Good afternoon. I am Lynn Griezmer. I'm president of the Amherstown Council and so welcome to our fair town If you don't live here, and if you do do live here, we're pleased to have you We are so pleased today to have Commissioner Carlos Santiago with us who is commissioner of higher ed in Massachusetts and Our state senator Joe Cumberford and our state rep Mindy Dom who have been so Delightfully careful to make this arrangement for the voices of Western mass to be heard and to hear from you commissioner So thank you and Paul. Do you have anything else? Okay, then we'll proceed Good afternoon everybody. I am so proud to represent the Third Hampshire district When we scheduled this we were aware that it was the end of the summer And that's a difficult time for people to be around much less to show up to an event like this And so I'm just so proud and grateful that you took the time to come I'm gonna give some Acknowledgements and also give a little bit of background about what we had in mind when we developed this and then hand it over to my partner in everything at the state legislature my incredibly effective and Generous partner state senator and Joe Cumberford Please don't But first I want to thank our staff if you don't mind They're sitting over there, please raise your hands. That's Katie O'Leary on the right She's my legislative aide and Alayna Cohn on the left senator Cumberford's district director Let's give them a hand because they've really They've taken care of all the details and made our wishes come true I also really want to welcome the commissioner. Thank you so much for being so gracious and generous to come to Amherst You agreed to do this I think in February when we first met to talk about imminent school closures and college closures I don't know if you thought we'd really take you up on it But I'm really grateful that you're here and as you can see our community is pretty engaged with this issue our thought today was that as we all know in Amherst we've been in the past Six seven months We've been aware that there could be an imminent school closure and one that's very dear to our hearts And senator Cumberford and I have been aware of it We've been monitoring and tracking we've been working with the department of higher education We both sit on the committee on higher ed senator Cumberford is the vice chair of that committee and so We've been involved on it in many different ways both in as an advocate as well as a committee member and legislators and As some of you know the governor has produced legislation on this that we've heard in committee And also the board of higher ed is trying to develop regulations as a way to implement that legislation and so this Convening is really an opportunity for you to hear from the commissioner What their thinking is and to open it up to your questions your concerns your thoughts your input Since we scheduled it there was a public hearing scheduled on the board's regulations for Springfield for next week And the commissioner has assured us that any input that's provided at today's meeting or conversation Will be put into the hopper of what they're receiving as part of the public hearing so that your concerns and input Will have an influence in terms of the what the board of it higher ed will be doing I want to let you know that so we'll be doing a lot with social media today We were concerned that nobody would show in the room because everybody would be away We're thrilled you're here, but we were wrong and I've never been happier to be wrong about something But for people who aren't in the area We wanted to provide them with an opportunity to participate and so Amherst media is recording this live as a result we've been able to tap into their live video and Elena and Katie are both Tracking Facebook and Twitter for people who may be commenting and asking questions as they watch it online And so we'll be hearing from you and hopefully we'll be hearing from some folks Online and if you don't want your face on social media in a photo you should let us know before you leave today I also I forgot one more. Thank you and that's to Amherst media and to the town of Amherst for giving us the space and Angela Mills in the back in the red shirt Who's been the town representative who's been working with our staff on the details One more just piece and that's when we When people come and speak someone asked outside, how long will we have that was a good question that we hadn't anticipated But in the State House folks are offered three minutes to give a Testimony and so we thought three minutes would probably be an adequate amount of time and without further ado I think I've covered my points. I really it's my pleasure to introduce to you Not only a newly elected public official in the State House, but we cannot have a better state senator than Joe Comerford I am Increasingly proud that she's my state senator and I can only tell you that she is a hundred percent partner for everything That's important to the Third Hampshire district. So Thank you so much hand for representative Dom So now I get to gush a little bit about Mindy So and I want to put that in the context and rep Dom and I often do this this region has come to expect Significant collaboration between House members and Senate members and in an area like Western Massachusetts Which is less represented in the State House just because of the density of our population also two hours West It's really important actually that we lock arms in Initiatives and we you know, I like to say that we try to punch above our weight in the State House and we can only do that through strong partnership and Mindy Dom is as fierce as she is gracious And it's the two pronged approach. I call it the Dom approach that gets so much done for the Third Hampshire And so you are my partner in this and all rep Dom And please let me welcome. We have three college presidents with us today Join me in welcoming President Eve Solomon from Fernandez from the Greenfield Community College President Christina Royal from HCC Holyoke Community College and we have interim Hampshire president Ken Rosenthal and Congratulations to Hampshire on your new appointment So as as rep Dom said we met with you Commissioner Santiago Early in our tenure and that was in large measure Really propelled by what was happening at Hampshire also our our clear interest because we both got to serve on higher ed In higher education and so again, I want to join rep Dom and thanking you Commissioner You've been in the State House to meet with the delegation at our request your team has been incredible You've come to kick off the public higher ed caucus in the legislature which both rep Dom and I serve on So rep Commissioner Santiago has been clearly interested in engaging with the legislature and also engaging with community members So thank you so much. I also yes. Yes, let's give a hand to Commissioner Santiago So a little bit about the agenda today will hear from Commissioner Santiago Thank you to your team and all of the work that went into Making a PowerPoint for us and then rep Dom and I will facilitate real Communication between you and the and the Commissioner So we'll invite folks to come up make statements ask questions being mindful as rep Dom said and we'd be grateful for this That you hold your comments if you're going to make comments to three minutes So we can really hear from as many people as possible because in addition to the college presidents I want to say and we're very happy to say that we have robust representation from the other area colleges And so leaders from those campuses as well So without further ado, I'm going to provide a Brief introduction of Dr. Santiago. He's a very modest man So we'll we'll consider this just a little window into his significant accomplishments So Carlos Santiago is Commissioner of Higher Ed for Massachusetts appointed to this position by Governor Charlie Baker in July of 2015 Working with the Board of Higher Education He is responsible for providing overall direction to public higher education in Massachusetts and Helping shape state level policies that maximize the benefits of higher education to the Commonwealth and its citizens Commissioner Santiago joined the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education in April 2013 as the senior deputy commissioner for academic affairs His past academic appointments include that of Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee And that's Wisconsin's second largest research University He brings over 30 years of experience in public higher education Commissioner Santiago also served as Provost and Chief Operating Officer at the University at Albany. That's a SUNY school I'm a New Yorker. So really proud of SUNY's. He was a professor of economics at UWM and SUNY Albany And holds a PhD in economics from Cornell University He is the author or co-author of six books I don't know where he finds the time and has published dozens of articles and book reviews of which many focus on the Economic development and the changing socioeconomic status of Latinos in the United States on two separate occasions in 1996 and in 2011 Commissioner Santiago has been named one of the 100 most influential Hispanics in the United States by Hispanic business magazine Join me, please and welcoming Commissioner Carlos Santiago. There we go. That should improve things Thank you so much for coming out on a Friday beautiful weather Only two of us in the entire town are dressed in suits and black suits top it off Alex Natalie will be our scribe today. He's a staff member in our legal affairs department and Dean of Papua Nicolau is our legal counsel of another staff member There she is Katie Abel our associate commissioner for external relations. I'm delighted to be here I'm delighted to see such a such a large crowd and to see all the acquaintances Not only the two presidents from our public institutions My old friend Manuel frau where's Manuel there he is Manuel and I go way back to the early 90s where I was the head of a struggling professional organization in ethnic and area studies and The organization Had lost a lot of money with the previous president so Manuel Said why don't we do it in Amherst? We can use the residence halls and We'll save some money and we'll turn the organization's finances around and we did I'm very proud of the work that That we accomplished together There are others of you that I know and have worked with and I'm delighted to see all of you in particularly I I have to acknowledge your state representatives senator Cumberford representative Dom have been on they were on our doorstep When we began seeing difficulties for a number of our institutions and they have been very open about concerns and They have certainly helped us Shape I would say our our regs as we go forward and we are using today as an opportunity to continue shaping that the regulatory process Our legal counsel has been leading our efforts in the department to draft those regs. They're now open for public discussion and Alex is here to take any commentary that he hears. He will make sure that it Goes to the appropriate folks So I have a brief PowerPoint brief around 20 minutes The most everybody says that 20 minutes is the attention span that you can keep an audience And then I just want to open it up and feel free to ask me questions on this topic the topic of closures and mergers and consolidations in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts You should know a week and a half ago I was in the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association in Little Rock, Arkansas. We had our annual meeting and in fact I talked about this with my colleague she owes is what were called state executive officers And a lot of states are going through what we are going through Virginia Ohio in particular We are far ahead of any other state that we know of in terms of moving Legislation forward and having these kinds of conversations. So I dare say that again when it comes to education A lot of states are looking in Massachusetts and how we're dealing with this particular situation We've actually been at this for a while while everybody remembers Mount Ida which occurred in April of 2018 the reality is we have been engaged in this work and we have a Responsibility to both Grant degree granting authority to an institution and also revoke degree granting authority over Institution and to review the financial stability of institutions over over time And I'll distinguish a little between the public and private institutions But by and large the process has worked quite well By and large you haven't heard about a lot of these you've heard of some of them You may have heard of the the merger between we lock and in Boston University but clearly What we're seeing is that That this is today a fact of life We are seeing institutions even today just this morning I opened up inside higher ed and there was a story of Bridgewater University up. I think it's bridge in in in Connecticut now has Acquired an institution in I believe in Vermont We are seeing even if you look at that list one that might surprise you is northern Vermont University Why is the Department of Massachusetts Department of Higher Education involved in the closure of northern Vermont? Well northern Vermont their entire system was being restructured but they had an outpost in Lawrence and They decided to close that and we had to be part of the the closure process So What's driving this it's pretty clear its demography? Most of the institutions that have been impacted are institutions that are enrollment driven enrollments are down Nationally, but particularly in the northeast we are seeing the biggest decline in enrollments in over 30 years if you look at the two thousand two thousand seven two thousand nine great recession Fertility rates dropped dramatically and that means that this enrollment decline is going to be with us till about 2030 perhaps as far as 2035 so This is what's causing pressure on the smaller enrollment driven institutions That depend on tuition for their financial stability. This is a primary cause of What we're seeing and what we will continue to see now our authority if authority over both the public and the privates And I will talk more about the privates In Massachusetts we differentiate between the institutions that were chartered before 1943 and those that were chartered after 1943 we refer to it as in the veterans The GI bill came into being there were a lot of institutions that sprung up in Massachusetts Not all of them were really doing the kinds of jobs that the citizens expected and the legislature decided to in fact Create the Department of Higher Education to oversee the institutions of post 43 institutions We do disperse financial aid A hundred twenty million dollars is the dispersed both public and private institutions of that a hundred twenty million More a little more than than a third close to thirty seven thirty eight percent goes to private institutions as well So we do impact the private institutions in terms of financial aid Now up to now We our process works as follows and this is this is how it has worked Over those last six years and how we have dealt with the institutions and and what our conversations are like Basically right now if we find out that an institution is in financial difficulty We will contact that institution now the question is how do you find out? Well, we don't right now We don't have any measures. We don't Actually say well we think this institution is in trouble or that institution is we wait for information to come to us It's really not the most effective way but we We sometimes it'll be reports from newspapers Sometimes it'll be the institution itself, which is the way we prefer the institution itself contacts us and says we're having financial difficulty and we will start a conversation with that institution and we will ask for financial information And the institutions by and large Welcome those conversations by and large. They provide us the information And they know that our responsibility is to close out or teach out those institutions should it close and The numbers of institutions that have gotten in touch with us in the last few years has increased Newberry College is why I put that down as one of the It's not a positive experience because it closed but it was a positive experience working with that institution in the sense that Newberry College's president contacted us and He said we're in financial difficulty Can you help us with the closeout? We worked with them. We got other institutions to help take their students as need be we had Transfer agreements that were that were put in place It was it took a year and a half people don't realize it takes that long took a year and a half But it was an orderly closeout Now Newberry had a plan to succeed and the plan was in part to sell off real estate to sell off Real estate and and to merge with another institution those plans fell through So Newberry did have to close it was But they did it in a way that was responsible in a way that took into account the needs of the students in this contrary to what happened with my own idea Mount Ida as Some of you might know it came out in the newspaper that I was it at the state capital at the capital and in fact Was informed by a reporter that Mount Ida had closed and I couldn't believe it. We had no forewarning. There was no plan to teach out students Students were left adrift. We had a meeting with parents students faculty and staff and it was Difficult meeting for everyone was difficult for them It was very difficult for us as well to hear what they were saying they were in some of them were in majors that one in the case of Was it funeral science that funeral services There weren't places that they could transfer to so it was quite traumatic and Subsequent research in other states in fact has showed that students that go through a process a disorderly process of closure and teach out Are impacted negatively throughout their academic career. It's almost a traumatic experience for them They leave places. They know people. They they're with faculty. They know staff. They know it's a very very difficult Occurrence so what we do is we begin an investigation when we are informed by others that an institution is in difficulty We decide Based on the information we are given whether that institution has Prospects to get through the difficult financial times or not and it's a conversation that goes on Weekly with the institutions We have sit down with them and we share information. They provide us information. We Review the information over time. Sometimes it's an it's a plan to raise funds Externally through philanthropy and we monitor that and see how they're doing at some point though There is always a difficult a very difficult Decision that has to be made Which is at what point do you tell your students at what point do you inform students Mount Ida? Unfortunately, not only did they not inform students. They were admitting a whole group of New students and in fact their enrollment increased and one to say well, wouldn't that mean they were better off? Well, if you look at what they discounted their tuition, no wonder it increased So they were giving all these very large financial aid packages to new and coming students and their enrollment numbers were swelling Not enough to pull them out of the difficult financial situation. They were in so in the course of that conversation We need to come to some degree of agreement with the institutions that when can you notify students who knowing That that very decision is going to make it even more difficult for an institution to succeed After that we continue to monitor developments we will assess the plans of the institutions whether They realistically think they can sell property to To make up for the financial shortfall they might to face whether it's a short term or long term problem is one thing We look at I've talked to University presidents And in in Massachusetts as some of them have told me small institutions have basically said look We live paycheck to paycheck. We've been doing it for 20 years. We've survived. We go on We you know, we need funding at the end of the year and it always comes in and And and we have to be cognizant that there is no one Set way to deal with this Institutions are so different one of the comments that I've made is that this is Almost more art than science. We'll talk a little bit about the science of what we're trying to replicate But in many in many respects if you treat the institutions as if they're all the same You're going to be making mistakes. You have to look at the uniqueness of each institution so if a plan a Plan from the institution is deemed Satisfactory and and we feel confident that the institution will continue into the future well And improve over time that stops our our engagement Otherwise if right now if the plan is found to be unsatisfactory and the decision is made this institution is not going to survive Or if the institution we we we've encountered some situations where the institutions are reluctant to Give us information when we think the infer the institution is in a difficult Moving down a difficult road and right now the only tools that we have are Very blunt instruments One is we revoke your degree granting authority We call that the nuclear option. We have not used it and the other is just as bad We refer you to the Attorney General You don't want to be referred to the Attorney General so right now our our regs allow for those two possibilities those are things we would obviously rather not use and some of the new regs that we're Introducing have an alternative sanction. So this is what we're we're intending to do with the new regulations one is We're expanding the scope of our oversight to all of the Massachusetts institutions Not only the post 1943 institutions And we do it through financial aid financial aid is the one lever that we have Perhaps the only lever that we have apart from A withdrawal of degree granting authority and submitting the institution to the Attorney General's review It's the financial aid so we can use the financial aid lever to To use it as a sanction if necessary For an institution to provide us information what we want is information and we much prefer that that information be given To us as we do our review Voluntarily from from the institution. We want to move away from the reactive approach where we find out that something is Not so good it's happening to an institution We want to be able to reach out to the institutions and there's been a lot of discussion of what we're going to use And there are a variety of metrics. There are a variety of measures. We've been working with Acum We've been working with the Accreditor The New England Council for higher education on on measures as well It's not all that easy to predict an Institution that's having difficulty And one of the measures that we've been discussing is a measure which instead of Attempting to predict whether an institution will succeed or not. It's a measure. It's kind of turns the question around And it's it's been criticized a bit, but It does have I think Conceptually some value because it focuses on students and the measure is does the institution have the resources to teach out its Students and the question is does it have the resources to teach out four years of students or two years or a year and a half Or we've been looking at 18 months and that's that's a different kind of measure because that's not what Necessarily predicting whether an institution will fail or not. It's a measure of just saying if we were to close today Does the university have the resources To teach out its students in an orderly way and that could take quite a bit of time We want to clarify the definition of financial stability For our institutions and and be a bit more scientific Use certain metrics that Acum and the Acum institutions have been working with us and saying these are good metrics. We know the feds have metrics as well But as as we looked at some of the the metrics We looked at institutions that had failed over the last was it ten years or so and we found that The commonly used metrics found that those institutions would not fail So they were not good Predictors and we have started conversations with the federal government about improve improving those measures as well right now we do not Mandate a Notification to students and we need to begin to come to agreement with the institutions to tell students especially those students that that the institution may be in difficulty and yet Are applying to that institution there has to be some word to these students to help prepare them for what might happen And we need confidentiality It's a crucial part of this process as you know or you might not know but I'm sure the Interim President knows that we had we've been in conversations with Hampshire College since we we learned of Of the difficulties they were Encountering and we we started a process of discussion deliberation exchange of information and I have to Credit the the president and the institution. They were forthright. They provide and I'm talking of multiple presidents They provided us the information we needed. We had very positive conversations we learned of their plans and We stood ready to help them in terms of a closure process if it were necessary So we are still in that in that process, but And I know there are some reporters here. We did get a request for all of the documents that we had exchanged with Hampshire College and That was a concern obviously because we were in process of discussion. We had not completed our review and in fact the Secretary of State supported our position, which is There is what's called the deliberative process exemption For freedom of information request on documents till the process what while the process is ongoing the documents are pretty much sealed And we think that's the only way that we can have these Open conversations with the institutions So in the governor's bill there is language to Include that as part of statute right now. We've been We've been lucky that that we have not had to provide that those those documents at this point, but we think that a statutory Sort of Exemption would be would be important for us as we move forward as you might imagine If if confidentiality is breached it can imperil the entire discussion process So what are we what are we proposing in in the regs? We have annual screenings where we Run a series of metrics and see if there are institutions that pop up in Terms of institutions that may be in jeopardy based on a series of characteristics and it's going to look at a wide variety of Issues for example enrollment trends. It's not just this is a snapshot of this year It's going to look back and to see how an institution has successfully traversed if they have difficult times We are going to ask for what we're calling risk mitigation plans, which is basically how are you going to correct the situation? What are you doing? We're going to monitor the institutions But one of the reasons why we wanted to do the screening is that I mean we have over how many institutions in Massachusetts We oversee over a hundred 121 and we do not want to call 121 institutions and say Give us all this financial Information you might have to help us see how healthy your institution is that doesn't make a lot of sense The vast majority of those 121 institutions are doing quite well Thank you so what we want to do is say who is what what are the institutions that may be in Greatest jeopardy and we want to focus on those on conversations with those institutions We want to look at financial aid and see to the extent that financial aid can serve as a an Incentive for institutions to provide us the information that we need moving forward as well So The teach out that's again our responsibility and there are a lot of components This is not something you can do in two weeks time a teach-out plan takes Literally months and months of discussion You have to find partners and I do have to tell you in Massachusetts both public and private institutions Whether it's Mount Ida or Newberry College have stepped up They step up we in Nuba and Mount Ida We had college fairs on their campus with their students We had admissions staff, but it does take a lot of coordination Because what we want to do our objective is to transfer any affected student to another institution so they can continue their major of study They can complete their studies without loss of credit and without loss of Financial investment that's our goal and and to tell you the truth that is our primary concern and Any institution that helps us do that is one that will serve their students well and by and large The presidents of the institutions that have been impacted care deeply about their students They do Mount Ida may have been an exception, but the presidents care and their boards care About what's the future of their students as well, and they will assist us in that that process We need to ensure that the communication to students parents community members Because this is not just the institution that closes down These are institutions that are embedded in their community whose faculty staff and students engage with those communities So community engagement is a huge part of this as well And is something that you can't lose sight of And I you know people will ask me about our public institutions and I tell them the same thing Our public institutions particularly the ones are on the Western part of the state Which we know that enrollment is a challenge for those institutions in the current Environment, but I have said over and over I said these institutions are fundamentally important to their communities They're the economic drivers of their communities. I don't care what size they are They not only support students but faculty and staff they are engines in those communities and you can't lose sight of that as well So that's very important and we provide transitional support services for students as best we can So this is the timeline You are in at the point where our regs our draft regs are publicly being discussed This is the time to comment. This is the time to engage in the conversation with us We anticipate a vote by the board of higher education on the revised regs We haven't quite picked a date it's hard to get calendars sometimes when it's off cycle But we would our intent is to get the board to agree it To the regs to basically adopt the regs after the period of comment So that we have enough time to begin this work with the new regs in December And that means we need to start a lot earlier And begin conversations with institutions that need To be part of these conversations earlier. So I'm gonna stop there We can certainly open it up on this or other topics I'd be happy to To address and we'll figure out this. Thank you so much to Commissioner Santiago That was undercut by the malfunction here. So thank you again This is really a pivot point here friends as the commissioner said and I really want to thank you commissioner for acknowledging community in The the list of things that concern us that we have to care for and be mindful of It's the reason that rep Dom and I wanted the commissioner to come to this community to Western Massachusetts Because we know that higher ed both public and private higher ed Institutions are the heartbeat of this regions, you know, you are the spine that connects us You bring students in and educate students from our communities your staff and faculty live here They drive our economies. I love that you use the word engine These institutions your institutions are the engine that make us work. You're our heartbeat And so rep Dom and I want to be your fierce advocates both here in the community and also in the state house and with Commissioner Santiago and his team. So as the commissioner said these regulations are in process This is where we get to hear from you About your thoughts about what commissioner Santiago just shared your questions your your hopes for next steps and so and then rep Dom and I will listen intently and be with you in Community in engagement so that we can again be that kind of bridge for you with our colleague and again Thank you to commissioner Santiago for making this opportunity possible. So I know that there is a list There's a list of people who signed up to speak initially So again, we're gonna limit those comments to three minutes Comments or questions the commissioner will respond as you will mr. Commissioner And then we'll move on and get to the others in the room So first we have Ken Rosenthal interim president of Hampshire College Would you sit here or sure? Thank you, and I'll try to speak fast Thank you senator com erford Representative Tom commissioner. Thank you very much for coming today to talk with us about the challenges that So many colleges face I'm Ken Rosenthal interim president of Hampshire College, and I know something about these challenges I also have some familiarity with planning for the future of higher education I have been involved with Hampshire College since 1966 before it even opened its doors to students I want to begin with this Hampshire has chosen Ed Wingenbach to be its next president He will come from Whippin College next month to begin what I confidently believe will be a long and successful tenure When you meet him, I'm sure you will join those who know him and believing that Hampshire's trajectory is positive It will be a college that will be smaller for a year or two But we're regrowing where competent will serve our students well We're relaunching our admissions office and we'll be celebrating our 50th anniversary in the autumn of 2020 And we hope you will join us then From its beginning Hampshire actively reflected on our work as an experimenting college and shared our findings for the benefit of higher education Broadly and we join you now in hoping to better understand the world of higher education in general and the kinds of Concerns that affect Hampshire College in particular Some of the metrics needed in evaluating a college's prospects are easy to find and I hope to discuss them with you and your staff But in the few minutes I have with you today I want to mention some of the less tangible aspects of a college that you and the public you serve should know in my example Of course is Hampshire College A college is not just bricks and books and financial balance sheets It's also the sum of the influence it has on those who pass through it as students The influence they have improving the communities and the businesses and the world they inhabit Contributions of its faculty and staff To the advancement of knowledge and of understanding and the impact the institution has on the community that surrounds it and and We are small in young college, but I submit that its influence and contributions in the areas I've mentioned are truly remarkable It's student-centered motive Critical inquiry that is central to its pedagogy. It's written evaluations that replace grades and class rankings It's break from the lockstep of four-year March to a degree in its recognition that faculty can teach best while learning with their students These are things that many places do Hampshire does all of them and the accomplishments of our alumni Validate Hampshire's teaching style Entrepreneurial approach not just in business, but in science and medicine and government and life in general as the word building winning filmmakers writers and artists Cabinet secretaries ambassadors and town managers Scientists scholars and professors and these alumni are still young the oldest are about 67 years old and the youngest and More than half of them are not yet 42 It's a place of academic rigor National Science Foundation says Hampshire is among the top 3% of colleges whose students go on to earn PhDs a surprising number of alumni contribute to the economy and culture of the Pioneer Valley and some assert that the revival of North Hampton in the last Decades is due at no small degree to the Hampshire alums who have moved there and the college itself is a major player in this economy I want you to consider Hampshire's partnerships Not only five colleges incorporated But also the cultural village on Hampshire's campus the home of the internationally known Yiddish Book Center Founded by a Hampshire alum and credited with nothing less than saving and Preserving the Yiddish language for posterity the Hitchcock Center for the environment the Eric Karl Museum His extraordinary collection and exhibits offer picture book art and stories to children That's part of the partnership that it has but especially also the newest the RW Kern Center Built by the construction company of a Hampshire alum Which makes Hampshire the only place in the world with the Hitchcock Center with two net zero living buildings on its land These were buildings that were constructed to the highest environmental standards and operate at no environmental cost And we have an agreement with the International Living Future Institute that provides offices for them in the Kern Center So together we can educate the world about environmentally responsible building design the way all future buildings must be built Financial viability is of course another measure of value that is important But accountants know that financial balance sheets often underrate the values of non-financial assets that they record and so it is at Hampshire Our 800 plus acres the college occupies more than a square mile will be worth far more when developed Than the book value they carry and in due time for its benefit Hampshire will develop some of this acreage Some of it is forever to be preserved as part of our contribution To the Commonwealth's efforts to preserve the entire north face of the whole yoke range But some of the land is commercially zoned and some could be developed For housing in cooperation with the college and these are hidden values and appear nowhere on the balance sheet and Finally there is the value that is unlocked by circumstances such as the one Hampshire face this year as friends and alumni Came forward to support the college in unprecedented ways in the last four months national and local media have paid attention showing that Hampshire is a place of consequence in the world of higher education and Because of this intention. I want to add The last word that I want to add is a word of caution And you mentioned this sir It is something akin to the uncertainty principle in physics that the very attention paid to a subject affects it If you give more credence to current difficulties and less the future possibilities You may overemphasize the risk And that by itself can exacerbate the problems No institution can predict the future with certainty and I caution you and all of us not to want to be so Protective that we overemphasize the risks and thus make your own view of negative possibilities self-fulfilling Thank you very much for your attention and thank you very much for talking with us today. We're very glad you're here Thank you all Thank you, mr. President commissioner. Would you like to respond well? It's certainly the last statement that you That you made was is very appropriate. I did say this is more of an art than a science But I don't think in the current environment We can simply especially for if our role is to protect students just let things happen And and and I think as in our as we've had conversations both with Hampshire College. I mean Hampshire College provided us information Before we asked for it and I think that is is a key and I think is as the institutions and and and I have not really talked a lot about the role of the accreditor But I will be Quite honest when I saw the information on Mount Ida that had not been provided to us But after the fact I looked at this information that appeared six to eight months earlier and I said, oh my god I'm not sure this institution is going to survive and I think had that information been available We could have intervened perhaps earlier and at least made attempts to get students Effectively transferred on a timely basis. So we were I'll be honest. We were quite surprised when we learned of Hampshire's difficulties It was not an institution if I can say this I've got my legal counsel there so she'll tell me whether I Gone too far, but it was not an institution that was anywhere on our radar screen and I think that's a Sense of gives you a sense of that this is less of a science than a than art And I do agree that in institutions Assets are more than some of the physical assets as the president was was mentioning how you balance these things out is not all that easy But I think since then we have we have effectively had conversations with institutions to to ensure that it is an orderly transition If that transition is necessary Thank you so much, and I'm sure we'll get into greater depth Yeah, and I know that representative domini are interested in the balance between how we care for students and How we support Institutions in the state, you know what we can and must do to support institutions that are struggling in certain times And I know you care about that too. Next up. We have Ed bourgeois who's here Again, mr. Bourgeois I just ask that you keep your comments to three minutes And then if the commissioner wants he'll respond and we'll continue down the road Just found out about this this morning Sort of a related situation I work in agriculture and I'm concerned about our land-grant mission or our State University Which is also a closing of like the Waltham Facility recently where the administration I guess will be moving to Mount Ida But we will be losing the farmland that we use for experimentation With climate change agriculture food environmental issues It's a time when the public really needs access to our land grant and the land grant mission to keep these facilities and keep aware of the importance of The public being students teachers researchers and being able to collaborate with our public Institutions as they were originally attended and I'll just keep it simple to that. Thank you It's important to know Massachusetts is one of the most decentralized systems of public higher education I've worked in two others in Wisconsin and New York part of the SUNY system. These are command and control systems These are systems where a president of a system or a chancellor of a system makes decisions and they reverberate down I'm not saying that is the best way to to to Structure a system Massachusetts is probably farthest on the extreme in the sense that it is very decentralized Every campus has their own board. We have an overarching board of higher education. So the decisions that you that you mentioned Our decisions that are done at the campus level the board We were involved with Mount Ida in terms of we had to approve the Whether it was or not going to be a satellite campus or branch campus That was the extent of our authority in that particular Transaction so there are limitations to what authority we have We try to make sure and in fact there there's and I have two presidents here who can Hopefully attest to the fact that this decentralized model can work. Well If you can get the campuses the institutions to agree if you convince them because one is If you could bribe them to do certain things But we don't have a lot of resources in public higher education in Massachusetts So you have to convince the institutions that what we're trying to do is going to benefit their students their faculty and their staff and They're the institution as a whole and I'm proud to say that we have a group of presidents that Have been very supportive of the initiatives that we have been moving forward We have launched a major initiative in the area of equity in our public institutions And that's going to be front and center our board has approved it as well Thank you. Next up, please Kevin McAfrey from Mount Holyoke. Thank you very much Thank you to the commissioner for your excellent presentation. Also. Thank you to our local representatives We're putting together this great program or Very important issue. I have a statement that I'd like to put it in the record and if I could I'll I'll read part of it and Summarize the rest up to three minutes worth first of all It's a really indicative of how important higher education is to the valley that on the most beautiful afternoon of the year We have so many people in this room Certainly protecting students families and communities in the Commonwealth from unexpected school closings It's a very important issue. Not only are students from traditionally marginalized populations disproportionately affected by closings as shown in a recent report by ace The American Council on Education, but many communities depend on a higher education for jobs For purchases of local goods and services and for a host of other benefits Working together to protect our students our employees and the communities where we live and work is very important Regarding the proposed regulations Mount Holyoke joins with AICM institutions and others in supporting the approach now being developed that brings about strong Collaboration between the New England Commission on Higher Education and the Department of Higher Education That collaboration will ensure effectiveness efficiency and fairness and will protect the interests of our students our communities and the Commonwealth Underpending this conversation of course is just how important higher education is to the Commonwealth our Institutions are the envy of the entire world people come from around the world to go to school in Massachusetts But not only that So many students in our schools in Massachusetts are from the Commonwealth at Mount Holyoke for example 19% of our students come from Massachusetts 6% come from Hampton Franklin and Hampshire counties We're very proud of that fact. So we're working very hard to educate students from Massachusetts and there's no doubt to that Higher education is essential to the state's economic health certainly The Pioneer Valley draws tremendous benefits from the five colleges from the Springfield Colleges from Greenfield Community College HCC and other institutions that are lucky enough to be in the best part of Massachusetts Statewide private institutions according to AICM generate 36 billion dollars a year in terms of economic activity for the Commonwealth Challenges faced recently at Hampshire College and it was great to hear The interim president speak to these issues challenges, which I am sure will be met and overcome Emphasize how important it is that we all work together Colleges elected officials business leaders citizens not only to protect the health of higher education But to maximize the economic benefit of the sector to the Valley and to the Commonwealth again Thank you to you commissioner to Secretary Pizer for everyone working on this issue It's very important and whatever we can do to help. We're happy to do. Thank you Thanks, Kevin. I Think we'll move on to another comment good and remember thanks to the commissioner and his team everything as Kevin just said everything is being read into the public record So it will be part of the due diligence around what's happening at the state level Welcome to Laura Wank Laura here and also welcome to Rep Sabadosa who joined us Hi, thank you for being here and for listening to all of us Much of what I wanted to say of course has been said and I know Rep Dom and senator Cumberford has talked a lot about the need for supports for community the impacts on communities not just impacts on students and although I'm a Hampshire College faculty member and I Care deeply about the integrity of an institution and taking care of students But I also care about the staff and faculty that I've worked with for many years and it's been heart-wrenching to see people leave It's difficult to stay even watch With all that's happened And I care about the community. I care about the pizza place up the street that depends on our students And I worry about housing values in town and the repercussions obviously are huge But the other things I wanted to say are that The diversity of colleges that we have matters greatly to the health of the Commonwealth and to the social justice when I was a high school teacher and when I talked to the friends of my daughter and The children of my friends. I'm always telling them students who feel they wouldn't get into an R1 University that there's a college for everyone and that has to remain true or the health of the whole region will suffer and so what I urge is that in addition to the To the regulations being put in place that we also think about the supports So the regulations many make sense to me that we have to be thinking about the financial health of an institution And we have to think about transparency with students and families But but I wonder also as the cost of running a college increase. What is it that can be done about that? The you know my partner would be the first to say if you want to talk finances talk to someone besides me, but But I do wonder about you know large of chunk of our cost is to Paying benefits the health care costs of employees The insurance liability insurances for campus and it seems to me that those might be leverage points in the state If we had Medicaid for all what would happen to the cost of running a college? and and then also, what are the ways that a state can be involved in Supporting negotiations between institutions The merger between Marlboro and Bridgeport Seems so different than many of the others that I've seen in that Marlboro is able to maintain its autonomy and its Programming with the idea of that it benefits Bridgeport students as well So those are the kinds of things that I I don't know what what the conversations are at the state level But those are the things I would wonder about and also would urge you to answer sure Thank you. Those are those are great comments and and I think Having the institutions both public and private segments of our higher education system Engage in these conversations together. It's hugely important when Mount Ida closed and and we had the funeral services program that was discontinued We helped facilitate the exchange of equipment from Mount Ida To an institution in this case Cape Codd Community College who raised his hand and said we'll do that program and They didn't have the space So Bridgewater State Provided the space where the equipment from Mount Ida went in for the programs that we expedited approval for Cape Codd Community College And that's an example of a public institution, but the private institutions were doing similar sorts of things So I think when you have those conversations when there is a collective will To and and not only that Cape Codd hired the Mount Ida faculty that were in that program. That's really important Because that You lose if you lose that talent there is no program We had an accreditor in that particular area that basically said you've got to virtually Replicate what Mount Ida had that was an accredited program to continue accreditation So those are the things that we certainly can help with another area that that I would highlight is Financial aid I talked about 120 million dollars in financial aid that the Commonwealth provides its students at both public and private institutions We need more financial aid for our students in terms of a sort of at the national landscape The amount of financial aid that Massachusetts provides its students for its public and private institutions is Relatively limited compared to other states. We probably rank in the middle 24th or 25th Which is not what when I tell that to folks. They don't they are surprised Tennessee Kentucky Kentucky with a population that is a bit less than us not all that much different I'll provide 300 million dollars worth of financial aid So there are mechanisms to support students and to support the institutions as well And I think we need to continue to push those those particular Leverson is as well in the legislature has you know has been supportive of that and we had last year the biggest increase in Financial aid in Massachusetts in over 20 years with 7 million dollars now it Came upon my decision to how those 7 million were going to be allocated and as my community college presidents No, we put it into the community colleges We expect you know if as it grows as the financial aid bucket grows The institutions and the students obviously will will benefit so there are different things that we can do To to support the the institutions as well Thank you so much, and I really appreciate your strong advocacy. I know Repdom does too for more higher ed funding Actually in the last two decades Massachusetts has lost 32% per student in higher education funding from the legislature We are accountable for that and we are urging our colleagues to increase the investment Also cheers for Laura for opening up the intersectionality of this conversation right with the call for robust health care reform and Medicare for All right, nothing happens in a vacuum We all know that and I think part of what rep Dom and I are doing on higher ed is connecting the dots So when we do health care reform or when we do any other kind of infrastructure work We can and should be thinking about the impact on higher education and how we can support each other in sectors Now we have town council president Lynn grease mirror and town administrator Paul Backelman So we're gonna do a duo First of all, I lived on two sides of this issue with the University of Massachusetts as Executive director of the Donahue Institute working in higher ed for well over 40 years and now I'm president of our town council and so as we approached the potential downsizing and are actually the real downsizing of Hampshire College and the potential of rumors of closure We had to all of a sudden look at this from another standpoint Not just the higher ed richness of Amherst where we have three institutions UMass Amherst Hampshire College Amherst College, but my colleagues two of whom are here Andy Steinberg and Dorothy Pam from the council We started having to look at issues like oh well What does this mean for people being laid off for people who no longer have their health care? What does it mean for the fact that our police force is now covering Hampshire College? Because they have either reduced or completely eliminated their police force. What what does it happen? How does it affect the institutions immediately on its campus as well as places that are immediately next to it like Atkins Market? Are some of our bookstores, and so I urge you as commissioner working in a much larger Organization under our good governor to be working with the secretaries of Housing and economic affairs and others so that as we look at these kinds of issues of college closures or mergers We look at what the impact is on the towns on the communities and keep in mind if you start closing one Institution in the town of Amherst That's a big bite. It may not be as big a bite for Boston but it's a big bite for Amherst and so I you have to look at communities differently as We look at this potential issue Higher education is the fifth largest industry in Massachusetts. You're an economist You know how important it is for all of us and we all want to work very hard to keep it that way But we also need to worry about the 351 cities in town so they're affected by what might be happening here. Okay, let me respond just take a Quick response. Well, you know the department and the commissioner has more oversight over our public institutions and the privates That's pretty clear But one of the thing I one of the things I've told our public institutions and the public presidents The the presidents of those public institutions is that in the current environment if we are competing for that last student Our institutions our public institutions are going to be in real financial difficulty So I really pursued an approach of collaboration And our state universities and community colleges, I think are working very very closely together Let me give you one example of something that I thought would never I would never see in higher education We've done surveys and we know that particularly in our community college system we have food insecurity and homelessness and we have begun to measure it and we know it's extensive and It's a problem. It's a serious problem I don't know how a student that doesn't have a place to sleep can study With that or doesn't have enough food can study That's the reality of many of the students that are in this community and in others as well so one of the things we have done is we've worked with the Department of Katie is a health and human services and we have Created five programs six the the the housing pilots Given that there are beds available in our state universities. We have been Putting community college students that are homeless Temporarily in those facilities and we've been piecing together funding for it There is no big huge bolus of resources to do this But we've been able to get from different departments The message that I give in response to what you you you said which is hugely important is We have to begin resolving some of these issues on a collaborative basis And if we are of the mindset that this these are the public institutions these are the privates never two segments shall meet I think we have got to start thinking a little differently about how we interact We all compete for students, but I think to the extent that we Compete over collaboration None of us are really going to move the needle. So that would be my response to you Thank you for being here commissioner. I'm Paul Backelman the town manager for Amherst and Hampshire College is vital to our town's identity. It's vital to my identity because I'm a graduate of it So full disclosure on that Just a couple comments on your regs first off I worry that your death watch list is going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy When you publish the not the names of colleges and universities that are in that are struggling that that just becomes a downward spiral And there's it creates a larger gap between the haves say Amherst College with a 2.4 billion dollar Downment to it that have nots, which is a Hampshire College with a 57 million dollar Endowment so I worry about that in terms of your public disclosure piece of this and I worry a little bit about that the orientation is more towards teaching out and helping helping or helping colleges to close versus helping them to to thrive So so and I also worry that your regulations team They focus a lot on teach out, but then they end there They don't take into account the longer term implications for a community like Amherst Where Hampshire as you noted own 600 acres and Amherst 200 acres in Hadley and So there are a lot of things that happen in Amherst if Hampshire were to close and Lynn mentioned a number of them Police force and things like that, but also there's some things you would never think of like our water system depends on Hampshire's Usage and the quantity of water they use for us to maintain the flow to the south end of Amherst if Hampshire College Weren't there we would have to have pump stations or something to make sure the water flows through the system The Pioneer Valley Transit Authority has a stop toward in South Amherst primarily because of Hampshire College if that were to close Would that would that bus stop would that bus line be terminated? So and then there's revenue impacts because of water and sewer revenue that we would lose things like that most importantly Lynn mentioned that you know 70 employees have been laid off at Hampshire College and those are Families who live in the town of Amherst? and Have children here and go to our schools and our schools are need to be aware of of that So they can keep an eye out for the children because when your parent loses a job. It's traumatic for the family But the single most important thing for me as a town manager concerns Land, so the three institutions of higher education and Amherst are also the three largest employers and the three largest landowners They don't pay taxes on that which we all know Hampshire College with 600 acres is land-rich even if it is cash-poor and That's what where we worry because it would be expected that the college would seek to liquidate its most valuable asset to meet its financial needs There are few if any zoning restrictions on that land currently the zoning by-law regulates much of the institution's property without regard to use or form There are no established dimensional standards for the majority of these properties Thus leaving bulk mass height etc up to the imagination of the developer Where this land to become monetized and sold to a developer the town would want to have a say over what was to happen through? Traditional land use permitting procedures such as site plan review or special permitting to ensure that any potential use of the Property is consistent with the town's objectives for development and goals of our master planning So in fact I would also argue that a college or university that has been benefited has benefited from not paying taxes on their vast land holdings Which puts even more pressure on the average taxpayer in town? I believe that there should be a right of first refusal that the town would have that would allow the town to buy the land That has been sitting tax-free before it goes to a developer So the town continues to express its hope and Has worked very very well with the leadership of Hampshire College because we want Hampshire College to thrive we wanted to Be part of our three college town because that's a unique part of our identity And I'd ask you and your regulations to look beyond the teach-out piece to look at the impacts on the community because These institutions are especially on small towns like when said Have a disproportionate impact on this on the smaller towns Because 600 undeveloped acres in this town would be a gigantic impact on everybody's living in Who are living here? Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Commissioner. Did you want to respond? Yeah, you know, um, I want to be Honest about what we can and cannot do as as a government agency what authority we have what authority We don't have and I appreciate your your your comments But I don't want you thinking that as a government agency with limited resources can stop a college from going under I mean, we don't we I mean we can help the students We can help the communities in a transition But we don't have either the resource or the authority to stop that that process We can certainly give our advice on any particular plan that that may arise and we do that often You know, I wish we could stop the process We would have done it for the 18 institutions that have already been been impacted So we have to be realistic about what we can do and what we can't do Certainly, I think getting the word out so that Sister institutions work together You've got a good record of that here. I think that's important helping If there are potential merger partners brokering conversations I think that's something else that we can can certainly engage in and well, so I'm not saying we don't have any ability to impact these Situations and there is no death list There's no list That that that basically shows that in the inevitability of an institution closing There is always hope We try to to make sure that the conversations with the institutions are straightforward We try to provide advice as much as we can and you know You had someone had mentioned the the higher ed in Massachusetts is the fifth largest industry actually I use third or fourth it's huge for Massachusetts and and The rest of the states are looking at how we're dealing with this and I wish I could tell you this is a blip on the radar screen and There was a colleague I met here who was a demographer or who had talked about demography This is gonna last for at least, you know another 10 perhaps even 15 years and we've got to begin adjusting to that reality and Ensuring that we can persevere and and have Hampshire College go through a very difficult period And come out on the other end Perhaps smaller but stronger as well. I think and anything we can do to do that I think we will certainly do If we had the resources to assist We would do that we can do it and some with some of our buckets like financial aid but It's it's I don't want people thinking all of your you know, we can we can really salvage Every difficult situation that an institution finds itself in we've not been able to do it in the last six years We've been able to assist but we've not been able to do it and the last thing we want to do is precipitate closure The last thing we want to do is push an institution that's on the bubble Into in a worse situation and that's really In many respects, that's my responsibility to to ensure that we look at this in creative ways No, we're not going to have a sort of a single You know metric that's going to determine who's going to survive and who's not because that doesn't exist so I understand what you're saying I know they the The importance and the value of these institutions to their their community and to the extent that we can help you We will I don't want to give a false hope that we can fundamentally change the the reality that that we face increase in birth rates would help immigration immigration would help and You know, it's not only Massachusetts It's not only Massachusetts look at New England look at Maine Mains had to restructure its entire public system look at Connecticut connect Connecticut had to take all of its community colleges and create one How many institutions with that I think 12 or yeah 12 institutions we are seeing this happening around us I think we have tried to address it in a Concerned way to ensure that the the least damage can impact our our society Thank you so much and on funding that really is the job of the legislature to open up more sources of revenue for higher ed now we're at the end of the Pre-sign-up list, so I'll take hands for who would like to speak President Solomon Fernandez, please First of all, I want to say thank you to our delegation. Thank you for working so hard You really appreciate all of your work all of your efforts and your advocacy and thank you commissioner for being here I really didn't intend to speak today. I was just going to sit and watch and listen, but I just want when you made your comments commissioner I think it spoke to me about how we need to work together the world is changing and If you've not read Nathan Graus demography book, you need to read it and for me as a college president I see us as needing to think differently because a new world order calls for more Collaboration and it's not just about surviving the next 10 plus years. It's not just about surviving until 2035 it really is about us working together much more collaboratively GCCC's itself has been in terms of our curricular in terms of our faculty has been very much like Hampshire College We are very much about putting students in the driver's seat of their education. We're very much about cultivating students and citizens for meaningful careers and Also for local and global citizenship I am extending publicly this invitation to partner with you Because I am a member of this community. I live here my children live here and I would like to see our babies and our grandbabies being born here and it really is It is in our selfish best interest to see that Hampshire thrives and we would very much like to partner with you So let's think very differently. Let's be disruptive and let's do it in service of our students and our community. I Love the call to be disruptive Thank You President Solomon Fernandez. We'll take another comment or question. Please Try not to put anyone at my back my name is Joanna Brown and I have a couple of Comments to make about Hampshire College having transferred into the first class also having served as Director of alumni relations and fundraising at Hampshire from 91 to 97 I Think that a part of the early story of Hampshire that deserves to be told is the fact that it was Not a Hampshire person, but an Amherst College person Harold Johnson who gave the first major gift that gift was then matched by the Ford Foundation and I think that going forward for Hampshire. This is one maybe Underestimated facet there are many people who believe in Hampshire's purpose and who have contributed along the line I think that now Hampshire has a new president and will be creating a new plan That the reach for potential support can be very broad Perhaps one Road not taken in Hampshire's past was that it didn't fully understand the role of alumni support and in fact the whole Development office in my mind was under under resourced Now with a new plan being formed going forward. I think that could be changed The development offices at Amherst and Smith and also Mount Hoyoke show what can happen When development resources are in place And I think that's one critical juncture here. The other thing is to realize that It's been said the oldest alums are 68 67 I'm 68. I'm right with them and In my seven years of going around the country for Hampshire. I Spoke with many alumni. I spoke with alumni parents and in general the alumni parents said this It's no longer my charge to support Hampshire. It's my son or daughter There are still many parents of the earliest Hampshire alumni who are still living and they're in their 80s and 90s We have not yet seen the transfer of wealth from one generation to the next so Hampshire's goal in my mind is To continue to be the vital innovating institution. It has always been I'm deeply grateful to it and To look with a 30-year time frame because within 30 years that transfer of wealth will take place Within 30 years the alumni who are in their 30s and 40s now will take their place in all the different careers. They do Aaron Lansky invented The whole field of Yiddish studies A small group of students at Hampshire collaborated and produced the first course on the Holocaust studies to be offered in any College University in the US the first Department of Cognitive Science was invented at Hampshire College The ripple effect has already been tremendous There's much more to do and I'm very optimistic and hopeful frankly, and I'm grateful to Ken Rosenthal Thank you other comments or questions for the commissioner please I'm Heather Hornick. I live here in Amherst and I have a question about the authority of the higher ed commission as you Try to develop new regulations. Do you make any distinction between for-profit and not-for-profit? public institutions because I noticed on the list that there were some of each and It made me wonder whether there are constraints that result from having to write regulations that are broad enough for such a variety of institutions The regulations that oversee our for-profit and non-profit are the same Regulations that we have to oversee the public institutions are are different. I don't know if you wanted to make a comment on that There's one distinction. We do have heightened reporting requirements for the for-profit industry But with so there is a little bit of a difference even though they're under the same set of regulations these new regulations that we're drafting with regard to Assessing the financial challenges of institutions applies equally to for-profit and non-profit institutions That answer your question Hello, I'm Leo Huang from Greenfield Community College from the Dean of Humanities Engineering Math and Science and first I want to support the BHE support with with K through 12 with with their early college initiatives, but I'm wondering how much the BHE is working with K through 12 in terms of Using K through 12 as an early predictor of what's happening with the demographics But also in terms of collaboration where our local schools in the K through 12 level are also experiencing similar kinds of constraints and challenges in terms of whether they Consolidate whether they close and what happens with our regional school systems. Yeah, we have Created in the Commonwealth over the last Two years 18 early college high schools our early college high schools require a partnership It's not limited to public institutions It is the school district a community college and a state university some combination These programs are targeted to students particularly low-income students students of color as well and We are hopeful that the outcomes will show that those students are Not only gaining credit while they're in high school college credit while that they are high school But they will continue on to the institutions that are identified So I know both the Greenfield and Holyoke have been very much engaged in this and we think it's important that that Pipeline be open There are areas where we're working with our institutions. We need to facilitate transfer So those students can take those credits wherever they are earned and apply them to at this point Any of our public institutions the private institutions can accept them as well. We need to deal with remediation We have a number of pilots Across the system. We need to deal with the changing demography of our students as well in Massachusetts We are not only seeing a sea change in terms of enrollment We're seeing seeing a sea change in terms of demography at this point in Massachusetts our Latinx population Consists of about 8% of our high school graduating class By that period of time 2020 2035 2030 it's gonna be a quarter So we are getting a sea change in terms of demography The white student population in our in our high schools right now is 81% By that period of time that 2035 period. It's gonna be 56% so We need to adapt to that change and adapt to it quickly We need to ensure and this is I'll say this with the legislators here Massachusetts in terms of attainment in terms of the percentage of the population That has a post-secondary degree is number one in the country. We're close to 60%. That's why they call us the most educated state But if you scratch the surface and you look at the grad the gaps the opportunity grad gaps across our state in terms of students of color And students by ethnicity it is among the worst in the nation We are leaving Students behind when we need more institution more students to populate these institutions that are having difficulties So we need to focus our efforts on making sure more high school students are successfully Going through high school getting a college experience before they get to college and moving on and that I think We're not only and I've I've written a paper recently that says this is not only an economic imperative for the Commonwealth It's a social imperative We have got to look a little differently and how we take those students from high school and move them into college because you're right the the percentage of of Students that are there's declining at the high school high school level the numbers of graduating High school students is not distributed uniformly across the state It impacts particularly the western and the southeastern part of the state. We see the numbers We know the high schools that are in jeopardy of closing. That's not a good sign So we have to find ways to get more students going through our system. I'm a little passionate about that. I Think you're speaking to the right crowd With the message of equity president royal and while the president is coming up I just want to make sure that we're all tuned in to the fact that In the legislature, there is something called the promise act the promise act was filed in the Senate By senator Sonia Chang Diaz in the house by representative Aaron Vega our own from Holyoke and representative Mary Keef It begins to doesn't you know, we wanted to go even further, but it begins to both reinvest Money that the legislature hasn't been investing in our public institutions Which is the pipeline feeder as you said rightly Leo to our colleges and it begins to actually change the formula So the foundation formula and begins to really look at it along the lines of equity as you're saying mr. Commissioner Really doing a big deep dive into leveling the playing fields around low-income districts So funding 10th 9th 8th Decile districts also thinking about Sped special education English language learners So there is there is a lot underway in our K through 12 and I am sure we all would agree I'm gonna make a big assumption here that and I'm sure mr. Commissioner You agree that we actually have to do better by early ed as well, right our early ed providers are not paid a living wage We need to ensure universal Early education and the like so that we get this kind of robust feeder president Royal forgive me for going on Oh, thank you Thank you commissioner for your remarks and everybody else who's offered commentary There was something that you you just said that sparked a thought I wanted to share with everybody I've been in Western, Massachusetts for two and a half years as president of Holyoke Community College And I find our region to be an incredibly collaborative Part of the state, you know part of it is the the the dynamic dynamics of our region Part of it, you know is the size and and other things but but it is incredibly collaborative I Think we need to be thinking about that through the lens of this particular issue, you know Mount Ida broke open This issue in a very public way even though it's not the only closure but Hampshire really brought it home for us this idea of That this issue of what's happening in higher education is a local issue. It's not a national issue It's not happening another state. Well, it is happening, but it's not just happening somewhere else it's now happening in our backyard and so My comment is for us to think about this as a Western, Massachusetts issue because the connectedness of Higher education K-12 to community colleges community colleges to four-year public and private There is an economic ripple effect When any one of us suffer we all will feel this in our region and I even think you know I'm sitting here thinking about how Holyoke K-12 system is in receivership, you know That doesn't just affect Holyoke Community College It affects all the potential students that we have transferring to four years And again, it affects the population that we have working after they graduate. So I Think one of the opportunities I want to offer up is that while there's Conversations happening in respective cities and towns here We need to have more of the regional discourse Around this topic and how we can ensure that we have a healthy economy for higher Education in Western, Massachusetts and what we can do to operate differently in thinking about that economies come and go and As we've already heard about Higher education is a very important economy to Western, Massachusetts. So what can we do to facilitate this cross-community? conversation in a way that is not just about Hampshire College, but what can we do proactively to really start thinking about the changing relationship between higher education and Workforce and the communities that we serve Because there's so much there are so many other factors that are changing that We could have a tremendous amount of discourse on and we should be and you know and I think both our senator and Representative, you know that there's some opportunities for some regional dialogue like this and I appreciate you bringing this Conversation to Amherst and let's continue to have this not just in reaction to a problem that we want to fix But proactively so that we can create vibrant future for Western, Massachusetts Thank You president Royal Thank you so much other questions or comments for the commissioner Please hi, my name is Stacy, and I'm a nearby resident and I think What I want is to reflect a theme that I've been hearing and ask you to address it a little bit more specifically and Perhaps ask the legislators to as well and what that is is I feel like your regulations are very on top of Making sure that in the event of a college closing the students are taken care of And I hear a lot of people saying is Who's making sure that in the event of a college closing the community needs are taken care of and I've heard that from so many people here and I feel like the last person who brought it up the town manager You said okay, let me be clear about what's in my authority and what's not and I guess my question is if that's not in your authority Is there somebody who's tasked with helping make sure that we lower the risk of colleges closing For the good of the community as a whole and that we manage the impact of colleges closing for the community as a whole I care a lot about the students I also want to hear you address or the legislators perhaps address the needs of the community as a whole when there's this huge industry with Several big players that could close. Yeah, I think the the key Message in terms of what our authority is if we can intervene earlier if we can Really have the conversations with the institutions earlier. I think it helps along The entire spectrum of those that are impacted the communities the students the institution itself So that would be my sort of my call to the institutions is get us involved and engaged earlier Let's not have surprises Let's let's basically do things in a planful way and planful way to that might lead to a closure But also a planful way that can lead to a revitalization of the institutions It is the responsibility of state government to deal with the the impacts of these closures in different ways It's not just the Department of Higher Education. It's health and human services. It's its economic development There are a variety of areas and and I think we have to Incident this is clearly now on our radar screen in a big way. We do have to bring together the various Parts of state government just as we've done around the example. I gave you of homelessness among students We can't alone address that issue but in combination with other state agencies and nonprofits and we haven't talked about the role that nonprofits can play in this in this particular area, so I think there's there more that can be done I think that our role is is really in ensuring that The conversations start early enough for us to intercede in Mount Ida. We had no Possibility of interceding early on there were you know, there were conversations about mergers that took us by surprise There were conversations about real estate that took us by surprise and had we been Partners earlier in that process. I'm not say it would have Stopped the closure, but it could have that's that's that's a stretch But I feel hopeful and particularly there are other institutions that we've had conversations with early on that I think Improved the situation and has improved and we're ongoing having ongoing conversations as we speak With with institutions. I think our engagement and involvement earlier Is a positive element to this process? And at one point when we started these conversations the view was you get the Department of Higher Education involved that's a clear Sense that it's not going to pull out and I think we have to we have to realize that we're all in this Together and that by our engagement and involvement is not to precipitate a closure But it's it's rather to get in front of it early enough that that something that is some intervention might might work So that's how I would respond to your to your question Which is an important one Thank you, and then you know from the state legislative perspective clearly are concerned for community and the well-being of community and seeing This is really an interconnected issue right campus of student faculty all of the jobs as Paul was saying I think so well the impact on the region the economic impact on the region drove us I'll speak for you rep dom drove us to be quick advocates and reach out to the commissioner quickly and have this Conversation and then stay engaged as president Royals asking us to do to continue to be part of hopefully a positive part of What is a continued conversation and collaboration and networking and figuring out the best way that we can leverage our work? With regard to the Department of Higher Ed, but then more specifically as the commissioner rightly says Higher ed and the well-being of higher ed connects across sectors So another question, please um you and your staff have Clearly tremendously good intentions, and you really want to help and I think that's great However Despite your good intentions You told us at the beginning that you and your staff have not developed a valid metric for deciding Which institutions are about to fail or might you know more likely to fail and so forth Clarification we have multiple metrics. We don't have one metric that works Well various metrics work in different ways You have to look at a combination of metrics to come up with it with a sense of The reality that you're facing so there is no one metric people think that we're only looking at one whether it's that Teach out viability metric and using that exclusively. No, you have to look at a wide variety of factors well, so Let me let me go ahead with what I was going to say So mr. Bachman, I think your name is yes said that The problem is the problem essentially is if you shout fire in a crowded theater people are going to stampede and I taught at Hampshire College until the end of January And I was there in the first intense two weeks of this whole event And it's clear and from what happened then and what happened later that You know a lot of students were spoke by the idea. Oh my gosh, you know Hampshire is in danger of closing and so There is this real possibility which I I don't hear you really responding to that by identifying Institutions that are at risk of closure that you're going to spook the students and their parents and you're going to cause their possible closure and Good intentions don't change that.  So and I'm alarmed that in This document that I picked up at the desk Which I guess is a bill. Is that what that is? I'm sorry CMR Regulations, okay that and it's very vague about how that process will be carried out and your office has a tremendous amount of power over it, but there seems to be no process of Debate over whether those metrics really work in other words. There's no involvement for example as far as I can tell of Economics departments or education schools or whatever in the university system To help evaluate whether that's the issue. So I I'm I'm still concerned about the death list issue and And I'm concerned about how There will be public comment on this if if the regulations are passed and then all the authority resides with your department and There's no further sort of public comment and feedback going on Just a point of clarification. We did rely on Experts we received a report from a commission of CFOs from our Non-profit independent institutions. They provided a whole Methodology that we have looked at carefully and found to be of value as well we have had experts at Parthenon provide a an alternative methodology that has actually some Important characteristics. We're using multiple measures If we were to simply take the The metrics that the many metrics and say we're going to use these four metrics and put it out there You would find a death list and we are not going to put out a death list And the information some of it is public most of it is public But in fact it is the private information that comes from the institutions It's really going to give us a sense whether an institution is going to be able to get through these difficult times or not It's not simply a metric and again I go back to the notion that it's an art as opposed to a science And that's how our conversations have gone with the institutions. We've started a discussion We've been in conversations with Hampshire College and and in fact we found out from them About their financial difficulties. We didn't have any list that at Hampshire College on a list and therefore we Approach them and had these conversations. They informed us So I I don't you know, this this notion that somehow we have all this Have these techniques that are going to be able to predict with some degree of specificity is It's not true and and the the correct the the fact is we're going to use multiple measures and the timing of the of any announcement that we Recommend to an institution do for it for its students is going to be crucial I agree with you if you do it too early, it's going to create problems Hampshire College notified its students its students were aware that they had financial difficulties when they when they went public and it is still in in the process of dealing with its financial reality, so We are certainly cognizant of the the possibilities that the things might not be perfect But we think that allowing for the flexibility that the regs provide is better Than coming up with a straight jacket to apply to all institutions in one particular way Thank you so much just also to your point this is the moment where we need input on These proposed regulations so your voice is now part of the public record right and everybody else who gets to speak on these Topics and these regulations will help help inform what the commissioner and the department do so I mean, I think this is really this is important. They put them out for public comment We can't respond to what the metrics are because we have not been told what the metrics are and so By the time the metrics are developed our chance for comment will have passed If I may I think then your comment would be we would want to see a description of the metrics I mean that's and that's a legitimate comment to make on regulations It's hard to make a comment because I haven't seen the specifics on the metrics I would like them to be public if I can say just one thing I really want to make sure people hear this because we're coming to the close the comment period on these regulations is Being accepted until August 9th Senator Cumberford and I will be posting this information on our Facebook page and social media So you'll have the email address you can send it to the date you have to send it by We'll post the link again for where you can find the regulations You can send it directly to the the bureau Sorry, the board of higher ed you can send it to us. We can forward it Which ever is easiest for folks, but comments can be In addition to some of the things that the commissioner has said hey We can't do that where the department of higher ed meaning some of the economic impacts a comment can also be we want the board of Higher ed to work more closely with some of the other departments in the administration around the community impact I'm not sure they'll do it, but you can put it in a comment Putting in a comment. It's important. It's part of the public record I know that's this is something that senator Cumberford and I are going to take back and say, okay They can do this piece where who's doing all the other pieces And your public comments on the regulations can drive that train as well So I wouldn't necessarily leave here saying I don't know what to say because I don't know this information or that That can be the basis of your public comment. I need more information on this and that If I can just make one final point there is one entity We've not talked a lot about is an accreditor the accreditor Netchi is responsible for ensuring not only the quality But the financial stability of our institutions Netchi has a lot of metrics that a lot of people don't know what they are they managed to use them to actually sanction an institution they've come up with a a new term what is it called they when they the They notify netchi now the accreditor now has a new term new part of their regulations where they notify Publicly whether an institution is in trouble So what we want to do is to make sure that we're working with the accreditor that we come to an agreement on what Institutions might be in difficulty and that we start conversations with those institutions. Thank you commissioner We have two more people that want to ask questions Are you able to stay for about five more minutes past three o'clock and get on the road around three that'll be We know that feeling. Yes in Western, Massachusetts. So Steven and then Hi, I'm Steve Brewer. I'm a faculty member at UMass Amherst And I also wanted to thank the department because the department of higher ed is funding the bridges program that I'm teaching in this summer Which is taking students from community colleges that are transitioning to the university and providing them with a summer opportunity to Be on the university firsthand to see what it's like learn about it and then to transition to begin the students in the fall But I'm reminded in the conversation a day of the parable that I'm sure most of you have heard that You know, you see babies floating down the river We've seen 18 babies floating down the river and so we're trying to figure out, you know How can we rescue these babies? How can we pull them out of the water with nets and resuscitate them and do all the things to see if the babies are gonna die or not and And of course the question we really ought to be asking is why don't we go up river and see what's throwing the babies into the water? I mean, that's that's the real problem that we're looking here at these trying to rescue institutions rather than thinking about what's causing the institutions to become unstable in the first place and Saying demographics of course is is one part of it But there are a lot of other pieces that that fit into that as well the fact that we've systematically Disinvested from higher education and and that inequality is causing people to postpone or Not engage in child wearing at all You know, there are a whole bunch of factors that that are resulting in the decline of higher ed And we recognize that your part is to sit there with the net and pull babies out of the water And that's what these regulations are about but I think all of us need to think about the political advocacy We need to engage in and of course we have the right people here that are fighting that fight on the front lines But to try and save higher education all together Good go over here. Hi. My name is Andrew Steinberg And I'm a member of the council here in town been involved in municipal government for a number of years That's the perspective that I started thinking about now I wasn't intending to speak until there was just some very good comments towards the end about question of metrics Metrics are important But metrics only work if you have the information that comes in that you then apply to the metrics in order to Make them functional and it makes me think about the Department of Revenue and how they work with cities and towns and the requirement that Information be provided to DORs the DOR can look at the health of our local communities and make sure that we are adhering to sound practices and are in fact Taking charge of our public finances in a way and being responsible and what I was sort of Feeling all the way through is that I was not confident that there was as much Attention being paid, but you can comment on this. It's really a question more than anything is as much Attention being paid to making sure that the information is coming in that allows the metrics to be applied as to the definition of the metrics That some of the information is publicly available But some of it is not necessarily timely in other words we may be a year behind So it the institution may have changed during that period of time. So what we we use publicly available data We try to get it as recent as possible But that is just gonna give you a snapshot of a potential difficult Reality that an institution may be facing you really need to sit down and have a discussion and know How is their fundraising going? You need to know what their admissions plan is over time You need to know what they have in terms of assets and their ability to withstand a difficult situation That information can only be gleaned from the institution. It's very difficult to to get public sources that can provide that kind of detail so It the conversation with the institutions is fundamentally important And that's where the the request for additional information To augment what you have from other sources public or otherwise is is part of the process and We have successfully navigated that for six years We had one very bad Unsuccessful outcome and we need to ensure that as we go forward that we don't have that again And and and I think that that unsuccessful closure of Mount Ida was a lesson for us And we need again we need to be more proactive than we were before right now We're pretty much the regs are Show us to be reactive to to what information we might get and we have to be a little more proactive without Endangering the the solvency of an institution as we go forward Thank you, and can we please I Think it's really I have to say I it's extraordinary that a public official Like commissioner Santiago came here on a Friday afternoon to have this conversation Equally as extraordinary that all of us are sitting here To be the reciprocal part of that and but really thank you so much for being open to hearing this for putting it on the record Thank you for everybody for coming. I encourage you to submit your comments It's been taken down by DHE folks But if you have more or you thought of something else look for the information on how to provide that comment on both Senator Comerford's and my Facebook page You don't have to have a Facebook page to find it You can just do facebook.com and go to either one of us will also I guess put it on Twitter and all sorts of other social media She has a website. I don't so I'm gonna look at there But we're more than Happy to take your comments also for you to email them to us and for us to deliver them to the department And we are gonna continue. I can promise I can commit I think for both of us to look at so here's the problem here are the pieces that are available to solve the problem We're part of that puzzle But what are the other pieces in the administration that have to be brought into the conversation? in order for that cross Intersectionality to happen at that level too And I'm looking forward to having that because I think that we all be able to participate in that but I really can't thank you enough for coming and Enjoying our community on a July afternoon. So thank you. Thank you everybody