What's good, Joshua Ross, back again with another video. So got to talk about what happened on this episode of SmackDown. Shout out to everyone that was part of the live stream reaction. We always have a good time when you guys pop up for the live streams. So we got to talk about really the main story that's been going on on SmackDown with John Cena and the bloodline. So you got Paul Heyman solo in Jimmy come out to start the show and pretty much Paul Heyman is recapping what happened last week and how they took down John Cena and also acknowledging Roman Reigns is still the tribal chief the head of the table. He's the number one guy all this other stuff that the normal usual stick that you would get with Paul Heyman. But this time Jimmy starts acting a little bit different. Jimmy is starting to portray like he's the leader of the bloodline. He even does the thing that Roman Reigns does when Paul Heyman is talking when he puts his hand out to ask for the microphone or whatnot. That's exactly what he did like Roman would do sometimes with Paul and Paul would shut up and give him the microphone. Paul Heyman was looking at him like what? And then he was like I'm just playing with you. Just playing with you, Paul. And then he took the microphone from Paul Heyman and at that point he was pretty much talking his trash like you know what I'm saying the reason why John Cena is not here right now because he's scared you know what I'm saying. He don't want no smoke with us or whatnot. He don't want no problems. We took care of John Cena last week. We took care of AJ Styles last week. You know just really talking his trash like he's running things which is very interesting. That's the route they're going. Jimmy's giving off the vibes like yeah I run things now when Roman Reigns is not there. So while Jimmy is talking his big talk, Carl Anderson comes out there and starts giving out the beats to Jimmy and Solo.  Now in my opinion if you look at it from just a story standpoint where was all this energy when your boy AJ Styles was getting jumped on by Jimmy and Solo the past couple weeks. Now all of a sudden it's personal. You was telling AJ to not get into a bloodline business and now while he's laid up in the hospital bed you want to do something. I found that quite interesting. So as they're standing outside the ring looking all upset and Solo's about to go back in there but Paul Haven stops him. You know he's Jimmy's oh no Solo looks at Jimmy and Jimmy well he tells Jimmy hey either you handle this or I'ma handle this or what not and basically that's how they set up the impromptu match oh and let's not forget to mention how for whatever reason Jimmy's out out here always trying to get like a handshake or a dab with Solo and Solo always leaves him handed so he'll go for the handshake Solo just looks at him and then looks back to whatever he's looking at leaving Jimmy hanging and he has to always dab himself up he is to and taps himself up I'm just like oh my god it's so fucking funny so of course the match goes the way you expected to go Jimmy ends up cheating off the distraction by Solo and Jimmy gets to win and then afterwards Carl Anderson said nah I still want to run the fade with you guys so they starts fighting but he ends up getting a Samoan spike that he really didn't get all of it to the way to spike Solo hit the Samoan spike on him he really just kind of he looked like he damn they're missing like hit like his shoulder he didn't even hit in the throat region like his shoulder it was a bad angle and he wasn't positioned right but nevertheless Solo hit the Samoan spike as they're leaving the ring he's trying to get Solo to dab him up Jimmy and he still does not give this nigga dab bro so Jimmy continues to give himself the dab and shake his own hand me again comes out there sees Jimmy or whatever she you know Jimmy laughing and then me again proceeds to slap the dog piss out of Jimmy and then walks up the rent ramp to check on on our homie uh Carl Anderson so at this point John Cena hasn't showed up yet there there's making a big deal like oh he just landed he's gonna be appearing whatever whatever so at this point Jimmy's upset after just being slapped so he starts beating up on random people in the back there's somebody on the headset with documents somebody with a clipboard he's just beating up on them or whatever pushing them against the wall Solo pushing them against the wall and Paul Hamlin's like just don't do nothing it's like they just doing their jobs man and getting assaulted then uh I forgot the guy name he uh he was part of hit row I think I don't know if they still have they have the group hit row I know it's just beef having him got his name I know who I'm talking about but he's in the back and not even catering like the backstage area where they're setting up the the shirts and stuff to be sold he's back there and you just see him getting jumped on by Jimmy like he's just on the ground getting jumped on officials were trying to break it up like I'm like y'all he's just out here trying to get get some merch I don't know if he was trying to buy some the last main and top dollar merch if he did have some merch I don't know if he was trying to buy some more merch for his homie that's not in the company but nevertheless he was getting beat up backstage in the merch area what not and then solo proceeds to pick them up throw them through a uh a merch table it's just nothing but merchandise and shirts and boxes all over the guy just get thrown to the table nobody stopped them security like hey don't do it but he still did it and it's like yeah if he wanted to team up with John Cena he couldn't I'm like bro what what's what's happening here bro why they just went on a rampage backstage attacking random people that's gonna team up with John Cena I don't think he was teaming up with John Cena so John Cena pulls up in his new Mustang all fast and furious like later on the show he drifts around the corner in the parking lot he has to contract in his hand he's very serious comes out there to the ring he's serious you know I'm saying hypes up the crowd you know and he's basically like man you know I'm saying I did sign the contract it is a 211 situation but guess what hey man you see what's on my hat you see what's on my shirt I never give up hustle loyalty and respect I ain't giving up so let's get it going 211 handicap I don't care let's get it going at fast lane cool whatever of course Jimmy and solo with Paul him and come out there and you know Jimmy feeling good or whatnot and it's like hey man you know I'm surprised you came out here but who said you gonna make it to fast lane when we done with you you ain't gonna make it to fast lane you should have stayed gone John pretty much so basically their objective was to take John Cena out before they even get to the pay-per-view at fast lane so it's a 211 situation and they start brawling he's able to knock Jimmy down off the apron then there's a big little standoff between solo and John Cena he throws off his shirt into the crowd and he's ready to go they start fighting he gets solo in the AA and of course like what happened last week you had the superkick from Jimmy and then they it's a 211 attack they're over here pretty much running themselves into the corner with the like the hip attack or whatnot while John Cena is laying in the corner he's just he's getting all around the beats so they roll him out to the outside they pull off the announcement table announcement table covering they're about to send this man to the gulags just like AJ Jimmy's about to go to the top but solo like nah let me do this he's about to take out John Cena and then all you hear is LA Nights music crowd goes crazy insane LA Nights runs out there with the fresh Tim's on and proceeds to give Jimmy in a well he gives Jimmy the beats and he proceeds to give solo beats as well like he evens up the odds and then they toss him out the ring and he picks up the contract he signs his name on the contract he gives it to John Cena John Cena with this amazing acting oh my god I can't believe you signed it and now it is John Cena teaming up with LA Nights yeah against the bloodline in solo and Jimmy I'm actually looking forward to this match this is it should be a good time and obviously it made sense for LA Nights to be involved with this he has had a little bit of run-ins with the bloodline but now he's really starting to get involved and I think this is gonna be very interesting to see how this plays out crowd went crazy LA Nights is super over and he's gonna be tagging with John this should be very fun looking forward to this match at fast lane definitely looking forward to it it's gonna be a great time but yeah that's pretty much what the the main gist of the main storyline on on SmackDown that happened tonight I believe that was a spot that was supposed to potentially happen last week but last week we found out that LA Nights ended up with COVID so that spot that happened last week I think it was supposed that the spot that happened tonight was supposed to happen last week but it didn't so we got it this week and now it's official so it would have been interesting to see what they would have did if he would if if LA Nights would have been able to come out there last week what they would have did this week not sure the probably continuation of the storyline potentially but either way we got what we wanted LA Nights is in the mix and I'm looking forward to this that they're slowly but surely pushing them up that ladder bro and eventually at some point he's gonna get some type of main roster title opportunity and it's gonna be great but right now I like what they're doing with LA Nights he's in a prominent feud tagging with John Cena don't get no better than that we shall see how things play out going for it so comment down below let me know are you guys as interested as I am in this tag match between John Cena teaming up with LA Nights versus Solo and Jimmy I personally am looking forward to it I want to see if you guys are just as excited as I am but I appreciate all of them support you guys showing on channel both 252 and I am stealing on speedy YouTube wrestling champion the world appreciate taking me see our next little piece


Alright guys, I don't know where to really start this video. I thought I could get away with it. I thought I'd be sneaky enough. And just like every other cheater, eventually the truth always comes out. And I got caught. But this wasn't like an ongoing thing, like it wasn't for a long time. It was just like recent, like the past couple of days and I got caught pretty early on. Really don't know what to say. Janice left. She's not here anymore. She packed her bags last night and she left. She didn't want to talk. Obviously I can understand why. And I'm not here trying to justify anything that I did. I'm not here to make excuses. But I am going to tell you guys how it all started.  DM Janice babe, can you come here and talk about this? Can we talk about this please? I really, really want to talk about this. I had to get a room for a minute.  No, actually it's not the dumbest. You know what? Because I give the person credit because their Photoshop skills are on point. We will say that. But babe, go ahead and you tell them what happened. She showed me last night at 3 in the morning and I was like, there's no freaking way. And it looked legit. It really did. I was like, no freaking way. Babe, go ahead and tell them the buffoonery. Alright, so first off, I want to say thank god that our relationship is strong enough and I'm not naive to the point where I would have believed something like this would be true. And secondly, I just want to say this person messed up so bad because they're typing as themselves. If you're going to impersonate somebody, at least type like them. Yeah, we're going to get into all the details guys. But this person was using emojis I don't even use. This person was talking away. I don't even talk. We're going to show you guys and we're going to tell you guys everything. And Janice and the person are still talking to this very many. She's like fooling them right now thinking like, yeah, I just broke up with him.  Oh my god, I just wanted to be truthful. I would want someone to tell me. Babe, please. I'm looking through the messages they keep sending me and they unsent all the messages. Good thing. That's exactly why.  Last night I was like, you know what? Screenshot them because they're getting exposed. So first of all, they sent me pictures of themselves, right? And if you guys could find these images on the internet, please show them to me because I want to embarrass the hell out of them. But anyway. Trying to make me seem like a person I'm not. I would never cheat. They DM'd Isaiah. Isaiah from this random profile. They got my profile picture in the profile thing, right? And they have my username. So it looks like it's me 100%. The Photoshop skills are on point. And we're going to attach the images and everything. Right. So pretty much this person DM'd me saying, oh, basically like I DM'd Isaiah as a fan and I was such a big fan and then he responded and I was excited and then he started flirting with me and I blocked him, right? So these are the DMs. They didn't even show me what Isaiah had said previously. They just said, haha, that means a lot. Thank you so much from Isaiah, right? Oh my God, he replied. Yes, I did. Oh my God, I'm crying. Can we talk for a bit? Yes, but you got to say Team Isaiah all day every day. I would never say that. You guys have known for the ones that we have DM'd before.  I would just reply to DMs just talking to you guys. I don't have to say, yeah, you have to say Team Isaiah all day every day. That's corny. That's corny. Like we can just talk. We can just be one to one. And then they said, yeah, Team Isaiah all day every day. And then they said, like coming from Isaiah, you look really young in your picture. Very beautiful. That's mad freaking creepy.  Where they're making me seem like that. And that's disgusting.  Like it's horrible. Especially because we both have so many children in our family. And to like make an accusation like that is serious. I have younger sisters. I have two younger sisters. I don't tolerate that lurking on like small females. Not small females. Like young females. I don't tolerate that.  That's disgusting. It's sick.  And every time I see a situation like that, like a case like that, I personally want to fight the guy. Like even if I don't have nothing to do with the situation, that's just how strongly I feel about that stuff. Then they said, oh, thank you. Yes, I'm only 21. Jenice is very beautiful indeed. Why would you bring me up? Like, you know what I mean? Then he said, not more than you. Look at you. And I'm going to attack like all of the screenshots so you guys can read the BS. But basically they said, thank you Isaiah. But sorry to say it. If my boyfriend talked to another woman like that, I would not be okay with it. I just DMed you as a fan because I have started blah, blah, blah. Right. They're just basically trying to make themselves sound good. And say that they're defending me in the DMs. Just so I can think like, oh, this is real. Like I know what you're doing and it's not working. I'm telling you right now, if you're watching this video, because I know you're DMing me right now. Guys, they've been DMing me like all day, ever since 3 a.m. to 2 a.m. when I saw this message. Like making sure we didn't break up, un-sending messages, saying that they got cheated on before, all this BS.  And guess what? Our relationship is not weak at all. Bro, I just find it's crazy how someone has this amount of time to Photoshop my profile to just try to impersonate me. And then on top of that, just continuously DM her back and forth.  Like you're really bored. That's sad. That's really sad.  And basically they also sent like pictures of Isaiah screenshotting their images. And like these pictures guys are so fake. Like I tried to find these images and I hope you guys can find them.  And like Isaiah's like saying, oh how can I resist? I don't talk like that. Babe, you can tell them from way back when that is not how I flirted. And on top of that, Isaiah's like just not like that. Like they just made Isaiah seem like so corny. I'm not like that. I'm like so weird. And I'm just like Isaiah would never say that. My flirting is completely different. Like I like back me up on this like and you tell me if it's true or not. I feel like my flirting is more of goofing around with you and like just like messing with you. Yeah. Like he would never like talk about. That's the one thing that I made me fall in love with Isaiah is that like he never commented on my body. He never like said anything like that in my pictures.   I genuinely liked her. I genuinely liked her. I didn't just want to like get in bed with her. I genuinely liked her and now I love her. Which is why I wouldn't cheat. But there's a lot of sick people out there who I guess I don't know if you guys are envious of the relationship or you're just literally that bored and you're like let me see if I can break this couple up. Or let me see if I can get in the rise out of her or get a comment back or response. I don't know what it is but man go man female girl boy go get some help. And honestly this is this is what makes me upset because this is what makes me not want to speak to people because you never know what someone's intentions are and this kind of stuff messes it up for other subscribers that are genuine and just want to like talk to us and tell us how much they love us. Like people try to be so manipulative and try to do things like this and it makes me like just lose respect kind of. Like that's just so messed up. And if you're watching this which I know you probably are going to you didn't break up our relationship and Not even close. If anything we started laughing about it the minute it happened. Exactly. And we started trolling you. Yeah. The person who was telling me. I literally told this person that yeah I broke up with him. I'm packing my bags and after that they got worried. They're like oh my god just work it out like blah blah blah and actually let me screenshot these messages now before they unsend them. But yeah. We got everything guys. That's exactly why we attached all of them for you so you guys can see exactly everything that was said and like I said the only props I give to this person is their Photoshop game.  We create thumbnails for YouTube. I know how Photoshop works. I can do the exact same thing that person did in there with any person in this world as long as they have an Instagram account. But the fact that they went through this effort is insane. It's insane and it's honestly but like I said I give them props because they know their Photoshop stuff. They got the skills for that. But seriously that's just your board. You're like that's bad. I literally.  I wish that I knew a hacker because I would have so traced it back to them and just be like oh yeah you live at such and such we're coming to your house right now. That would be fun. I wanted to do that so bad but you know what it's not one of that. I actually know a kid at my school I could do that. I know. I was just thinking about it. I know a kid. You could hit a moment doing that. He owes me a favor. But seriously we're not gonna do that. But last night we were laughing about it we started trolling the person and we're like you know what let's make this into a video and this is exactly why you guys can't believe everything you see on the internet. We titled this video that I cheated or whatever so you guys can understand that you guys can't take everything on the internet so serious. Whatever you see don't believe it. Like there's so many rumors and so much BS that goes around. If you guys didn't hear from the source itself don't believe it. Like don't leave anything you see. Also if you are a subscriber to someone who is a YouTuber or like a fan of someone who's a celebrity or a public figure don't do this kind of stuff to get their attention because not for nothing if they're a really sensitive person they can really take drastic measures and you don't want to be responsible for ruining somebody's life. Like if Janice was really really like on the sensitive side her anxiety was she does have anxiety and you know if her thing was like really like chronic and this were true she can literally go out and do something crazy that might result in something very tragic you know and that's not something that you want to mess around with or try to get someone to do or put them in that state of mind to do that that's not funny you don't joke about stuff like that and again you're just bored. Exactly. Like that's not something cool to mess around with but there's really nothing much to say. Yeah guys that's really it for today's video like honestly I just wanted to acknowledge this because it is a lesson that people need to learn like you just don't do certain things and this is one of them and I hope that this person who did it comes forward and apologizes but at the end of the day I don't even want an apology from them you keep it just if they what I want them to do is if they are subscribed unsubscribe unfollow me on Instagram unfollow her on Instagram completely get us out of your head and go on about your life because if that's how you're if that you're that type of person I don't want you to know where near me I don't want your energy in my DMs I don't want none of that just take all that and get the hell out of my face same here period Other than that guys if another person wants to try that you're not breaking us up we're solid here and good luck if you're going to try it I don't know what else to say like that's just not happening and you gotta lip gloss on that's how you know this room we'll see you guys in the next video we'll see you guys in the next video


rocess. But like I said, in a perfect world, if you can get to that point where you have an individual on each campus, I've been here for six years and I'm also an alum at MBU Johnson. And the one thing that I always hear is that, oh, well, people of color, this area just isn't, it's predominantly white. And I think that's the wrong mindset of thinking. I think we actually have a gold mine, as I told our group, is that we have the potential to be access-oriented state institution that allows for these individuals to find a safe space. There's no access right now in the state of Vermont. When we say predominantly white, we automatically assume that the state of Vermont has no people of color. With that is completely false. Now, what if there was an opportunity for us to develop a state college system where access was granted and they would have a place to feel safe? Now we are growing as an institution and as a state college system that allows the BIPOC community to be free and to be leaders as well. And you changed that with looking at people that look like them. I went to school for four years at MBU Johnson. My students that I coach have been there from two to four years. A person of color potentially could graduate and never see a professor that looks like them. That's tough for an individual who's looking to become a leader in a different field. Now, I know there are steps that needs to take place, but for me, I think that having that individual, having a diversity and inclusion person on each campus is definitely something that I think we should strive towards. Hi, this is Janet. Thank you all for presenting. And I don't remember who it was mentioned, space or having a safe space on our campuses. Did I understand that correctly? I wasn't quite sure what that meant. Definitely, was that you? It may have been me. Okay. Yeah. I think that was me. Hi, this is Hannah from MBU Johnson. So I was thinking that if we had a magic wand and we had all of the money and we could move right to step three and we had an officer on each campus, that officer would have a physical space where students could actually go and see other people that look like them, like Miles was talking about, to form community to gain confidence in their identities on campus and in that space and just to feel like there's a home for them. I think having a physical space is important, but having a space that helps develop the culture and norms on campus as well would be benefited from a position like that that could hold both physical and ideological space for those kinds of ideas. So that's what I meant by safe space. Did that answer your question? No, I was concerned it meant something more literal than that in terms of physical people fearing for their physical safety versus a place to have safe conversation, build community and that sort of thing. So that's good. And then my other question is I was thinking about that is do all of our campuses and facilities have prayer rooms? Because I know that's become big in industry, all of us in business now do that and is that a standard thing we see on our campuses? No. At Vermont Tech we have responded to the request for a prayer room and that has been offered and spaces have made, but it's not a standard process. And of course that would be a an easy step given a lot of what we have for space available on our campuses. It might be considered small and minor, but it's a step I think if someone shows up and asks and we say wow, huh, it's a lot different than saying well, but of course we have a prayer room. And like I said, it's very dominant in business right now, particularly in manufacturing facilities to accommodate that. So I just think it would translate well to our college campuses. I would just say that what we're calling for here is cultural change and that's never easy and it's never cheap. So if we really truly want to change our campuses in ways that are meaningful for our students of color, we have to dedicate resources to it. And we also have to make connections off campus as well because while our students may feel safe on campus, they're going out into communities where they're often profiled or targeted and that is not acceptable either. So it's really about making broad connections that keep our students safe, make them feel welcome and that's not easy. Does anyone else have a question? Pat, President Mullen. Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't have a question as much as a comment and I just want to echo the presenters we've heard today and echo Linda's last point. We've heard some stories here at Vermont Tech recently, not just for students not feeling necessarily comfortable here, but not welcomed in the community by other Vermonters who, you know, as a native-born Waspie Vermonter, I get it. We're not used to the diversity that we are now seeing and are welcoming in our state. But I also agree that we've got to put some use our power to put effort behind this. The Black Lives Matter resolution was something but it's not wrapped. It doesn't have anything else wrapped around it. And that's where I feel the board has got to put some effort and emphasis and work and funding behind this for us to really start to make this a more welcoming system. And I agree with Mr. Smith that if we do that, we'll do a better job at retention. We'll help make Vermont more of a safe place. So very supportive of this dialogue and I appreciate the board engaging in it. Well, I have a question. Maybe Pat Shine can address this, but really all of the speakers, when you have student services, the need for student services is a very big part of what these state colleges provide and continue to need to provide to our students. What is in your student services package or programs that can go and help these students who are people of color, even people from foreign countries, people who have immigrants, people who are immigrants, you know, I know you have those services and I just want to know how you integrate with those. I'll answer for our campus and I'm not even sure if I'm answering your question and then I'd welcome anybody else. It's we're a small campus, even when we were better enrolled, we were small campus. And so it's through relationships. And so one of the, in that it's back to the space. So one of the spaces that a lot of our students of color and newcomers to the US gravitate towards is academic support, where there's food and there's a welcoming atmosphere and that's where people get to know each other. And that's how so a lot of the connections that happened are just our relationship based in community based. And that's why this is such an important part of the work is to is that process part of knowing each other. So we have things in place. You know, we have stuff on the web. We have information packets for incoming students. But that's a lot of how that works for us. I'd be interested in hearing from other people if I'm even understanding your question correctly. Now that's what kind of support services do we provide and we provide it for all kinds of students, but is this specific group of people, what are we doing specifically for the BIPOC students or students that are fear and have stress issues or whatever? Yeah, not much at all. And we have we have the counseling center, which is accessible to anybody. We've tried to start on our campus support groups for students of color. That's when we've had staff or faculty members of color who are willing to do that or able to do that in terms of time. That's a rare occurrence. I don't think we support our students of color near at all as well. That's why that's the efforts. Okay, thank you. I can only this is from Miles Smith from the Johnson campus. Hannah, if you could elaborate if I've missed anything. But I think the student services piece in as far as a job responsibility is a little bit different in which in which you might be equating it to only because that they're educational platform that comes along with trying to care for these students. It's more of an equity piece rather than an equality piece, I would say. So when you're looking at that, you're basically simply talking to what past China saying like individuals have to become that piece. Sometimes it's someone of color. For us, it's athletics. One of three minority, I believe, full time staff or faculty members on the Johnson campus. So within athletics, there's a lot of minority students. So that becomes a safe space me physically and then my office becomes a safe space for students of color. But then you have faculty members that also can relate to those students as well. And I guess the summary that we try to put together is that there really isn't a piece for this to happen. Linda talked a little bit about it. There's a different form of trauma when it's coming from a student of color or the BIPOC community, when they're coming into a brand new culture, a PWI institution, and they don't have no access to be able to counsel that even if from a counseling services piece, that's a different form of counseling that needs to be put on for these students. And it's not like one or two students. We do have a good amount of students on each campus that needs this equity piece to be able to achieve some of the same things that some of our other students are allowed to achieve. Thank you. Bill. Thank you. So I want to just acknowledge and well, first of all, thank you for each of your work, most of which is done on a volunteer basis in addition to your other work. And I want to, two things come to mind in particular for me. One is, I think it was, I think maybe Pat Shine, Patricia Shine, who talked about trying to work toward a trauma informed campus and to recognize that any marginalized population, students or faculty, for that matter, have experienced trauma. The cumulative microaggressions and the explicit aggressions are traumatizing and that we just, we need to come to, we need to come to understand that. And it goes to other marginalized groups. And frankly, I speak out of that experience myself, but not as a BIPOC person, but as a marginalized community. And that having that awareness is really important. And to recognize that in addition to what's happening on campus, as it was said, we in the legislature just very recently in the last year formed what we're calling a social equity caucus, which is made up of legislators and community members throughout the state. And we need to acknowledge and recognize that there are overt, there is overt racism in Vermont, it's not all just implicit bias. We are, we're living in a period where all across Vermont in different communities, there are, there are, there are individuals and groups of people feeling entitled to actually step out and claim white supremacy in a very explicit, hurtful, targeting and damaging way. And that we live within that environment. So we need to take our, we need to shoulder our piece of responsibility in standing against that on all of our campuses, because we were presidents all throughout Vermont. And some of the communities in which we serve are really, really struggling with some very, very overt racist actions to the degree where some, some activists have felt absolutely compelled to leave their communities to move. So I think we need to understand that in this period of time, particularly when things are being inflamed rather than relationships being built at, at levels that I think many of us find very distressing, that we in Vermont are not immune from that. And it's being, it's having to be addressed across the state. So to the degree that we can engage as fully as possible as the Vermont State College System and as Miles I think said, it's, it's actually, it's not only the right thing to do, it's in our self-interest to do this. That we, to for us to be one of the places where adult students as well as rising students out of our school systems could recognize that the Vermont State College System takes us very seriously and wants to have us be a strongly welcoming environment all across the state. That's in our interest at every level. So thank, thank you for the work and yeah, in this financial environment it's very difficult, but I think you've laid out a roadmap that we can think seriously about how to take some steps to get us there. And I think we should, as a board, need to really take this to heart. So thank you. Any other questions? Well seeing none, I want to thank Patricia and the other speakers for bringing this to our attention. I'm sure this is not the last time we're going to have this discussion. We probably can expand beyond that and I know that some of our members have actually, our board members have either been able to attend or be involved with some of the work that you're doing around the state and in your classes. But I appreciate the time you spend. Thank you. Yeah, yes. Lynn, can I ask one more? I'm sorry. I'm just assuming this is happening, but if not, could we ask for the summary that Miles, that you've presented to us as a board, be presented formally to us in a written form? That would be helpful, yes. So that we have something in front of us in terms of the three-step, the path, three-step path, I think you were talking about. Yeah, sure. I can send it over to our leader, Pat Shine, and then Pat, you can work with them through there. Email it to the members of the board. Very good point. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Next on the agenda, we have additional business. We have committee assignments. I haven't spoken to the two new people yet. Well, I did speak to one of them about one of the assignments, and I think I'd like to do that maybe privately as well as doing it now. But one of the assignments is for Sean to be appointed to the audit committee. I'm resigning from the audit committee. I don't think that I can do every committee all the time. So what we need, this is something that the board normally elects and nominates. The nominating committee did not meet to do this, but I think that his background in the hospital as a CEO would be a good place for him to be participating in the audit committee. Is that something that I can hear a motion on? So moved. Second on it. Jim, Jim Maslin seconding. Any questions, discussions, or anything like that? Okay.  All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Sean, congratulations. Thanks, I think. Welcome, Sean. I promise we don't bite. Most of the time it's not that hard, but it is it is an important committee to work on. And I know that you'll bring a lot of expertise to it. And our biggest meeting is coming up on the 29th when we'll get the approved audit report. And I assume that the auditors will be joining us at least by Zoom. Okay, the next time. Yes. The next item is comments from the public. We have several people from the public here. Would anyone like to say anything? Beth Walsh has got her hands up. Let's go with you, Ball. Beth? Hi, thank you. Very interesting meeting today. And I want to thank Pat Shine and everybody else on their social justice committees all across the Vermont State College system. We work hard. We are committed and we are excited to share all that stuff with you. I want to also share that the Vermont State College's career consortium we call ourselves, all of us career directors, are coordinating a Vermont State College-wide virtual career fair. I just sent out over 2,000 emails to businesses across the state and the country. I got 200 and something bounce backs, but I will deal with those and reach out again. But we're hoping to have a real robust list of employers looking for new staff, new interns. So as I listened to this meeting, and I introduced myself earlier, but I am the director of career development at NVU Johnson. I'm also the president of the Vermont State College's nine professionals. And I especially was interested in the discussion about the VSC Forward and the select committee of the legislature working to try to reconfigure the Vermont State College's into a more sustainable model. And so I especially liked the conversation about how do we make this decision? There aren't easy decisions. I understand that. But I want to encourage whoever ends up making the decisions on moving the VSC into the future to keep in mind a few things. I'll try to be brief. Please consider the effects that changes will have on our communities and our students and our state. Also, keep in mind that lower enrolled programs are not always expensive. Sometimes they're low enrollment, but it doesn't cost a lot. And it's an important topic to be on our campuses. Many of our students cannot learn well online. So if we think that that's the way to go, there are so many of our students that don't have access to the hardware or the connectivity or even the learning ability to learn well online. It's important to have residential campuses across our state. The presentation from Pat Shine and Hannah and Miles and the others makes it clear that it's important for our state to have students from outside of Vermont come to Vermont. Many of them stay in Vermont. But if we change the residential status of our campuses, we will miss out on those out of state students and we will reduce the diversity of the state, the potential diversity of the state. Another thing to keep in mind if we're thinking about changing residencies is that millions of dollars in federal funding through TRIO grants will be lost if we do not have our students on our campuses because those TRIO grants require our students to live on our campuses and that's a lot of money. And Karen Luno said something that I thought was interesting. She said that the heavy lift that, no, that the Board of Trustees was going to be the heavy on this, on the decision making. And I have to push back a little bit because I think it's more the governor and the legislature that are the heavy. We know that we need better funding, that if we don't get increased funding we'll continue to to defer our maintenance of our campuses. We'll continue to have to have high tuitions and we will continue to send more students out of state than are staying in state. Thank you for listening and please contact me if you have any questions. Beth.Walsh at northernvermont.edu. Thank you. Thank you, Beth. Anyone else? Not seeing anyone else coming forward. We are next on the agenda to go into executive session. We hope it will be brief. Go ahead, Janet. Yeah, before we go into an executive session, I think there's just one other thing I wanted to, and I guess discuss or comment on, which was the letter we were shared from Sophie from the union group and their recommendations going forward. And so I just wanted to comment that I found it interesting. I thought that you know it's great that there were recommendations about how to maybe streamline the top and in ways to organize our curriculums better and realign, but it was actually very disappointed to not see a lean-in by that group itself as to how they were going to help. Because I think everyone knows the big piece of our cost is what we do with our employees and if we're going to be urgent and take this whole situation seriously, then I think it's really important that everyone lean in and I was very disappointed to not feel that way from that letter. Okay, I got Bill Lippert first and then Linda second. Well, I have a different topic to bring up. So if it's Linda who wants to follow up on Janet's comments, let me wait. Okay, that sounds good.  Yeah, as a member of that committee, I have to say that the staff and faculty have already leaned in. The cuts have already been made to the staff and faculty. We have endured cuts year after year after year. So it's not that we're not leaning in. We've already leaned in. Okay, Jim, is this on, do you have something on this topic or do you want to do something else? Well, on the on the letter. Yeah, but if, if, go ahead. Um, well, a couple of things. One is I read it intently a couple of times. I think there's some good ideas and I'm contained in there. I'm less interested in renaming Vermont State Colleges, Vermont State University, more than in the, in the substance of what's being presented. But, and I'm, I mean, it merits a broader discussion more than just my comments. But what I was noticing, reading that over and also during the discussion earlier today, at the core of it, I think, even though it's not acknowledged, has to do with what Yasmeen said earlier is getting to the heart of the decision. I mean, there, there are definitely decisions that need to be made among the parties. And one of the things that I found, I guess, somewhat disappointing in the letter that good ideas were presented. But then again, again, it gets back to the, the core of it all, which is how are we going to, we collectively, whoever the collector is, I'm going to make decisions going forward. And, and I didn't see that in there. Maybe that parallelist, whoever just spoke, but it's a consideration. And that's why I spoke earlier about the notion of having a facilitator, if, you know, in a different, in a different form, to ferret out the good ideas, the best of the ideas, I guess, or, or expand upon them and, and figure out how we get from point A to point B. So that may be in from good information for some people, good comments and, and less useful to others. But that's my 10 cents for this afternoon. Thanks. Thank you. Bill? Again, I have a request that's going in a different direction entirely. But I wanted to, if I may, I think Pat Moulton, I believe you were the person who were talking about the initiative using coronavirus relief money and training opportunities at the four campuses. Am I remembering that correctly? Yes, I mentioned that. And, um, twice Judy is also, well, and Sophie talked about it too. Yes. Well, what I'd like, I'd like to make the request that, excuse me, that something summarizing and giving acts, you know, how do you access that? Be shared with every legislator, because we have, we reach out across the entirety of the state. And it's something which legislators can put out there as an opportunity. And frankly, you know, we all are supporting it. And we all should be encouraging folks to, we should be encouraged to make sure it gets broadly distributed as information.  Yeah, we can do that, Bill. And it also reminds me I should reach out to our congressional delegation too, because they obviously get contacted by folks as well. So thank you. That's a really good point. Yeah, one question that I have, maybe one of the presidents or Sophie can explain this, that came out of commerce, the mic committee that was discussed quite a bit and was really something we chose to make a different choice for the money that was suggested for us originally. Is that something that people can access through ACCD or is that something, where do they access that on the state website? So right now there's a landing page, a link to our website, the VSC website. But that link is being shared by, with the Department of Labor is sharing it with people. And I don't know if Pat or Joyce have additional information on that, but we are, I know we're also sharing it with the State Workforce Development Board, you know, all the various contacts that we have with workforce groups, it's going out. So we're trying to get it out as broadly as we can, because it is very time constrained. I will say that it was, I shared that at the press conference, and it's been picked up by all kinds of news organizations. So it's on CAX's website, it was on WDEV, so that the landing page URL is really out there. Okay, okay. That was the whole. Is the landing page just for, is it for the whole system? It's for the whole system. Yeah, we're striving to definitely promote the system as a whole with this. So the landing page is on the VSC website, and then there's a whole range of different courses and credentials and programs. And depending on which ones you're interested in, you then get directed to the individual institutions.  So there's a number of different ways that you can search that. I will just tell you that CCB in the last three days has, we have over 150 inquiries. So we're pretty happy. And that was before it was really, I mean, you had 105 before we even started advertising it. So can I ask you a question? Are we concerned that it'll max out? No. That would be a good problem, Bill. Well, I'm just asking because I don't know. We can handle. I haven't received anything. I don't know the specifics. I'm a trustee. I'd like to know. Yeah, there's funding to support a thousand people. Okay. But the problem is, they have to use it. You have to sign up for a course. You have to be done by the end of December. I think if we get 200 or 300 people, I think we should, we should hail that as a success. I may be completely wrong, but. Well, I don't have any idea because I don't have the information in front of me yet. But so I would suggest that we, I mean, obviously we want to promote this broadly. And again, think about what reaches our communities across Vermont. Front Porch Forum. Perhaps we should buy and add in every front porch forum. Do we have the funds within that grant or those monies to promote this? Or do we only, can we only use it for the actual provision of service? No, there's money for advertising. And I think you're going to see it pretty broadly advertised. The problem is we had, we only had the URL yesterday. So there is a, there's a pretty good marketing plan that the four schools have developed. Great. But I think your point about getting, you know, and I'll talk to Sophie, whoever's going to send the flyer out to legislators. But I think there is a pretty good, I think it's a pretty robust marketing plan. It has been coordinated. Be sure to include legislators. And I need legislators. Every legislator can claim ownership of this.  And, and, and something tells me you're going to be talking to people between now and November 3rd. So you can. It might happen. It might happen. And, and I did just paste the URL to the landing page in the chat if anybody wants to get a quick look at it. But I think one of us should get that out to them soon. So I can ask Amanda to do that for you. Just the link right now on the VSC page just goes to CCV. Not workers. It didn't. Well, maybe there's multiple links, but the one that I found on the homepage says free training for Vermonters impacted by COVID-19. That just goes. Did you use the URL in the chat, Adam? Yeah. Yeah. So there are two different ones. Oh, huh. Interesting. Cause that it was supposed to be for the entire VSC. Yeah. It is for the entire VSC. I will say CCV did post a link ahead of time. So maybe it's somehow picking that up because CCV started registering folks a day or two ago. Yeah. And you can click on institution on that URL I just sent. So I'm, that's a little weird, but you're only getting the CCV thing. Cause when I click on it, I'm getting to everybody. So weird. Yeah. So my, there's probably two links. It's straightened out. We'll get it to you. We will get it straightened out. I will definitely do that. Jim, you wanted to say something. Jim Maslin. There was that leftover from before? Over from before, Lynn. Thank you very much. Okay. Good. Just wanted to make sure. I'm good. Okay. So Sophie and the presidents will make sure that or Sophie and Yasmin or someone will make sure that we get the links properly worked up for the Vermont workers project that is through the workforce development. Is there anything else? We have an executive session to go into. I don't see Megan here. She just joined, as she said. And actually just back. You are very timely. We have got a motion to go into executive session. I move the VSC board of trustees enter executive session pursuant to one VSA 313A3 to discuss the evaluation of employees. No formal or binding action shall be taken in the executive session. Along with the members of the board present at this meeting, the board invites the chancellor to attend. Second. Okay. Any discussion or questions? Jim, was that a question? No, that's, let's go. Let's go. Okay. All those in favor of going into executive session by the motion, please indicate by saying aye. Opposed? Okay. We are now an executive session. We will come out. We're going in at 435 and we will be out shortly, we hope. I'm going to go to a breakout room. So you have to join? Join. Sophie back. Okay. We're exiting executive session at 506. Is there a motion to remain? I do have a motion. I move that upon the recommendation of the Chancellor, Elaine Collins, President Northern Vermont University, Patricia Moulton, President Vermont Technical College, Jonathan Spiro, Interim President Castleton College, and Joyce Judy, President Community College of Vermont, each be reappointed for a term through June 30, 2022, subject to and in accordance with the terms of letters of reappointment to be signed by the chancellor. Based on each president's performance during the year, the chancellor's evaluation of each president and for the reasons discussed during the executive session, the board believes that each president and interim president remains the best candidate to lead his and her institution. Is there a second? Second from Jim Maslin. Any discussion or any questions? Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion, please indicate by saying aye. Any opposition? Say no. There doesn't appear to be any opposing views, so the motion will pass. We will be meeting again October 29th for our committee meetings, and we hope to see everyone there. Thank you. Thank you very much for tonight. Thank you very much. We'll get a motion to adjourn. So move. Okay, second. We'll get that to Mary Moran. We had a couple of hands going up there. All those in favor of adjourning, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye. Okay, thank you, folks. We'll see you in a couple of weeks. Thank you. Thank you, Sophie. Thank you all the presidents and everyone else. Thank you, everyone. Have a good weekend.


The world is considerably less free than it was in January 2020, right before the COVID-19 pandemic. That was the theme of a recent conversation that Reason had with Ian Vasquez, who's one of the co-authors of the annual Human Freedom Index produced by the Cato and Frasier Institutes. By freedom, we mean the absence of coercive constraint, the idea that you can lead your life as you choose as long as you respect the equal rights of others. And that's what we're measuring. In 2020, what we see is that just the freedom falls off of a cliff. And America, once among the leaders on the Freedom Index, has taken a particularly bad slide in the rankings. It now sits as the 23rd freest country in the world. Governments tend to claim vast new powers over our lives in times of war or crisis, and then rarely give them all back. To unleash the full power of the federal government in this effort today, I am officially declaring a national emergency. Two very big words. Vasquez points out that the recent decline in freedom goes back to the collapse of the financial industry 15 years ago. And before that, the attack on the Twin Towers and ensuing war on terror. The year 2007, which is really the global high point of human freedom, that coincides with the global financial crisis, which came the next year. And we see a steady decline of human freedom up through 2019. Vasquez says this is largely because of a steady growth in the size of government and erosion of the rule of law. Do people think that the rules of the game are fair or are being imposed in an arbitrary way? It really started with the beginning of the Bush administration. And we think that that's due to a lot of things, the war on terror, the war on drugs. The weakening of private property rights in the United States with the Kilo decision over a decade ago. I think that the financial crisis made things worse because there was a rise of crony capitalism. Or at least what people perceived as crony capitalism were industries and in fact particular companies close to power got privileges. And when you have the rules of the game not viewed as fair, that's a real threat to other freedoms. As reason has covered extensively, the pandemic emboldened public health officials and politicians to do things that had no bearing on safety, such as closed beaches and playgrounds and restrict our movements. They made it harder for landlords to collect rent. They gave out billions of taxpayer money without any strings attached and they arbitrarily shut down entire industries without any rational justification. On November 22, Los Angeles became the only county in America to ban outdoor dining this winter for a minimum of three weeks. I personally feel like we're being punished. LA Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer held an online press conference on November 23 to discuss the order. Given that you haven't identified an actual source of an outbreak being an outdoor dining, how do you rationalize the closure and how do you expect to measure whether it actually is accomplishing what you're hoping to accomplish? We know that places where people are gathering without wearing their face coverings are places where transmission is easiest and most likely. But we will be, you know, as always, we'll watch our data. What the perception is of the rules of the game matters to be able to uphold the system of justice and other freedoms. So what we've seen is a deterioration during this time where I think you can make the case that there were a lot of arbitrary decisions being made. The good news for America is that checks and balances do still exist. Federal judges smacked down several governors who overreached and the Supreme Court declared the Biden administration's use of a federal workplace safety agency to impose a vaccine and test mandate on private employers to be unconstitutional. But even countries with relatively strong institutions can lose those protections quickly if they aren't vigilant. It happened in Hong Kong, starting in 2014 with the ascendancy of Xi Jinping to power in China, which culminated in the near complete takeover of the local Hong Kong government and jailing of dissidents following the 2019 pro-democracy protests. At the moment, I have to say that I'm pretty pessimistic because it's just so difficult to stop China from extending the kind of power and control that they wish for. Now that President Biden has officially ended the national emergency in a terse one-sentence statement, what can be done to stop and reverse this trend? There's a story that Benjamin Franklin, when asked about the ideal form of government, replied, a republic, if you can keep it. The same might be said of the ideal social arrangement, freedom, if you can keep it. The bad news is that the federal government is bigger than ever and it's spending America ever further into debt with less and less to show for it. Trust and confidence in our institutions continues its decline. When there is a loss of trust in the main institutions in society that mediate interaction in society, you're in Latin American territory and that's when Trump came in. I very much view Trump as a Latin American populist. He didn't come out of nowhere. Something was going on in the United States that led people to think, hey, you know, the rules of the game aren't fair anymore. We don't trust this institution or that institution. But the sudden loss of liberty that the government response to the pandemic brought may have awakened a new appreciation for what freedoms we do have and a newfound desire to expand them. Protests and disobedience made many pandemic restrictions untenable, the most restrictive and dysfunctional cities and states lost population. Many people woke up to the cozy, sensorious relationship between big tech and the government. Parents fought district officials and unions to reopen schools, expand school choice and undo scientific mandates. We believe a parent has the ultimate authority, the ultimate right to the fundamental right to guide and direct the upbringing, the medical care and the education of their children. The world was once trending towards freedom. Maybe it can again. What Vasquez's work also shows is that the struggle is worth it. It does appeal to a lot of people to be the author of their own lives. So there's an inherent value. But beyond that, we also know that freedom plays a central role in human progress. We can see the strong relationship between freedom and prosperity and indicators of human well-being across the board. That is a huge triumph of classical liberalism. What is literally happening is that the free countries are lifting up all of humanity. Because in the poorest countries, you see people using cell phones, taking medicines that are invented in free countries, benefiting from capital that comes in from free countries. The freedom of the free benefits not only the free, it benefits everybody. Hey, thanks for watching. If you'd like to see our full unedited conversation with Ian Vasquez about the state of human freedom in the U.S. and worldwide, click here. For an excerpt from that conversation, click here.


The FAS partnership is not only about bringing people together, bringing farmers together or bringing people from ministries together. It's also about bringing initiatives together. Agri-Food systems are climate solutions. We need to increase not only the quantity, but also the quality of the investment going to Agri-Food system transformation. Ensuring that the vulnerable people, women, youth, rural communities, indigenous people receive the target and effective intervention that address the unique adaptation needs and challenges. That's why you said leaving no one behind. We are pleased to release the first version of the adaptation biodiversity and carbon mapping tool, ABCMAP, is based on geospatial data to help plan and monitor projects in agriculture, forestry and land use sector. I can also refer an initiative that it was launched on COP 27, initiative for climate action and nutrition icon, is fully part or collaborated with FAS. Thank you for praising COP 28 as being very organized. The most significant achievement was the leaders' level declaration. Signed by 159 countries and ongoing. Most of climate finance get lost in the bureaucracy. Is there a way of bringing it closer to the ground? Really hope that FAS can help us with that. Youth really face four main barriers when we're looking to engage in food systems and to really make change. One of them is networks. And the FAS partnership is bringing together that network. And the FAS partnership is also looking at education and knowledge because of course finance without building capacities can just be lost. Our goal is to empower the farmers with a wider menu of innovation choices, especially under conditions of climate change. We also know that agriculture is slow magic. There's no silver bullet. You have to be intentional. We need to look now into creating policy and enabling environments. We will not achieve 1.5 targets. We will not solve biodiversity laws and food security if we won't change our food system. It's critical to mobilize finance. We need to fund the right approaches and innovations. We need to break down the silos.