, the system would have shown a loss of over $5 million for the year. Through the good graces of the Vermont State government as well as the federal government, we received $43 million in one-time funds, some of which were spent on directly related costs of the pandemic and some will be used in the future as bridge monies as we work through our transformation. So, rather than focus on the positive, which is not my nature, I would focus on the negative, which is we had a deficit, but for the one-time funds. And I'm gonna say that one more time. We had a over $5 million deficit before one-time funds. Lest anybody think that we're, we have conquered being financially stable. Now that's, we are on a path for that, but we have a lot of work ahead of us. Related to that is looking into the future about how we develop budgets in the context of having a more strategic financial plan. And I think that you will see that a lot of the conversation that we had amongst the committee was creating budgets differently with regards to required reserves and capital expenditures, keeping up our facilities and so forth. Here too for, we've required pretty modest budgeted reserves on the college level and at the system level. And really have not been reserving sufficient monies to leave us with any meaningful financial flexibility with regards to days cash on hand. And as a result going into the pandemic, we were very weak on days cash on hand, which those of you who are in tune with finance know that that is a critical measure of a system where a company's systems non-profits viability. And we amongst the committee think it's our responsibility to suggest that in the budgeting process that we over time reserve more on a budgeted basis and thus increasing cash that we hold on our balance sheet so that over the course of time, a time period yet to be determined, but it'll probably by necessity be longer than we would like and hopefully shorter than we've done in the past, my thinking is probably a 10 year schedule, but that's subject to discussion to really get to a point where the next pandemic doesn't put us in as much of a threat situation as we have been going through. And I think this would be good for, not only would it be good for the system, it would be good for the state because essentially the state to an extent has had to step up and make sure that we've remained viable. If we could do that on our own in the next crisis, it would actually be very beneficial to the state as a whole. How we do that in terms of affordability is gonna be one of our major challenges that we continue to face. Those are two items that are diametrically opposed. Bill, thank you for shaking your head. This is not the first time you've gone through these dynamics, I'm sure. So what we are asking the administration to do the administration to do is to take our conversation and to start to put together some thoughts about some additional policies about how we budget going forward. And my anticipation would be that those would be from a system point of view, a bit more prescriptive than we have been in the past. But we think that that's the direction at least the finance committee thinks that that's the direction that we should be heading. So I think that's a pretty good summary of our meeting but Sharon, if you would like to either correct anything I've said wrong, or if you have any other thoughts on the meeting and its content, please share. You did an outstanding summary and I don't have anything further to add other than to say that we're really looking forward tomorrow the business affairs council is actually digging in and really starting to look at are the existing policies and where we need to head. We got some great information from the finance and facilities committee about directions and directions the board may wish to go and we're really looking forward to bringing those back to you soon. Thanks Sharon. Madam chair, I yield back to you, thank you. Thank you. I was a very good summary as a member of the finance and facilities committee I found the reports that were built very similar to the ones we heard at the retreat to be very, very eye-opening. They were also very sobering and I would recommend there were some members of our committee who were not there but I would recommend to everyone on the board to get a chance to go back to YouTube and see if you can observe and read and listen or whatever the things that were discussed. It was a very instructive finance committee meeting. It presented materials that I've never seen presented to us before except maybe at the retreat a little bit and I think that we really do have it would be really instructive for others all the others that don't normally go to that committee to listen to it because it would really help us all understand what we really need to do going forward. It was a very sobering committee meeting and I think that David outlined it very well. Anything else on that? Any questions? Okay, seeing none on that. We don't have any action on that. We do have a mission and vision statement for the Vermont State University. We do have a motion for this and we need Provost Nolan Atkins to give us some report on this. It's in your package so you should be able to pull that up. Okay, thank you. Yes, it's actually easy to find because it's the very last page of your board materials. Just scroll right down to the bottom. You'll see both statements there. So yeah, thank you. And I'm here to give you an update of the vision and mission work since the board retreat at Lake Maury. The update is essentially the vision and mission statements that you see on the last page of the board package. I just wanna start by stating that I've been working with a small group of individuals on the vision and mission and I'd just like to call them out because this is a cross-institutional group that have put a great deal of time and effort and creative energy into the statements that are before you for your consideration. And the individuals who have been working on this include Marybeth Lennox-Levins and Emily Weizalis at Castleton, James Noyes and Sylvia Plommett, NVU and Jessica Van Deren and Sarah Billingsburg at Vermont Tech. I've really appreciated working with this group and the creative energy has just been amazing as we've put these two statements together. So since the board retreat, we have essentially received additional input in feedback on the keywords, concepts and phrases that I presented to you at Lake Maury and this gave an oral recitation about those concepts. So we've received additional feedback from faculty, from vision point, and then through the series of transformation town hall meetings that we had across the system. Based on the refinement of those ideas that I presented at Lake Maury based on those inputs, this working group has began the task of drafting the vision statement. We started with the vision statement and we employed some very simple design principles when thinking about the vision statement. We, first of all, have included, we believe all of the important concepts that were presented and discussed at that Lake Maury meeting. We intentionally have written the vision statement to eliminate higher education jargon. So you'll remember that many times during that meeting in Lake Maury, I referred to applied learning as a pedagogical approach that we would infuse in degree programs. We talk about applied learning in the vision statement that we just don't refer to it as applied learning because we want to ensure that the vision and vision statements, which will be read by a variety of audiences are in fact understandable by a variety of different audiences. The other thing that sort of guided our work is to be concise. It was important for us to, first of all, ensure that all of the important concepts are clearly articulated in the vision and mission statements. But we didn't want to make it so concise that we neglect important concepts and ideas. And so we really strove for a balance of conciseness versus ensuring that everything that we feel like is important for creating this new institution is there. And that was really an important guiding principle. And that is we feel that the vision statement guides this transformation work. And so all of those important ideas needed to be articulated in the vision statement. And we believe they do. Other vision statements are shorter, others are longer, but we feel like with what we've created, the vision statement that we're putting before you does have all of the important pieces that will guide the ongoing transformation work. Once the vision statement was written, we then wrote the mission statement. And so that's how we created that. Again, we were striving for conciseness and yet ensuring that all of the important pieces are in the mission statement. Once we had drafts of the vision and mission, we then reached out in considered feedback from the council of presidents, from vision point and from Jim Page. And so their thinking is also reflected. Their thinking actually greatly improved what we put before you now. The final point that I wanna make is an update since the last board meeting was that we believe these that the vision and mission statements actually, we believe they compliment very nicely the system mission statement and also the mission and vision statements of the community college of Vermont. And I think that is important because moving forward, it will be these two institutions working together in a complimentary way to realize the mission of the system. And from our perspective, we believe the vision and mission statements before you do that. So with that is preamble, I would happily entertain any questions. Any questions on this? There is a motion that needs to be made. It's a motion to approve the mission and vision statements for Vermont State University is set forth on the meeting materials. I need a motion on that. Lynn? Yes, go ahead, Karen. I'd like to move the adoption of the mission and vision statements as presented. And I make that motion with pride and gratitude. Very well done. Thank you. Okay, we need a second on that motion. Adam, we'll second that. Okay, Adam, thank you. So we have a motion on the second on the table. Any further discussion or questions of Nolan Atkins? I guess seeing none. All those in favor of adopting the Vermont State University mission and vision statements as presented, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstained. Everybody said aye, right? Any opposition? I don't believe there is any. Okay, Nolan, thank you very, very much. That looks like a very good step forward. Thank you. Bill? Lynn? Well, let me go to Bill first, and then we'll go to the whoever next. I would just request that if we could have the vision and mission statements of the VSS, the state proposed Vermont State University and CCV all in one document that can be shared with us as trustees. I mean, I can go looking for it, but I think it'd be really great as Nolan indicated that they fit together. It'd be nice to be able to be able to see them all in one place, if that could be shared with us. I'd appreciate it. We can get that to you, no worries. Thank you. Yes, anyone else have anything to say? Go ahead, Mary. On a different matter, I don't believe we voted to accept the financial statements during that part of the meeting. I don't think we have financial statements to approve at this point in time. The finance committee, maybe David. There was a resolution in a packet? No, that was accepting the audit. We accepted the audit. Yeah, we did the audit. This was, we voted on that. We did vote on that. All right, sorry. Sorry. Okay. Yeah, so we, yeah, the finances was just a report. So we've got, we've got the mission and vision statement. We've approved that. And I think Sophie or someone from the administrative offices can send us copies of those so we can read them all together. Thank you. Okay, now we have a transformation update. We've got our project manager, Wilson Garland, who was going to give us a report on this. Go ahead, Wilson. Thank you. And I just have a quick update, but I wanted to update you on some important progress that we've been continuing to make on transformation. We're quickly reaching an important milestone for the student experience and the academic operations team. We're concluding our discovery stage and those teams will be presenting their findings as well as their recommendations for design principles to the sponsors in the next few weeks. The discovery stage for the administrative operations core team and sub teams is continuing and will continue through the end of the year. We've also kicked off the workforce development teams and are moving into discovery now with that group and working on some key development items there that I'll update in a few minutes. And then we have several key deliverables needed for the design and development work that are on track. We just talked about the mission and vision and that's an important element that informs all the work that we're doing with transformation. And along with that, the DEI work that we talked about earlier is also being embedded within the transformation work that we talked about. The program array work is progressing and towards the governance approval process and that's an important step along the way that is helping to inform the work that we're doing across all the teams. And then the naming and branding initiative for Vermont State University is continuing to move ahead and we'll have future updates on that at future meetings. In terms of risks and dependencies that are inherent in the process that we're going through, some of the things that we've changed since we talked, we've decided to accelerate the submission of the substantive change proposal to the accreditor, Nechi. We have continuing capacity concerns related to making sure that we can get all of the programs and other items through the faculty governance and approval process and the chief academic officers and others are working closely with faculty to make sure that we can get that done and make sure that that happens. We've also identified a continuing need for additional technical expertise and capacity in areas where our staffing and resources are thin. So an example of that would be in the learning and enterprise systems area. And so we're looking at some backfill support and potentially some contract support in those areas as well as making sure that we have our processes aligned for our systems configuration and programming that will come out of the design work. So in effect, we're really focusing our efforts on getting prepared for the design and development work that will come into the next phases. Just a quick update on each of the different core teams areas that we're working on in academic operations. We're nearing completion on the discovery stage. We're integrating the DEI principles into the discovery work with the Nechi framework that was discussed earlier. And the subteams really are focusing on student success, access and best practices as we move through discovery. Our priorities are to finalize the design principles for the discovery gate. And that's, as I said, gonna be concluding here in the next few weeks. We have an evaluation of the array for cost and mission as we've talked about in Epsilon and other places. We know that we will need some additional professional development regarding modalities and our DEI priorities. And then working on the general education curriculum for Vermont State University was one of the top priorities moving forward. As I mentioned in the earlier slide, the capacity of governance structures to process the evaluation of programs and policies as a core area of focus for us as we move ahead. And the complexity of merging and supporting schedules across the various programs and institutions as an area that will require some technical expertise as well as making sure that we've got the functional and system support to enable that. And then just the scope of the development needed in systems and technologies, particularly around delivery modalities as an area that we're focusing on for academic operations. For student experience, this team also is coming to the end of discovery. Also working on integrating DEI principles through the energy framework and then continuing to work on the brand pillar development that we've talked about for the branding. Priorities looking ahead really are to conclude the discovery process as well as aligning the functional resources to prepare for the design stage and then launching the Vermont State University Micro site. While that's not in the immediate offering is something that we're definitely working diligently on so that we'll be ready for that when we're ready. In terms of issues and dependencies we're really just recognizing that there's significant system dependencies across the teams and the capacity needed to complete the design stages at the forefront of our minds with this group. As I mentioned, administrative operations has a little bit longer on their discovery process because we have staggered the work to ensure that we have the capacity to manage it. But we have kicked off the core teams and the sub teams and they're working on their charters. Looking ahead, we've identified some, we need to identify some key dependencies across the processes and teams. There's a lot of interplay between the backend processing work that happens in this group and then the front end student processes that impact student experience and academic operations. So we're working on those. And then really looking at what systems needs we have to support the transformation through discovery. In terms of dependencies, we know that we're gonna need some additional people and resources and targeted areas to ensure that we have the capacity to support the discovery and design work across all of the transformation initiatives and just recognizing the significant time and system dependencies that exist with the other teams. So those are the areas that we're focused on specifically for administrative operations. And then the final core process area where we have a team approach is workforce development. And this group, as I mentioned, just kicked off within the last couple of weeks and has begun to establish objectives and deliverables for their work. And they're kicking off the discovery stage right now and getting deep into that work as well. One of the first things that we need to do now that we've identified the objectives and deliverables is working on our high level timeline of the different stages. And so I don't have any details on that at this point because we're still developing that but we will have that for you in a future update. And then we're also looking to make sure that we've identified the key dependencies across the other processes and teams. For example, a lot of the systems that we plan to use for workforce development will overlap with systems that are used in admissions and other areas so that we wanna make sure that we've got alignment of those systems and requirements as we move into design and development. And that's really the focus of the issues and dependencies is really identifying what those dependencies are and what areas we need to align. And then importantly, while workforce development was the last of the teams to kick off we wanna make sure everyone's aware that it's not secondary in importance. It's really very important to the overall mission of not just from outstate university but the BSC overall. And we just wanna make sure that as we go through this transformation work that that importance is not only recognized but integrated within the broader work that's happening across the system of transformation. So this is an update of a chart of the schedule that we've looked at before you can see student experience and- So Wilson, we're not seeing anything. I don't know if you had, if you- Oh. Well, thank you. I'm sorry about that. Okay, well, I will make sure that these slides get out to everybody and unless you would like me to do a quick summary from the top, Sophie. No, that's fine. If you provide them afterwards we can include them as supplemental meeting materials and I can send them around to the trustees as well. So if you send them to me afterwards we'll be all set. I apologize for that. I should have noted before I wasn't sure because you kind of referenced maybe there was something on the screen and I wasn't entirely sure. Okay, sorry about that. Okay, this is the high level timeline and chart that we have across the different core teams and we will add workforce development once we've established our milestone timelines. And then finally just some questions and considerations for the board as we move ahead on the transformation work. We wanna make sure if there are any additional items as we go ahead and do additional updates in the future please let us know what items you'd like some more additional information on. One of the things that we're cognizant of as we move through the transformation is constantly making a trade-off in terms of the speed with which we can save money in the short term versus establishing a foundation for the future. And so that's something that we're continuing to work through and would certainly like some guidance from the board on that. And then finally at the retreat we had presented an update of the accountability dashboard and identified some priorities for us in terms of moving forward on that and just wanted to get some feedback if there was any from the board on those priorities. And if not, we should move ahead. So those were the items there. Yeah, this is Jean and I have a question. And I think we brought this up in the last meeting is when you talk about things like resource and timing trade-offs, cutting costs versus foundation how are you bringing those forward for us to see what choices that either we have to make or already are being made, maybe aren't normal purview of the board. But I'm still concerned about decision-making and either transparency of it or what we should be helping with versus what's happening behind us. Thank you, that's very helpful. And I will say that right now we're in the discovery stage where we're raising what those different design principles are that we'll be putting forward to the sponsors and other stakeholders. When we get through the next phase which will be the design phase, that is the point at which we'll be making more of the specific trade-offs about which things we prioritize and move ahead with which things get either delayed or postpone to a later phase. And so we'll have more that we can present as we get through that phase and that stage in terms of what trade-offs that we have on our plates. But that's a good thing to raise and we will certainly try and be as transparent as possible about those decisions when we get to that point. Anyone else have questions? Adam and then Megan. Yeah, thank you. Can you hear me okay? I'm having connective issues. Okay. I'm curious if the earmark, the Senator Leahy earmark for workforce is being targeted for transformation work or if that's a different focus and would be curious to hear about that either under transformation or if it is indeed a different focus at a later point. I don't know to whom I'm addressing that question, maybe between the two Sophie and Wilson if you might try to answer that for me. Yeah. It certainly would assist us with transformation at the moment. We don't know if we're going to get it. So we're still waiting to see, right? It moved out of committee into a Senate appropriation bill. So we have our fingers crossed on it. But there are specific things in there that would help with transformation of libraries, institutional research and workforce development. So that would certainly be something we could look at as part of this. And I know Sharon was involved in submitting the earmarks. I don't know, Sharon, if there's anything else you wanted to add? No, really when we designed the earmark request it was really looking at what are some of the needs that we're anticipating as we move forward with transformation in order to be able to extend the transformation and be able to reap the benefits faster potentially. We know that we have these specific needs that Sophie just mentioned. Transformation, the dollars that we have to be able to do that will help us do a lot of things. But as Wilson noted, we are gonna have to make trade-offs and this will allow us to be able to continue to perform that work and make fewer of the trade-offs that will have to be done for cost reasons if we're able to achieve it. Great, thank you. Megan. Wilson, I think you referenced among the risks, capacity constraints and resourcing constraints for the team. We've heard this consistently. There's just not enough people to do the volume of work, faculty or stretch staff are stretched. And I'm worried that this is just going to become sort of the punctuation at the end of the sentence and we're going to accept this and sort of keep going. As you move into design or maybe you've done this now, can the team articulate what are the resources that are needed and where are we falling short and maybe what are some solutions that could be proposed or to Janet's point, what are the trade-offs that we're accepting because of those capacity constraints? No, that's a very good question. And I think as we've looked, so as we've gone into discovery, it's really been trying to get clear from what we are including at design. So we've been looking at what are our design principles for the various processes and services and programs and other things that we're going to offer. But we know once we move into design, it's going to be more time intensive in terms of really getting to the very detailed level of the different processes and systems and so on. So as we've been going through discovery, we've been looking at specific areas of whether they be ERP or scheduling software or other areas where we know we're going to need to invest some time and resources to determine if we have the right expertise in house or if there's some additional expertise that we need to bring to bear on that. So Kelly Campbell and Doug Eastman and I and others have been actively engaged in thinking through what sorts of technical resources we need combined with the other functional resources we need and recognizing also though that a lot of the functional experts that we have are in the various institutions that belong to VSC. And so we've been working with the presidents and others to make sure that we have the right people identified and that are also looking for what additional resources we might need to deploy there either as backfill resources or additional temporary hires or contractors or others to make sure that we have those things in place. I'd say this is an area of active discussion for us and we're certainly not waiting until we get to design to understand what those areas are. At this point, we don't see any issue with the overall timeline, but certainly time and resource and expertise are sort of the tension points as we get into that work. Can someone please define what ERP is so that we understand what's been mentioned in the past and it is important. So ERP is just the enterprise system and really we have a constellation of systems that are sort of our core system. So for example, the student information system is at the core of what we offer and then there's other systems that surround that. I don't know if Kelly would like to jump in and provide a little bit more detail about that but when we talk about ERP it really refers to enterprise resource planning which is a type of system that integrates all of those different aspects of an enterprise. Kelly? Yeah, thank you Wilson and Megan. I wanna thank you for your question because it's one that's giving me the up late at night, right? It's a very, very important question. I think I'm speaking from the technology lens here but many of these systems that we use including our ERP, which as Wilson just explained if you think of our enterprise systems as an octopus, right? Colleague which is our ERP is kind of at the center of that and then we have systems wrapped around it, right? So we have a lot of data flowing between systems and different users of those systems and I think the perspective we need to take as we go through this process is to really understand what systems and processes and people do we need to really invest in the short term over the next two years knowing that there's going to be some systems that we might have to band aid or do slight modifications to and start to address them long term. So I think this really starts to roadmap our short term versus our long term technology strategy and being sure that the systems that we invest in support the new business process that we're establishing. So in my mind as we look at kind of the complexity of our IT strategy, I think that's just something to keep in mind as we're looking over the next two years but we're also, we gotta look five to seven years out as we build this strategy as well because we're just not going to simply be able to do it all in the next two years, right? So prioritizing that work is really, it's exciting from an IT perspective that we have the structure of transformation and we have the structure that's come into play from discovery and then design to be able to kind of wrap around our strategy around that, right? So hopefully that helps just explain a little bit some of our thinking. Megan, do you wanna- The other item just to follow along and answering your question, Megan is when we look at the resource constraints the first step to being able to address the risk is to identify it and to really identify the extent of that risk. So we're very much keeping an eye on it because we don't want that to be the punctuation mark at the end. It really needs to be something that we address upfront. I would just add to that we just have coming on board in a week, two weeks we have a business and process analyst which was a position that we had been seeking to hire some time ago but we do have someone coming on board that we're very excited about and I think two weeks on Monday, a week on Monday. Anyway, very soon, so that will help. Megan, if you have anything else to ask or comment on? No, thank you very much. Yeah, my understanding is that colleague has been around a while and it has had a lot of changes made to it over the period of time we've had it and that's part of our ERP planning short-term concerns because we can't continue to do that. It's hard to keep up with it. It's hard to customize it. It's been customized so much, it's ridiculous. So am I correct in that? And a very basic. Yes, that's not a far off statement. I think we've had colleague in our environment for about 20 years now. We have added layers of complexity to it by design and now we have to unravel that and for anyone sitting in my seat, a lot of colleagues that I'm talking to beyond the Vermont State Colleges right now has emphasized the opportunity we have ahead of us. This is not uncommon in many higher ed organizations around ERP strategies and we have a real opportunity now to really align on our business process and conduct our business in a really new way and I think the structure of transformation is giving us a really powerful vehicle to do that work and by prioritizing that work and then wrapping our technology around it, I think it will, we will be well-served and we will have a much more sustainable long-term strategy for us. Thank you. Is there anyone else with any questions on the process of the transformation and the project management? If not, we can go to additional business. Additional business, I don't know if anyone has any but if you do, please speak up now. Not hearing anything, public comment. Jen, do we have anyone who has signed up for public comment? We do not, Chair Dickinson. If there's anyone here on the Zoom that would like to raise their hand for a comment, please do so now. I think that has come on camera. Beth, do you have something you'd like to say? Yeah. Yeah, I thank you for all of your hard work on all of this. It's appreciated. The transformation work is something that has been taking time and but it's time well spent but I just want to remind folks that when we talk about contractors and temporary staff to address our resource constraints, we do have to pay attention to our various contract agreements, bargaining agreements. So just a reminder that we have to pay attention to what our contracts say. Thank you. Okay, thank you, Beth. Anyone else? Okay, seeing none, we have an executive session. I'm going to read a motion that the board of trustees under executive session pursuant to one VSA section 313A3 to discuss the appointment employment of a public officer. No formal or binding action shall be taken in executive session, along with the members of the board president at this meeting and in this discretion, the board invites Steve Leo and Matt Bunning, Bunting of Starbucks Storeback Search, the chancellor and the chief financial officer and operating officer to attend. Would someone like to make a motion to that effect? We need a motion. So moved. Thank you, Sean. A second on that? Second. Okay, thank you. So we will be entering any discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor of going into executive session as outlined, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Okay, we are entering executive session at 304. We're going into the breakout room. Okay. Okay, I think we're back in session. We're out of executive session at 415 or 18. Do I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Marys, anyone else want to move to second that? Second. Okay, any discussion? Seeing none, all those in support of adjourning, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Okay, thank you very much, everybody. We will see you sooner than we think.