 Thank you, Jen. Okay, this is the February 22nd Board of Trustees meeting. It's one o'clock. We welcome everyone to the board meeting. I'm gonna call the meeting to order. It's now just about a minute after one. We're going to be discussing some things in executive session today and there will be public comment before we go into executive session. We have some guests. Just to go back to the public comment piece, we're going to have a link to sign up for the public comment. It's also going to be in the chat. Jen will be the person who will be the host for that. And we're going to have a similar thing to what we did on Wednesday night, which we did for two hours. I can explain that when the time comes, but we're going to try to get as many people in as possible. And we're going to give everyone three minutes to make their statement. But in the meantime, we have a whole lot of other things that we're doing on this agenda. We've got some guests here, people from the NCHEMS, Dennis Jones and Brian Prescott will be here. And Sophie will be going through her transformational proposal and a lot of other regular business. With that, I'm going to ask for the approval of the minutes of January 15th, who would like to make a motion on that? Mary's made a motion on that. I need a second. Second. Second. Any discussion on the minutes from the January 15th board meeting? Seeing none. All those in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Hearing none, the minutes are approved. We now are going to ask Catherine LaVaster to go and present a marketing proposal. Actually, the marketing materials that have already been used. And she will discuss that and we will see a short video of that. So, Catherine, you have the table here. Thank you very much, Chair Dickinson. So, recognizing that the Vermont State Colleges and our institutions are facing increasing and intensifying scrutiny in the legislature and our host communities and across stakeholder groups as the select committee reports are released and as the Vermont State Colleges Board of Trustees discusses the system's future, the Office of the Chancellor in collaboration with the marketing directors at each institution developed a six-week marketing campaign to run from January 25th through March 8th. This campaign is designed to shore up faith in the VSCS and remind for mentors of our value with a secondary benefit of staving off enrollment declines as decisions about the future of the VSCS are discussed by the legislature and the Board of Trustees. This is a proactive effort to present the VSCS and its institutions as the strong, vibrant institutions that we all know are critical to the well-being of students, communities and Vermont as a whole. It is designed to bolster the VSCS image and restore confidence in our institutions to help reassure students and their families as well as our communities that we will be here for generations to come. Our audience includes Vermont's Education Influencer Market of teachers, guidance counselors, VSAC counselors, thought leaders and public officials with a secondary market of current and prospective students. The intention of this campaign is to complement the ongoing marketing efforts of the colleges and to ensure that our unified system message is out there as chatter intensifies around the Board's actions and the select committee reports. The campaign is running on TV, radio and with digital ads that point to a landing page yourfuture.vsc.edu that has a unifying message and links to the four colleges websites. We estimate we will achieve approximately 3.3 million impressions throughout the campaign and we will have and we have some strong preliminary results to share with you today from the first few weeks. We are running six weeks of digital TV and VPR advertisement. The digital ads include placement on the news website vtdickr.org. Our non-vpr statewide radio and front porch forum advertising will conclude this week and all advertising will finish on March 8. Digital advertisements include banner ads, sidebar ads and page advertisements like the selection shown here. This ad in the middle is our most popular ad across mediums and we're seeing strong engagement across the board with these advertisements. On social media we have nice interaction across all age groups, excuse me 18 to 64 with a 1.58% click rate on the digital ads and a 2.13% click rate on the video ad. We have a 96% completion rate of our streaming audio ads which includes placement on streaming apps like Spotify, Sonos and CBS radio. Our radio ads use the same voiceover as the video ad although some are a 15-second version. In OTT, and this is advertisement on streaming services like Apple TV, Hulu and others that you might access on a smart TV or device, we are seeing good delivery in Bennington and Brattleboro which is noteworthy as these are hard to reach in our TV buys for the Burlington based stations. We're seeing a 96% completion rate and strong delivery in the top 10 areas. On YouTube, we're doing slightly better with the 18 to 34 year old demographic and we are seeing good engagement from our front porch forum ads and a strong number of independent visits to the landing page and I'll now play the video ad for you. healthcare, creating new businesses, educating our children, engineering solutions in new technology and more. These are the professionals that create a dynamic community and a thriving economy. Look to your Vermont state colleges to drive Vermont's future. So as I shared before, we're seeing strong engagement with the campaign. We will compile additional data when the campaign concludes next week and we'd be happy to share those final results with you and I just want to conclude by thanking the marketing directors at the institutions that's Sylvia Plum, Amanda Chalk, James Lambert, Katie Kezzi and Danielle Bresset and their teams for their assistance with this project. They provided invaluable support and the teamwork necessary to get this off the ground in January. Thank you very much Catherine. Nicely done. That was really very informative. I've seen them on TV and I'm sure I've seen them other places without even realizing it because it seems to be ubiquitous. Okay. The next thing we have is a, is there any questions on that? One question. I wonder if somebody could send that clip to us as an email that could be then sent to local folks who are asking us questions. Sure. I think Catherine, is that possible? I'd be happy to do that. So I had a local comment that there's been no media coverage and I know there has been, but I want to keep my local guys in the loop. Good. Very good point. Anyone else? Okay. The next thing, of course, is the presentation by Brian Prescott and Dennis Jones from then CHEMS on the select committee's February 11th report. This is the second report. It's a mere 145 pages long, but I know everybody read it with great interest. It is longer than the first one and it's more detailed. So if you do, would you like to, as a chancellor, would you like to introduce the gentleman from NCHEMS for us? Yes, certainly. So Brian Prescott and Dennis Jones are both with NCHEMS, which I know Bill is going to want to know, National Center for, I don't have it written out in front of me. Brian, tell me what that is. National Center for Higher Education Management Systems. And so NCHEMS is a non-profit organization. Their mission is to improve strategic decision making and post-secondary education for state systems, institutions, and workforce development organizations across the United States and abroad. And NCHEMS was selected by the Steering Committee of the Legislatively Created Select Committee to provide consulting services to the select committee. And they were hired through the Joint Fiscal Office and they have been working tirelessly, I will say, for months on this project to help the select committee figure out the future of the Vermont State Colleges, as well as other issues related to higher education in Vermont. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to you. I'm assuming Brian, Brian has testified a number of times in front of different legislative committees, but I know Dennis has also been part of our process here with the select committee. Before they start, I just want to let the board know this is your chance to really ask the questions and express your opinions and any qualifying issues or anything that you have about the work of the select committee and what Brian and Dennis have been doing and their research and work. This is your chance after their presentation to really ask them whatever it is you think is important. Go ahead, Dennis or Brian, whoever's going to start. I'll go ahead and kick us off and I'll, as usual, invite Dennis to chime in and provide color commentary as we go forward. First off, let me thank all of you for your attention to this as Chair Dickinson said, the lengthy report that we've drafted over multiple months and for the opportunity to come and speak with you this afternoon for you all, still the morning for us. I would say at the beginning that we would prefer, as I'm sure all of you would, to be with you in person. We've been doing all of this work from a distance on Zoom, like all of you have been doing in your own work professional lives, and we're doing the best we can. I think it's working all right. We would certainly rather be there and to travel around the state to meet with stakeholders rather than do all this virtually. But I thought I would just kind of provide a brief overview as possible of the report and then make ourselves available for questions from the Board. The overview of the process was after we were selected, I believe it was in late August, early September, we got to work immediately gathering and analyzing data from publicly available sources, but also from data requests we made and were rapidly fulfilled by the Chancellor's Office and also by folks at the University of Vermont as well. We have been trying very hard, as I mentioned, to stay connected and engaged with stakeholders through individual interviews and focus groups. On that front, we've been ably supported by the New England Board of Higher Education, NEVY, who has helped manage some of the logistics and the facilitation of some focus groups related to that. We also have been working on a review of the documents, including the alternative proposals that have come forward for what to do about the Vermont State Colleges over time. And then, of course, we've had regular meetings with the select committee and the steering group of the select committee. The initial ones related to that were to establish the select committee's goals and the criteria for evaluating recommendations, and these were all expressed as the fitting the charge that was given to the select committee. These were expressed in terms of meeting students' needs and meeting state's needs. And as we go forward with this, we have written this report as an effort to facilitate the work of the select committee. We've been fortunate and had terrific engagement by the members of the select committee, and they have so far been willing to put forward these reports for the legislature in a consensus sort of way. So as I go through this, I would like to ask you to be mindful that we're presenting here the select committee's recommendations, in part because we as an outside entity would think that the effectiveness of the work that we do is enhanced when folks in the state really sort of own the results of the work that we're doing and carry it forward. And I think so far, at Inchins, we've been pretty pleased with the level and degree of engagement by which we see from all of you as well, but also the select committee. So with that, we recognize some findings that change is necessary and has to take place. The Vermont State Colleges are overbuilt, both in terms of personnel and facilities for the enrollment they currently have. That the solution to some of these challenges is going to come from both creating administrative savings, better service to students and outreach to new populations that have traditionally not been a focus area of a lot of the attention in Vermont, at least as we see relative to other states. We see and understand there are good reasons to do everything possible, not to close campuses. And so we have been working on trying to put forward recommendations that actually are able to create the kind of conditions that allow those campuses to be maintained. But up to this point, policies and practices in the Vermont State Colleges have been better serving institutional needs than the needs of students and the state. And so as we make these recommendations, we're mindful and as the select committee adopted them and thought about them, they did it from the perspective of meeting students' needs and meeting state needs. So the recommendations, there's 10 sort of buckets in the report. But really, because we wrote the select committee put the report forward for the legislature's consideration, the executive summer really captures the most important ones for their attention. And those include that the state really needs to adopt a sense of urgency about this. One of the things that we're mindful of is the need for this change to be meaningful and sustained over a period of time. And in order for that to happen, the state legislature really needs to maintain attention and express a sense of urgency around the solutions. Missing in a lot of the enacting legislation and other materials in Vermont is a set of strategic and objectives for the investment that the state has been making in the Vermont State College system. And so the second recommendation argues that the legislature should define what those strategic objectives are and then to use those objectives to help direct the investments that they make. Obviously, the one I think that you'll probably be most, the ones you'll be most interested in are the one, the three that come next. The first one has to do with restructuring. The next one after that comes with the need to coordinate administrative services. And then the fifth one has to do with the legislature needing to adopt strategic funding framework and to provide the kind of financial support necessary to achieve transformation and set the Vermont State Colleges up for success in having the capacity, the evolving capacity to meet changing state needs and to address affordability issues that are sort of, I hate to say this right now, but endemic in Vermont. And then finally, the last one is an affordability standard that we believe that would be helpful to Vermont and the legislature to recognize in an objective way, the degree to which their investments are or are not supporting affordability for students from different income backgrounds. That's missing right now in the sort of the bloodstream of the public policies discussions in Vermont. It is in a number of other states as well. And you can see it in the drift that we have years of increasingly expecting students to pay the cost of higher education and nowhere more so than in Vermont in the country. I'm going to now go back a little bit to the restructuring and address a couple of items that have surfaced, even though we're clear out in Vermont, we are aware that some of these recommendations deserve more attention than others. The first one has to do with our recommendation around restructuring CCV and maintaining it as a separate institution because that stands in contrast to what the labor task force, for instance, has proposed. And I wanted to talk a little bit about why the select committee has adopted that recommendation. So the first reason is because CCV has a very different business model and its mission is quite different than the other three institutions. It is non-residential. It has focused its attention on sub-baccalaureate programming. A lot of that is related to workforce development initiatives that are localized and there are a number of CCV locations scattered throughout the state. It is the only one of the four that has consistently been balancing its budget, as I think you all well know. And there's a real need in the state to maintain a low-cost institution that provides affordable sub-baccalaureate and non-residential programming to individuals wherever they are, particularly the kind of thing that is most relevant to the local work economic development needs of the communities that the campuses are located in or the sites are located in. We also think that including CCV in the unification of the other three institutions would really disrupt its business model, especially those elements of it that keep it fiscally sound relative to the others and allow it to be more adaptable and nimble in responding to the changing needs of the economy and students. And including a CCV into the larger institution risks reducing priority on those focus areas I mentioned before, especially service to adult learners and meeting employer needs. A second major area that has, we understand, received some attention in the select committee's report is the continuing need for the chancellor's office and what its role would be. And it's important in understanding that recommendation, the need to differentiate and recognize a real difference in what's needed to manage the day-to-day functions of institutions and what's needed for what we call, at NCHIMS, a policy leadership role. We think that the chancellor's office is necessary to focus on policy leadership, which is the alignment to the state and student needs, which is conducting the planning activities of the system to engagement with employers and making productive liaisons with other state agencies. And in settings where the chancellor's office in other states, the equivalent of it, that is, or in institutions that are singly attached, the outward focus of the policy leadership role often gets neglected in such cases, when the day-to-day management requirements of the institution or the system are overwhelming. And so we view that to be particularly important in Vermont because it's the inability to sort of define that path forward has been, I think, one of the reasons that you find yourself in this condition. And so the policy leadership role and the role of the chancellor's office also includes working on issues that fall between and among institutions, including issues like credit recognition or the recognition of credit and transfers, the common general education core, things related to prior learning assessment, the development and delivery of online programming, shared academic programming, which is a critical feature of the solution set that's being presented in the select committee's report. And then in addition, the board, you all really need capable data analysis and decision support, particularly around ensuring the accountability of institutions to the board around finding efficiencies and maintaining them. I think I'll sort of stop, I would, I think I'll stop right there. And I think Dennis and I, Dennis, let me ask you if you have anything else to add before folks chime in with questions. No, given that we only have about another hour on our end, better we spend our time responding to questions from the board members. Okay. Does anyone have any questions? Go ahead, Janet. You're mute. Sorry. When you looked at the model of the organization, did you consider putting VTC with CCV given that that's a model that's used widely in other places in the extensiveness of their two year programs? Well, let's start, congratulations on starting with one of the most nettlesome questions that we and the select committee have confronted. VTC is not a unicorn in the world of higher education, but it is an institution of which there are relatively few direct comparisons across the country because of the degree to which it's focused on both two and four year technical education programming. So, we did wrestle with what we should do with VTC. The dilemmas related to VTC are that it has, in our judgment, it is one of the institutions that is creating concerns about fiscal sustainability. And on its own, it's likely not, particularly in light of the demographic changes that are most likely to see, it is likely not a sustainable entity all on its own. So, what we were thinking it needed to do would be to be created as part of the unified institution in order so that those technical programs that it currently offers are maintained and preserved in a strategy that will be up to you to sort of create the specific details around. But we offer some ideas related to creating a college of technology, for instance. And we also think that both NVU and Castleton could benefit from having their students have easier access to programming that's available at VTC, as well as learn from the experience of VTC and delivering hands-on education, technical education, and workforce relevant education throughout the programs that are already in place at Castleton and NVU. So, we're hopeful that there's a cross-pollination positive outcome associated with that as well. And so, those are the set of reasons. Maybe I just didn't understand, but did you actually look at putting it, though? Is there a reason why it wasn't combined with CCV? I think that if you put VTC together with CCV, you're likely to create conditions in which the CCV business model gets disrupted. And ultimately, CCV becomes the source of funding to help VTC get stood up on its right feet. And I don't think that that's in the long-term best interest of the system. Is the big issue the high cost of providing many of the VTC programs? I think that the big issue for that is VTC has got high-cost first programs and probably going to continue to have relatively high-cost first programs without changing some of the hands-on components of it. The bigger challenge in some respects is the extent to which VTC already has a physical plan that it needs to find some solutions to, as well as a set of collective bargaining agreements that are very different than what CCV has in place. When we see institutions or systems that are brought together with very different personnel policies, it's generally the case that the personnel policies that are most advantageous to the personnel are the ones that become adopted. And that is an issue that would likely lead to greater costs for CCV and have a long-term negative effect overall. Anyone else have any questions? We'll have Adam and then we'll have Ryan. Great. So sort of following up on that. Page 85 of the reporter references the comparatively high cost of benefits to other peer groups that you compared us to, I think 15 percent higher. And then it goes on to explain that the resulting FTE expenditure difference is about $7,500. And then if you use that as a multiplier, you could extrapolate almost $40 million in savings if you're able to reduce that to zero. The report then says that's unlikely to accomplish that. Let's use the $20 to $25 million number. So my question is in zoning in on that $20 to $25 million number, which is really I think a strong big piece of the savings that is expected from this proposal. How much of that is reliant on collective bargaining and how much is it could be achieved simply by through the consolidation not reliant on collective bargaining? That's a good question. Let me start by saying that the $40 million and the $20 million you're talking about are a reference to fiscal year 18 data that we had to rely on because of the availability of data for peer institutions. Certainly the chancellor's office, Sophie and her team have been very quick coming with more recent data for VSC. But for us to try to identify comparators, we had to use other publicly available data. So we've got several years of lagging going on. And of course, there's this little thing called COVID that's happened in between. So I would say that one of the reasons that $40 million is unrealistic has to do with the very change the very change conditions that we're talking about here. It's also the case that notwithstanding the differences between what collective bargaining agreements exist between CCV and VTC, our intent has not been to engage on whether or not collective bargaining is, we assume collective bargaining would continue to be the defining way in which Vermont State Colleges organizes its labor agreements with the institutions. And so the savings, which is a term that we might want to be a little cautious about as well because some of those might be redirected, funds redirected to better achieve student success or something like that, or to enhance affordability, would come from creating greater efficiencies overall. And as part of that, one of the things that we suggested is that you all, the board, should take a more active role in sorting out the degree to which the collective bargaining agreements have provisions that are sustainable or not, including such things as benefits. Let me follow up that. In the calculations, we presume that the collective bargaining agreements that are there now would stay in place. We are not presuming savings out of changes in the collective bargaining agreement. This is saying collective bargaining through transformation and consolidation only. So if I could just follow up on that for maybe the board and staff to really want to make sure that going forward we understand is the way this report reads is it's proposing that there's a 7500 expenditure per FTE that could be saved. That comes right after the reference to one example of why that may be, which is higher benefits. So so long as our plan in which to ensure sustainability is built on something that we don't yet know if we can achieve vis-a-vis some of the expenses. So just wanting to really make sure that this 20 to 25 million dollars is achievable. And if so, where is that coming from? So thank you for your answers. And also, I think it's also true that while you have high benefit cost, you have lower than peer group numbers on faculty salary levels. So you have a different compensation mix than some of your peer institutions. The savings come out of, we look at it, but you have just small class sizes. You have high administrative costs per FTE and all your institutions relative to what peers have. What we're pointing out is that there are opportunities for consolidation that give you room to achieve savings. Any more, Adam? We'll go to Ryan. Thank you. So yeah, I think the plan is very innovative and it's quite the large change we're looking at here. So I was curious to get your take on how successful you believe this plan will be and if there are any concerns you have regarding the plan and if we were to move forward with it. So any kind of change this substantial carries with it can, you know, some risk. But I think that you have to first off bear in mind that not taking these kinds of sweeping steps is not going to leave Vermont State College in a good position at all. I think that it's got elements of some innovative thinking that I think more and more states are going to have to look to to adopt. As we've seen in the news recently, a lot of other states are taking up the mantle of, you know, how are we going to, especially states in like Vermont that are facing a demographic challenge, how are we going to continue to offer high quality, post-secondary programming scattered throughout our state when we don't, when we may, when we've underfunded our institutions, we're facing a state budget crisis and we've got, we've got a demographic decline in the future. So academic program sharing, creating the conditions for these things, for incentives to do collaboration across more campus, what are traditional campus boundaries, I think is part of the solution that's going to happen. As for concerns, I guess my greatest concern would be that the legislature fails to provide the resources that are necessary for the state colleges to really fund the act, fund the need to do this transformation and to give sufficient time for the transformation to take shape and to, and to take root. One of the things that we see in Vermont that's different from some of the other places that we work is the high degree of relatively small employers and a, and the lack of a really unified and vocal business presence to pull the legislature along in partnership with the state college system like VSC. And so that's one of the reasons that we've elevated the urgency point in this report and tried to encourage the legislature to really recognize that this is not something that they can allow to drift any further, that it didn't, that this Vermont state colleges are in a worse condition than they, than they would be because of the pandemic, like all institutions all over the country, but, but the problems predated the pandemic for multiple years. And there needed to be, there needed to be some real attention given to that. And so when one of the, one of the things we've tried to do with our report is to really separate out the cost implications of COVID from this, from what we're calling the structural deficit that's in, that would have been in place, irrespective of the, of the cost of the pandemic in order to really point to the, point the legislature to the need to solve, I mean, they've got to, they've got to pay attention to the cost of COVID. Of course, there was a real cost to the institutions, but the solving the COVID problem still leaves a structural deficit that must be addressed over time. And so we are hopeful that that the report, and we understand that the report is receiving a lot of attention and there seems to be some good attention being given to it, but it's going to have that, that attention and that, and that need for urgency is going to need to be sustained and we're, and we're hopeful there's a, there's the political will in the state to carry it forward. So we're grateful that the select committee has been so engaged because that's the found, that's a foundation for a, a group of individuals from different walks of life who have a real interest in the Vermont State College is being successful, who can help push the, the conversation beyond just the, the, the present preparation of these reports. There are any more questions? Go ahead, Linda. I guess I have two. My first one, I'd say that, and you just really addressed this update. My biggest concern is, is the will or ability of Vermont to, in fact, fund a transition for, I guess four more years is what the plan is calling here because we at least have funds for FY 21 already. And so I guess my biggest fear, I'm thinking of a comment I heard from Elaine about the NBU thing is that they felt like they, you know, they wanted this long to transition and they felt like they had half of that. And so I'm very concerned we might have to do this faster. If we didn't get kind of funding commitment we needed, cannot be done. If we really had to, is it, it's my biggest fear. I think that, I guess, you know, again, from, from quite a distance, I guess I'm, I'm reassured by the seriousness and the, and the, and the speed with which Sophie and her team have been trying to help move this conversation forward while the select committee is doing its work. There's been a real effort to try to keep the, the work that the chancellor's office has been doing with you all and with Jim Page in alignment with the select committee and in ways that are constructive and productive, I think. And I think that that's, that is reassuring in part because it's reflective of the fact that there's no time to be to waste in solving, addressing some of these challenges. Now I do think that, you know, that it, you cannot get to the end goal overnight in this process. It's going to take some time and effort and funds. And what we've tried to do in the most recent report you may have noticed is include some timeline milestones that are intended to sort of both reflect the urgency, but also give comfort to the legislators who are being asked to pony up a large substantial amount of money that there's a real set of milestones that the, that the Vermont State colleges are going to need to meet that are sort of, they come from the select committee as an external entity, but are not completely unreasonable from the perspective of those folks who, who know what it takes to get this job done and who are going to be held to account to get it done so that the funds are are not held up because the speed, the speed wasn't adequate. Okay. And my second, I guess, biggest concern has to do with the accountability. So I've been on this board for 15 years. I would not say that I don't think this board has done a good job on accountability over that period of time. And some of it is because of the five strong colleges model and the silos that was the theme and the motive operation for so long of it. And so we're in a different mindset. This whole plan is a very different mindset of that. But you know, we also, so I'm just not sure the board often held management accountable enough. I think a lot of the time when the board tried the silos and things caused a lot of foot stonewalling, foot dragging, a lot of pushback, or just a lot of not actually delivering or getting us back to us with the information that we wanted. We didn't do a good job of having strong benchmarks. And then we didn't actually make sure and monitor strongly and well that benchmarks were met. It seems to me that's really a point you're making here is it's really critical. We're going to have to be able to do that. So we need to also, we need to be better at it. We need to know how to be better at it. How do we do that? How do we make sure it's different this time? That's a great question. And I don't want to give you, I think that you're characterizing what we have either drawn conclusions related to on our own or I've heard other people say about the about the Vermont State College Board. So without having said that, I think that other boards in other states facing similar situations are, this is an era that's different in different ways. And boards are going to are being asked to make bolder and more difficult decisions than they have in the past. And habits die hard. So we did make some recommendations with respect to all of you and the kind of board development activities that would be, I think, helpful. And I think that I don't know to the degree to which Linda, your comments are shared by other members of the board, but you are clearly as a board in for a lot of tough decisions and you should equip yourselves with the kind of resources and support necessary to make those as much as possible. And I would say that probably regardless of the shape of the restructuring recommendations the select committee has made, or the plans that Sophie has been putting forward that are in alignment with that. There's just a real need for boards to take on an appropriate role in providing oversight, setting direction, evaluating their own behavior in the context of demographic decline and in the state where public funds have not been generous to support the enterprise. You know, in response to that question also, I just remind the board that anytime, and you're going through the process right now of setting priorities and goals, anytime you do that, you ought to make sure that there are some accountability metrics that sit right alongside those so that whatever the buzzwords that show up in the goal statements and they tend to be things like access and affordability and responsiveness and those kinds of things that you'd be clear that you can describe how would you know if the system is any of those things that there are ways you know that that you use the accountability metrics as a way of signaling to the campus communities what you mean by those various terms so that you can not only communicate meaning but you can also on the other end monitor progress or lack thereof. And, you know, when I when I talk to boards, I say your job really is to establish the what that takes to be accomplished and ask the question whether it was accomplished, the how it's accomplished is the responsibility of the chancellor, the presidents, and their staffs. You know that that's where they have to figure out the house. The, you know, your tools are are limited in some ways as to what happens if not you still have the power of the purse as it applies to both leadership and institutions. And you also have the ability to create certain expectations which you have in the past around things like transferability of credit, Gen Ed, some of those kinds of things. You know, but that means that you know not only set a set of expectations, but you set a timeline and say we expect this to be done by this point in time and we expect progress reports quarterly or whatever the timeframe you deem appropriate. You know that it's really all about establishing a set of expectations and being clear about them and then consistently asking the question how we do. Anything else, Linda? No, thank you. Okay, Michael, you're next. Hi, Brian. Hi, Dennis. Thanks for being here with us today. I just had a couple of questions. Maybe I'll ask them all at once and then let you respond to them. I think are pretty specific and then one of them is a broader question. One of the things we've heard in the public comments is concerns about rebranding or preserving brand identity or value and particular campus brand. And I know you talked about that in the report and gave some examples and acknowledged in the short term there can be some difficulties with branding. I hope that maybe you would talk a little bit about that and the downside of rebranding and how to manage that. You also in the opening comments mentioned that Vermont isn't doing as great of a job recruiting as some other states. And I assume maybe you're referencing high school graduates, but you may have been referencing other populations and wondered if you could just speak a little bit more to that as well. And then the broader question is if the funding is made available, if the recommendations are accepted, what are the other steps? What are the other things that the board, the system need to do in addition at some point down the road? Or is this sort of enough in your opinion to move the needle toward a sustainable system? So I'll take the second one first. The reference that in the introduction I was making was to the degree to which Vermont as a state has a bias toward serving traditional age college students with baccalaureate level education, more so than not certainly not all states, but it's got a heavier emphasis on that kind of education and training than many of the other states that we see. So part of the transformation I think is in terms of meeting students' needs and state's needs is to think a little differently about the type of students that could benefit from education and training. Vermont Tech and CCV have, they serve adult students. They provide workforce connected training programs. BTC offers some non-credit programming that's nimble. And so that's the kind of thing that I think I was referencing there around recruitment. It has to do with broadening the definition of students and the interpretation of the audience that can benefit from the work of the Vermont State College is beyond what traditionally the state has done and what comes easily to mind to the public and to legislators about who the students that are attending close secondary institutions are. Yes. I mean on that point one of the points that we make pretty consistently that the committee makes pretty consistently is that Vermont is a you know is a pricey state in which to go to college. That affordability is an issue because you graduate a very high proportion of your high school students. A very low proportion go on to college and you know there's a couple of reasons why that might be true but one of the most obvious one is price. And Vermont hasn't attended to affordability to the level that it needs to and that's particularly true affordability for adult part-time students. You know the whole question about how you structure the payment of tuition and the broader costs of attendance for working adults is has not been well attended in Vermont. So the first question which was which is now escaping me on branding. Yes that that is a that's a that's a an important issue. I think that there are ways in which what we've tried to suggest is that that brands and symbols and heraldry and all of that have meaning for folks that goes beyond just dollars and cents. It also is something that folks may believe is a key element in their outreach to student populations that would subsequently enroll. I think that there are thoughtful ways that the I think that figuring out how to thoughtfully undertake this integration in this transformation and preserve and integrate institutional identities is a significant consideration that the board should be concerned about. I don't think I don't think that it's the case that a single administrative entity the single unified institution with a single accreditation necessarily means that in individual parts of the institution can't maintain their own distinctive identities in some respects. As I said before one of the ways that one of the areas we're most concerned about that's occurring is because it's an instrumental thing is the insurance is the assurance that Vermont what Vermont Tech does doesn't get washed away in the integration of the other institutions and so we look for examples of places where things like that could be done effectively and offered a few in there but one option is as I said before is to sort of establish a college of technology that Vermont Tech sort of has a set of activities related to its historic role but broadened within the context of this larger institution. Pashi the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education currently one of the places that's looking into consolidating institutions multiple institutions is also wrestling with this issue and you know I think that it's important to recognize and honor those those elements of brand and history and heritage while not allowing them to overwhelm the reality that all three of the institutions that we are in the select committee are suggesting be unified have fiscal issues that need to be resolved and so figuring out how to do that collectively will help them and branding will have to be a part of that solution worked into the conversation but otherwise they'll likely separately not be viable in the long term. Anyone else okay Bill Lippert please. Yes I would appreciate if you would review again and you're thinking around the maintaining of a chancellor's office and this has been a point of controversy for some and if you'd say more about that. Okay so if we if there are two institutions CCV and a unified institution within the system then there needs to be an entity with responsibility for setting the direction supporting the board working with the legislature working with the agency on education and the agency on community economic development department of labor there likely needs to be a this is the organization that needs to monitor the the temperature and the status of the employer community and and ensure alignment of programming with those needs it's also the organization the part of the organization that will stay on top of emerging trends in higher education and think about innovation and the application of innovative technology or techniques and like prior learning assessment and work to to encourage their adoption and ensure their adoption across the two institutions. These I think it's too easy that we are not suggesting that the chancellor's office be larger than it currently is but that its role be more focused on those sets of activities generally speaking while the administrative consolidation of the day-to-day management of the enterprise is is um can can it is overseen by the chancellor's office but the day-to-day work of that can be happening somewhere else did that answer your question so in large part it follows from in part from the other structural recommendations of having instead of having a single university it's it's that but I but I think there's also the the other piece and and um that is that if you know if there were a single institution it's all campuses were merged into one then what is traditionally the case if you look at other states other other instances the leadership of that enterprise becomes almost totally inward focused I mean it's about running the institution and the part that links the institution to the state and the needs of the state get left out that piece of policy leadership gets it's very much put in second place in in the absence of an entity that has that broader policy leadership function as its primary agenda and I think states that don't have that kind of entity and that kind of leadership are the worst for it they get less out of there they get less contribution from their higher education enterprises to the needs of the state rather than the needs of the institution thank you adam and then Karen yeah Brian earlier in our conversation you mentioned that Vermont has a high degree of small employers and that really is causing a lack of just general outcry from the employers to pull the system along throughout the report and this is for my fellow board members will know that you know to me it's music to my ears a strong focus on some of the workforce aspects of this but throughout the report it really seems to to build on the opportunity to have a better engagement with employers for coming in for stackable credentials for associates degrees for certain demand driven occupational needs did the committee or did you folks dig into trying to understand is that is that possible given the fact that we have so many small employers when you look at the the current demand projections we see that they largely fall in healthcare and education in areas where the bulk of our large employers cross over industries and sectors so I'm just curious if you've done any work there I don't think it really influences our discussion or conversation going forward on a decision today but having you here in front of us I'd love to hear your thoughts on that so I think that there's already cases where the work where there are pockets of of good work being done around connecting those small employers together through associations hospital association or the apprenticeship program that are that vtc is running with the plumbers and the electricians those are some cases that that I think are they provide some evidence of of of attention to that that can that can conceivably grow but I I I do think that they're that that more and more intentional efforts around that generally speaking can be done and I think we've made some references to all other elements that sort of fall alongside the scope of the select committee's work related to these things including the really uncoordinated way adult career technical education happens in Vermont for example there's a role for Vermont State colleges to play there but in the legislature I think in recognition of the fact that there's some challenges in that space requested a report a couple of years ago that has been tabled due to COVID so we've encouraged the state to revisit that topic and to do so from the perspective of having state assets in place ready to figure out how to solve some of those challenges in the form of the Vermont State colleges for instance I think that I would also add that uh when we work in states that are facing similar conditions as Vermont declining demography Wyoming is a state like this they've got declining demography and they're entirely too focused on one industry there is a need to try to spur entrepreneurship and I think that this I get there again the state college system as well as the university are real assets in trying to help provide the linkages to education and training that can help small businesses get off the ground and then grow and can help you know help us start to address some of those issues related to the economic future of the state as well as the demography future of the state so I think that that's kind of a little bit of a of a of a smorgasbord of an answer to your question um I but I I do think that you know working with large employers is key to this working with trying and trying to figure out ways in which you can bring groups of small employers together and make it easy for them to engage with the state college systems is the way to to go forward on this kind of you know Brian mentioned use the word associations and uh you know we've worked in other states where it's worked really well to work with you know the the auto dealers association the hotel restaurant group association all of which represent typically what we would call smaller employers um or you can't necessarily do it one employer at a time but you can work with them collectively because they tend to have common needs so uh you know it's a matter of intentionality and and uh and kind of working diligently to find out where they are who they are and and uh how to put together collective a response to a collective need thank you both Karen I have questions about two different things one is a follow-up and there's been some lead into this about uh you didn't talk about tech centers and high schools but you alluded and in the report there's some reference and there's a statement made that this of course isn't part of the charge but in your research it would appear to me and I happened to listen to a meeting or meetings of the select committee where you kind of went in that direction and then you said well that's not our focus so we're going to stop I'd like you and I recognize that that's part that that was not part of the focus of the select committee but I believe that if we're talking about affordability of public education in the state of Vermont that by necessity somebody's got to somebody's got to be involved with helping to forge a holistic vision of public higher education and secondary education and I'm hoping that this may be a springboard since we have a larger audience than usual right now and because we have the attention of the legislature and the governor's office so even though it was not the charge of this committee of the select committee and new folks I'm hoping that you can talk for just a second about the opportunities that you saw there that we're not taking advantage of that we need to take advantage of if for no other reason affordability in broadening the base of the service of our service net the second issue and this has been touched upon by a handful of people and I'm very concerned about this as well the focus has been a good portion of the focus has been on workforce development and that of course is very important especially in a small state with a declining population but some folks have raised the issue of what about liberal arts the quality of liberal arts you can't have a democratic society without a strong liberal arts base and while everybody in Vermont isn't going to attend the VSC so we can't control liberal arts for all how do you see us again feeding into a public education continuum with our partners at the secondary level and perhaps beyond in producing an educated populace that has respect for democratic ideals so it's a pair of really good questions I think on the on the on the issue of the liberal arts discussion we certainly have have talked about the trying to strike the right balance between this theme around workforce development and meeting employer needs and the theme that you are citing around developing a citizenry that's engaged and capable of you know maintaining a peaceful and civil society and among other things I think part of it is that there's a a false dichotomy between workforce development and liberal arts as though liberal arts is not contributing in any meaningful way to the needs of the workforce when in fact there is I think ample evidence that the skills and and knowledge that you gain in in some of those programs are very are very appropriate to the advancement of careers and and so forth and so on we have tried to be a little bit sensitive to the to that by suggesting a couple of things one is that the the liberal the the delivery of liberal arts could be a little more intentional about the kinds of skills that would help ensure students with with with degrees and let's say English or history like I have are able to be capable of of entering a job shortly after college because there's been the integration of certain workforce relevant skills into into that into that liberal arts curriculum as well so for example technical writing is part of of an English program so there's so there's that piece on the question Dennis do you want to add anything to that before I go down the path to the other one well regard to with regard to the liberal arts we spent a lot of time talking about that with the select committee I would just add a couple of other points one of which is that the liberal arts programs and departments in the in the three institutions in particular are are very small and in a lot of ways not large enough to really offer students the kind of liberal arts education you'd hope they get so by combining institutions you also create a critical mass of faculty in in these departments in ways that strengthen the the programs themselves so I think you have the combined institution offers an opportunity to strengthen those programs just because of the ability to get to critical mass I would follow up Brian's point also is that one of the one of the things that I would note in in Vermont is it's not a state that's big on using data in decision making you know that it's it tends to be anecdotal rather than database and etc but one of the things that we've seen in some other states is when you see the kind you know when you have when you have systems in place that let you understand the kinds of jobs into which liberal arts graduates go post graduation and start seeing that you know if you're there psychology student but they all end up in advertising or communications or one of those kinds of jobs that you understand that there's a way to put in one or two courses in a in a liberal arts program that really helps them in what comes next and the absence of those kinds of data mean that the quality of the program judged from the point of view of outsiders is not as good as it could be and I've had legislators you know we got engaged in a major conversation a few years ago about what's quality in higher education and how do you define quality and a state legislator put it I think about as well as I've heard it stated and and he said you know quality is good preparation for what comes next and that means that quality in higher education is externally referenced not internally referenced and it means it's it's judged by employers it's judged by faculty and institutions to which students transfer etc you know quality in third grade is judged by teachers in the fourth grade so I think that there are ways to strengthen liberal arts their applicability and at the same time recognize these folks are all going to work someplace let's make sure that they get not just the the broad skills but they have the tools to enter the workplace in a way that that lets them be successful pardon pardon us speech of fine on the second on the first question which is that we made that we turned into the second answer the the issue of cte and adult ab or what you call al I believe that's an issue that we did raise with the select committee there are other entities involved beyond the state college system there are funding complications that need to be sorted out and I think that ultimately the the an attempt to really sort of tackle that as part of the select committee's vocal focus areas was beyond the the likelihood of being successful without without further study focused on that particular issue but I think that it's that that the select committee you know and and us when we look at it we think that it's something that is not working very well in Vermont and deserves some attention and needs to be raised and so that's where the select committee sort of came down on that topic Lynn I would just like to say when I heard that and saw that in writing I couldn't have been happier I think that I think that that issue not just the tech centers but the high schools as well need to be working in tandem with public higher education in order to produce affordable quality results in this state and I'm hoping that we will finally get the attention of all the silos and the legislature and the governor's office to move those issues ahead are there any other questions I have a question or if janica you go first I guess my I just had a couple comments one is about the large employer I guess I would suggest having worked for the really big one that I don't think it's an issue of not having large employers weighing in on our legislature we don't have a legislature that in my personal experience has been responsive to for-profit business I do think that coming up with a way that doesn't involve every association in every college reaching out to employers is going to be really critical if that can't be lean and mean it's not going to be effective when companies are really small and you have maybe an HR person or maybe one HR person you just don't have the bandwidth or the resources to connect with the college system and while my personal experience with the college system has been very good when I've accessed them or when they've reached out it can be a lot of doors that are opened to you or people asking so I do think however we frame that going forward it's going to be really important that it's just got to be really light on its feet and and how we deal with that I do think there's an opportunity in terms of creativity to build on what Karen said I still think the senior year of Vermont high school should be mostly taken care of by the Vermont college system and that not looping that in as part of a strategy is probably a missed opportunity given how few courses many of our college seniors even have to take and it's just a it's a very large waste of money on the k-12 side that would be better served in the state college side so I think that's a I think that's a recommendation that would have huge total value to the state not just the state college system and can I just Janet you were you're mentioning high school high school seniors were you not college seniors yes correct high school seniors when when we have situations where the majority of our high school seniors have completed all of their academic requirements by their senior year and they're sitting there needing like one more English and a PE it's a way it's such a way I mentioned right because I think you said college seniors so thank you when I go to Jim Maslin and we'll go to Mary yeah mom thank you gentlemen for your report and your work on this I've got a comment and a question I'll begin with what Janet and and others have said about um the the gap should we call it between high school seniors and Vermont state colleges you know the the wide disparity that we've heard for years on the number of students who graduate high school versus those that go on to higher education and the gap is huge and it's been around for quite a while so I'm wondering and this is outside the scope of your work but interesting question is there's there's there's two ways to ask this question um do high school students value um or excuse me recognize the value of a continuing education at any of the Vermont state colleges um do they recognize it in a in and aside from the affordability question and the other way to ask that is is there's something odd about the way Vermonters perceive high school as a as an end in itself rather than a step on to higher education which clearly would be my my very strong preference of course um is it that that many high school seniors and their parents see high school deployment as an end in itself rather than as a part of a continuation for a life plan and I recognize this this is outside the realm of what you're asked to look at but it struck me as as the conversation has gone on this afternoon that there's a there's a big hole there that we need to look into and if you have comments at this time or any other time I'd appreciate them thank you uh I would just I would just refer you to the work that's being done by the Vermont student assistance commission related to uh surveying of high school seniors and I think that there's some questions and some insights that may be drawn from that from that work um I do think that the affordability issues in Vermont are are pretty significant um as well and but but I think Vsac's got some information that you might find useful on that front well I could start with with Vsac of course but I think that is a much bigger question there than has been addressed or acknowledged or answered thank you Mary so as someone who's spent my career in public education high school and tech ed I want to make a couple of comments I'm sure you guys all know this but I want to make a couple of observations that every program in a tech center has an advisory committee of the particular area so if it's a medical program they have folks in the medical center if it's automotive etc etc every program has a regional advisory committee of that industry and a lot of the relationships that are developed in those committees lead to recruitment and placement of our kids coming out of the tech center as well we work very closely with btc and ccv in terms of continuation um you know the senior year can be less vigorous in some schools because of other opportunities kids have taken a lot of our schools are developing programs like our our yes plan here in rutherland to to assuage that and to give kids more opportunities Vsac is very important and is very very effective and I would commend that to anyone who's not familiar with it the other thing some of the folks in this group have heard me say before is we have so many first generation kids and you know we know from research that families start to decide about post-secondary education in fifth and sixth grade and for a lot of these families letting a child a young person go off to college means the potential income that that person contributes to the family we think about this as a farm-based issue you don't want to let them go because you need them to work on the farm but that's true in the in the families here in our community where we need johnny to stay in the house we don't want to spend money on rent we need his income to help support the family so it's a really much more complex issue than one might realize um and I know that here in in castleton Jonathan has started a regional advisory team of of businessmen and leaders to talk with castleton and I'm sure that's true in some other areas so the articulation between secondary ed and higher ed is more vigorous than some people may realize but I'd be more than glad to bring any suggestions back to the regional soups as a result of this work thank you um Megan thanks Lynn um I wonder if this question of how we you know maybe expand our focus to um high school students based on the complexity that you've outlined and the opportunity Janet that you've outlined is something that maybe we take up in committee at a later date and just would ask the question is there space within the recommendations if we take the recommendations as they are from the select committee can we then is there space to then push this forward into other areas um in the future Megan I'm not sure if you're addressing that question to us or to the to your colleagues sorry maybe it's I asked the question Brian to you is is your report do we really view your report as the scaffolding for how we go forward and then my question to you um Lynn would be is this a particular topic that we resolve today or we table to discuss further in committee? Well I'll answer my part I don't think it's something we can discuss today not because we don't think it's valuable um I think that certainly Epsom Epsil may want to take that on as well long-range planning and and yes I do think that the report that we that we that we helped craft with uh with your help and the other members of the select committee is the scaffolding under which the Vermont State College's purpose is better articulated and um and then then then it creates the conditions in which Vermont State College's board can act in in appropriate directions but it also perhaps gives the legislature um and in the executive branch a sense of of where it makes most sense to try to bridge those gaps and transition points in ways that are um mutually reinforcing. Jim are you still interested in asking a question or is that a left over hand? It's a left over hand but I think Megan's approach is a good place to start. Thank you. I'll take my left over hand out. Okay anyone else I have a question. One of the things that well there's a bunch of things that that people have indicated to us um did your committee or did your financial analysis include any any overview of doing nothing? I know that Jim Page and his group with the treasurer's office and JFO did do an examination of our financial statements in our situation back in May and I'm just wondering it did the select committee do any examination of status quo and if so what what analysis do you suggest is included in that? So what we did was reviewed what and tried to uncover what was done to better understand what the cost of doing nothing would be. Doing nothing would I think lead you back into a similar position that that um that the Vermont State Colleges found themselves in a year ago that led to the awarded this recommendation to close three campuses. I think that it's very likely that in the absence of change and resource investment on the part of the legislature to support that change that the that your that this board will have to consider whether or not it can maintain a presence in all of the locations that it currently operates and that's a question that that at least in some cases there may be some more efficient ways to manage some of the operations say that are separately being run in a similar nearby locations by BTC and CCB perhaps but generally speaking as I said at the outset we've been trying to articulate the I think a fairly compelling set of reasons why the the major campuses of the institutions are where they are and that there are both there are political there are economic there are opportunity there are actual fiscal related reasons to maintain those places where they where they currently are in some form of fashion but with transformation making some changes in those those things but to get more closer to the answer to your question Representative Dixon is that we we did gather information on the on estimated costs of closing campuses that were baked into the proposal in April to do that as well as some other data that we were able to track down the cost of closing the three campuses was estimated in April at 19 million dollars over a couple of years when we look at that we think that's that's a very optimistic set of costs to close those three campuses because it assumed that the the existing spaces will be able to be unloaded within a very short amount of time and it didn't count for a whole whole bunch of other additional costs so ultimately closing the campus is going to have substantial costs those costs won't be supported by the the tuition revenue that gets generated by the places that are being identified for closure and then the impact on the communities and on the students being served will be substantial it will lead to additional costs of trying to teach out the students that are that are affected and it will close off an avenue for an economic mobility and opportunity for the students that students like those that are that that attend that so for instance if in the in the u was one of the ones that was on the on the table that's the only baccalaureate degree granting set of programs in that part of the state and there are very likely students who attend that institution that would otherwise not go to college in the absence of being able to to go to nb so there are direct costs there are indirect costs there are spiritual costs there there's the costs of the community and you can't you can't quantify all of them but at a minimum there there's at a very minimum we would expect that 19 million dollars will be the the bill to just close you know those three campuses that were on on the cutting on the topping block in April at least that much yeah and we like I said I think it would be I think that was optimistic okay is there anyone else that has any item go ahead do you have a question yeah sorry just as follow-up I noted that in the in this report we're now showing I think it's it's either 12 or 17 million for the consolidation of facilities over several years was there so is there a difference between the expense for the the reduction of footprint versus the closure of a campus and what data led you to use those numbers per year was there anything in that or is that just sort of a placeholder so we don't have the the super detailed data on the the cost of renovating our closure and certainly it wouldn't be the select committee's purview to make decisions about which campuses or which buildings or whatever what we did do was work with the chancellor's office to understand what the carrying costs of underutilized institutions are from one year to the next and relative to the costs of of repurposing or possibly even demolishing some buildings and generally speaking it's going to be it's it'll vary by by kit by the type of structure it is but generally speaking that demolishing of at least some of the buildings that were on that were on the list that we were provided with would have a cost have a cost that was roughly two to two and a half times the amount of money that the that building costs to run in a given year so in other words it would pay off within two to three years if that building is no longer useful but like I said it's going to it's going to be very different based on the building whether it's got asbestos and in other factors one of the other things with regard to facilities is in the in the financial plan that's put forth there is funding for ongoing renewal and renovation of facilities that keeps your deferred maintenance problem from getting any worse there's there's a cost estimate in there that says in order for the state to maintain its investment in the facilities it's already paid for there's an ongoing cost that they haven't been ponying up and uh there's just in the interest of just strategic finance from a from the board perspective there's a requirement to put ongoing funding into facilities and other institutional assets that haven't been attended to and that those costs need to get recognized going forward no well I I just want to uh maybe this sounds defensive as a legislator but uh in some of the conversation there seems to be a shorthand in terms of the resources that need to be provided that is the legislature that needs to provide the resources when in fact the resources are needed over a period of years now and it's really going to require the legislature and the executive branch jointly to provide these resources and I think it's really important that we not fall into the shorthand of not including both and we would agree anyone else well it's just about an hour and a half that we have allotted for this conversation and I appreciate you gentlemen coming here and giving us this up-to-date uh overview and answering our questions it's been very helpful um we obviously have a lot of work to do and I appreciate the time you've put into it thanks very much thanks for your time thank you and now we go to the chancellor who will present her transformation proposal all right so the Vermont state college system changes the lives of thousands of students each year by opening the door to higher paying jobs and an improved quality of life for themselves their families and their communities the Vermont state colleges mission states for the benefit of Vermont the Vermont state college system provides affordable high quality student-centered and accessible education fully integrating professional liberal and career study consistent with student aspirations and regional and state needs to deliver on the mission the board of trustees recently adopted a set of strategic priorities in doing so the board committed to achieving success acting as a fully integrated system that achieves financial stability in a responsible and sustainable way and ensures equitable access to and completion of a quality post-secondary education for all Vermonters including those who've been marginalized or underrepresented historically the board's four strategic priorities are affordability which is defined to mean that cost and debt are not barriers to access for students accessibility which means that all Vermont students including adult learners will have a supported pathway to meet their educational goals regardless of their financial means rural geography college readiness or technology broadband internet access and then quality and relevance of academic programs for students expectations of value include the ability to pursue their chosen educational path a positive return on investment in the cost of pursuing a particular program relative to expected earnings successful preparation for external evaluations such as licensure exams and preparation for lifelong career and personal success in our global 21st century for Vermont expectations of value include quality programs that are aligned with state workforce needs that are offered in a fiscally responsible manner and delivered in ways relevant to today's students and employers needs to meet its mission and these strategic priorities the Vermont state college system must make students its top priority providing the support services and technologies to ensure that success and deliver collaborative educational programs and services that are responsive to the needs and interests of students and employers throughout the state to operate as a responsive fully integrated administrative system under strong aligned leadership that actively serves the needs of students and the people of Vermont by promoting efficiency innovation and collaboration and finally be positioned to deliver these outcomes on an ongoing sustainable basis in a severely challenging demographic economic and competitive landscape achieving these outcomes requires the Vermont state college system in the state to undertake genuinely transformative change cultural change internally as the Vermont state college system becomes an integrated high performing organization that measures its success in terms of student and state success coupled with a change in how the Vermont state college system is funded by the state with respect to funding the select committee has proposed and the Vermont state college system is working to obtain necessary funding from the state to address the structural deficit and covert related expenses the cost of transformation and a permanent increase in base funding to enable the Vermont state college system to operate in a financially responsible and sustainable way into the future for fiscal year 2022 the Vermont state college system is seeking $67.4 million this includes the historic base appropriation and increase in base funding funding to address the structural deficit plus $8 million in transformation expenses in developing the transformation proposal we were guided by three questions does it meet the needs of students does it meet the needs of the state and does it contribute to the Vermont state college system's financial sustainability as we've heard the select committee on the future of public higher education and Vermont was created by the legislature to assist the state of Vermont in addressing the urgent needs of the Vermont state colleges and to develop an integrated vision and plan for a high quality affordable and workforce connected future for public higher education in the state the select committee's proposed recommendations chart a path forward that answers each of these three questions in addition given the significant funding ask the Vermont state college system is best positioned to secure the additional state investment it requires if it's transformation aligned with the recommendation select committee in making this proposal we acknowledge and appreciate the many contributions made by our stakeholder communities and the diversity of perspectives that were provided to and considered by the select committee in preparing their report as well you're back Sophie Jen can anyone here here we are Jen yeah I'm here we seem to have lost Sophie yes hey Lynn I think there was a power surge or something and I don't know if anybody else had that and shouldn't you're out I'm in Winieski but yeah we had it here we had it here too should we go out and try to come back in no I don't give her just a moment yeah let me just check something I don't think we had a power surge but the computer went black there we are she's back Jen do you want to suggest that Sophie go out and come back in that might help logging in on her phone now like she's on her phone there was a surge throughout we felt it here in Montpelier as well might say it seems to at least acknowledge the circumstances under which we're all trying to do this work that we are not able to be in person that we're reliant on being remote and totally reliant on technology to help us do that good reminder so Sophie is attempting to log back in she doesn't have a sound right now so just hold on for one moment I hear lots of beeps can you hear me yes we can okay apologies I my internet just went out at the worst possible time it happened all over Sophie oh did it okay we only lost you but we did get a surge all over I would I could suggest if anyone was uh open to this is we could take a five to ten minute break here because it has we have been on for two hours so just out there get it together great thank you so much that's that's up to you chair Dickinson but just throwing that out we could do that and we'll come back in 10 minutes my clock says quarter of three so let's be back by five of three I don't know if Jen is back or else but why don't we go through it and start off what you left off okay yeah so I was just talking about the public input that's been received and the board itself has also received extensive public comment on the future of the Vermont state colleges including presentations last summer to the long-range planning committee by the Vermont state college labor task force and vscs thrive as well as a report and recommendations from the vsc forward task force the board has also received around 200 written comments through the link on the vsc website individual emails and letters and all of the public feedback will be made available at the transformation tab on the vscs website in addition a student forum was held last Monday to receive feedback from students and the board held a two-hour public listening session on wednesday evening so moving forward as as recommended by the select committee the proposal for transformation is centered on an overall organizational structure for two complementary institutions with significant administrative consolidation the president of each institution would report to the chancellor and the board of trustees would oversee the chancellor the presidents and the two institutions the proposal is based on three key concepts student excess is our singular focus education for life in a lifetime and vermont is our community so student success as our singular focus we're committed to delivering the higher education and continuing education vermont and vermont's need while preserving the high-touch personalized approach and close-knit communities that the Vermont state college system is known for we seek to better serve students where they are with a learning modality that works for them on a schedule that works for them with the courses programs and credentials both credit-bearing and non-credit-bearing that provide them with the skills they need to attain their life and career goals and at a price they can afford the vermont state college system of the future will rely on a regular evaluation of program relevance quality and sustainability to focus on continuous improvement of academic program offerings with the goal of ensuring vermont's continue to have access to affordable programs that meet students needs this work this work will require thoughtful evaluation of the trade-offs between quality access and sustainability as well as sustained innovation of flexible delivery models for academic programs and essential students sport support services in order to increase access and success to a greater diversity of students across the state with respect to education for life in a lifetime we provide a comprehensive experiential education that prepares students for the jobs and careers needed to grow vermont's economy as well as for participation and enrichment of a democratic and civil society we create opportunities for vermont's at every point in life from early college and dual enrollment programs for high school students to degrees and credentials of value for working adults and those seeking to upskill and reskill a renewed focus on the educational needs of vermont's of all ages coupled with the needs of employers for skilled employees is fully compatible with maintaining high quality liberal arts programming the term workforce relevancy incorporates the liberal arts and recognizes that these programs impart skills that are highly valued in the workplace such as communications and problem solving and they also prepare students for a less specific set of occupations vermont is our community and our rural public institutions provide crucial educational and employment opportunities to local residents service economic social and cultural anchors in their host communities and help to educate workers in high-demand local industries the vermont state college system of the future will maintain a physical presence in its current locations but with a reduced physical footprint by selling leasing or demolishing underused physical facilities this includes repurposing spaces for use by third parties willing to enter into leasing arrangements and for converting spaces for innovative uses capable of helping to fuel local economic development activities preference will be given to users that provide students with opportunities for experiential learning or are otherwise part of an intentional academic strategy to cultivate entrepreneurial initiatives this also includes reimagining residential experiences for students as well as relocating staff in the chancellor's office to the campuses or providing them with the continued ability to work remotely it's well recognized that the vermont state college system needs to function as a consolidated system rather than as a confederation of institutions in order to realize the benefits of scale and overcome the habits of history consolidated and modernized administrative services add value through cost reductions improved service for students and employees and workable solutions to common problems consolidation and modernization of administrative services includes the development and enforcement of a standardized set of policies and procedures for services system-wide with delivery of services both in person and virtually although functions may be centralized this does not mean physical centralization in the chancellor's office instead functions may be centralized on individual campuses whether it's particular expertise or where such expertise in a particular area can be created several of the areas that will be consolidated or have improved consolidation include procurement financial aid registration admissions marketing information technology and human resources to be successful transformation will require strong vision and leadership discipline project management establishment of relevant success metrics exceptional change management and collaboration among all stakeholders although the breadth of transformation proposed is revolutionary we can build on our experience with the unification of johnson and linden the leadership faculty and staff of nvu have demonstrated for example that a brand a new brand and vision for education in rural communities can be developed while honoring the proud traditions and identities of individual institutions and programs in addition our faculty and staff have risen successfully to meet the challenges created by the pandemic delivering education in new ways grounded in robust learning outcomes collaborating and designing a single general education curriculum all with a committed demonstrated commitment to diversity equity and inclusion transformation is an enormous undertaking that will require substantial time and money if supported by additional funding from the legislature the transformation will position the vermont state college system to evolve and adjust to the disruptive forces confronting higher education nationally to become financially sustainable to provide greater access to education to an increasingly diverse range of students at an affordable price to continue to be economic engines in the rural parts of the state to serve as social economic and cultural anchors in host communities and to play a critical role in meeting vermont's future workforce needs preliminary work to map out the work ahead is shown on this slide more details are contained in the transformation proposal itself but some of the highlights include the creation of a single accredited university in order to have the combined entity up and running by the fall of 2023 we will need to launch a national search for a president this summer with the expectation that the president will be in place by january 1st 2022 the president of the combined entity will have 18 months to oversee the substantive change process development of the government's processes and transformation of the three separate institutions into a single accredited institution by july 1 of 2023 the presidents of castleton vermont tech and northern vermont university will continue to lead the operations of their individually accredited institutions until the effective date of the accreditation change with respect to academic programs work on the appropriate academic program array for a combined castleton university northern vermont university and vermont technical college has grown out of the work undertaken by castleton and nvu in the fall to address duplicate programs as well as the ongoing work on a single general education core the vermont state college system has already contracted with rpk group and will be working closely with the academic deans and with the faculty on this project in addition work is underway to expand the successful hardness library model at ccv in vermont tech to create a system-wide virtual library with respect to administrative consolidations administrative transformation benchmarking and planning will begin immediately in the areas of grants accounting administration procurement collections and accounts receivable by the fall of 2021 the vermont state college system will begin implementation efforts regarding these key areas work on the previous consolidation of payroll and benefits will continue in addition recognizing the long lead time necessary for recruiting students the admissions financial aid and marketing teams across the three colleges will work together to create the brand marking materials and financial aid strategies for the new combined institution admissions recruiting for the new institution will start in the fall of 2022 while each institution will continue to operate separately until july 1 of 2023 information technology is critical as it undergirds everything we do and work on a strategic strategic plan for information technology and development of a system-wide help desk is already underway in addition it council is already working on developing and implementing a new portal that will offer an improved user experience for students faculty and staff one critical area regarding it that needs to be finalized is the need for the architecture of the current enterprise resource planning system to be redesigned to support administrative transformation and increase capacity for data reporting the decision of whether to undertake this concurrent with the creation of a new university will be finalized as part of the it roadmap process workforce development and continuing education the vermont state college system recognizes that it must focus on the needs of vermont and vermont students for increased sub baccalaureate degrees and non-degree certificates and credentials to that end there'll be one director of workforce development to serve as a single point of contact system-wide for workforce development and continuing education programming accordingly a business plan and a redesigned business processes will be developed during academic year twenty one twenty two for a full launch by july one of twenty twenty two work on the physical transformation of the vermont state colleges began in f y twenty twenty this work will continue with the identification of underutilized assets these underutilized assets will be evaluated for conversion to other academic uses renovation for use as part of public private partnerships or working in learning communities sale or demolition we also plan to move out of five seven five stone cutters way when the current lease term ends in the summer of twenty twenty two with respect to project and change project and change management if the board approves the proposed resolution detailed transformation planning will begin immediately with the issuance of a request for proposals for an individual or firm to establish a project management office the director or consulting firm in charge of this function will be responsible for supporting all transformation efforts establishing clear measures of success providing disciplined project management approaches and practices offering guidance and expertise regarding organizational change and will regularly report progress to the chancellor and the board of trustees the select committee's report includes a schedule for reducing the vermont state college system structural deficit over a five-year period of transformation which is dependent on additional state investment in the significant work and cost of transformation and ongoing investment in the vermont state colleges to improve its capacity to meet the needs of students in the state's goals the work of transformation will require the development of a strategic financial plan and careful monitoring of financial benchmarks this strategic focus on the financial plan for the system builds on action already taken by the board in august twenty twenty to adopt a new system a new approach to system-wide budget development to be clear this transformation timeline is not set in stone but will likely evolve once project management is underway it does set forth an ambitious timeline but one that we believe can be met assuming the vermont state college system receives the necessary funding from the legislature and actually approve the proposed changes and there is no worsening of the pandemic or some other unanticipated event the board of trustees is responsible for acting in the best interests of the system and has a fiduciary responsibility to protect the public assets of the vsc which includes its finances as well as its reputation and role in the community as such it is responsible for approving major decisions reviewing transformation progress and checking that benchmarks are being met this slide shows the board's key decision points in connection with transformation over the next five years transformation will take substantial time and money and it's no secret that the vermont state college system has limited bench depth across the entire organization folks are stretched thin with people wearing multiple hats and juggling many responsibilities thus the vermont state college system lacks the capacity to absorb the costs involved in such a significant transformation and adequate resources will be required the vermont state college system estimates that transformation will require approximately 20 million dollars over four years as shown on this slide we have already requested eight million in transformation costs for fy 22 from the legislature this slide shows a number of critical success factors that have been considered along with proposed mitigation strategies some of the factors upon which a successful transformation hinge include ongoing support from the state approval of a creditor and department of education that the pandemic is under control that the vermont state college system is able to achieve five million dollars in cost savings and or additional revenue each year by acknowledging the critical success factors we can identify and pursue mitigation strategies so for example we're working closely with the governor and legislative leaders on the on the funding we will seek an advisory opinion from netchi prior to submitting a substantive change request and we will confirm the acceptability of the proposed restructuring with the u.s. department of education we will continue to monitor the pandemic and work closely with the governor's team and the department of health and we will be developing a strategic financial plan and report progress periodically to the board so in conclusion i'm recommending that the board approve resolution 2021-007 on the transformation of the vermont state college system authorizing the chancellor to seek a common accreditation for castleton university northern vermont university and vermont technical college while maintaining a physical presence at their primary locations and to move forward with aggressive coordination of administrative services system-wide if approved i will move forward with issuing an rfp for a professional project manager to assist with implementing the transformation project and we will seek an advisory opinion from netchi our creditor so i'm happy to answer any questions that you may have okay jim you're muted i'm very impressed on many many layers um levels um one sophie is um the manner in which you've presented this particularly your visual graphic of the different things simultaneously working um in conjunction with each other from from left to right from you know current year um forward um is excellent for the visually minded folks like myself that don't do so well with just paragraph after paragraph um it uh i could go on for a while but i just think it's a it's a terrific asset to see it presented in that manner and as well articulated as you have done so thank you thank you very much i will admit to some technical assistance on the on the powerpoint you didn't do it all by yourself never okay are there any other questions okay linda yeah uh so um following on jim the the schedule and the timelines that's great i remember also seeing in there some specifics about how we will sense benchmarks and things but um how are we going to make how are we going to be better at accountability this time than we have been in the past because it has not been a strong suit and it's now yes it is absolutely critical um i do think that we've in the past few months we've really focused on the success metrics and that work that we did with the board in the fall uh we went through when we identified um you know key performance indicators about what we realistically think we can accomplish that will certainly be part of the project planning moving forward we would want to work with um a project manager to make sure that we have clear benchmarks and that we are reporting and that's again i think will be the responsibility of the board to hold our feet to the fire um and make sure that we do it but i i think that is the expectation we won't know if we're succeeding if we're not measuring things and i think in in addition to the if we're if we want to get the additional funding from the legislature there will be expectations that we demonstrate we are making progress just saying we're doing it well we're aspiring to do it won't be enough so i think we need to we need it to do for ourselves so that we can demonstrate um to legislative leaders to the governor that we are worth continued investment because look at the progress we're making and we're hitting the benchmarks that we've set okay Dylan and then Sean uh Sophie thank you for the presentation i'm wondering to your point about uh the general assembly um sorry am i muted no okay okay well i'll do my best here um i'm just i'm wondering about if you've gotten signals from uh leaders in the general assembly throughout the committees on some of the concepts that are here around timeline um and the steps that we'll be taking because i agree with you that the one piece of accountability here that is quite different is that we need an infusion of money for this transition and so in order for this to be successful and part of what we're responding to is an ask from statewide lawmakers who have said do this make it successful preserve our rural access points so if you've gotten feedback on this plan um and is there any that you think the board should know about as we consider this yeah we we are quite optimistic i think it's been very well received in um in the state house we're working closely with legislative leaders we are very much um a topic of conversation we're high on the list i think both in the state house but also um with the governor as well um and we're staying in close touch uh with the governor's office and with legislative leaders about about what we're proposing to do um i do know for example that the um the senate pro tem uh had his required reading for her caucus the select committee report uh we've reached out and talked to different groups of legislators about this um brian who you heard from from ncems i know has been in front of multiple committees talking to them about the proposal um we have strong support from the two legislator legislators on the select committee which is phil baruth in the senate and cathleen james in the house um so i i think we're we're doing all we can to bring um the legislature along and that's one of the reasons that i think it's our best um most likely avenue to get the the funding that we need is to stay aligned with what the select committee is recommended um because that's what everyone is sort of expecting us to do they created the select committee to tell the you know provide input and advice as to what uh the what the state should do with the vermont state college system and we now have that um i think we can do it we've done the the homework internally to see if this is something we could we could do if it makes sense to us and we believe that it does great and and i've fixed my microphone now so hopefully it's not an issue but yeah you you responded and and i just i really do want to flag this that you know this is a really significant consideration for this board is um as we weigh these decisions and they're big um what are the forces at play and i'm no longer in the general assembly but i was privy to a lot of those conversations throughout the spring summer and fall um and i know the forces that staff was trying to respond to and putting together a thoughtful plan so this is very challenging but those types of indications are critical and putting it in the context of the legislature has expectations i just think is really helpful for us and for folks at home to digest that we are responding to events as they've been thrust upon us in part and so that's going to be really key as we continue this discussion today shan find my mute button um well my question was really around the funding too and and large part you've answered that but you know one observation i have is that uh this strategy and what's been laid out by the select committee there are no half measures here um and and one thing that does make me nervous is you know if if some additional funds are negotiated with the state but not enough to fully realize the plans that it's not like you just slow the process down right you know oh we'll do it over a longer time it all has to happen it has to happen in a very aggressive timeline so um that does give me concern the other thing and maybe some of our legislators who are uh you know on this could could speak to it but um in general the way the state funding cycles work it's on a biennium you know thinking beyond two years for any funding cycle becomes very challenging and um and that's another risk we have with this plan is what happens in year three and four yeah i think for me that's one reason why going back to um to trusty melons point is i think having the um you know having um you know benchmarks and demonstrating that we're making progress um so the select committee has put out in their report five years of you know what it will take uh we're very clear when we meet with the legislative committees that this is a this is an ask a multi-year ask so again not that they can find future legislators but they know that this isn't a you know a surprise to them that when we come back next year or the year after um you know that this was the expectation was that we received the funding on an ongoing basis um i do believe you know right now there is some additional funding coming into the state um and you know i think there's there's some thought about is for example on the transformation costs where we're asking for 20 million dollars over four years but that could be front loaded if there's money this year that that could be money that could be provided to us this year that we can then draw down on um in future years so we are trying to be um you know creative and explore things with the legislature about how to get the reassurance in terms of the funding moving forward if i may oh may i just comment that you know actually shon funding at the legislatures on an annual basis not even on a biennium basis so really we know everyone needs to understand that we do a one-year budget cycle um and to my point which i made earlier and i i again i reiterate that this is not just a commitment from the legislature this must be a commitment from the executive branch from the governor's office at the very top uh through including the legislature legislature legislative leadership because in fact this plan calls for a commitment over a period of years it calls for a commitment beyond a single elected legislature in fact in two years there will be as we have now there will be a newly elected legislature possibly with newly elected leadership the same could be said for the governor's office so we in Vermont operate on two-year elected cycles this plan calls for commitment over multiple elected cycles so we are actually we can't bind future legislatures and we certainly can't bind newly elected legislatures nor not yet elected future governors if they if there should be a change in leadership at that level so it's it's even more important that we embed the significance of this in the minds of every stakeholder in Vermont whether in the elected positions or in the positions of the business community of the of every stakeholder community i mean we were very encouraged that the governor you know did include 20 million dollars for us and admittedly in one-time funds but in his um in his budget uh which again it doesn't get us he's at approximately 50 million we're asking for 67.4 million so there's there's still a significant gap there but at least um you know we were very encouraged that we were in the budget and that such a such an amount yeah if i if i can make one other comment and i happen to i think it is also the case that the Vermont's the importance and the significance of the Vermont state college system in my view as it is at an all-time high within the legislative branch of which i'm most familiar and there are specific excuse me as we look at we have workforce issues across the state i happen to chair a health care the health care committee in the house we have significant health care workforce issues and as we have looked to try to strengthen the health care workforce of the state which is critical not just myself but others external players as well as those within the building within the zoom building i might add uh are uh are looking to the Vermont state colleges as a key player in helping to train future health care workforce members a specific proposal just was put forward just in the last week around nursing issues and so i think we need to continue to be very responsive i think it's our opportunity to demonstrate that we as the Vermont state college system are nimble enough to respond to the needs of issues such as increasing train increased training for the health care workforce that's just happens to be an area that i'm involved in but again i think that both the awareness that the state colleges is a tremendous resource a critical resource is at an all-time high i think we go ahead i was just going to say i mean i think we we were able to demonstrate that with the the crf workforce initiative that happened in the fall and i know there's some interest in in having us do that again maybe for the summer or for the fall um coming up but again i to me it's very important that we demonstrate to legislators um the value that we provide to the to the state and being nimble and responsive to um things that they're interested in and that's particularly includes workforce development i think is really critical for us moving forward yeah i just want to say real quickly that in commerce um we are focused almost entirely in the economic development part of our of our charge with workforce development we've always dealt with it but this is like this huge increase in awareness and the needs of the work the the need of more workers to do more different kinds of things across all sectors is really important and much of what we do whether it's the trades or or credentialing or degrees of nursing or any other kind of bachelor's degree and it's really a very broad spectrum and um that is the focus of the commerce committee at this point and the department of labor they've made arrangements in the governor's administration to go and really create a way to find more workers educate more workers you know created a more sustainable workforce in all sectors so that i had concerns about the fact that this was a five-year plan early on last last summer and mentioned it to a bunch of different people in the legislature and the administration and under those circumstances you know the legislature changes every two years and almost one-third of the legislature comes in brand new so this is a multi-year effort but I think that because of what we're experiencing with efforts in the past couple of years to really work toward more to bring people to Vermont for our workforce I think this is really something where we have an opportunity to really lay the groundwork and maintain that that momentum Adam do you want to say something yeah thank you so I'll echo the past compliments on the report I think is a amazing job or the proposal rather of synthesizing all of the different things that have been going on different committees and being able to distill it down like this for visual purposes is extremely helpful the timeline is very helpful so thank you for that for all who contributed the specifically on the timeline document here at the very bottom is the strategic financial plan and it doesn't really have a lot of detail and I assume that's because we don't yet know exactly what that is but for me that's almost and I don't know if there's necessarily a rank order in this but it almost gets lost down there at the bottom of the page so I'm not trying to edit your document but I think more just the the note of what is that and what's going to be involved in that who's going to be participating what are the timelines within that similar to some of the other categories would be helpful for me and forget who said it during the presentation but creating those expectations and ensuring that we have expectations around understanding what's in that strategic financial plan and what are those those key performance indicators and how quickly can we actually anticipate getting those back in order to have an ensure enough timeline so if after two years from now there's a change in leadership either the administration or throughout the Vermont State House are we able to then get funds or if those funds shrink what options do we then have in order to keep this going forward and for me that's that just remains a big part of my general concern about this is it's not far enough fast enough but I think the presentation the proposal that you put here today is is where we need to be heading and we can't solve it all before we start that journey but just ensuring that we know we can have those the understanding as a board what we're looking to achieve and how we're looking to achieve it sooner than later and then looping back to make sure if things aren't happening do we have to start looking at additional cuts or are we then looking for more revenue and I mean those are the only two things we have right more revenue or additional cuts and you know the the half measures that Sean mentioned you know I don't see how we really have the ability to be somewhat flexible here it's we're sort of all in at this point um so yeah no hard question Sophie I don't know if you have any anything that in my comments there that you want to respond to but um again great job on the proposal thank you yeah thank you I think we're aiming for the strategic financial plan to be done by this summer but I will if Sharon is available and has other thoughts on that I'll let her chime in good afternoon yes we are expecting that the strategic financial plan would be done this summer though I would expect that at the time that we do the um the review at finance and facilities in May and again in the board meeting in June that we'd provide a preliminary update as to where we are in that process so that you're not waiting entirely until the board retreat until September anyone else anyone else Michael thank you Lynn I just wanted to give my perspective on that conversation about timeline um I think you know I think concerns about the timeline are are legitimate and real and Bill Lippert's suggestion about doing everything we can to embed the urgency and the need particularly the long-term need into the current legislative leadership the current executive leadership and and even more broadly than that because in case leadership changes but you know I think any plan that we propose that is this transformative it's going to take more than one you know legislative cycle more than one biennium um so whatever the solution is I think we're going to have this timeline challenge that we're going to have to confront and ultimately you know it is a risk but if we're successful in um you know in the path that we've set forward in the in the markers that we plan to hit and we hit those markers I think we're going to get you know continued support from those that are making the decisions as long as we can show the transformation and the success so I think that's just critical for us to keep in mind and and not just embedding the plan into the decision makers but specifically over the next two or three years what are the items what are the bogies that we're planning to hit so that we can show our success and if we do that I you know if we do that of course anything can change but you know one would think we would have a good argument for continued support anyone else I have a resolution Megan are you ready to read the resolution Lynn I don't have this resolution I have the later resolution going to okay I'll read it then I'm sorry that's okay I'll read it I've got it so this is resolution 2021-007 for the transformation of the Vermont State College system whereas the Vermont State College system or the VSCS which includes Castelding University Northern Vermont University Vermont Technical College and the Community College of Vermont was created by Vermont Statute 1961 as a public corporation to plan, supervise, administer, and operate facilities for education at the post-secondary level supported in whole and substantial part with state funds and whereas the VSCS mission is for the benefit of Vermont to provide affordable high quality student-centered and accessible education fully integrating professional liberal and career study consistent with student aspirations and regional and state needs and whereas the state created a select committee on the future of public higher education in Vermont otherwise known as the Select Committee to assist the state of Vermont in addressing the urgent needs of the Vermont State Colleges and to develop an integrated vision and plan for a high quality affordable and workforce connected future for public higher education in the state and whereas the Select Committee has made numerous recommendations regarding the future of the VSCS including a maintaining the Community College of Vermont as a separate institution while unifying the remaining three institutions under a single leadership structure and accreditation b aggressive coordination of administrative services and c a significant increase in the amount of state investment on the VSCS to address its structural deficit mitigate the impact of COVID and increase its annual base appropriation moving forward and whereas the Select Committee's recommendations were informed by information gathered from a wide range of stakeholders concerning their perspectives on higher education in Vermont and the VSCS as well as the reports and recommendations recommendations issued by stakeholder groups and whereas the Board of Trustees has solicited and received considerable written and oral public feedback on the recommendations of the Select Committee as well as other stakeholder reports from both internal and external stakeholders and whereas the Board of Trustees charged the Chancellor in consultation with the Presidents to consider the recommendations of the Select Committee and making a recommendation for a transformed organization governance an operational model for the VSCS that is fiscally sustainable and fulfills the VSCS's mission and whereas the Chancellor has presented her recommendations for the future of the VSCS and the VSCS transformation proposal a 21st century public access system of higher education for Vermont which includes seeking a common accreditation for Castleton University, Northern Vermont University and Vermont Technical College, maintaining a physical presence at their primary locations along with aggressive coordination of administrative services system-wide and whereas the recommendation is conditioned on the understanding that a the state provides the VSCS with requisite additional funding, b the New England Commission on Higher Education otherwise known as Nechi, approves the proposal for a common accreditation of the three institutions and related substantive change proposals and see there is no further flare-up or worsening of the global pandemic that adversely impacts the operations of the VSCS therefore let it be resolved that the Board of Trustees of the Vermont State College system hereby approves the transformation proposal and directs the Chancellor to commence the significant work that will be required to implement her recommendations. Do I hear a motion for them? Taryn has a motion. Someone second that? Sure. Okay there's Jim a second that so we have a motion on the floor and a second. Is there any further discussion on the resolution Bill? I would like oh Janet I'm sorry sorry yeah and I'm sorry I had to jump off but I think it's important to add to the resolution two things one is and forget perfect wordsmithing here but one is and in the trustees will be provided with financial projections of revenues and costs and impacts of the actions on an ongoing basis and the second would be that the Chancellor's Office or administration shall continue to identify risks and mitigation strategies around those risks on an ongoing basis. I think it's extremely important to put into the resolution not just a decision being made but a couple big things we need to see to know that these things are progressing at a bigger picture than just the line items of the actions to be taken and so I think the financial aspect of this as well as the risk and risk mitigations because they will change as it goes on but I think it's very important to be part of the resolution. Okay is that a motion? Janet? Yes okay I have a motion for an amendment on the floor regarding financial reports. Adam seconds that. Okay Adam seconds that and financial financial reporting and risk mitigation. Risk identification identification identification. Lynn can you read it again or Janet? Well my my fast notes would be I don't know if we if we say the administration of the Chancellor's Office or maybe it's just the trustees shall be provided with financial projections of revenues and costs and the impacts of these actions on an ongoing basis and the trustees will be provided identified risks and mitigation strategies during the implementation of this plan on an ongoing basis. Okay so that the trustees will be provided with financial projections and costs on an ongoing basis of these projections and they will also be given information to identify risk and risk mitigations on these on this and I've gone forward. That sounds like a motion. Correct and we have a second from Adam is that what you're seconding Adam? Okay Michael you have your hand up. Do you want to vote on that motion Lynn or do you want me I have a different some different top a different point. Okay yeah we're gonna have to vote on the amendment first. Anyone have any we have a motion on the floor any further discussion of them of the motion for the amendment. All those in favor of the amendment please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any any opposition say nay. The amendment has passed we now have the resolution do you want to talk about the resolution Michael? Yeah I just thank you chair Dickinson I just wanted to mention a few things that we've heard during the you know during the listening session and collecting feedback from the stakeholders within the campuses and the communities you know we heard concerns around losing identity and losing branding concerns around CCV not being included and I think concerns around faculty and staff having a voice within the board and those are the three that I sort of be the most reoccurring and I think the discussion today was really helpful on all of those points. You know the Nechi representatives the Nechi consultants made I think really strong arguments for why CCV is different why its business model is different why it should be separate it's financially stable as it is now but also the fact that Vermont is not necessarily focused like other states are on meeting students where they are servicing their needs. I think what I heard from the Nechi consultants is that we have maybe too much of a focus on traditional four-year degrees relative to other states and that part of the issue that the system is having so I think that's the strongest argument for keeping CCV right where it is while we engage in this transformation plan. On the branding issue I think we just need to be mindful of that as we you know engage in this work about how do we you know how do we transition to this the system but maintain the individuality of the campuses and the schools because there is certainly value there in what each of the institutions not anyone in particular but each of them have been able to develop and then on the faculty and staff front you know again as we engage in these discussions I think it's worth thinking about is there an opportunity to have a representative on the board so that there is that direct line of communication we heard that in the comments and thought it was a good a good suggestion and we heard that I think it was 22 percent of other systems have some sort of representation on the board whether voting or non-voting representation so something to think about as we move through the process nothing that I think at least from my perspective needs to be included in the resolution but wanted to mention that before we voted. Important point. Okay Dylan you have your hand up. Yeah just in a similar vein I mean I've been trying to process all this as I know we all have but I continue to come back to this question of what does the Vermont State College's system need to be successful but more importantly what do the students need and so as I grappled as well with the community College of Vermont how this fits in especially as someone who attended CCB at a number of sites around the state online you know I just came back to for students who attend CCB or any other post-secondary institution they're really thinking about how do they build skills and how do they do it and afford it and so so much of the work we do and what we're being asked to do through transformation is going to be about achieving that about providing students more opportunities making them more affordable and with that I think comes an obligation that our state leaders our governor and our legislators fund the state college's system and this is a path to do it so as I reflect on my experience both as a student the experiences of our students who are presently in the system and our faculty and others there's a lot of agreement there and so it's about ensuring we have a system that meets those kids where they are or meets those students where they are wherever they may be in life so I believe this is the best structure to do it there's going to be a lot of accountability built in I'm glad we just approved a resolution to add to that and I know everyone is pulling in the same direction so I'm prepared to support this and I do hope that it will lead to the best outcomes for our state and that it will get us the resources we need to do it the best we can well well I have a I have a comment and a question of the first the comment is that there's also I think the the structural plan to have CCB remain independent and very visible but a but a integral part of the Vermont state college system also provides particular opportunities for further outreach to those Vermonters who are not currently engaging in further higher education it's it's a it's a it's an entry way that is uniquely positioned to give people the opportunity give Vermonters the opportunity to test their interest in future higher in further higher education and I also at a national level I think there's an increasing recognition of the role that community colleges are playing across across the nation and that it may there may be federal opportunities that present themselves in the new administration that will further strengthen particularly the community college systems not only of the of the country and that we would be well positioned then to have a visible but we already have a very successful community college system but have a visible community college system ready and able to adapt further to any national changes that may may develop so then I have so that's a comment more than a question but I do have a question which I failed to ask earlier in so if I had to step off briefly for another there was a conflict I had and I had to step off so if this was already discussed please just say so and then I will follow up later but there are several key pivot there are several pivotal decisions that this as this resolution points out one is the funding one is the approval by Nechi of the accreditation and one of the key early pieces in fact in this year as I recall is asking for an advisory opinion from Nechi about the possible accreditation and so I'm personally interested in hearing more about any in the way we same way that we've talked about well have there been signals from the legislature about funding well have there been any preliminary conversations that it's appropriate to talk about with Nechi and if not that I can understand that sometimes we need to just keep talking and not put them on the front burner yet but uh but I frankly that's a that's a key piece because if Nechi does not signal through an advisory opinion that there's a possibility of a successful accreditation in the way that this is outlined and if subsequently that accreditation does not occur that is a key pillar of this entire proposal and so I I think it's useful to perhaps to the degree you can help us understand whether what you think the likelihood is of a positive advisory opinion being issued yeah no so you're you're right it is a critical step and if we don't if we flub it that's not going to help us down the road we did reach out to Nechi already help us it take take the part one of the foundational issues we did reach out to Nechi and had a very preliminary conversation with them as a result of that conversation came about the proposal that we we looked to hire an incoming president for the combined entity sooner rather than later and have that president on board working on you know looking ahead and building the governance the marketing the brand etc for the combined institution and have them on board sooner an overlap with the existing three individual institutions and that she was very clear I mean until until if it's July 1 of 2023 those the three institutions have to maintain their accreditation right up until the eve of that day and so that was kind of they didn't tell us that's what we had to do but it was thrown out there as a suggestion of something we should think about so we take that pretty seriously we will do an a request an advisory opinion to make sure that what we're proposing is something that's likely to fly advisory opinions really it's more a question of this is we think this will comply with what your standards are you know do you have any concerns that this wouldn't meet the standards kind of thing they're not going to say we bless it ahead of time but hopefully they would identify if there were any particular concerns about it we do also plan to reach out to the US Department of Education to make sure that there aren't any concerns there before we would move forward but I I think based I mean when when we did Johnson and Linden and unify them into Northern Vermont University we were kind of out ahead of everybody but in New England a number of these kinds of proposals are being considered so between Maine having the single accreditation for their system the community college system in Connecticut right now is going through a consolidation process and I know the governor in New Hampshire just made an announcement I don't know if that got vetted by net chief before he made the announcement but he made an announcement about consolidation in New Hampshire so I think that you know again higher education is changing I think the NCHEMS group just pointed that out as well is that these are conversations that aren't unique to Vermont that need to be happening you know across the country but yeah that's we will we will make sure that you know we're crossing all our teas and dotting all our eyes with net chief but early enough it's not an issue when we get down to the end I find that helpful thank you for sharing any other questions we have a motion on the floor if there are no more questions all those in favor of the motion that's been amended please indicate by saying go ahead David you go oh I was voting to say hi any opposed no opposed I see it the resolution has passed and that is now Sophie your work is cut out for you the work of the board but yes that's cut out for us too yes we're all on this together okay we have a report from the audit committee and we have a motion on that regarding O'Connor and Drew Linda Mellon is the chairman of the audit committee would you like to give a report on that is there someone you need some no I can give the report the audit committee voted out resolution proposing the extension of our audit agreement with O'Connor and Drew for external audit services for an additional three years they've been they went out to bid four years ago when we are in 2020 is the last year of that our contracting policies allow an extension of one time for up to three years given where the system is financially and with all the stresses we have to do the do the members of the audit committee felt this was a really important time for continuity of our auditors we've had a lot of staff turnover we've got you know a new CFO starting July 1 we've got a new controller we've got the financial stresses of COVID-19 and the losses O'Connor and Drew our auditors already know our systems they already know a lot about this that puts a lot less stress on our staff if they're not having to educate new auditors it puts a lot less stress on our staff if they don't have to go out to bid right now on top of everything else we're asking them to do and so for those reasons the audit committee recommends that the board approve the the resolution to I'll just read the resolved part resolved that the board of trustees of Vermont state colleges authorize a renewal of the audit services contract with O'Connor and Drew for the periods ending June 21 fiscal years ending June 21 June 22 and June 30 2023 oh and a good point you might like to know our current contract cost is 170,000 for next year they're proposing same price and then up to 175 the next year and 180 the next year so the and those are the maximum caps that they could charge this year so I think pricing wise they were um given all we've got going on I thought they it was a fair proposal so I propose what's the term I uh I make a motion to approve this resolution okay do we have a second on that second Janet also thank you kind of seconds that okay any discussions or questions on the decision about the audit agreement seeing none all those in favor of uh accepting the resolution to go into another three-year agreement with O'Connor and Drew for audit services please indicate by saying aye opposed I think we've passed that one okay we have a report from finance and facilities um David yes indeed so one of the more pleasurable things that we have a chance to do on finance and facilities is to consider and recommend scholarships that are being endowed for one of our colleges or universities and in this case there is a proposal for a new carol and joanne law's engineering scholarship for Vermont technical college the finance and facilities committee reviewed this and agreed to recommend this to the full board and I would like to invite president molten to make any remarks she may like to about this but obviously always wonderful news to have a scholarship program thank you very much David I would just quickly say that we're very excited about this Carol and Joanne laws are uh donating this making this endowment available for engineering students they particularly want to see young ladies get into engineering and uh we're very excited because they've created both an endowment and made a donation that we can use immediately for scholarships to attract folks to those programs so we're very excited about this and very grateful okay so do we have a motion to accept the conditions of the scholarship I would make that motion a second on that mary seconds it okay any discussion or questions on this scholarship opportunity for vtc congratulations yes congratulations um thank you very much seeing none all those in favor of the motion to accept the scholarship from the carol and joanne laws engineering scholarship from the family please indicate by saying aye hi anyone opposed seeing none so anything else that we need to talk about from the finance and facilities committee can I just bring up one thing maybe pat you can answer this so carol laws is very well known in the civil engineering world right um and uh i'm quite sure he's a member of society professional engineers and a whole bunch of other groups in vermont and i don't know what your publicity plans are or can be but i'll tell you hitting up those organizations and i can probably help you find them track them all down and suggest others do the same um i would strike all the iron is hot on that because he is so well known and respected in the state of vermont as an engineer you might you might get others to lean in with that perfect idea janet thank you very much i spent about an hour on the phone with him and he was very impressed with where we're heading and uh very impressed with what we're doing so we will strike while the iron's hot thank you excellent idea thank you janet okay was there anything else in finance and facilities that was there were other items we discussed but we'll need to talk about those in our executive session okay okay we also have a report from the nominating committee and we have a new chair of the nominating committee uh adam granol we did vote you didn't we thank you chair dickinson so yeah the committee met on february 9th uh we uh went into executive discussion or executive session rather to discuss possible nominees for the board elected positions so if everyone recalls there's both governor appointed legislative appointed and governor appointed positions um and so we were addressing the we were addressing the um board elected position so uh come after we came out of executive session there was a motion made uh to recommend to the board uh trustees the new and bombardier for board election so that's what we're here to present to the board today and i believe if that's right uh looking for a motion to approve those two for election is that a motion that was a motion a recommendation made by the committee okay we need a second on that sure seconded sure someone else you know it's okay jim second and a third okay any discussion on their way that the way that it has been transitioned for the past few years is that they were going to be uh some board appointed self-appointed board members and the governor would transition to from four and previously to three this year we had five people and um we have given some names to the governor as well some of them are very familiar names um that we all know but um we have the nomination for the board appointees and they are Karen Luno and um jenna from bar jay is there any further discussion seeing none uh all those in favor of electing Karen Luno and jenna from bar jay to i believe for your terms on the board please indicate by saying aye anyone opposed thank you peers we have congratulations to janet and to karen additional business uh sophie do you have any more additional business that we may have the only the only one was we were proposing to add a board meeting on may 10th um right now we have a board meeting scheduled for saturday march 27th which is we traditionally do on a saturday because of the legislative session and then we have our regularly scheduled meeting in the middle of june june 16th but again given all the work we have ahead of us we thought it might be a good idea to schedule um a meeting in between those two so we were looking at um may 10th which i believe is a monday um to add that into your schedule okay what time um well normally we've been starting at one but if there's you know again open if there's uh other other ideas on the timing okay so we need a we need a motion for that is someone willing to make a motion to add a may 10th board of trustee meeting so moved mary and linda can second okay any discussion on that seeing none all those in favor of uh adding a date for may 10th for the board of trustees please indiscate um by saying aye right posed okay it appears to pass uh there's also some informational purposes we have a new diversity equity and inclusion committee uh so if you want to talk about that that's also scheduled in march yeah i just wanted to let people know that that's the first meeting of that is scheduled for march friday march 12th and then we have um an epsilon long range planning committee meeting scheduled for monday march 15th okay any questions or discussions on that thank you to the people who will serve on the diversity equity and inclusion committee um is there any other additional business that we need to be discussing seeing none we will go to comments from the public we will be going to executive session after we finish this section of the agenda uh we are going we have a large group i believe of people who have signed up or might be interested in speaking how we're going to take about a half an hour on that i'm going to do you similar to what i did on wednesday um jim courier will be the person who will be the host we're asking so that we can get as many and people in as possible that you speak for about three minutes so we can hear from as many of you are here to to speak and get get the comments and we appreciate many of you were here some of you were here on wednesday uh and in previous discussions we've had from the public but uh jen is there someone who you want to start with uh zeniel who has signed up uh chair dickinson actually um a number of people signed up that are actually not on the zoom meeting so we do have one person that is that is beth waltz so beth if you're there we would love to hear your comment hi thanks and i'm not going to take three minutes i'll just take a minute or two um i just want to say i'm really excited for all of the work ahead of us all it's exciting it's it's transformational and i'm hoping that the the leadership in mob pillier or wherever they may be uh is ready to take it on and support us um i do want to once again propose or advocate for expanding the governance uh structure of the vermont state colleges um i don't think that and shams addressed it very well and i don't see a downside to including faculty and staff and more voices at the table the fact that we have to wait until all the decisions are made before our voices are heard at a meeting is disappointing and i think we'd be much better served to have faculty and staff um at the table and there is a senate bill number 37 i believe put out by uh senator uh polina and a couple of other senators um that expands the governance of the vsc so i'm hopeful that that will pass and that we can um all work on this together thank you thank you beth jen is there anyone else there is not sure dickinson we're all set okay all right um okay we will have a um an executive session um meghan do you have the motion for that i do indeed have this motion okay i move the board of trustees enter executive session pursuant to one vsa 313 a2 to discuss negotiating or securing real estate purchase sale or lease options and one vsa 313 a1 a to discuss contracts one vsa 313 a1 b to discuss labor relations agreements with employees and one vsa 313 a1 f for the purpose of receiving confidential attorney client communications made for the purpose providing professional legal services because premature general public knowledge of these discussions would place the sc at a substantial disadvantage it is appropriate for the committee to enter executive session along with the members of the board president of this meeting in its discretion the board invites the chancellor vsc chief financial officer general counsel and the deans of administration of vermont technical college community college of vermont and northern vermont university and all presidents to attend upon conclusion of the first portion of the executive session the board invites the chancellor general counsel and james page to attend the second portion of the executive no formal or binding action shall be taken in executive session except for actions relating to real estate transactions is that a motion a second linda says it's a second any discussion on going into executive session seeing none all those in favor of entering the executive session please indicate by saying I I opposed okay now we're going into a breakout room is that correct yes you'll see your invitation thank you we don't have anything else on our agenda we will um i want to thank everyone for all their hard work today thank you so for you that was um really very productive and very helpful for all of us could i just add quickly i just want to make clear that i had enormous support and help from the trustees we did we did take the consult with the president seriously and we've had extensive um discussion internally and their help was really important in drafting what we what we put forward today so i feel bad i didn't say it before when we had more people but um i did want to recognize all the work that they've put in as well working with us thank you yes and uh there is no action be taken now we're out of executive session of 515 we did this in four hours and 15 minutes not bad with that i need a motion to adjourn so move villain second bill will say second okay any discussion on adjourning can i just i just want to thank megan and sophie for all the hard work on the select committee and i don't know if joys is still joys uh and i don't whoever else from our system and there were others who worked on that yeah boy that was a lot of work and you you came through with a i think a quality product in a short amount of time and make my bless us all yeah i just yeah we just acknowledge we had uh dan dailey who's a faculty member from nvu lindon we had devin tingle who's a student at vermont technical college and we had um uh jeff weld who's an alum and former employee from castleton with the other three vermont state college representatives on the select committee and they they also um participated and contributed to the to the report well thank you all really thank you that product the product of your report there's a lot of work in there yeah yeah and you're not done yet just the start right well i just want to say we have a motion on the floor to adjourn all those in favor please indicate by saying aye right all right thank you very much we will be in touch and see all of you soon thank you