plus two in the pathways process, increasing, enhancing online degree completion programs, analyzing programs for consolidation and again, sort of analyzing functional areas in non-academic areas. And that represents quite a bit of operations and trying to understand what would be the right model in each of those. That's everything from admissions recruitment, alumni relations, grants, contracts, communication PR. And finally, affordability is not a topic that we've gotten to yet, but that's next on our list to think about ways to address affordability specifically. So again, I've named now quite a few ideas. I think as we move into looking at those ideas, they will come together in different ways with different models. But if there are any questions or thoughts immediately or things that I didn't manage to say that are in the memo that you have questions about. Any questions or yeah, Lynn? Yeah, thank you, Yasmeen. I'm not sure if I sent you a copy of this, but I sent it to the board members and to Sophie. Demographics is a word that I think glazes people's eyes over, we have lost 25 to 30,000 students since 1997. Those are students that just don't exist anymore. Never existed. So there is a decline in the number of students that are available. But I also sent a survey done by the BFA's newspaper, student newspaper that was from 2014 that I saved. And I know some of the presidents have seen it because when I have them come to St. Albans, we did talk about this and showed this graph to them, 43% of the students that were seniors in high school in 2014 went to CCD was in Vermont. These are the survey of the students going to school in Vermont. 19% went to three of our residential colleges. They didn't even mention London. And then there was like 12% UVM and a little bit of St. Mike's and so on. The issue is that 43% is more than twice as many as go to our residential colleges. And I suspect right now, we're looking at students who are doing more than that. This was just one single high school graph, bar graph. But VSEC does do surveys of graduates. Maybe it's a year later when they're out, but I know they've been doing them for years. We don't have a research arm. Has VSEC got any information that we can look at? Because what I see is the students are voting with their feet. And right now in this situation, when I ask people about getting, taking advantage of the McClure money and the scholarship for one course, I have a lot of kids telling me that, they're just gonna go to CCB. They're not gonna spend 40,000, 50, whatever to go to some other school where they can't have a real college experience. That's not gonna be there.  And they can stay home. And there's a whole lot of reasons why they might start with that. So I think that's even gonna be more pronounced this fall maybe in ways that we don't even really know. But these are our customers. And we can sit here and come up with all kinds of ideas. But if our customers have been and are going to one specific kind of school, you know, we should be aware of that and we should be really concentrating on that because some of these students will never go to residential colleges. I mean, Dylan very proudly tells you who went to three or four sites of CCB before he finally ended up going to Johnson. I don't think he ever lived on any campus. Very proudly and accomplished a great deal. Do we have this? Do we have the second committee? We don't but I, you know, one new piece of data that I don't know how publicly VSEC has come out with it yet but they have looked specifically at two year enrollments from the class of 2012 is the one that they've been doing the most analysis on. And I just have to brag a little bit. What they're finding is that they're comparing outcomes for students who go to two year programs in Vermont. So permit CCB and Vermont Tech versus going out of state and the outcomes for the students here in Vermont are much stronger. So I think that's a real accomplishment and shows the value of our programs there but getting that kind of holistic look, I don't know Lynn that they have that kind of data specifically, you know, it's a good question. Part of it is when does a student move on to college? And sometimes it's not immediately after high school. So the tracking becomes a little more challenging. Any other questions for Yasmeen? I see, I think Adam, did you have your hand up? I did, yes. Hey Yasmeen, thank you for that presentation. In helping determine some of the next steps for the system, how are we, what work are we doing to understand what the needs of the state are? We heard some comments earlier about not just turning out workers and widgets. And how do we balance understanding what employers need, not just sort of factory widget employees, but just employers across the state? What are the in-demand jobs? What are those high wage, high growth opportunities? And how do we feed that into the system that we're now trying to redesign? That's a, it's a great question, Adam. And I'm, oh, you have more? Oh, no, you only have one answer. Big question. Oh, what, big question. You know, I will say that our task force has kind of a running place that people are sharing links to reports and information resources. And I'm trying to remember which entity was working with Nebbi, but they put out a report that kind of shows in-demand fields and things like that. So that, I think that it's very much on our minds how we do an employer engagement stakeholder survey. I mean, I think we've got really strong people like Tiffany Cuny at CCV to help us get that survey out. But if there's other ways you think we should be incorporating input that that would be great to hear. I think that that's great. As long as that's feeding into the system. That was really my question. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks, Adam. I kind of have a question. Yes, Bill. Yeah. Yes, I mean, can you give us a sense of timeframe for coming to proposals? Because as I'm sitting here listening, I'm thinking, okay, so we have the Vermont thrive. We have the labor coalition proposals. We have the Vermont forward task force. And then we have a select committee that's being established. And how does this all fit together? And in terms of, you know, to have the best proposals in the world at a timeframe that far beyond when decisions actually get made won't be that useful. So I'm eager to say, hey, you know? Yeah. Good question. Good question, Bill. Yeah. So, you know, you as the board have charged us to come back with something by mid-August. I'm certainly happy to come back. It's not far away. It's not far away. I know I'm running in a primary on August 11th just not far away. Yeah. So our goal as a task force is to have some draft recommendations for you at that point. I think the challenges, you've also heard people want input in these things, right? And I think in some ways, maybe the best that we're doing right now is there is a little bit of parallel effort. But I, I mean, this is me speaking personally. I'm grateful to all of those efforts. And I think sort of, they will sort of, I hope all percolate together into recommendations. But I think the task force right now is trying very hard to kind of build up to its recommendations and making sure that it's doing the right kind of checking and with stakeholders at the right moment. So we've got a little ways to go on that. But we're aware we owe you a recommendation very soon. Okay. Can I just say that I'm acutely aware of sometimes we in the legislature have been given a deadline that seems not possible, such as have your CRF proposals to the appropriations committee in X number of days. And it's like, you must be kidding. But it takes some leadership to actually move groups of people forward to a deadline because without the deadline, it may not happen. So I appreciate you're working that way. Yeah. Well, and I just want to say I'm grateful. We do have an external facilitator working with us and that is a tremendous help and also kind of helps us check our own perspectives. So thank you, Elise. I know you're listening. Oh, great. Any other questions for Yasmeen? Well, thank you Yasmeen for all your work and chairing the committee and everyone that's on it as well. Yeah. We look forward to mid-August. We'll be here in a minute. In a minute and a half, yeah. So, Sophie, I think we're at the point where we are gonna hear from our individual institutions and the presidents. Right, we have presidents and then a chancellor update. I'm thinking it may make more sense to me just to quickly, because I think it flows from what Yasmeen was just talking about and Bill do the chancellor update, which is the select committee that's being created by the legislature. That is just beginning to get going. Some of the initial deadlines have been missed, but they are looking to move forward, I think expeditiously with that. So, and I've also understood that the current deadline in the legislation is for an 18 month process with a final report in December of 2021. My understanding is that the leadership that is certainly in the house is interested in shrinking that timeline when they come back in August to perhaps having it be completed by next summer. Understanding there's a concern about the length of time for which the VSC will need bridge funding. Again, recognition that these changes don't happen swiftly. So, for example, I know with the VSCS forward task force when they heard from the folks in Maine, they just were approved for a single accreditation across their seven institutions. They did a lot of groundwork leading up to that and they have a lot of work ahead of them. So, it doesn't happen instantaneously. You don't realize savings, instantaneously it's a long process to do that. So, the committee's made up of 15 individuals. I don't have all the names as yet, but I believe they're close. Some of them involve, so I have a spider jumping around my computer and I'm not a spider fan. So, I'm just keeping an eye on it. It's like jumping. I don't like jumping spiders. Anyway, I'll try and ignore it. Oh, it's now on my computer. Okay. So, there are still some representatives to be selected, but we've chosen the folks from the VSC to be on the committee. So, one is the chancellor, one is a board of trustees. Megan Kluver is going to be serving in that role. We have a faculty member, Dan Daly, from NVU-Linden. We have a student, Devin Tingle from VTC. We have an alum or donor, who will be Jeff Weld from Castleton. And then we have a campus administrator and President Joyce Judy of CCV will be the administrator. So, the campus administrator that will be serving. An RFP went out. The select committee will be working with an external consulting firm. The proposals were due on Friday of last week. So, I imagine they will be moving swiftly to review the proposals. The first meeting of that group is scheduled to occur by the end of August. But again, there's nothing to prevent the group from meeting sooner if it moves forward more rapidly than that. So, that's just sort of an update in terms of another parallel process that's going on here in response to Bill's question and then all the other pieces that people are working on. Other members on that. There's the UVM president, Suresh Garamela, a trustee from UVM, Briah Alpert. A designee from the ACCD, what's that, Commerce and Development. They've selected Heather Boucher from the Agency of Education because it looked like in the legislation they forgot to include the Agency of Education. So, I think they worked around that by having someone from the Agency of Education be the nominee. And Sarah Buxton, a workforce development is the designee for the Department of Labor. So, those are the folks that are, and then going back to the other question that Lynn had, VSEC's Scott Giles will also be on that select committee. And then we're missing a couple of community members, a representative from the House of Representatives and the Senate. So, those are the four positions I don't know about as yet. And Sophie, just the same question that Bill asked, but just remind us what the timeframe is for that task force as well. So, right now in the legislation they have a report due in December of this year, June of next year and December of next year. But my understanding is that there's concern that that is too long a timeframe and that my understanding is there will be an effort when the legislators return in August to reduce the timeframe. And again, I don't know what will happen, but my understanding is they're looking to have a final report by next summer. So, I don't know if that's where it will land up, but again, the concern was having an 18 month process really extended the amount of time that the VSEC would need bridge funding. If it was, if this select committee came up with significant proposals that required restructuring above and beyond of what we might be thinking about doing. All right, so if the presidents want to share their update, so let's start with Elaine. I don't see everybody on here, but if Elaine is on, there's Elaine for NVU. Hello, hi. So what we have done, first of all, I'd like to thank, thank you for having us present just some updates as to where the NVU strong committee is at this point. And a particular thank you to the chair P-check in a conversation that we had by telephone, we were kind of talking about what would be the most helpful to the board as an update. And I had mentioned that I had already given kind of an introductory update since the committee had finished. And he mentioned that it would be nice to hear from some representatives of the committee. So we did invite to speak to you today. And I have been really appreciative that they have hung in for this whole entire meeting, waiting for the opportunity to have a chance to share their thinking with you. I also, before I introduce them, I wanna say that I'm very excited to see so many great minds working on this problem together. I think that with everybody working together, we can only advance the VSC and it was just very nice to hear from all committees and to see the relationship among the committees. For instance, David McGoff as part of the labor task force was also serving as part of NVU strong. Nolan Atkins was the chair of NVU strong is also serving on the VSCS committee. So there's a really lovely kind of interrelationship between the committees. And I hope that we can keep that kind of connection moving forward. So anyway, at this time, I'm really excited to introduce two amazing community members to you who gave a lot of time and continue to give a lot of time working on the behalf of NVU. We have Catherine Sims with us, representing the N.E.K. and Beth Boy, representing Memorial County. And Beth is going to actually start the presentation. Catherine will follow and then I will update the committee briefly on a few things that have transpired since the committee disbanded. Great. Welcome, Beth. Thank you. Thank you, President Collins. Thanks to everyone for inviting us today. It was a privilege to serve on the NVU strong advisory committee. I live in Johnson. I'm very active in my community. I'm a big advocate for NVU and all it brings. And I really felt it was essential to serve on the committee to ensure that NVU not just stay open but the NVU thrive. So I want to take a moment to focus on why NVU is important in the strategic planning for the state. NVU is social justice. It provides critical access to higher education in Northern Vermont. 70% of NVU students are Vermonters. 76% of NVU online students are Vermonters. Nearly half of the NVU students are first in family to attend college. And I know that's been a point that has been made over and over again and obviously a very critical point. NVU serves the highest number of Pell eligible students in the state college system at 46%. And we know that if NVU is not open and available to these students that they're more likely to not attend college. Internet reception is spotty in many places as seen earlier. So online really isn't an option. And some of the students simply won't go to school without NVU as an option for them. Additionally, NVU's total economic impact is $113 million and the more Northern tier of Vermont. I know this is a topic that has come up a number of times but it's a really critical topic for all of us who live in both the Northeast Kingdom and the Northern tier. So I respectfully request that the board focus on advocating and promoting the system to not only the legislators within the board but more widely in the legislative body pointing out the great and critical return on investment for our state. The ask is that everyone be our champion. Bill, I heard you earlier about having one-on-one conversations. I can tell you I certainly am a number of people are as well. I think that we need to approach this from all angles and the ask is that the board really represent the state college system and fight for the system as well. So on the advisory committee, the committee was made up equally of NVU stakeholders. There were four faculty, four students, four staff members and four community members. And within that representation, there were both alumni as well as community leaders and each campus was campus location. Johnson and Lyndon were equally represented. The NVU wanted the advisory committee to be both inclusive and transparent. The public and NVU community were asked to make nominations for the committee. The community was also asked to make comments and suggestions on how NVU should re-envision itself for the future by using its website, social media channels, emails, local media to collect this information. On the NVU website, you can find 200 plus comments and suggestions submitted by the public, all of which were shared with the committee members and were reviewed by the committee. Information data, materials and other resources shared with the strong advisory committee were also included on the website, including the meeting minutes. The NVU strong advisory committee kept an intense schedule. I can attest to, I was working a full-time job and we had a pretty intense schedule. We met from May 12th to June 4th, typically twice a week for 90 minutes to two hours. There was a tremendous amount of information shared with us with much Q and A. We also broke into subgroups to work through the topics and we worked in between meetings as well. So there was a lot of night hours put in. Public updates via Zoom were provided on May 28th and also members of the committee publicly represented the recommendations via Zoom on June 18th. Katherine, do you wanna jump in? Yeah, thanks Beth for that introduction into our work. I'm Katherine Sims. I'm the director of the Northeast Kingdom Collaborative and I'm also a mother raising two kids right here in Craftsbury and represented the kind of northern part of the Northeast Kingdom on our task force as a community member. And I was really honored to be a part of that team working to help reimagine a sustainable future for NVU. So Beth shared a little bit about the work of the committee and I'm gonna shift a little bit to focus on our recommendations to the task force. It became pretty clear to us on the advisory committee that while NVU has really important work to do to right size itself and create sustainability, that there is only so much work that an individual institution can do on its own and that much work needs to happen at the systems level. So our committee is looking to the board of trustees and the chancellor's office to provide leadership to collectively right size and re-envision the entire Vermont State College system. And I'll take a minute here to walk through some of our recommendations and wanna start by providing a little bit of context about the guiding principles behind our committee's recommendation. And so they include being learner centric, striving to meet workforce needs while also continuing to offer the critical liberal arts education. Focus on a credential mix that is stackable and promotes lifelong learning. Offering modalities that are accessible to all learners and addressing affordability, reducing the overall cost of earning a degree. And so therefore our committee recommend to the VSCS forward task force that it consider eliminating competition across the Vermont State College system institution to create more seamless barrier free pathways for all students. To create a system-wide core curriculum and competencies to give students flexibility and to assist with timely degree completion. To consider moving to a year round academic calendar to enable accelerated degree programs. Initiate conversations with the three unions regarding employee wage and benefit issues. Explore the possible benefits of moving towards a one accreditation model. Adjust and advocate for an appropriations formula to address the higher fixed costs of MVU because it operates two campuses. Consider decentralizing and reducing the size of the office of the chancellor. Advocate for an end to VSC portability. Vermont is one of the few remaining states that does not keep its VSC grants in state. And we respectfully request that the VSC grant be given to Vermonters who choose to stay in Vermont to pursue their degrees. And we also ask that the task force consider releasing a statement acknowledging the importance of the Vermont State College system. Recognizing that the state colleges fulfill the critical mission of ensuring access to higher education for all Vermonters. And so I'm gonna pass it back to Beth here. Beth, you're muted. Thank you. The MVU strong advisory committee made a number of recommendations which you can review on the website, on the MVU website. I just wanna touch on a few key highlights. MVU remains rooted in its mission to provide professional degrees with a liberal arts core. There was a recommendation of a learning and working community. The committee developed the learning and working community vision which supports lifelong learning and workforce development needs, including the soft skills liberal arts brings. It does so via formal partnerships with industry sectors to create flexible, stackable credits to meet workforce needs while also providing on and off ramps to credit-bearing courses to earn a degree. Partners will provide hands-on experience through different pathways such as insurance tips, cooperative learning, fieldwork, practicums. The goal of, for this, sorry, I'm a little tongue-tied, I'll slow down. The goal would be for these to be paid work, helping reduce the cost of pursuing a college education, which again, that's another area we keep hearing over and over again. The cost of an education to our students is practically too high. So I just wanna point that out too. An exciting aspect of this is some of the partners we would collaborate with would work on campus to further strengthen the student pathway while also taking advantage of campus services and reducing the college system and NBU's overall footprint. Other recommendations include moving to a year-round calendar to help create accelerated degree programs, more flexibility for the students, and also critical to the learning and working community as it better meets the needs of the industry partners. Additionally, identify a minimum for four athletic program closures across both campuses. We heard from the athletic programs themselves and that was something that they suggested we might look at. So we did also include that recommendation. Not surprisingly, academics was definitely one of the most difficult areas for discussion. We agreed that the academic programs and courses should be reviewed and irrelevant, that they should align with the working and learning community, including high impact work experience. While we discussed academic program review, we could not come to a unanimous agreement. You heard earlier about the abstentions from the vote that is what this reference is, and then we left it to the executive team to determine the process for the program review. We also explored having CCV relocate onto NBU's campuses and in general, percing a new level of collaboration with CCV. Catherine? Great, and I'm just gonna sort of summarize and look ahead here. So I think we all understand that while NBU will continue to provide a liberal arts education, it can no longer be all things to all people. We need to make sure that each institution within the state college system is distinctive while also supporting access and affordability and maintaining sustainability. Our committee is really excited about the work NBU is doing to distinguish itself and create a model for the future. We heard from students, community leaders, businesses alike that they are energized by NBU's learning and working community vision. NBU is focused on educating people to be engaged critical thinkers. Place-based learning opportunities won't diminish student learning, they will enhance it. Students will be part of a vibrant ecosystem on campus where they will receive well-rounded education while developing deep connections to place, building critical leadership skills and obtaining clear pathways to future employment all at an affordable cost. We celebrate that NBU plays a vital role in providing high quality affordable education. And in addition, we want to highlight that NBU plays a critical role in the viability of Northern Vermont. It is key to providing access to higher education, creating our future workforce and the quality of life in the area, both culturally and economically. An investment in NBU is an investment in the future of our students and the future of our rural community. And I want to respectfully remind the board that Northern Vermont University has just finished its second year of a five-year unification plan. It has achieved the benchmark set out for it in its unification process and there was and is still more work to be done. The threat of closure twice within one year has done harm. Jim Page, the former chancellor of the University of Maine's college system was hired by legislators to study the Vermont State College system and I want to emphasize and share with you one of his key messages. NBU needs meaningful messages of support at this time and it needs time to continue with that unification process. We ask that the board of trustees step up its communications with the legislature to request additional bridge funding to ensure that NBU and its sister institutions have the time and the resources they need to collaboratively transform themselves during this critical time. So we thank you for our opportunity and time with you today to share our recommendations for the task force and for your advocacy for the state college system and the vital role that it plays in providing access to high quality and affordable education for Vermont. And I think I'm handing it back to Elaine. Right, I'll just give a very quick kind of update to the board and this is also to you Beth and Catherine because I want to make sure that you understand that we've taken your work seriously and we are continuing to move it forward. So here's where we are right now. We are in the process of writing EDA grants both to expand the array of stackable credentials that NBU offers and also to create good nursing lab spaces at Linden to accommodate the program that we have with VTC. We are in preliminary discussions of how to integrate the learning and working concept across all four years of the undergraduate experience. And it's been really interesting to me to hear the kind of affirmation for liberal arts. One model that we're looking at is exactly how a liberal arts institution was able to integrate these kinds of concepts across a liberal arts curriculum. So we're looking very carefully at that and then some others that have done it in more of a professional arena, professional program arena. We have expanded the pathways for students to take early college courses online that has been completed. We have received preliminary legal guidance regarding the lease of space. This has to do with a footprint and minimizing footprint. We're in current conversations with businesses and we have contacted these businesses and are in the process of setting up visits so they can come and see the campus spaces. Through our development efforts, we're identifying best fit projects with our donors. We're working hard right now to get ready for fall 2020 by increasing the telepresence technology for academic use. So in our classrooms, we've identified 100 classrooms where we are in the process of installing webcams and tablets. We have already done so in 35 of the most used spaces and we're continuing to work on the rest, prioritizing by both use and specialty. You heard about the four athletic programs eliminated. Those have been eliminated. We have contacted the students that has been completed. And as far as some of the other recommendations that Catherine gave the summary, they're now currently being discussed in the SC Forward and we look forward to continuing the work as soon as we get that work finished in that arena. So at this point, I'll just open it up to questions for any one of us. Any questions from the committee or any comments from the committee for Beth Catherine or President Collins? I don't think I see any. I just wanna make sure I'm not missing anyone. But I do wanna say, oh, Bill. Well, I'll just say, I'll just take a head on. We have heard today some people criticizing proposals that would quote, give up liberal arts and turn NBU or other institutions into training for businesses. And I hear that it's not necessarily, it's not a binary choice of liberal arts versus further engagement and active engagement with the business community as well. So I think it's important to have that issue talked about, addressed so that it's not something that's, and I hear you talking some about that, but clearly that's a point of some disagreement or tension with some folks. And I think it's important to engage that. I think it's a matter of additional communication because we never intended to take away the mission. The mission of both Johnson and Lyndon remain the same. The mission of NBU remains the same. The piece that has pivoted is the vision into a little bit more of a tighter student-centered focus for involving or integrating career goals and that whole notion of how to be a better citizen within a working community as a student moves forward through their curriculum. So that's what we're working for. I just encourage for the continuing dialogue and conversation. Thank you. Catherine, you have something to say. Yeah, I was just gonna say, I found it really powerful that we heard some testimony from students who were articulating that part of the reason that they chose NBU right now was because of the field experience and place-based learning opportunities that the school is already affording as a part of its liberal arts education and that this program and vision for the future would be to deepen that and to expand on what we know is already a selling point for NBU and to streamline it and focus it and align it with this ecosystem model so that the opportunities aren't just away from campus but actually embedded on the campus and agree with Elaine that it sounds like there's some work to do in how this vision is described and messaged in the marketing but I think there's a lot of alignment with what we heard from the Thrive Committee and what the NBU Strong Committee are recommending and it's really a semantics more than vision. Yeah, thanks for raising that point, Bill. Any other questions or comments? Well, I think I wanna thank Catherine and Beth because I think I got you into spending your afternoon with us, so I wanna thank you for spending your almost your entire afternoon with us and for all of your work on the task force as well and thank you to President Collins for the invitation and also for providing the board the follow-up as to how the recommendations and advice is being implemented, which is great to see in here. It's a pleasure, thank you for all your work, for our colleges and affordable education for our community, so pleasure to get a window into the conversation. I appreciate the opportunity as well. It is a critical asset, thank you. Thanks, Beth, thanks, Catherine. I would suggest we talk to Pat Moulton and VTC next. Maybe Pat's disappeared, if you... Oh, there she is. Sorry, sorry. I clicked and tried to keep clicking and nothing was happening, so my apologies. Good afternoon again and thank you, Elaine, for that very excellent presentation by you and your counterparts. I'm afraid you get to listen to just me today, but I wanted to remind the Long Range Planning Committee we currently have two planning efforts underway. The first is our Transformation Advisory Task Force, which is more of an internal process with input from the college community and the public. Our TAT, as we call it. The second is our Ag and Food Systems to Transformation Project, which is more of an external process with assistance from the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund and Facilitation and our co-chairs, Regina Beidler and Louise Calderwood. Both are proceeding very well, I'm pleased to say. I'll talk about the TAT work first. I wanna point out there are folks on this call who are part of the TAT, not the least of which is Mr. Ryan Zuni. So feel free to jump in, Ryan, if I miss anything or others that may be on here. But the TAT has been working through these last several months, being a lot of who I consider really excellent work. One of the first things they came up with is that the process would result in four major goals and I can try to screen, I'm not gonna share my screen, but first that the operating, college's operating budget once transformed will achieve a 5% operating margin annually. That margin will enable us to invest in strategic reserves, capital investments and more. Second is that the return on educational investment will increase by X%, X to be determined through cost reductions and enhanced graduate outcomes. We're looking specifically at defining X through return on investment formula, probably picking from the Georgetown University study to see which would fit us best since that's the latest science. The third is that all programs will design decentralized delivery and access for students, including non-traditional by fall 2021 and implement as feasible. And the fourth is levels of graduate educational satisfaction, career preparedness and ability to participate in effective citizenry will continue or improve. The fourth needs a little help in terms of metrics on that, but I think these are excellent overall goals for what the college will look like as a transform formed entity. So the TATs does this thinking, does comes up with these drafts, we send them out to the community, we get feedback from the community, we have representation on the TAT from every labor union, students, faculty, staff. So these are the good communications lines that we have going on with that group. The group also sifted through over 400 ideas, recommendations and suggestions that came to us from the college community, the public, the legislators, the legislature's idea bank and others that were solicited and obtained unsolicited. They filtered those down to certain themes and ranked every idea in terms of its likelihood of success and proceeding and all these ideas were captured and archived for future consideration. The TAT then passed along a list of important ideas and recommendations for follow-up and investigation and to develop a plan for implementation. And this went to our drafting committee, which is a subgroup of the TAT six folks, back to the point earlier, that it's easier to work with a group of six than it is a group of 26. So the six will be doing this drafting that consists of Lit Tyler, our Dean of Administration, Anna Gallette, our academic dean, Jason Ensar, our dean of students, Kelly Campbell, our chief technology officer, myself and Alan Rogers as our facilitator, former president, current faculty. That group is working over the next several months. The TAT work is kind of taking a smaller, not smaller, less frequent role and will be more of the drafting committee in bringing, here's our ideas, getting feedback, bringing it up to the community to get feedback and tweak those ideas. So the drafting committee has met several times and grouped the ideas and recommendations we received from the TAT into four major areas. Those major areas include consolidating programs, adding certificates, minors and pathways as one from the academic standpoint. Second, improve access, develop additional alternative delivery models, a low residency, collaborations with CDE, continuing a delivery. The fourth is to reduce our physical footprint, consolidate usage, sell at least unused assets. The fourth, sorry, is assess performance in all areas, all resource areas and functions, such as athletics, personnel, space, et cetera, to achieve that 5% operating margin. So the drafting committee has identified eight key projects within those four areas to start working on implementation. And I don't really wanna share those now because we haven't shared it with the TAT yet. So we meet with the TAT on August 6th to tell them what our eight project areas are, get that feedback. We are using a project management approach to implement these projects and developing project charters. And we're gonna be sharing with the TAT a project charter for the first major project we wanna take on, which is involving reducing our physical footprint in Randolph Center, some of which the Finance and Facilities Committee was involved in earlier today. So we're moving forward nicely. The Ag and Food Systems Project is moving forward well. We have a steering committee that's met to review current operations curricula finances. We have folks from all over Vermont invested in this process, folks from UVN, Sterling College, financial entities, farmers, ag specialists, and a whole lot more rolling up their sleeves to help, which is just fabulous. Our faculty and staff and others are involved in that as well. We've held one open invitation Zoom session with up to 50 interested people joining to learn about this process and offer input. We have a second meeting tomorrow, face to face. Note to self, try to do face to face meetings again. It's really difficult. And try to socially distance and sanitize. But we have 25 people coming to campus for a face to face meeting tomorrow. And we're repeating that on the 7th of August by a Zoom, really dive into ideas on how we can transform, really start to assess that what are the opportunities. And remember the goal of this committee is to define the best educational niche for us in the Ag and Food Systems world, given what others are doing. We have formed teams to work in subject areas around that Ag work. There is a culture and curriculum committee that's reviewing existing curricula and looking at what new we could offer that would be successful. And that's chaired by Mark Mahaley, the former Dean of Vermont Law School. We have a dairy subgroup looking at what our dairy program should look like. And that's led by Laura Ginsburg of the Vermont Department of Agriculture. We have a survey team looking at gathering input by a survey and Erica Campbell of Senator Leahy, our Senator Sanders office is assisting in sharing that effort. A program model team looking at how other programs around the country or the world are working to benefit Ag and Food Systems and how ours could be designed. And Philip Ackerman Leist of Sterling College is chairing that group. We have an Outreach and Communication group to assure we're letting folks know what we're doing and getting input. And that's led by Kate Finley Woodruff from UVM. We have a business case team that's writing the business plan for what this morphed agricultural Ag and Food Systems program would look like. And that's being led by Allison Hooper of Ayersburg Fireman, former owner and still on the board of Vermont Creamery and Lit Tyler will loom large in that group as well. The timing of these two efforts is likely to be on track with each other. The Ag and Food Systems group is looking at a nine month project. We've got roughly six to seven months remaining. The work of the TAT and the drafting committee specifically is gonna take some time because we've really gotta dive in. We've got, we're gonna be including stakeholders in those projects from around the campus and really start to do the research, look at the numbers. An overall goal is to first determine how transformative are these ideas? What kind of revenue and expense impact will it have? Will it get us to where we need to be in terms of a 5% positive operating margin? There's a lot of work to do here, but we feel that the timing is well synchronized and likely be looking at some final reports in December, January. We'll obviously keep this committee updated as we proceed, but I'm honestly just horribly impressed with how well the TAT is working together. I shouldn't say horribly, I'm positively impressed with how the TAT is working together and this Ag and Food Systems group and how many people are willing to throw up their sleeves and come in and help us out. And obviously we need to see how this work fits in with what the VSE forward group is looking at and what other colleges are looking at, but we too are in favor of really trying to look at better system-ness and how we better collaborate across the system. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions if anybody has any. Thanks, Pat, any questions for Pat? Oh, come on. Well, thank you very much. Yeah, no, thank you, Pat. Thanks, it sounds like you guys have been very busy.  There's a lot of work that goes into this transformation and while you're figuring out reopening and having to pivot what seems to be a great half hour, so these are crazy times, but it keeps the juices flowing, so we're on. Great, thanks, Pat. So Sophie. Yeah, next I think is Castleton. I don't see Jonathan on my screen, but I'm sure he's here. There he is. I am here. Just not on my screen, or you weren't before. But I'm on your radar. You are. Actually, unlike NVU and VTC, Castleton was not charged with creating any task force, so you may be hesitant to learn that my update on planning is going to be very brief today. First of all, in the very short term, of course, we're waiting to see what happens this fall with enrollment and with the virus. We have to shut down in the middle of the semester. Will we remain shut down in the spring? And yes, what about even next fall? Secondly, in the medium term, we're waiting to see what level of bridge funding we may or may not receive from the legislature. And then in the long term, and this is the long term planning committee, we're waiting for the many task forces and new trustees to endorse a plan for the strategic vision for the VSCS. So in sum, we are not working on our own long range plan until we have data regarding enrollment and funding and until we know what the strategic vision for the whole system is going to be. However, I will say as a first step for the earlier recommendation of the labor task force, I do plan to edit my name on this Zoom screen from Jonathan Spyro, CU to Jonathan Spyro, Vermont State University. Any questions? Any questions for Jonathan? Seeing none, Jonathan, thank you very much. And I think last but certainly not least is Joyce Judy. Thank you. And I also want to just say, echo what Jonathan said that we weren't asked to develop a task force, but that doesn't mean, and I think the same as Jonathan, we're doing a tremendous amount. And this is, even though we're in a COVID-19 environment, we continue to have to change and evolve because we have to help our monitors continue their education. So one of the things we're trying to do sort of side by side is keep forward in the environment that we're in, but also continue to implement our strategic plan, which is brilliant. We want that to be very much a living document. And so there's a lot of new initiatives and things that are underway at CCV, and I'll talk about those a little bit in a moment, but I also want to say that, CCV is, I have been in contact and have regular conversations with both Pat and I, because I do think as they begin to formulate their plans, that we can be a significant, we can play a role in helping them to move forward in their plans and whatever that means. And one of the things that I liked about the VSD task force, the one-range task force is creating a single channel education for the participating, such a huge benefit to CCV students because they could work on their gen ed at CCV and have the confidence when they were gonna transfer to Castleton or transfer to NBU that their general ed would be, their requirements would be the same across the system. So I'm hoping that that's not gonna save anybody, but it will be really great service to students. And so that's just a small thing that we'll really can implement. I will also say that both Lit Tyler and Andy Polito our deans of administration continue to work on a plan in terms of how do we think, how do we, these two institutions for the very least, look at some of our back room operations and how do we really take advantage of some of those things. So they continue to work on that. It's not as straightforward as it might first appear, but they are doing some significant work and trying to work on that aspect. I'll just give you a couple of things that I think in terms of as we look forward, a couple of things that are exciting around our strategic planning. And some of you had heard me talk a little bit about that, but like for example, in the COVID-19 environment, what's important for us is to really think about, okay, so as technology becomes a bigger and bigger, we utilize technology more and more as we offer our courses, how do we put in place the things that we believe will serve us well when we are no longer in a COVID-19 environment. And we think something like synchronous courses is going to be a synchronous online courses will be a significant and really popular format. So it's a combination of traditional on-ground, I mean online course work with synchronous component where maybe seven times over the course of the semester you meet with a faculty and your students.  So you don't have to leave your home, you can do it from your office, you can do it from wherever. But for some of us, and I will put myself in that category, I like, I can learn online, but I really like the energy I get in a group meeting. And so we think the synchronous is really important and we're investing heavily in professional development around that particular format. And we've gone from trying it out a little in the spring to we are probably offering 80 synchronous, 80 courses this fall with the synchronous component. The other thing that as we think about looking to the future, we have a path towards it is looking at what we're gonna do for spring. And as some of you were on this morning, I think our spring semester is probably gonna look very much like how we're offering our fall because I just think that we're not gonna be in a whole lot, a different situation when we start at least a plan. So I think I will stop there and I would just say that we believe that we can be a significant contributor to once ProTVNBU and Vermont Tech starting to have a game plan on how we can plug in and help homeowners. We believe we can do that in a very significant way. I'll stop there. Okay, well, thank you, Joyce. Any questions for Joyce? Seeing none. Oh, Bill. I'm gonna say my questions for later, Joyce. It's been a long afternoon and I do have questions but I would love to actually be able to engage with you when we're all feeling a little fresher. Well, or Bill, call me anytime. I will. I will. Is it very interesting to hear other people have plans for CCV? Yes, I do too and I would react to them but I won't in this. Let's do that another time. Okay, I will just say one thing. There is a reason that we are not located on campuses. Taking our students onto campus is not going to make those campuses more viable and CCV students will not go there. So I'll just, I'll say my piece and then we can expand on it. Yeah, I'd love to hear more dialogue about that but not today. Well, thank you, Bill. Thank you, Joyce, as well. So Sophie, I think all we have left is new business and public comments. Under new business, I did want to mention that Sophie did send around a paper from Ryan that Ryan Cooney put together about sort of his thoughts about system transformation. I want to make sure everybody got that. It came in around noon yesterday. I don't know, Ryan, if you have anything you want to mention or say to the group but happy to reserve that for another time as well. Yeah, no, it's definitely been a long afternoon so I don't think we have to get pulled into discussion but yeah, I believe everyone should have gotten a copy of that. I know a couple of members have already reached out to me with some questions and their agreeableness to the plan and it's potential for the future. So I'm happy that we're already meeting those discussions. I will say I was surprised actually how close my plan turned out to be to what the labor task force had proposed. So I'd like, I'm glad multiple entities are kind of already on the same track and I think that gives us a strong future movement towards that plan. But definitely people have questions or even those not on the board who like access the plan more than happy to reach out to get those discussions going all sooner the better in my opinion. Yeah, I was surprised how closely aligned they were to Ryan, I thought maybe there was some collusion going on. No, I've never talked once and I was very surprised. I was like, wow, that was, you know, I had the same idea there, that crazy how close it was. Who sent out Ryan's? Cause I don't, I've got so many emails that may have gone a lot. Sophie, I'll look under your name then. Yeah, yeah, I sent it out and I mean, we'll include it as well with the board materials. And again, hopefully Linda will share the PowerPoint and any other, you know, if there are any other reports I know Mary had indicated that the SCS Thrive had additional documents. So we'll just make sure that you get all of those and they'll be part of the board materials that are posted on the website. So they'll be fully accessible for everybody. Great. Great, well, thank you, Ryan. Thanks for putting the effort time into that, sharing it with us as well. So I think Sophie and Jen were at the public comment stage. You wanna see if we have any one that is interested in public comment? That would be great. We've heard from a lot of people. So maybe it's been more public comment as a program today. But yeah, if there's anyone else that has comments I'm not in control of that. So hopefully Jen and Meg can check and see if there's anyone. Yep, if anyone wants to make a comment you can go ahead and raise your hand and we'll call on you and you can actually unmute yourself once you've done that to make a comment. A lot of people on here already have made a comment but we're open for more. Although I am not seeing any charity check, so. Okay, well, thank you, Jen. I do wanna thank, first I'll thank the board for the committee members for sticking with us this afternoon, particularly those that participated in the finance facilities meeting this morning. Basically a full day of Mont State College work but certainly appreciate you participating and engaging and sticking with us. I think we had a really interesting conversation this afternoon and a really interesting and sobering conversation this morning in finance and facilities. So a lot more work ahead of us. And I do wanna thank also our guests that came and presented to us. We need to have everyone thinking about how do we move forward? We need to have everyone doing that in a sort of coordinated fashion, not necessarily unified fashion but a coordinated fashion so that we're all rowing in the same direction and benefiting from each other's good thoughts. So I think that was a really good effort today to start to have those kinds of conversations and look forward to our continued work in dialogue. So with that, I think I'll ask for a motion to adjourn. I see Karen has moved. Do we have a second? Second. Bill I think is seconding with his eyes. All those in favor say aye. Aye. We are adjourned. Thank you everybody and look forward to seeing you at the next board meeting.


The idea of a system is central to dealing with complexity as it offers us a very abstract model and a solid basis on which to structure our reasoning about complex social systems. In this video, we'll be taking a very high-level view of what we mean by this term social system and then we'll be digging further into each aspect of it in coming videos. So we'll be outlining our basic model as consisting of social actors called agents and a set of relations between them. We'll talk about the idea of social agency and the different types of relations between these agents. Finally, we'll talk about the type of social structure that emerges out of these relations and the dynamics of social systems as they change over time. A system is a set of parts called elements and the connections between these parts called relations. Through these relations, the elements are interdependent in affecting a joint outcome. By interdependent, we mean that if we change the state of one element, this will affect the state of other elements within the system. We can contrast a system with a set, where a set consists of a group of independent elements, such as a bowl of fruit. If we changed one of the fruit, this would not affect any of the others because the variables associated with each element are independent. A social system is then a set of actors and the relations or ties between them. Again, we could contrast a social system with a simple set of people, such as a group of people waiting for a bus. They are simply a collection of unassociated individuals. But now imagine that when the bus arrives, there is an elderly lady that needs help getting on the bus. So one person comes to hold the door open and two others give her support on each side. Now we have a social system because the individuals are interrelated and interdependent in affecting a joint outcome.  As such, the individuals are interdependent. And this is the same for all social systems, such as a corporation, that has well-defined roles and relations between those roles, through which they perform a collective function of producing some good or service. Or a government would be another example of a social system, with well-defined, differentiated roles that relate to each other and are interdependent in performing the collective function of social governance. Social systems are made up of social actors, or what we call agents within complexity theory. Agents are abstract models of individuals or organizations that have agency, meaning the capacity to make choices and to act independently on those choices to affect the state of their environment. In order to make choices, agents need some set of rules under which to make those choices. This set of instructions or rules can be based upon some simple linear cause and effect, such as a trader choosing to sell a stock if it goes below a certain price. This basic set of linear rules we would call an algorithm. But these choices may be much more complex, such as a person choosing whether to change career. These more complex decisions are the product of many interacting factors. They are not the product of a simple cause and effect dynamic, but they emerge out of the agent's representation of its environment, what is called a schema and some set of values. With this capacity of agency comes autonomy. In choices and actions, agents define themselves as independent from other things, and thus define their own identity with associated responsibilities for their actions. Agency is then not just the property of an individual, but collections of individuals can have agency that is to say we as individuals can give over our agency to other people or organizations. For example, let's take a shop owner, Kate, who is taking inventory realizing that she needs more stock. She sends one of her employees, James, to make this order. James is now acting on the behalf of Kate. He is a legal agent, a party that is legally authorized to act on the behalf of another. Kate is considered the principal in this relationship, meaning that she has given authority to another to act on her behalf. Both principal and agent can be individuals or organizations. Or to take another example, this agent-principal relation is the one that we have with our politicians within democratic republics. We hand over our choices within the political decision-making process to our representatives. In the same way that we end our organizations with agency and in so doing we hand over our choices and actions to them. The reverse is also true. Once organizations have agency, they then endow this upon roles within that organization. The individuals fulfilling those roles are then empowered with that combined agency. They can make choices and act on behalf of the organization. A commander of an army can tell his troops what to do, because they have given that organization their agency. That is to say their independent choices and actions and the organization has endowed anyone occupying the role of the commander with the authority to make choices and guide their actions for them. Agents within social systems have agency. They act based upon their representation of the world or schema in order to affect some desired outcome. And thus as soon as we have two or more agents we may have some form of interaction between them as they both follow their agendas. In this interaction agents become interdependent. This dynamic of interdependence is described within social interdependence theory, which posits that there are two different types of social interdependence, positive and negative. Positive interdependence exists when there is a positive correlation among individuals' goal attainments, meaning that individuals perceive that they can attain their goals if and only if the other individuals with whom they are cooperatively linked also attain their goals. Inversely, negative interdependence exists when there is a negative correlation among individuals' goal achievements. Individuals perceive that they can obtain their goals if the other individual with whom they are cooperatively linked failed to obtain their goals. Along with these two different types of interactions we may also have an interaction of simple exchange. This type of interaction is described within standard economics by rational choice theory. Agents are simply swapping one thing for another in a linear fashion. These interactions can be formalized in game theoretical terms. Positive interdependencies are zero or positive sum games, meaning that the whole pie may get bigger through cooperation. Negative interdependencies are zero or negative sum games, meaning the whole pie is getting smaller through this interaction. Exchange interactions give us zero sum games. The whole is not changing, we're simply moving things around, changing who gets what. These different types of interdependencies create attractors towards fundamentally different types of interaction between agents, that of cooperation derived from positive interdependency, that of competition or conflict as derived from negative interdependencies, or that of trade from interactions of exchange. Conflictual relations are zero or negative sum interactions where the interests of one agent are pitted against those of another. Relations of conflict arise when agents with divergent agendas interact over some rival resource. By rival we mean that the resource that each agent desires is exclusive. Only one agent can own or occupy that resource at any given time. This may be some physical resource, some social status, ideology etc. This interdependency coupled with excludability means one agent can obtain more of some rival resource by reducing another's access to it and this creates the dynamic of conflict or competition. When agents agendas are aligned towards a common outcome we can get cooperative relations. Cooperation is the process of groups or social actors working or acting together for their common mutual benefit or that of others. Cooperation is often the product of needing to perform some function that requires individuals with different capabilities to coordinate their activities towards some common outcome. In such a dynamic for any one agent to achieve the desired outcome every other agent has to also achieve it, meaning that each agent will be equally interested in the fulfillment of their own role and agenda as that of others. For example if a father or a mother is interested in providing a good family context for raising their child they will have to be equally interested in the fulfillment of their role as much as the fulfillment of the role of their partner and this creates a strong attractor towards cooperation. When agents with different capabilities coordinate their activities we get what is called a synergy. An interaction of exchange involves a two-sided mutually rewarding process that engenders a trade-like transaction where agents are simply swapping things. This relation is formed out of the agent's subjective cost-benefit analysis and their comparison of alternatives. Self-interest and rationality are central properties of an exchange interaction. Social exchange theory features many of the main assumptions found in rational choice theory whereas the first two types of interaction will typically give us nonlinear results meaning that relations of conflict or cooperation will add or subtract significant value from the whole system. Exchange will typically give us near linear results because we are simply swapping things around. No great value to the whole system is being added or subtracted through the exchange because exchange can be best described with reference to linear models it is understood very well within standard economic theory and during our course here we'll be focusing more on the other two nonlinear forms of interaction. Out of these different types of relations develop some form of enduring structure to that system what is called its social structure. In the social sciences social structure is the patterns of social arrangement in society that are both emergent from and determinant of the actions and relations between the agents. As enduring patterns of behavior and interaction they define some form of order to the overall system. Again the type of social structure that emerges is largely a product of the type of interaction between the agents. With relations of negative interdependence because the resource is excludable the net result will always be one of the agents assuming a dominant position while the other assumes a subordinate position thus defining a power dynamic. By power we mean the capacity to direct or influence the behavior of others irrespective of their personal agenda. The power dynamics that holds a particular social structure within a particular configuration are an organic product of agonistic interactions between agents over excludable resources. The social structure that emerges out of this conflict or competition will be the formation of some kind of stratified social system based upon access to the rifle good. This may also be called a hierarchy which arises when members of a social group interact to create a social structure with a linear or near linear ranking system. With that ranking system directly correlated to the distribution of some underlining desired resource within the system such as economic value social prestige etc. The conflictual relations that are an inherent part of this type of social system are a constant potential for disorder and it is seen that there needs to be some countervailing force exerted in order to maintain the social structure. Order is typically derived from the exercising of authority through some form of centralized control system. Cooperation gives rise to collaborative organizations where agents self-organize around a common function. Cooperation gives rise to peer dynamics when the realization of each agent's agenda is recognized as being important in the realization of the combined agenda and when there is limited hierarchical structure based upon consumption then relations are horizontal in nature creating a network social structure. Order within this type of system is seen to derive from their interconnections and positive interdependencies between agents. It is these interdependencies that bond the system into an integrated whole and thus maintain some form of structure and coherence. From this perspective the greater the differentiation and specialization between the agents the greater the positive interdependency between them and the greater the glue binding them into some state of order. The net result of collaboration is what is called emergence the synergistic relations are non-linear they add value to the whole system. Out of this added value we get the emergence of a new level of organization a collective function. For example through all the ants performing differentiated functions and coordinating these individual functions within the whole colony we get the emergence of a complex society whose capability and structure is qualitatively different from that of any of its components. That is to say out of these synergies a new level of organization has emerged this phenomenon of emergence is ubiquitous across all types of social systems from families to communities to business organizations. This emergent phenomena creates a structure that is not associated with any of the individual properties of the parts that form it. Relations of exchange give us a market like social structure. This social structure will often have some centralized third party that mediates and facilitates the exchange like a bank that takes in deposits and hands out loans. All of these three parties are engaged in this interaction out of their own self-interest and the net result is a market structure that has some kind of equilibrium that represents a balance between all of these different parties self-interest like that between supply and demand within an economy. These different social structures have very different internal dynamics that is to say the processes through which the internal social structure changes over time. The dynamics of a hierarchical social system composed predominantly of competitive or conflictual relations are described within sociology by conflict theory. Conflict theory posits that the dominant stratas within the hierarchy will use their position and resources to maintain their privileged position in so doing they will systematically reduce social mobility. People of merit will not be able to rise meaning those in the upper stratas become less competent and there is also the accumulative effect what is called the rich get richer as the whole system becomes more polarized ultimately leading to some abrupt discontinuous change. As such conflict is seen as an inherent part of the social dynamic as Karl Marx put it without conflict no progress. This is the law that civilization has followed to this day from the conflict perspective societies develop because for every action of oppression there is an equal and opposite force that accumulates over time as the two become more diametrically opposed ultimately leading to a state of complete conflict and an ensuing regime shift through revolution and this is considered the primary dynamic driving this type of social system as it develops over time. Collaborative organizations can be more adaptive when the ultimate aim is not to maintain one's social status and access to rival goods but to enable the operation of a shared function. Agents can adapt their role and relations to that of other agents in order to best facilitate the joint outcome. When the ultimate aim of the agents or organization is to perform some collective function the emphasis is placed on a person's competency in performing that function resulting in a more meritocratic system an important mechanism for social mobility and integration between different levels within the social system. Lastly this whole social system exists within some environment and is subject to long-term evolution as that environment changes this change may be in technology and economic conditions such as the rise of capitalism during the early modern period it may be some change in the natural environment or change within the culture and beliefs of that society either way the whole system goes through long-term processes of change where new functions are required to be performed whilst others become redundant. Through this process of evolution the system has to adapt by producing new variants to see which of these are best suited to meeting the changing context new roles within organizations new jobs and institutions within society or new ideas within the culture with those new social phenomena that are most functional in enabling people and organizations to adapt to the new context being retained integrated and shared and with those that are not becoming less prevalent within the future life cycle of the system. In such a way the whole social system can evolve in a distributed fashion through this process of evolution the society can successfully adapt to new changes as it develops new specialized subsystems as it becomes both more differentiated and integrated leading to what we might call greater complexity. In this module we've been laying down the very basics of a model to social systems which we described as a set of social actors or agents and a set of relations between them through which they are interdependent in performing some collective function. We talked about agency as an individual or organization that acts to produce a particular result. We briefly looked at the different types of relations between agents and broadly defined these different relations as being of cooperation conflict or exchange. We looked at how relations of competition and conflict lead to zero and negative sum games of exclusivity with one agent coming to occupy a position above or below another creating a stratified social structure that defines the agent's access to some rival resource. Inversely we talked about cooperative relations called synergies where individuals both differentiate and coordinate their activities towards some common end the results in a networked peer social structure. We finally talked about the dynamics of these different types of social systems and the process of evolution as it acts on the entire social system in order for it to adapt to some changing environment.


This splash guard is amazing. Pat and Professor, approved.


This is Social Confidential, where every social media editors take a look behind the logo to find out who's tweeting and sharing from major brands. I'm Jess Saffaris and I'm here with Conor Mason, Senior Director of Digital Marketing for Bud Light at Anheuser-Busch, and Mike Fidiello, Social Content Director at Wyden Kennedy, New York. How did the idea for the Chief Meme Officer come to be and why was this specifically a role dedicated to the Seltzer brand? The idea for Chief Meme Officer was really founded upon, you know, Bud Light's personality. Since 1982, we've been a jester. We've been providing fun and providing comedy in everything that we do. And we've been posting memes since 2019. We kind of converted our entire Instagram account over to that strategy. We, as marketers, can sometimes get caught up in our own little loop in our own world. And that's why it's so exciting to bring someone in from the outside and get their perspective, which is why it was so great that the Chief Meme Officer then becomes this kind of champion for the community. What does the day-to-day look like for this Chief Meme Officer role and how does that fit into your larger team? I think brand teams are often set up to create, you know, one, two, three, four campaigns a year, but they're not set up to be super agile and in talking to consumers every single day. So for us, the Chief Meme Officer is another position internally that's really helping us respond to cultural trends in real time and create some shareability and virality of our own. What were some memes or moments that you were particularly proud of or especially enjoyed that were created by this role? The number one thing that people always ask us on Instagram, on Twitter, on Facebook and our DMs and comments is give us free beer, give us free seltzer, give us free swag. So this person immediately identified that and said, how could you give free seltzer to people? We actually then developed a bunch of memes highlighting that this is something that we were going to do and this person really led the charge with them. What's been the most interesting learning experience from the process of creating and working with this role? I think the most interesting learning from this position is truly how creative the community can be. It wasn't just, you know, people with small meme accounts but it was also people that were lawyers and doctors, other marketers. It was really everyone from all walks of life and it was really impressive to see the creativity. I guess it is proof too that this is kind of future of our business. Do you imagine that you will recreate this role or that it'll be a recurring role for the brand? I think we're always going to find ways to engage the community and have the community create content for us. That's going to be a big part of the brand DNA I think from here on out. The gatekeeping era is kind of over and we're looking to hire different. We're looking for people who are just funny on Twitter, who are funny on Instagram. Entertainment is the number one thing because no one wants to just hear about your brand if you're not giving them a reason to care and entertaining them throughout their day. If you can give one piece of advice to brand social media managers, what would it be? Take your vacation days. This is an always on job and you need to take the opportunities to shut it down and get some rest when you have them. The internet wants to talk about what the internet is already talking about. You have to listen to everyone and I think from listening to people is where the best ideas really can come from. As a digital marketer, whether you're the person that's actually sending tweets and responding to DMs or whether you're the person that's creating brand campaigns, I think you have to spend time on the internet understanding what are people saying about your brand, about other brands and about kind of the internet at large. If you miss a trend, don't worry about it. There's always another one coming. So just pitch, pitch, pitch and don't cry over dead work. Connor, Mike, thank you for joining us today. Thanks, it was a pleasure. Yeah, thanks for having us. I'm Joseph Harris. See you next time on Adweek's Social Confidential.


Good day everybody. Welcome to our next next episode of the video. This time the video is going to be slightly different. Before that my name is Dr. Sanjay Sanyal, professor and course director of neuroscience and the camera person is Mr. Mark Lesserd our IT administrator. In this video we shall demonstrate the technique the steps of lumber puncture as we do it on a scientific trainer which we have procured from the company called the Gaumard scientific with special permission. So this Gaumard scientific trainer is a mannequin a semi-hemi mannequin and it simulates exactly how it feels to do a lumber puncture on a human being. This first screenshot that you see in front of you this is showing the trainer in the so-called sitting position. The thumbs are located at the L4 spinous process and the digits are located the middle finger and the index finger are located over the highest point of the aliac crest. So this is the technique for locating the L4 spinous process which is a very important landmark in doing lumber puncture. However for the rest of the video we are going to demonstrate the lumber puncture in the lying in the left lateral position. So in this the trainer is lying as if the patient is lying in the left lateral position. This is the head end of the patient and this is the foot end of the patient. This is the back of the patient. The index finger is located over the L4 spinous process and the technique for determining the L4 spinous process is the same as I mentioned earlier. We take the highest point of the aliac crest here and the highest point of the aliac crest here and we join them by an imaginary line which is known as the supracrystal plane and that plane goes through the L4 spinous process. Once we have the L4 spinous process the space just above that is the L3 L4 space and the space just below that is the L4 L5 space. We usually choose the L3 L4 space for the lumber puncture procedure. Next step once the patient is in position we have to hyper flex the spine that is done by flexing the neck of the patient so that the chin touches the chest and the knees touch the abdomen of the patient. That way the spinous processes the inter spinous processes the space between them open up. We clean the area with antiseptics solution. We can use either poverty on iodine 0.5 percent or 10 percent which is known as betadine or we can use isopropyl alcohol or we can use ethyl alcohol or we can use chlorhexidine gluconate or we can use various combinations of them. However in this particular trainer we do not use poverty on iodine betadine because it will stain the trainer. So this is just to show you that antiseptic preparation is important. The next step in the process is to give a sterile drape covering so that we do not touch any on sterile areas. The sterile drape has got either a square or a central circular opening which is centered over the side of the lumbar puncture. The next step, local anesthesia is infiltrated as if we are doing it on a patient. The local anesthetic agent which is usually used is lignocaine 0.5 or 1 percent and it is infiltrated in the subcutaneous plane just so that the patient will not feel the pain of the lumbar puncture needle. The next step is to assemble the manometry assembly. You can see this is the burette the vertical tube which will be used to record the lumbar pressure and this is the three-way stopcock which will be connected to the lumbar puncture needle. So this is just to assemble it and keep it ready so that when we can do the lumbar puncture pressure recording at the appropriate moment. Now comes the actual step.  It's called the lumbar puncture 2-heat needle and it is of sufficient length to penetrate right up to the lumbar cistern which is the space which is used to drain the CSF. This is the 2-heat needle. This needle is a hollow needle and it contains a stillet which is attached to this yellow hub that you see here. The lumbar puncture needle is inserted usually through the L3L4 spinous process space, interspinous space and the tip of the needle is directed slightly towards the as if it's being directed towards the umbilicus of the patient. It should be absolutely horizontal and it should be at right angles to the surface of the skin. The needle is gradually advanced. The layers that it pierces through are one skin, subcutaneous tissue, supraspinous ligament, interspinous ligament, ligament of fl... supraspinous ligament, interspinous ligament, ligament of flavum, extradural space of the spinal canal, then it pierces through the dura arachnoid membrane. Once it pierces through the dura arachnoid membrane, typically we will feel and hear a pop sensation. That is the indication that we have gone and entered the lumbar cistern. Periodically we would remove the stillet out to see the CSF dripping out. And that is what we see in this next slide here. We can see the CSF is dripping out, the simulated CSF in this particular case. In actual situation how do we determine if the CSF does not drip out? There are certain maneuvers that we can do. One maneuver is we can ask the patient to cough gently. That can sometimes bring the CSF out. The second maneuver that we can do is we can take this, hold this hub of the needle here and we can gently rotate it along its own axis without moving it forward or backwards. That way sometimes a small filament of alachnoid trabeculae which is blocking the stillet which is blocking the needle will be removed and CSF will start dripping out. So once we see the CSF dripping out, our next step will be to connect the lumbar manumetry assembly which we had assembled earlier. If you notice this is the vertical limb of the burette which will record the pressure of the 3-way stopcock. This end is connected to the hub of the lumbar puncture needle and this 3-way stopcock is turned up so that the CSF pressure can be recorded along this. The normal CSF pressure in a normal person is 60 to 150 millimeters of water in the lateral filament position. That is the usual way of recording the spinal manumetry pressure. Always remember that in a normal person there will be slight fluctuations of the CSF pressure based on respiration and the spinal arterial pulsations. Once we have recorded the CSF pressure, the next step will be to, once we have recorded the CSF pressure and as you can see in this here the next step will be to remove the manometer and turn this 3-way stopcock and put a test tube under the lumbar puncture needle so that we can have a few drops of CSF in the test tube for various analysis purpose. So these are the steps of lumbar puncture procedure and after we have achieved all these steps, the final step will be to reinsert back the stillet into the lumbar puncture needle and then pull out the needle straight backwards and using the other hand with a gauze held on it, press on the skin to give a counter pressure otherwise the skin will tent up. Once we have achieved this, then we put a steroid dressing here using a tincture benzoin seal and we close the procedure. So ladies and gentlemen, these are the steps of the lumbar puncture procedure. On principle it is very simple, however in actual practice it requires a lot of practice and it can be potentially dangerous also so we have to take precautions about doing all these things. Special thanks is for being acknowledged to GOMART Scientific. Their trainer is being used in our institution for quite some time and it has given us wonderful service and we are sending special thanks to its Vice President John Eggard for giving us explicit written permission to use the pictures in this presentation. Have a nice day. Anybody if you have got any comments or questions you can put it in the comment section below.


Gosh guys seeing this taped up heart on stage just made me realize that my heart is beating really really fast right now But I'm not here to talk about my heart. I'm here to talk about the heart of this nation and all of your hearts. I Am here to talk about a revolution This is not the IT revolution which Bangalore is so famous for nor is it the economic growth revolution Which this country so famous for I'm gonna speak to you about a love revolution Which is lurking silently underneath both of these For the past year to research my new book I have been traversing this country from Shalong to Kochi from Bangalore to Bombay Speaking to hundreds of people who make up the great Indian middle class and What I have seen is a startling change in attitude and a generation gap the size of a crater The first thing to explode with a generation gap is the concept of the Indian arranged marriage this small switch from Arranged marriage to love marriage actually means a whole deal It means that a social revolution is taking place Which will change forever the way our families are structured our communities are formed and the way love and sex in This country are handled young Indian Indians today are very keenly interested in romance in love and self exploration and discovery The relationship landscape in this country has changed more in the past 10 years than it has in the past 10,000 I'm gonna take the case of my own family a typical Brahmin middle-class family from the state of Uttar Pradesh to illustrate this These are my grandparents They were married for 70 years till my dad the jail grandmother passed away two years ago This is literally the first time they met on their wedding day These are my parents They're celebrating their 33rd marriage anniversary today. They met twice before they got married This is my older sister who was married 10 years ago in an arranged come love marriage or an introduction marriage Which is a modern-day morph of the of the traditional Indian marriage system This is my younger sister who was just married in a pure arranged marriage a few months ago in a pure arranged marriage Yes, sorry love marriage a few months ago. So now I'm next and clearly the pressure is on being from, you know, typical Indian family And so I have to sort of think about all of these things very carefully What I realized is that India is clearly falling in love But there are certain hidden costs to this revolution as there always are the first cost is divorce Divorce in India today stands at 10% which is less than a lot of countries, but what is alarming is a steady increase States like Kerala have seen an increase of 400% in the past decade States like Punjab in Haryana have seen an increase of a hundred and fifty percent in the past decade Delhi is as expected the divorce capital of India and About a year ago of 10 in 1990. There was one divorce court today. There are 16 I'm not sure about Bangalore, but I'm sure it's not as bad as New Delhi where I'm from But so all of these things all the statistics led me to really think very carefully about arranged marriage And I started digging a little bit more. I also found that pre-marital sex has Increased to 75 percent 10 years ago. It was less than 30 percent This has led in quadrupling of teenage pregnancy rates and tripling of abortion rates We have no social welfare system in this country. Our family is our social welfare But as this the joint family explodes with their love revolution splitting into nuclear families What's going to happen to the elders of our society in a country where there are no old age homes? Single statistics show that single parent families have doubled in the past five years Clearly I realized that this is a fascinating subject and I began running more tests I studied about 5,000 cases of divorce and what I found was fascinating 70% of these were these divorces were initiated in love marriage My grandfather always a stickler for tradition used to say that if two people fall in love and get married Then what stops them from falling out of love and breaking the marriage and breaking the marriage means breaking up the family Arrange marriage on the other hand was a concept that I'd always thought was really old-fashioned Archaic and to be honestly, you know, very really quite regressive but After seeing the statistics I began reconsidering Arrange marriage is a union between not just two people but between two families It is based on a sense of communal trust commitment and duty I'm gonna end with a short analogy to you know help you think about it a little bit better I'm gonna relate all of this to the stock market. So love love marriage is sort of like a stock You know, it's a little bit volatile. It can go up. It can go down. It can just go bust and on the other hand arranged marriage is a little bit like a bond it You know you sort of form a bond between two families between two people It's perhaps it's less volatile surely and perhaps has less reward than a stock But it's really something to think about I Consider myself to be a modern cosmopolitan woman and as sort of the pressure goes as I told you in the rest of my family Is married including my younger sister and you know what that means for an Indian family But as the pressure and me sort of goes on I ask myself, what do I really want? I say that I want a little bit of tradition I want to preserve the gems of wisdom that have come down and I also want a little bit of love So what arranged marriage has made me realize that maybe just maybe you don't need to kiss too many frogs to find your prince Thank you