and happy you all are here. I'm sorry we're facing our backs are faced any so not much I can do about it but we know you're here so thanks to those of you on the line so I'll look to uh to Mike all today actually the roll call thank you Mr.
Chairman I'll call order and my course I'm present Dennis Bland >> Kathy Po >> uh Dr. Pastor Noble will be joining us later virtually. Judge Fisher >> here. >> Samantha Fleer
>> here. >> Larry Garoni >> here. >> I see you out there. Um Molly Hitchell. >> Uh Ken Kramer, are you on yet? >> Not yet. He'll join virtually later as well. >> I think he's going to be joining us
later virtually as well. And then Dan Peterson, >> I am here. So based upon that, we do indeed have a quorum. >> Wonderful. Thank you. Uh if everyone now would rise, please do the pledge of pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge to the to the flag of the
United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation undery and justice for all. Thank you all very much. On this 250th anniversary of
Uh let's see. Now we will uh we need to approve the agenda. So I entertain a motion for approval of the agenda. >> Thank you. And a second. Thank you. >> Uh all in favor please. >> I was saying right. Uh and then we also
need to approve our minutes from the last meeting. So from the April 2026 meeting for approval there. >> Thank you. Second. Thank you. >> Um any comments, corrections, questions?
Okay, hearing none. All in favor, please say I. >> I. >> I. >> Oppos? Same. >> All right. Wonderful. Uh we'll head into the meeting here, but I did want to again welcome everyone on this beautiful day in May. And of course, May is the
greatest spectacle in racing here in Indiana. And very exciting to be part of this month. I know people are probably heading out to the track at various times, but it's also uh such a wonderful time for higher education as our institutions celebrate another completion of the year and most
importantly the graduation of uh of some great graduates that are entering the world uh postgraduation. So we want to celebrate the universities and our partners here uh but we also want to celebrate the graduates. So number one, congratulations to all the 2026
graduates on on our behalf and in particular our own very own Samantha Flasher who graduated magna from you've been such a great student trustee and we've been so happy to have you part of this brief and know this is your last
meeting but we hope you'll stay in come back and and uh come to these issues. So you want to thank um USI is also happens to be the host for us today. So want to look forward to their presentation later and thank USI for being our host. I did want
to uh raise the attention and everybody u want to welcome President C. Bridges UCR. So we appreciate you being here with your team and thank you again for for all you're doing. I mean, you're a few months into your new role and and uh from our discussion sounds like you're really enjoying it. So,
>> well, every day like 1649 lives were changed last week. >> That's fantastic. I look forward to you hearing our presentation. >> We look forward to comments and the teams here at least a little bit. So, thanks for being here. Uh with that, we'll turn it over to Commissioner Jenn
for remarks. >> All right. Excellent. Are we able to pull presentation up? So, right out of the gate, we want to thank >> and I think I think it jumped forward
with Alison. I probably did that. >> Hold on. I'm so sorry. That's all right. debate. We want to thank and celebrate a few people. Uh and then we'll have Brooke Kyle do a presentation for us. Uh
an an update. Um so once we get our slide deck and we can we can actually show you who we're celebrating. >> There we go. There we go. So, so the first one, uh, Dan already
mentioned, but Samantha, uh, I've known you for a short bit, and you have just been fantastic, uh, in the, uh, comments that you make during the meeting, but I think your thoughtfulness even behind the scenes that everyone in this room, you know, might not see when we're on
phone calls or when you reach out, uh, sharing your student wisdom, uh, you have absolutely added to decisions. that this commission has made and the impact for many students across Indiana. So, huge thank you and I want to pass it
to uh Mike Ally who is going to specifically read something. >> Thank you very much. Um it's our pleasure to recognize you Samantha for your great effort and the state of Indiana commission for higher education is offering a resolution
honoring you Samantha Flasher. Whereas Samantha served with distinction on the Indiana Commission for Higher Education since her appointment in 2024 to represent the student commission member. And whereas she successfully completed her bachelor of liberal arts, political
science, and philosophy with a pre-law minor at the University of Southern Indiana during her tenure on the commission. And whereas Samantha honorably represented the University of Southern Indiana by being the first student trust student commissioner from the institution since 2002. And whereas
she has brought valuable insights, fiscal stewardship into the work of the budget and productivity committee since joining in 2024, which I'm particularly grateful for. And whereas she has offered unwavering commitment to serving as a voice for the needs of Booer students with an emphasis on increasing
student outcomes, alignment to Indiana's workforce, and making college affordable to all students. And now for therefore be it resolved that the Indiana Commission for Higher Education expresses its deep appreciation to Samantha Flicker for her two years of
service to the state of Indiana on behalf of higher education and her continued advocacy for student success. Congratulations Samantha. just wanted to say thank you so much for your mind because I just wanted to say
thank you so much for the commissioning to former commissioner Lowry and Commissioner Jenner and for the for the staff for always taking the time to respond to my emails to pick up my calls to help me when I'm traffic but thank you I wanted to say thank you to my
university I've loved being uh sprinkled I love being a huge. Um, as you may see on the slide, I'm planning to continue working for the city of Evansville as an outreach and education coordinator. And I could not do this without the support and mentorship by the financially. So, I just wanted to say thank you so much and
I really appreciated my time. >> Guess I would ask motion to approve that. >> Thank you. Second. >> Here we go. All in favor, please say I. I will not even ask if there's any opposition. Yes, sir.
>> Next person that we want to honor uh and uh Josh, if you could come up here so we can really I texted Josh and I said, "So, I'm sure you missed us already. Here, come on. Right up here. Right up here.
I know. I know. Josh, uh Josh has been I'd say a behind the scenes puppet master. Call whatever you want. Um
since May of 2014 when he started at the commission, you can see the number of roles that he has served uh for the commission. Um, most recently, uh, I've gotten to know Josh as our chief of
staff over eight state agencies. And so when I say that he's a puppet master, I genuinely mean that. It was remarkable watching him navigate some of the
situations that uh that he did on behalf of the state of Indiana. and you will be so very missed. You know that. Although I texted Josh last night about a question. Uh and he is uh uh working
with the Fairbanks Foundation is who is an enormous partner of ours. And so even this afternoon uh we'll be together at the Fairbanks Foundation for you. Just can't get away from us. Uh, but I'd now invite uh anyone else who'd like to
share a few words about Josh. He's he's been here for so long. If you want it to be kind words, if you want it to be a roast word, whatever. Uh, I open it up. >> I'll start. Uh, have known Josh from the
beginning. >> Yeah. So, it's been a fun ride working with you in all those different categories. you've done every one of them in an exemplary, professional, thoughtful, uh, careful
and effective manner. So, it's just been such a pleasure to work with you in all those different capacities. You've left you've left the state, you've left higher ed in a much much better place. uh and even though you were not always out front on all of these things which we know is not where you want to be
necessarily but know that um much of the impact comes back to you. So thank you professor I just reiterate same comments you you've made Dan that been done been an outstanding job of really leading us through a lot of uh really dramatic
change over your tenure here since 2014 all for the better and it's been exciting to to watch that and your leadership and keeping the commission informed of what's taking place engaging us when we needed to be involved and getting us to become active and talking to whoever we needed to talk to was
greatly appreciated. But I think my fondest memory is the year that the St. Louis hockey team won the uh the the cup and I think that's when you were at your at your high commission meeting. >> But thank you Josh. Appreciate all your
work. I just want to say thank you also on my short time knowing you get showing. I've seen your intellect and your passion and your generous way of guiding and helping to educate those of us who are new to
the Christian and I really appreciate it and I know where you're going and knowledge is going to be taken with you but you'll be missed here but I know you'll be making a big impact there. Thanks Josh. Um known you for a long time. You've always been uh extremely
helpful to me and trying to understand some of the more complex things here at the commission and higher ed in general. Uh but you've always been uh just such a nice person and easy to get a hold of and uh always right back to me when I've needed things over the years. So
appreciate that and appreciate your time here and all you've done for the state of Indiana. um and hope to see you in the uh new world you're in at some point. >> So, so Josh, I know that many of um the staff members, many of our the
government reps uh have probably better roasting stories than all of them. Uh we won't do that to you right now, but uh just you you don't know how much you've meant to all of us. and uh um we'll
we'll continue together working forward just in different roles, but just so appreciate you. So, thank you. >> We'll think of some way to get you back in July. Mark that on your calendar, Josh. Uh all
right, the next one. Oh, I think you know what, Alison? I'm clicking it and you're clicking it. I'll stop clicking it. >> Well, no, you can keep doing it now. We know it's working. >> Okay. >> Well, thank you. Thank you for your assistance. So, the next congratulations
uh that we would like to share is our very own commission member Dennis Bland was awarded I should say Dr. Dennis Bland uh was awarded an honorary doctorate of education from Vincen's
University for his commitment to youth advocacy and leadership development, dedicating his life to elevating opportunity, inspiring high achievement among urban youth and mentoring them to become future professional business and
community leaders. uh extraordinary legacy that uh I think all of us in the room Dennis admire uh when you're here and also admire from afar uh with 86% of the center for
leadership development alumni either attending college or currently enrolled that is remarkable return on investment remarkable impact uh so uh Vennice uh we're going to do something similar if
any other commission members would like to say any words about Dennis. Look at my mic is like smiling and dawning. He's ready. Uh and then Dennis will ask you if you would like to say a few words. >> Well, Dennis is is a remarkable person
and I tell you, I've never seen anybody that can uh then capture the essence of a particular point and bring it to bear. uh you know it's like the old EF when when they talk you listen and there's
nobody that brings moral wisdom and uh and really unique perspective that that many people would not never have seen often times I've never seen but but you bring it to life and it's always right on the mark so uh Dennis I've got such high regards and respect for you and what you've achieved and and and the
impact that you've had is is truly remarkable. So congratulations. Welld deserved. >> Well, I'm a Dennis Bland groupy. He is uh he's my idol uh on so many in so many ways. So, it's been the joy of
my life to get to know him over these number of years being on a mission and uh and like Mike said, I mean, it's it's remarkable. Um it's you don't make off-handed remarks, you make thoughtful, substantive, targeted remarks that
They're just always additive in such a good way. I will tell you that don't be embarrassed by this, but um I haven't talked to Chuck Johnson about a week ago and he said that Dennis, aside from getting an honorary doctorate, he was the commencement speaker and
Chuck said by far it was the best commencement speech he ever heard in his life, which doesn't. So, thank you for all you do. Dennis, uh, just to add on, you've probably been one of the most influential people to me on this uh, commission since I've been
here. Just your insight, the way you get very directly to the issues that we're talking about, your questions that you ask have helped me immensely, uh, personally and I'm sure everyone else here. So, I appreciate that. Um, congratulations on this. U, please make
sure that you still have the Japa University uh, degree of above themselves which is selfish of me to say that >> this is Larry uh Dennis I'd like to
congratulate you on on your award and also commend you on your leadership for the center for leadership development. you've dedicated your life to helping people and you've been especially patient in explaining to me some of the some of the as some of the things that you've gotten into and my deepen my
understanding of the issues that you faced through the years. So, thank you very much. You certainly deserve this. >> Molly, did you want to add? It seems redundant. Um, and I thought the same thing as Samantha. trying to be
uh poignant in what I say talking to either the two of you who are been so incredible in your eloquence on this committee uh is a little intimidating, but I would love to see a transcript of >> of that speech because I also heard that
it was incredibly impactful and not a dry eye in the room kind of moment that I would love to hear it or read it. I bet there's a video around around
YouTube. >> Yes, you have four. >> Dr. Bland, you got this is totally surprising. I need to kind of words and I guess in a moment like this I will just
bear my soul as I share at a commencement address and receive that honor and honor my parents who were sharing my so it was astounding to me to learn as a
42 43 year old that my father when he came to Indianapolis. He was the first one in his legacy of family that ever owned his own property. He lived on the plantation
and that by the time I was in third grade, fourth grade, I had more education than my mother and father combined. So even being asked to serve in the commission is an honor for my family. Education doesn't mean something
different. And so I tried to honor my father. I tried to honor my mother when my boss when I was five. My father was raising eight children. I was never
he essentially had a three a threepoint message to my kindergarten teacher when I started school about 6 months after my mother passed and the message was essentially number one he'll be at school every day
ready to learn number two they'll never present to you a problem is fair and number three it never presents but they'll never be around present second. So, and so thank you all. Your recognition
is an honor. Your work for me is a great honor of my father and family. So, thank you so very much. in the place. So, thank you Dennis for sharing a few words. So, at this time, I would love to share
an update with the commission, the state. Uh Bro is going to provide this update for us, the 2024 college going rate. Absolutely. and the 2025 completion rate update. So Brooke, >> wonderful. Uh thank you Commissioner
Jenner and thank you members of the commission. Um so this will be a pretty brief presentation but also very exciting. Um we are thrilled to share with the commission that for the first time since 2014 the Indiana college going rate increased um and it went from
51.7 for the 2023 cohort to 52.2 to for the 2024 cohort. Um, this has been a key performance indicator uh for the commission for a long time and we're moving towards uh considering this more of a leading indicator for our ultimate
goal of completion which I'll talk about in a second. Um, but the staff is thrilled um about this improvement. and we've been waiting for Indiana to turn to turn the corner and we're all just really really excited to see this and are looking forward to how this helps shape um our further goals for
completion and attainment. Um and so I wanted to remind you as well on the uh slide up here, we shared this in January um another huge success for Indiana. Indiana celebrated for the first time its on-time completion rate
surpassed 50%. Um and so uh we are laser focused on keeping this momentum going. Making sure that our students have pathways to complete their credentials um but also on time is really what we're focusing on.
Um and then we're also really excited to share today for our external stakeholders. Um we have three new uh dashboards and data sets available um helping to um ensure that we are transparent with student outcomes as well as transparent um for all of our
institutions to see where they are in benchmark. So we have the collegegoing dashboard and data set that's been updated for the 2024 cohort. Our completion dashboard is actually brand new. We're launching it um uh today and that's also available on the website and
that will um include our 2025 completers and so there is a QR code and a scan if you would like to do that for any reason and I will take questions if there are any. Yes. >> Is there any anecdotal or otherwise evidence of why the college rate has
gone up um started up? >> Great question. Um we've looked at this and have also kind of conversed with some other um partners and uh they aptly said what you're doing is working. Um our FAFSA initiative is working. Our pre-missions, our resident admissions is
working. Um but we also know that it's not enough just to get the students enrolled. We need to make sure that they complete. So again, we're really happy with this metric. Um but definitely recognize it's leading. And I would also add to that, Brooke. Um, our higher ed
institutions have working incredibly hard uh to ensure people are aware of the value proposition that they provide. um we we know that uh there's a national spin to this and we can only control
what we can uh which is our own message and so I'm uh huge shout out to them uh as well as again trying to connect K12 higher ed better paths uh for our students. Any other uh questions or or
thoughts for Brooke? >> The the >> Yeah, I was going to say we whisper back and >> so I mean they're both wonderful trends and I think that completion rate significant numbers going over 50%.
is just like super and a leading indicator as you say and I think we're going to continue to see more progress on that. So I hope that gets picked up far and wide uh across the state of Indiana and beyond. That's a big that's a big challenge. It's a big
deal. So thank you. Congratulations. >> Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. >> All right. And that concludes my report. So back to you. >> Wonderful. Lots of good stuff. and thank you and sorry >> lots of good things. Thank you again and
congratulations to Dian and to Dennis. Um so let's see here. So now we'll move on to new business items here. Um we will uh first go to our budget and productivity committee for approval of capital projects. Um and before we do
the vote, I'll turn it over to chairman Mike. >> Thank you very much. Uh chairman Dan. uh we uh met on April 30th and we've reviewed two capital projects. We also began the process of uh looking at budget instructions for 2027 through 29
which is amazing that we're beginning that process but indeed we are uh so we're really will be doing more in terms of communicating out to institutions and and moving forward with that and Cody is uh uh very well handling that and moving that thing uh forward. Again, we have
two capital projects. Uh the first is Ball State University. And Beck, you want to share your thoughts with this project. >> Good morning. Um I'm Becca P or Becca Rice. I even forget my name. Uh, and I have
the pleasure of serving as the vice president for governmental relations and industry engagement for Ball State University. We are pleased to come before you with this project. Um, it gives me yet another opportunity to tell you about that exciting two nearly $200 million investment in our university
adjacent commercial district. It's something that not only Ball State, but our entire community and region is really excited about. the village green and the Martin Street improvements which we're talking about today are really a focal point and a gathering point in the village. Um it's a little different than
some of these capital projects because there won't actually be a lot of those built you know the the built environment is different. It's the landscaping the streetscape and all of those important things um that even the existing businesses are really excited about because we want to create that vibrancy
in uh the the commercial district. Uh if you look to the the west, you'll see uh down the road is the performing arts center and the the hotel. Um there'll be the the apartments, the market rate apartments in a Barnes & Noble. To the south, you'll see 25 owner occupied
houses. Um and then when you look to the north, uh really exciting. This summer we'll open our center for innovation and collaboration. um which really is how our university is thinking about being a catalyst to um community, the region um and uh industry
around the the the area and then of course the gateway to our beautiful campus. So we want people engaging deeply with our institution whether they're students, employees or or the others. So so these uh improvements are going to be transformational. Uh it's
$5.4 million. The majority of that $4.1 million will be gift funds. Um, and the remainder will be operating reserves. With that, I'd be happy to answer any questions. >> Thank you, Ben. Cody, would you like to share the staff's perspective?
>> Yes. So, staff is recommending this project for approval. A couple things that I think stood out to us. One, really excited for the opportunity to take a moment and celebrate the role that our institutions play in local and regional economic development. I don't think we always get to talk about that
as much as we know the role that they play and this is one of those projects that really uh emphasizes that. Also exciting to see a project where a majority of that funding that's being leveraged is those private funds. So we're of course excited to see the institutions uh working in partnership
with various entities to make that happen. So yes, staff does recommend for approval. >> Great. Thank you Cody. and the uh budget productivity committee members also recommend. So based upon their recommendation, I'd make a motion for approval. Second,
>> thank you. Um any comments, questions or Becca, Cody, or anyone else? Great project hearing none. Uh all in favor, please say I say. >> Okay, great. And then a second project
is an expedited approval uh project for Purdue University. And uh Kendra, do you like to say something about that? Why don't you talk a little bit more about it? >> Morning everyone. Kinder Leman, director for Purdue University. Uh the Purdue
project on your um review for approval today is 420/422 Michigan Avenue and 510 Indiana Avenue. We're going to purchase these from Oz Business Property Group. Uh the property was built in the mid 1800s and includes
two parcels on.24 acres in downtown Indianapolis. Uh the structures been renovated a few times and they're in the same block as our current university owned student center and 401 West Michigan Street property in downtown. As many of you know, um Purdue and
Indianapolis is our number one institutional priority for this year. And as you can see from the map attached to the documents, these parcels are of strategic importance to um Purdue in Indianapolis. The total cost of the project is $4 million. is going to be
fully funded by operating reserves. >> Yeah. So, staff also recommends approval for this project. I think what I'll call out here is when um I personally have had the chance to talk with Purdue students here in Indianapolis. They're really excited about having a a home here and sort of seeing that develop. Uh
and so we know that this is aligned to Purdue's plan for here in Indianapolis. So, like I said, we recommend approval for this project. Thank you, Cody. And likewise, the budget productivity committee members were supportive. So, uh, based upon their recommendation, I'd make a motion for approval. Some move.
>> Thank you. Any comments, questions, concerns? Another great project. So, um, all in favor, please say I. >> I. All right. Process or just you don't have to, but
>> more to come. >> More to come. Mr. Chairman, that concludes the budget activity committee report. >> Great. Thank you, Mike. Uh, next up, we want to turn to our um academic degree programs and I will look to Dennis Bland who's our chair of our academic affairs
and quality committee to provide the report out. Thank you, Chairman Peterson. the academic affair quality committee met on February 27 and we had an opportunity under the leadership of
Butler and team to then consider four programs and so then we're now submitting them for expedited matching seeking approval and the program Indiana State University
certificate in band instrument repair is a really really insightful watch you get a chance to read with hear presentations then Purdue University global BS and applied engineering technologies 100% online Indiana University Indianapolis
athletes a MS and leadership and organizational systems 100% online and then Purdue University global professional sales and marketing particularly 100% online so we're at number
Um, I'll look to Dr. Butler for any comments you'd like to add. >> Thank you. We chairman I do want to note a typo that would be completely my fault is that the Indiana University Indianapolis MS is both
online and hybrid and asynchronous really unique aspect to it. So I apologize for that typo. Um starting from the top where chairman's plan started the certificate advance in terms of repair it would be extremely distinct. Um there are only three uh
postary institutions across the country that offer band instrument certificates or degrees. There are community colleges in Iowa, Minnesota, Washington State and this also be the first one to pair with the school of music where they believe it'll have a huge impact is their
teacher education their music teacher undergrads. it's completely embedded in their um their undergraduate degree and then with their alumni network and just band directors, music teachers, orchestra directors across the state, uh they can complete this over two summers
and one of the major constraints with music arts programs across our state. It's costly to repair maintenance of instruments and they see this as a huge uh money saver for area schools both public and private. uh the BS of applied engineering
technology for being mostly global. We'll have four concentrations and it's the evolution of a lot of their programming. Uh today there'll be uh a civil engineering and industrial engineering and two electrical engineering. One of which I'll note is in semiconductor manufacturers and that
ends with a sort of capstone visit at the Burton Technology Center for West Lafayette where they have the clean rooms and the microchip uh uh production facilities that are state-of-the-art. The IU Indianapolis Masters that I just spoke of is filling the gap uh that IUD
has had since the strategic separation of IUPY. Uh so this will buttress their NBA and their MBA by having an organizational leadership uh degree. It also is very modular and allows students to use graduate certificates to fill in
uh their electives. And they created two specifically for this, one in human resources and the other in professional project management. and they prepare the student for uh preparation and eligibility sit for the professional exams. And then the final one uh Purdue University global is a certificate in
professional sales of marketing. This was done in partnership and at the request of the US Army's recruiting and retention college. Uh once their uh their recruiters have gone through their initial training, they then need to do professional development and earn
promotion points. And they can do this through this certificate. It's completely stacked into three degrees of at Purdue such as business administration, Purdue Global's communication and that and then it will also be a standalone certificate for the public and uh students who are
undergrads now can earn this as an embedded milestone certificate. They're saying how this goes but they're thinking there will be opportunities for other embedded statical searchs that will cater to the military and say logistics and other areas. So um those
two certificates really stood out as being very unique and serving a demonstrable industry societal needs. So very good good color really helpful. Those were all yeah very interesting and
I think very creative innovative way. So that's that's great. These are both for expedited action. So we'll take them together uh as a an approval. >> Thank you. >> Second. >> Second. Thank you. Any comments or questions for
Dennis or Dr. Butler? Okay. Hearing none. All in favor, please say I. >> I. Great. Congratulations everyone. Thank you. That completes the portion where we have to vote on things. So now we will do some report outs. So I'm looking at
Cody first. So Cody Robinson, chief deputy chief financial officer is going to give us an update on OBPF or the outcome space performance funding program. >> No worries. While we're setting that up, Matt, the
the this program for the instrument repair, I just had a flashback memory of all the times I was in high school. I handed my trumpet over to our band director, John Sutton, just looking terrified. I'm like, I don't know what to do about I think I broke it. So, very
important work. Absolutely. So, good morning everyone. Uh, today we're going to be talking about the outcomesbased performance funding formula. I'm going to refer to that oftentimes as OBPF. It's a little bit uh less syllables to come out of the mouth
there. Um today, this is not a voting item. Instead, what we'll be doing is sort of laying the foundation for further conversations that we'll be having about OBPF in the coming months. And so today, what our plan is to do is really, I think, establish our why. Why
does the commission care about having uh a mechanism like this? We're going to touch on some of the recent history and context including some of the um feedback that we've been receiving about the current formula. And then we're going to propose at a very high level some of the direction or some of the
ways that we think we could address that feedback. And that's going to open up for us a public comment period where we'll be inviting feedback from all of our stakeholders. And we'll touch on that here at the very end. So first and foremost thinking about our
why and we'll start by grounding ourselves in Indiana code and uh the co statutory requirements for the OBPF can be found here at 211816 and there are four key requirements that are described here. The first is that uh
OBPF should be connected to our long range plan and the overall priorities of the of the commission. uh each even numbered year the commission will approve uh the OBPF formula which we will then take subsequently to the state budget committee and present to them as
well. Uh for IvyTech, they have specific requirements that their formula consider things such as employer needs, positive wage outcomes, and stackable credentials. Really recognizing that like workforce engine role that they play in our state. And lastly, the data
that's used for OBPF required to be externally audited every two years or so. I also wanted to take this moment to kind of give us a little bit of a picture of what how this fits within the national context. Um, and first and foremost, I would say that when we're
whenever we're talking about performance funding, there's really two conversations that happen in higher ed that are coming into one room. The first is what we think about in terms of funding mechanisms or how uh states fund or support financially their public institutions. So, that's kind of one
half of the conversation. And the other is this concept of accountability. performance funding formulas are often considered a key u uh mechanism of accountability that states have with their higher education institutions. And so as we think about this conversation, we keep in mind that both of these
things are kind of coming together um and interacting and we're holding both of them uh as we as we have this discussion. I would also note that right now the way the performance funding is done on a national level there's a lot of variety
and uh I would say it's very much still an open conversation and has been for the last four to five decades. Uh what you'll find if you look across the states not everybody does this the same and not everybody uh even has performance uh mechanisms within their
funding. So only about half the states do. Uh and out of those that do there's a lot of different ways this looks. They there's different data that's uh used to uh calculate there's uh different ways whether or not this is you know primary funding or secondary funding. Uh most
states that do use performance funding uh typically allocate about 10% of their total uh 10% or less of their total uh appropriations to a performance mechanism. There's a group of states
that do go beyond that that uh allocate around 50 to 70% of their total funding to this mechanism. Indiana has historically fallen in that first group that is looking more around 10% or less. We'll talk about that here in a second
as well. Lastly, I want to tie this back to our priorities and speak to why the commission itself cares about something like this. uh and and namely I would summarize that by saying that uh having something like an outcomesbased
performance funding formula and mechanism allows us to communicate our priorities across the state and with our institutions and then also allows us then to recognize and celebrate when our institutions are aligned and succeeding
in those areas. So for example, as we look at our 4A, which we've been talking about a lot recently, we can think about how we can use a performance funding mechanism to incentivize uh our priorities and then reward institutions who are winning in those
areas, right? So things like um rewarding practices that you know return create return on investment for students, encouraging the removal of barriers both to entry and completion of credentials at our institutions.
Holding ourselves and the institutions accountable for making sure that we're delivering highquality education and those work-based experiences that set students up for success. and making sure that you know we are celebrating the role that higher education plays in getting the and helping students find
those in demand roles. So these are all things that we kind of see as like the north star as we have this conversation about what is the funding formula and why should we care about it. So let me transition a little bit to a bit some of the history and the context
about OBVF. And I think this will be important as we then sort of shift into thinking about some of the feedback that we've been receiving related to this and where we want to go from here. So uh the historically speaking over the last uh
two bion we've been using a new formula what I'll refer to as the current formula. uh prior to that the formula held about uh five to nine% of the total appropriations value to our institutions. So out of a you know a
chunk it held u less than 10% of the total money going to our institutions from the state. Uh and in the new formula 2023 we designed a new formula that was designed a little differently. So in the 2023 bianium which would have
covered fiscal years 24 and 25. So looking back, uh this is kind of how the funding broke out for our institutions across all the different ways that we uh the state funds them. And as you can see, the biggest the big block there is that base operating block that you'll
find in the budget bill. And at the very top, you can see performance funding was about 1%. So in the current formula, I'll talk about this here a little bit more in a second. Um but we uh shrink down that portion of that funding that was coming from performance. Uh and
namely the rationale for that was that performance funding became base building. So institutions through the performance funding formula had an opportunity to uh take what they earned in one year and actually add that to their base appropriation. So there's this compounding nature to how the
formula works. Now in the current formula or sorry the current uh bianium the formula is the same but uh due to kind of the economic situation we found ourselves in uh in 2025 the formula was not funded and so
in a lot of ways as we go into this next benium and this next budget bill uh we're sort of starting from zero you could say um we have had we are having active conversations with general assembly leadership about this. Um of course the
commission will make the recommendation but as a reminder the general assembly will make the approval in the final call. Uh so again as Cody walks through this I think it's essential that everyone uh really thinks through how
this could look in the future uh because there is strong interest from leadership to uh making some adjustments and again hopefully getting that funded and again the feedback opportunity will be key and they we will be giving that feedback
also uh to them uh for review. Thanks Cody. >> Absolutely. So a little bit more about the current formula. Uh so this is this formula has been in place s uh since 2023. So it's still relatively new. The way it works uh to put it simply is that
the general assembly will appropriate a certain dollar amount for each institution and each campus. And then uh those campuses can work to earn a portion of that funding based off of how well they uh work towards growth metrics
that are set by the commission across a number of different metrics. Those growth uh goals are set using historical trend data. Um so that's set uniformly across the institutions. Um and each institution has about six to eight
different metrics that they are uh rated on. totaling up to about 13 metrics in total. So you can see those here on the left. We have two related to uh special group uh enrollment, low-inccome youth enrollment and adult enrollment. We also have on time completion which we just
spoke about uh in Brook's uh presentation earlier. We also look at overall completion and for IvyTech we break that out into four different uh degree and certificate levels and certification levels. We also look at um specific group completion. So looking at
low-income students, adult students, and those students earning STEM degrees. We've also looked at graduate retention. That's the rate at which students then stay within our state after graduating. And for our research universities, uh, West Lafayette, Bloomington, and now IU
Indianapolis, uh, we look at the research investment that they're making, um, at their campuses as well. So one of the things that I wanted to touch on especially as we think about the current formula is there was a lot of work that went into developing the
formula as it currently stands today. Uh there was a a lot of work done from the legislature, a lot of work that the commission did. One of the unifying themes that came out of that was this idea um or this suggestion that the commission find a formula that can
recognize the different missions and the different roles each of our campuses play uh in the state of Indiana. And so there's a couple ways we uh did that. One is by this concept of different institutions are rated on different metrics. So obviously not all
institutions um are graded by their research investment. that's not the roles that some of our institutions or all of our institutions play here in the state. Uh and another way we did that but was through a waiting system. So institutions uh and the commission
worked together to determine how much each metric was weighted. And by that what I mean is how much each metric would allow them to earn from their overall pot. So for example, uh one institution could earn potentially 15% of their money from meeting their STEM
completion goal while another institution might earn only 5% of their overall pot. And so because of that, in some ways you could almost say that not nearly not everyone but nearly everyone had a very unique formula that then they
uh would work towards and earn each year. Now like I said we did not fund uh or OBPF was not funded by the general assembly uh for this bienium but we are still tracking that data and uh there'll be more information about that in future
um in future meetings where we'll share more about the outcomes of that. So with the formula not funded uh I think this gave us a great opportunity to take a step back and to take some of the feedback we've been receiving um and to really reflect on it and think when
we go to propose this formula in the 2729 bianium um how can we take and continue to elevate it and continue to advance it and incorporate some of this feedback and as we began that process I think three really clear themes began to emerge from a lot of the conversations
that we've been having with members of the general assembly, with leaders from business and industry, and with our higher education partners as well. And the first one is that the formula as it currently stands was not moving the needle. Uh, and that's important to us
because when we uh, you know, if we're going to take a priority, if we're going to take time to really push an initiative, we want to make sure that it's having impact for students. So, it's important to us that the formula is effective in that way. The second thing that u I think came out
of this was that the formula was not focused enough on outcomes. While a number of the metrics are completionbased, uh there are some of those metrics that were enrollment based and depending on the institution or the campus, those may have held a higher weight than I think a lot of uh
stakeholders were interested in seeing. And so one of uh that kind of came out. we saw this overall theme of wanting to go back to a full focus uh to laser focus on outcomes for the outcomes based performance funding formula.
And the last thing I'll say here is um the the other theme that kind of came out was that the formula had grown to be quite complex and difficult to understand. And that's important to us because like I said earlier, this is an opportunity for us to communicate our priorities and celebrate the work that
our institutions are doing. And that is difficult to achieve if the way we're doing that is difficult to understand or has a lot of complexity when we try to communicate about it. So we miss out on that opportunity. U and this is part of how we tell the story of higher ed in
Indiana. And so we need something that could help us do that. So given that feedback, uh we today are going to present some high-level directions that we're considering for OBPF and we're interested in um inviting
all of our stakeholders to provide us uh feedback on that and and their thoughts on these directions. So the first uh direction or uh uh I think desire for us that we want to talk about is a return to the focus on earn
credentials. Uh and this would mean that funding being tied to those credentials that students are earning uh at our institutions. We think that doing so uh can help address some of that feedback around being focused on outcomes and can also
help us uh address some of that complexity uh that we've been receiving feed about feedback about by taking uh a number of different metrics and bringing those down to a much smaller number of metrics that would be easier to communicate about.
That being said, there's some things that we absolutely still want to continue uh to figure out how we implement into the formula. The first one being that we want to make sure that the formula is still uh effective at communicating and uh emphasizing our priorities and incentivizing our
institutions to partner with us on those. And so we're interested in hearing feedback on how we might be able to do that uh with a more simplified formula. And lastly, I think one of the things that was important to us and also I think part of the a lot of the feedback we received that wasn't
necessarily critical was that the in the current formula uh the way this kind of works is the focus is on those campus levels. Uh so the formula is designed it's calculated and it's appropriated for each campus individually. uh and by
doing so that allows and sets up the foundation for us to uh incorporate those elements of mission differentiation that were so important as we did all this work and study on the formula. And so that's something that we want to continue going forward is making sure that it's set up to look at each
campus uh uniquely and individually so we can recognize those different roles that they each play uh in our state. So for my commission members, what will this look like? Again, today we're not voting on anything. We don't have a formula to present to you today. Rather,
instead we're just sort of presenting these highlevel ideas um to elicit that public feedback. Later on at a future meeting, we'll come back with data related to the outcomes for the current formula and our proposals for uh a new
uh the upgraded or the 2729 formula for the upcoming by India. At that meeting, we'll take a vote to approve that formula. And then later on, Magaline in the winter when we come back to present the commission's recommended budget,
you'll see OBF again, and that's when we'll talk about dollar amounts and uh the the the appropriation that we're recommending behind the formula itself. few things that have always been a big part of this conversation and maybe one
or two things that are a little newer uh that we also want to present and sort of I think prompt some feedback on from our stakeholders. So first and foremost um while uh we as we think about being outcomes based I think a really obvious example there is that focus on credentials but we want to invite folks
to share what they think about other outcomes that we could be measuring with the formula. So we invite folks to kind of think about that and provide us their thoughts on that topic as well. We also want to think about the idea of uh data lag or timely data. So right now the
formula um uses data with a two-year lag to calculate the funding results. So for example, the current fiscal year we're in this year 26. The funding for this year would have been determined by data from fiscal year 24. So there's a bit of a lag there.
That lag allows our institutional partners to have a little bit more certainty a little earlier related to their funding levels before a fiscal year begins. So there's a bit of a balancing act here. Um but we're interested in folks thoughts on that balancing act and on the importance of
data or the importance of that fiscal certainty. We also want to continue to hear folks thoughts on this idea of mission differentiation and campus uh uh role and how we can continue to think about how we incorporate that into the formula
and make sure that's represented um through the formula. And lastly, I think one of the things we talk about a lot, one of the things that's uh been maybe uh happening more and more and I think India is a leader in is going to continue to be a leader in is this idea
of there's so much college happening inside high school walls today. Is there an opportunity within the OBPF formula to recognize that and recognize the really critical role our institutions in play in delivering that making that
possible before students even step foot on the campus? Uh lastly, I'm just going to kind of close by bringing us back to our priorities. I like to open with those. I think it helps set the focus, but I think bringing it back in can also help
ground us too. As we think about where we want this to go, I come back to our four priorities, our four A's, and I consider how the formula helps us uh and communicates and incentivizes the work that gets us towards those priorities.
Affordability, access for students, uh attainment for our students in alignment to the needs of the state. And so as as we invite feedback, I would also encourage um all of our stakeholders to also consider uh where the formula is going and how it helps us achieve these
things. And so with that, um starting today, there will be u a publicly available jet form that any of our stakeholders uh can access and can provide us their thoughts about uh the formula. There's a number
of prompts in the in the job form to kind of help you get thinking about certain topics and your thoughts on those. Um, that will be live for a 50-day period. It will close on Friday, July 3rd, right in time for the holiday. Um, and uh, our goal will be to take
that and incorporate that into the design of the formula that we'll then bring back to this body later on. Uh, and so with that, I thank you and I invite any questions. Great presentation, Cody. Well done. Questions or comments? Oh, sorry.
>> Thank you, Cody. Great presentation, an overview of of kind of a little historical perspective as well as we're headed in the future. Um, I'm a strong advocate for outcomes based performance funding. And, uh, I was extraordinarily disappointed when we did not fund it at all last year, last bianium, and did
such a small number in the previous one. And I think you know you looked at some of the concerns and criticisms that were cited and I would say that's predominantly a result of poor execution uh and and in our
inability to connect uh to to to get our legislative branch to understand the importance that we value with outcomebased performance. You know to me you say it was not a meaningful number didn't move the dial. Well when you're doing zero and 1% that's not going to move any dial. There's no doubt about
that. you know, as we looked at the the metrics, part of the problem, we've been dealing with outcomebased performance funding for over 25 years. I mean, a long time. We've been one of the leaders in the country in this effort. And uh it's very complicated. There's a lot of
things that can go wrong, but one of the biggest challenges that we've had is is we've lacked consistency in our metrics. And whenever you continually change the metrics then that does cause confusion allows you know puts the institutions in such a position that they don't know
what they need to work toward and and what's important. So the key is consistency establishing those those metrics and getting them to work. You know, I strongly agree that we need to be distinctive with each of our not only institutions but campuses because clear
certainly some of our regional campuses are having a you know different type of perspective than than their main campuses and that's why there's 13 metrics you know when you look at that because in the last iteration of this we tried to recognize those distinctiveness
it's a challenge to do that and uh I I totally agree with your 4 A. I mean I think that's the underlying you know foundation that we need to strive toward but by the same token not every institution is going to is going to accomplish those 4A in the same fashion.
So we're going to have to have multiple metrics for each each institution and that's why it's really important that we do get feedback from each of the institutions relative to their actual campuses as well. You know, again, I'm a strong advocate that we need to we need
to move closer to 10% than 1%. You know, because it does need to be meaningful. I think as as we look back at the success that we've had as a commission, much of it is getting the attention of the institutions to understand our priorities and outcome based funding
gives us the ability to say here's what's important to us and if you put dollars to that, all of a sudden it becomes important to them as well too. I mean there's uh that's just how how dollars work and it's consistent with in a in a business environment and it's consistent in in an educational
environment when you fund the things that are important that's where the that's where the priorities get get placed. So those are just some of my uh riffs I guess supposed I would say about this and and and illustrates my passion for sustaining
outcomesbased performance funding and and helping to educate our elected officials to the importance and the meaning you know and how meaningful it can actually be and how it can really it really can move the dial if executed uh properly. Thanks.
>> Yeah, thanks Mike. Good comments. Appreciate it. Other comments? >> I would I would just one comment and it's been said but I would reiterate opening this up to input from everyone is critical. Now is the time to give
really good substantive feedback so that we can get this right going forward and then be able to hopefully convince our our legislative friends and others to uh put some money behind it. >> Yeah. And I'll just re-emphasize
um what I shared earlier. Uh we are in active conversations with legislative leaders uh including caucus leaders, including fiscal leaders. Uh there is strong
interest in making sure we have a a formula that moves the needle. some of the the elements that you just said, but there's a strong interest in in also funding. >> Uh so
the feedback that you just encourage uh one of the legislative leaders said or hope I hear we hear from every university publicly about their thought through the feedback form. They have asked and we see all of the feedback. So I would uh really implore our
universities to be thoughtful and please do provide feedback based on um on on your quality thoughts. We will also make sure business and industry leaders and partners have this too to provide uh feedback. But uh this will come back
Cody correct me to the commission in late July where the commission will approve the recommendation which will then be in front of the budget session uh coming up in January.
So that's our timeline ahead. This is the only thing this is not a required feedback loop. Uh, a lot of state government requires feedback loops, but I think that is the commission valuing truly what our people
have to say. Uh, so jump in, fill out the job. Thank you. >> Great. Thanks, Cody. >> Very much. All right. Now, my pleasure to um tee up a discussion and
presentation about workforce health, something I'm very passionate about. Um and uh looking to senior associate commissioner for business solutions for Kyle and Laura Pastori associated
associate chief talent development uh officer for the Indiana Department of Workforce Development. Before I turn it over to them, I I do want to recognize I believe um unfortunately our our new DWD commissioner uh Kate Shelby was not able to attend. She was, I think, trying to
get here, but I think too many uh too many options and too too many demands on her time. So, she's not here. But, as I understand it, our new chief workforce officer, Allison Birdie, is here. So, we'd like to recognize and welcome her. Thank you. Glad you're here. So, um I
will turn it over to you, too. And apologies, but I'll be right back. >> That's fine. Uh thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. So, again, my name is Burke. Um, this is Laura, my colleague, um, from the Department of Workforce Development, and, uh, we actually just got back from Washington, Washington DC
for a multi-state gathering about this very topic. Um, and we left feeling really good about where Indiana is. Uh, Laura actually served on a panel um, to talk to other states about our data infrastructure on the workforce side. Um so today what we're here to do is share
sort of an update about what Indiana is doing about workforce PEL um and what the timeline's going to look like. Um so today we're going to talk a little bit about the federal PEL grant move into the workforce PEL look at where the the different responsibilities lie and
then where we're uh looking to engage with our stakeholders. Um, so a quick refresher or reminder, um, the federal PEL grant is a, uh, federal grant that's been around for a long time. It was part of the Higher Education Act of 1965 and that is designed to give lowincome
students across the country access to post-secary education and it is based on their income that is reported to the FAA. Currently, uh, in order to use the PEL grant, students need to enroll in a program that meets a minimum length
requirement and a minimum time requirement. You'll see the see that on the slide that's referred to as clocks out clock hours and weeks of instructions. So, that's where we're at today. As of July 1st uh 2026, as part of the
One Big Beautiful Bill Act, um Congress passed legislation to expand the federal PEL grant to apply to in limited circumstances shorter term work based workbased programs. And so the goal of Workforce PEL is to provide lowincome
students access to very short-term credential training that can lead to direct entry into the workforce where they can earn good wages, jobs that are aligned with the state workforce needs. And that's where our partners at DWD
have come in. Lots of conversation about what does this look like. So one of the unique pieces about the federal workforce pel regulations is that the implementation was actually delegated to each of the states. So for
workforce workforce pel every single state will have a very different implementation plan. But that also gives us a really unique opportunity to align the programs that we designate as eligible for workforce pel that truly meet our state needs. we're allowed to
look at regional needs, local needs. Um, and we think that we're really set up well to do this. And so the only sort of guidelines that we're required to meet is to ensure that our programs are defined as high skill, high wage, or in demand. And Indiana already has a
wonderful framework for this um that we've used for other programs including uh WEOA, which I don't remember what that stands for um but that's part of our workforce development. And so to keep consistent with our stakeholders, we are going to keep with these broad
sectors which are advanced man manufacturing, building and construction, health and life sciences, IT and business services and then transportation and logistics. And then another key element um for the state responsibilities for Workforce PEL is
that we're required to engage in employer feedback and employer validation that the programs and training that we identify as eligible for this new federal grant program are actually uh really in demand from our employers and employers saying yes, we
have pathways for students entering into an entry-level job or being able to fasttrack into some sort of um elevated career pathway. way. Um, one of the things that we wanted to uh bring to everyone's attention today is some of the federal requirements
because we get lots of questions from interested stakeholders about who can use this uh program and what uh places can offer. So, one of the questions we've received frequently is can high school students use the federal PEL grant and unfortunately the answer is
no. Um, the federal PEL grant requires a student to have a high school diploma already. So, this will not be something um that students currently in high school will be able to use. And then the other important component that we're reminding people of is as we look at
programs to identify as eligible for the workforce PEL program, students still need to be uh still need to qualify based on an income level based on the FAFSA. So we could have these programs eligible for workforce PEL and we'll
have a combination of students not receiving federal PEL grant funds for those as well as students who are. The other question that we've received from a lot of our stakeholders and we've been having conversations uh with our local workforce boards are where can these
training programs take place? And the way that the federal legislation was written is that only title four eligible colleges and universities are able to offer a workforce PEL program. So that means our public, private, and even
proprietary colleges and universities if they are authorized to participate in title 4. One of the options we do have and we are exploring as we have conversations is that our uh colleges and universities can partner with a
outside provider for up to 25% of the program in training and delivery. And so that's something as we think about um and are hearing from other states an opportunity to get even more employer feedback um as uh new curriculums are
developed and designed. real quick is just to re-emphasize and exclamation point the the red font up there. >> Thank you very much. >> All that we're discussing today and I
Laura and Brooke so thankful that you all are in DC and can give us kind of the behind the scenes what what we know now. All of this is pending final rulemaking. So So none of this is official. This is just to openly share with Indiana. this is what we know
today. This is how we're thinking ahead. Um, so just wanted to drop >> No, I I I meant to call that out earlier. Thank you very much for pointing that out, Commissioner Jenner. Yes, we are still awaiting the final rules. Um, and that will definitely uh dictate some of the final decisions that we make as a state.
Um, this is a very busy slide. Um, and I am not going to read every bullet point to you. Um, but the purpose of this slide is to demonstrate that when Congress passed the rules for federal workforce PEL, they have very narrow strict requirements about how long the
program can be and about what outcomes students need to meet when they graduate from those programs. And so, a couple things I want to highlight. First, right now, uh, with the rules as they stand right now, the programs must be between 8 and 14 weeks. In our uh conversations
with Department of Workforce Development, there are several training programs that are actually shorter than that that would not qualify. And so we are waiting the final rules to see what that minimum length is going to be. Um the other components on here that say
successful and in demand, you'll notice the programs have to demonstrate for the last year having a 70% program completion rate and a 70% job placement rate. And as we uh understand from the federal uh rules for uh institutions
that are interested in developing new programs, that is absolutely an option. But in order to qualify for federal workforce PEL, that new program would have to be in existence for one year and demonstrate these outcomes related to program completion and job placement
before they can go through the state process of applying to be considered a federal workforce PEL program. Um and then the last piece um these uh workforce bel programs have to be tied to sectors and jobs um that are high
wage and meet a wage threshold. Those wage thresholds don't go into effect for a few years. Um but we are being very strategic as we look at what industries and sectors and occupations uh to make sure that if students are going to receive federal grants um that it's a
good return on the federal dollar and a good return on our state's time um to make sure that those programs lead to successful outcomes. Um and then finally under the flexible um one of the key components of these programs is that it has to ensure that a student should they decide at a later
point in their life they want to use the credential that they earned for workforce PEL to stack into a long-term certificate an associates degree a bachelor's degree that there are pathways put in place for them to be able to do that. And so we're working very closely with our partners to
articulate and to make sure that those programs will have those pathways designed Um so in terms of where we are now from the state's perspective um uh Laura and I on behalf of uh our two agencies have connected um with IvyTech Community
College and Vincense University. Um and those will those will be our two pilot institutions. Um many states are uh launching this as part of a piloted implementation phase and the message we are getting from the federal secretary of labor is that correct? um is the
focus is quality not quantity and so they are advising states to do rollouts that ensure that quality programs are put forth and that students are entering quality programs. So to do this we're partnering initially in this implementation phase with those two institutions. Um we have been in
conversation with our local workforce boards and we are starting to now develop sort of a draft um policy and application materials and the timeline that we are focusing on and aiming for is that we would have this draft available for public comment sometime
around July 1st um after it has been approved by Governor Brun. And with that is uh I will take any questions. Laura is also here if you have any more workforce specific questions but happy to answer those.
>> You might have shared this. When does the federal government anticipate rule making being complete? We don't know. >> Did you did they give us a >> Did you really just say I did? All right. Public comment
concluded on April 8th. Um, so we're anticipating it anytime, but we don't have a definitive time frame. >> And the part of the reason I ask is I know we're we we have to be planning based on what we think will happen the uh materials that you mentioned will be
up for public comment on July 1st >> on or around is our goal. Yes. And that will depend on the final rules being released. Um, >> yes. >> So we don't have the final rules. We will not get public comment. Okay. I just Thank you for that clarification.
>> Yeah, I just wanted to make sure. So, so then the timeline is we'll probably see the final rules in the next couple three months. That's making you nervous. I'll say it. You don't have to and then after we get those then we will
put this out for public comment. Okay. On track. Thank you so much. >> Thank you very much. >> Other questions? Comments? Great. Great presentation. >> Okay. All right. Thank you very much. >> Thank you very much. And we look forward to sharing updates um at a later commission meeting or one of our other
Department of Workforce Development um meetings. So, thank you. >> Thanks very much. >> All right. And finally, uh, last but not least, we have a presentation from our hosts, uh, at the University of Southern Indiana around their it's a student
success presentation around the, um, partnership with M4. And again, thank you to the whole crew from sciences here. So, welcome Sorry not to see Sam sitting at the table, but it's also a pleasure to hand
her diploma this weekend. So I need you to know that what you're going to hear today is sort of built into the fabric of USI and I think it's a really important story. So I want they're going to tell you the real story. I'm going to tell you how I got started. Um, if you don't know, and I'll be simple on this,
we were founded by the business leaders in southwestern Indiana who decided that public higher education was needed in Evansville. So, from day one, the type of thing you're going to hear today, built into our fabric, and they still are today, critically important to me, ties into a lot of what you've just seen
on the slides. Um, so relationships are also important. So, I received a phone call from uh a student who was working in the summer for Amcort from Kelly School at IU and said, "Hey, we really could use some help on our packaging.
Some of our things are a little stale and we would like some help and could USI help us." And I said, "Absolutely, we will do that." And so, proud to say within about a week, we had a proposal turned around to Amore. That's a little quicker than you see in higher education.
Some needed a neck brace. It was kind of a whiplash situation, >> but understand that that's who we are. We are about applied research predominantly at USI about finding solutions for business. And so we were able to pull a team together and the team we have is not the team you might
necessarily expect and that's one of the things that excites me most about it. We have manufacturing, engineering folks, we have marketing folks, um we have art and design students helping that. That's a real example of how some of the liberal arts education's applying to
business today and that's always been our focus. Uh we also have occupational therapy individuals involved in that because as I my hair has transitioned from black to gray. Things don't open as well as they used to. So having someone who could look at that design is
important. And you you know what I'm talking about. You go home, you've had a hard day, you pick up a package, you squeeze it, things are all over everything and or as last time things are all over and dried. And so it's really important. It's a small thing that we just take for granted every day.
But we pulled together this team and I'm going to let them explain it, but I just want you to know how important it is what we do. And I think this is a great example. Well, good morning. Thank you for having us today. My name is Steven Stump and I'm the director of the Center for Applied Research at USI. And the Center
for Applied Research exists to allow external entities access to our labs, equipment, and expertise. I through my office hire a team of 12 students that work for me part-time throughout the year and we conduct roughly 30 projects on an annual basis. Now, a lot of these projects are very limited in scope. A
client comes to us with a specific need. They want us to develop a strategic plan, uh, conduct an economic impact study, build a widget of something they've drawn on a napkin, and we're often pretty successful with this, but these projects are conducted usually by a team of one to three students, often from the same major. It's very
gratifying work. But when we initiated talks with Amcor about the applied innovation partnership, something that excited me personally was this was an opportunity for us to bring together an interdisciplinary team of seven students representing all four colleges as well as the school of graduate studies uh to
have a more broad open-ended scope which was intentional to give us some more room for creativity and ideiation. Uh but also while I was working with the students along with four faculty mentors teaching them the academic concepts they would need to know, we got to work lock step with our partners from the Amcor
team in order to walk them through the specific process that Amcor uses internally for their product development and also have them mentoring our students on the real world practical application of the concepts that we were teaching them. So it was exciting, it was educational and dare I say
successful. So with that, I'm going to what we're going to do today is we're going to walk you through kind of the background of how everything got started. We're going to go through the project basis, not talking about the product itself, but the steps we went through and the lessons learned from that and then share with you some of the
outcomes and impact that we experienced. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Kristen. >> Hi, I'm Kristen Hobson from AMCOR. I'm a product manager and I myself and my husband both graduated from USI and we both um stayed in the Evansville area to
work at Legacy Berry which is now AMCore. So um this project has been pretty dear to my heart just seeing um the students get this opportunity to work with AMCore and this real life experience. Um so as Steve mentioned
Emma uh was a Kelly school student. She was on her second uh summer internship last year and the first summer she was deeply involved in um you know normal business tasks each day and I knew she could do the learnable skills but I wanted to
spend uh last summer with her developing her soft skills and networking within the organization so that she could understand you know the bigger lens. And so I during her first week at AMCOR we have a very big internship program
during the summer and um so I took off at the end they do a big presentation. So you know I said okay Emma what is your we got to figure out what your project to be. I have some ideas of things I actually need help on, but there's one project I have on the list
that could be a challenge. And a gap that we have at AMCOR is that some of the subject matter experts are beginning to retire or looking to fill their bench, you know, for with talent. And so
sometimes that can be a gap. So how can we take that really complex problem and make solve it you know here catalyst to drive change at with AMOR. So I said we need to partner with our universities here in southern Indiana a little bit
more than we are today um from the legacy berry side and now Amcor and I you know I just don't have enough time to take on the program to develop this program and figure out how we can fill our uh pipeline with new fresh
innovation ideas and build this partnership program. So, um I had I said, "So, you have all these normal things you did last summer or how can we use your soft skills? How can we help you network and get to know others um
and to help me with this project?" And and without waking, I was just like, "Oh, I'll do that the project." I'm like, "Are you sure? Because you're starting from scratch. like I have no nothing to really offer except for I'm going to introduce you to everybody that sits on this floor and we'll see what we
can come up with. And she took on that challenge and I'm really proud of her for doing that. Um so what the outcomes that we laid out were we needed to uh we wanted to fill the pipeline with new talent opportunities. We wanted to ensure the students got real life
experience at Amcor. uh southern Indiana is very large in manufacturing and in plastic manufacturing. So um how could you know USI currently doesn't have a program for packaging specifically um so
how can we bridge that gap so that was one of the um objectives so the program is intended to create internship opportunities help with talent and in um drive innovation um and address any kind of workforce
shortages that we might be seeing um like I already mentioned you know um with some retirements and also it's just harder to find um manufacturing talent. Did you want to add anything? Okay.
>> So the idea was we will teach or you know work with USI to teach the students our stage gate process and help them get some experience with that. And um so yeah, we created a steering committee internally to help drive the program and
Cindy is over innovation. Um so I'll let her walk you through the process the students followed. Um but thanks for having us here today. Thank you. So my went the wrong way. Sorry. Uh my name is Cindy Anslinger. So I am um over our portfolio project
management for our global R&D site. Um, now that we are Amcore and when I was working with Emma, I was just over the North America division and this is the stagegate process that we followed within our North America division for any type of innovation or new idea
process or um work that we wanted to kind of take on to revamp any of our work. So, when I got to talk with Emma, we started talking about how do we do this and what do we want to do? And I said, well, let's let's do real life. Let's use our process. Let's get them into as if they were a new employee, as
if we were teaching them, as if we were going through it. However, our process is very long. You can see eight stages and very indepth. We get into a lot of um you know, testing on the line and and different things like that that would be
too much for um where we wanted to go. So, we took the basis of our process and said, "Okay, we're going to get them through the beginning of it where they're still working our process. They're still gathering the information the exact same way any of us would, as
if we were working in a real life environment. so that they're getting that experience as if they were in our facility working with us and having the standard meetings and involvement like we would um but on a smaller scale and
getting to apply with the education along with it. So teaching them what stage gate means, teaching them what ideiation means, teaching them how we work through our process as we go through this and then letting them apply
it in real life. So, I'll let them talk. The students are going to now kind of give you guys an overview of how they walked through this part of the process. >> Hi guys, good morning. My name is Lauren Anderson and I just recently graduated from USI on Saturday with my marketing
degree. Um, so like Cindy stated, when I first came to Anor with the internship, I didn't know a thing. And so I just want to clarify that and I want that to be known throughout this presentation. We didn't know anything. And so from the
marketing side, this was like at the beginning of January, kind of mid January. From the marketing side, we started to gather some research about some things that consumers are wanting in this specific market. So, I'm not going to walk you guys through everything that we found in the market research. But I just want to do clarify
that even though I just graduated with my marketing degree, I had done some things um in the research background and you know I had done presentations but I had never done anything to this caliber. I had never presented you know any actual research that is something that
is going to end up on the market at some point. And so through this process, I was able to actually, you know, use this information, present it to management or, you know, our mentors and they were able to take this information, make sure that it was reliable and then, you know,
at some point it would go to market. My name is Jison Robinson. I am the graduate student occupational therapy. I am a part of's first ever doctorate program for occupational therapy. So I have been a part of a lot of first this year and so USI has really opened doors
for me not only with this project but just in general with different community partnerships. So I was very excited and proud to be a part of this new partnership too. So when we started looking and doing the research, like Lawrence stated, we
noticed that people wanted more inclusive design. So that's kind of where my role fell in. When I walked into this project, I had no idea why they were having me as an occupational therapy student walk in because I don't design things. I don't present things to
other people. I sit there and I help create I help find a solution to help people manage everyday life. So with our goals, I was able to help bring a completely different scope and spec of ideas because like I said, we
help create create and think through processes to help people grow and become more independent. So doing this helped and doing this and the thought process of having me there was no need for in the end of my job hopefully have
everything be inclusive, easy to work with for people of all ages, all abilities, all cognitive abilities. So both physical and mental attributes were thought through when we did this process. So much like with Jazz, members of the
team were sometimes questioning, well, what's my part? What's my role? What am I going to do? As we were looking at some of the things that needed to be accomplished with the product itself and some of the features that we wanted, that's when uh two members of our team, uh, William Lee, who is a senior art major who just completed his bachelor's degree, and Ethan Ryman, a junior studio
art design major, they started rubbing their hands and literally sharpening their pencils because they said, "We've got some ideas here. we need some sort of visual representation of what we're talking about so we can all kind of wrap our heads around it. So they took the initiative to start with hand sketching some design concepts of what they
thought this thing might look like and then Ethan said you know what how could we leverage into this and so he took his sketches fed them into AI which did a few little tweaks and refinements and also came up with a couple other variations which were quite unique in some senses. Um, we have some obser
sketches which we weren't able to share with you for confidentiality reasons. But, uh, the main idea here is that Ethan looked at this and said, "With my skills as an artist to do handdrawn art, how can I leverage technology to then further enhance that and improve the designs that we have?" So, we came up
with some different concepts that we looked at and then we had to, of course, bring the Amcore team in for some feedback on that to help us figure out, well, it looks great on paper, but what can we actually make? That's going to be the challenge. Morning. Thanks for having us. I'm Mark Deutsch. I'm a director of R&D and product
development for Amcor. Been with Amcore for 17 years and been in industry for longer than I care to remember. But it was uh it was really good to have this opportunity to work with the students very closely on the different designs. uh as it was mentioned there
was a lot of work that was put into it in understanding what the market was and uh what uh attributes for each one of the closures were important and how was need to be applied for consumer experience. Um, I think if you if you
think back maybe to the uh the OBPF and you think about that process, it's another example of how this applies because you're reaching out for essentially consumer feedback so you can put together the best solution. And that's exactly what the students did. I had it was a great opportunity to work
with them and mentor them and uh work them through the process so they could see how this all applies to their their real life whether it is in an engineering position, marketing, occupational therapy because essentially they learned how to put their differences aside, their opinions aside,
figure out how to work together and come up with a design that was functional for everybody and act and and ultimately ended up giving the best consumer experience for the So for part of our consumer research besides just looking at what people have
already done research on, put pen and paper too, we wanted to create create our own survey. And so we sent it out to not only people within the USI community of students and teachers, but we put it out for anyone that we personally knew
through LinkedIn, Facebook, because we wanted to get as much data as quickly as we possibly could. And our main findings throughout this survey was that especially people of in the age group of 55 to 88 that they wanted something that
was easy to open and potentially one-handed. And overall, those were both very important things to all consumer or most consumers who took this. >> So, not only did we put out a survey, but we also had conducted a couple
different things. So, I and then the other marketing um student, her name is Ella Rich, she also goes to USI. Um unfortunately, she wasn't able to be here today, but we were able to conduct a focus group. And so we were able to, you know, give our prototypes to that focus group, see if they were easy to
use, see if it was intuitive. And then speaking of intuitive, um, I get really excited to talk about this stuff. So, um, we were able to use from USI, they have the biometrics glasses. And so you put them on and then you're able to track people's eye movements. And so we were able to actually take those
glasses, put them on participants in Amcor's store that they have, and see exactly what their eyes were drawn to in the store. And so using that technology, that is something that I had never used before and would not have been able to use before without this project. And so
using that technology, we were able to actually see that our design did draw eyes and were intuitive to participants that had never seen that design before. Um, and then like I said, we utilize that focus group feedback. And so we had just presented our final presentation to
Amcore last Wednesday. And so with that focus group feedback, with the information that we got from the storewalk that we did with the biometrics classes, we were able to then take all that feedback and then do some refinements, which once again in an actual, you know, school setting, you don't really get you don't get to see
from start to finish exactly how the design is implemented. And then also see it on the store shelf and see what consumers think and if it's intuitive for them or not. So we were able to come together and actually present two designs to AMP core
because we weren't sadly weren't able to put every single thought that idea that we wanted into one but we were able to come up with two that both took and overarching most of the features that we wanted to present to Encore. And um our
main processes were we wanted it to be easy to use both opening and once you were using the product that it wouldn't go everywhere, it was more precise. We wanted to make sure it closed securely without leakage within your fridge
because that's another issue that through different research we had found. And then we also wanted to make sure that for Amcor it was economical because we don't want to present an idea that's just going to make them lose money and never gain anything out of it.
Okay. So moving on moving on to the outcomes and the impact. So from the USI side I know that we had a lot of impact from this project. Um, like we had already stated, I really have only ever worked within the business school. I had
never been able to work with an occupational therapist or, you know, with the engineers. And so being able to see exactly how an engineer may think or, you know, how they may do things, I would have never gotten that until I got into a realworld job experience. And so
through this project I was able to work with people who have already been in the field for years and then people who you know have just now started doing what they're doing through say engineering, graphic design, occupational therapy and so that was absolutely beneficial to me
especially as you know a second semester senior. I was gonna say in my field we have a lot of big terms that we use and so this was definitely a a good experience like Lauren said to learn how other people think but also give me experience in the
real world to take these big terms and big thought process that we learn in graduate school and be able to explain it to people who don't have that same mindset because luckily through USI we have a lot of interprofessional development within just the health
professions college, but those people have a general similar mindset compared to what I have learned. So, they know what I'm saying and how I'm going to say it. But being able to explain what I'm thinking and my thought process to people who have a completely different learning pattern, completely different
mindset, and also being able to manage different like team aspects of like not very many, but like conflict, resolution, just all of those. Being able to learn how to handle that will also further me in my career and be able to help me with both family members of
clients and within other healthcare professional uh interactions. >> Oh, sorry guys. Fine. Stand by if you don't mind. >> Yes. may just be keep going for a minute. >> Yeah, I was just losing.
>> Yeah. So, I was really proud of the student group. um their final presentation was to our leadership team at AMOR and they did a phenomenal job um presenting and just the confidence in building those soft skills like they mentioned of being able to collaborate,
respect each other and to come up with new ideas was really great to see. Um, you know, we're planning to move this, this was the pilot program, so we're hoping to move it forward um with USI and create this partnership so that we
can help springboard um internships turning into permanent roles within AMCORE. Um, making sure that students at USI have access to AMCOR and opportunities that will be available to
them postgrad. um and just understanding the new technologies within uh manufacturing, automation and then um sustainability which is really important for us. So this was a really successful program and I'm really excited to see
where it goes in the future and I think from the university side I would encourage we did feel that it was very successful. It gave great experience to the students. Now I am uh a double graduate of USI as is my wife. I have my bachelor's in communications and my masters in business administration. I worked several
different worked at several different for-profit and nonprofit organizations before coming to USI 10 years ago. So I like to tell people I'm not an academic. I'm a business person. However, I while that makes me appreciate the partnerships that we get to create externally and I'm very passionate about that. I also very much appreciate any
kind of learning or mentorship opportunity we can give the students. So I will confess that my catnip is anytime we get interdisiplinary because I love the concept of g getting g getting students in different majors the opportunity to work together uh the team building working through the personalities all that is extremely valuable for their experience both in
and outside of the classroom and this project provided a perfect opportunity for that. So I think for us what we saw is that this was a pilot as Kristen said we think that we've established a pretty solid framework on how we could continue this moving forward. Uh we've got our own debriefing meeting scheduled here in
the next few weeks where we're going to sit down and hash through what do we want to tweak for next time. But all in all, we felt it was very successful. Uh it's I will take the students word for it. They got a lot out of it. That's what they all keep telling us. So I think we did a job well done in that respect. Um and we were just excited about the experience. Look forward to
trying to do this again and see what more wonderful opportunities we can give the students. Uh both hard skills, soft skills, everything they need to be successful upon graduation. So, at this time, we'd be happy to open it up for any questions that you may have. >> Good comment, wonderful presentation. This is totally not biased because I am
a student of mine, but I just wanted to take a minute to brag about Preston Bridges in USI. It is an amazing institution. I think that this project is exactly what brought me to Evansville. USI is very homegrown. It's very communitydriven. And the idea of working with community partners like
Anport, I wrote down this um if you ever been on USI's campus, the cone is one of the hot spots for students. And that was actually um written of drawn up by USI student by heart student. And so I love to see the integration the inter interdisiplinary between the student the
community partners and the university. And just as a side note just to brag about USI that wasn't mentioned but recently USI also created something called a virtual pantry. And when we're talking about food I wanted to mention this our vice president for academic affairs Dr. Mustafa was working on this.
about 23 to 41% of college students experienced food insecurity. And so what USI did is it went into understanding what student concerns were. They're needing affordable food. They're needing accessibility to this. And they created a pantry for our students. That was essential during finance week. And so
any moment I can, I would love to brag about USI. And I just wanted to on that one. >> Yeah. I wanted to brag on President Bridges as well. You know, I talked about how I wanted Emma to network. So I had set up a mentor that was um totally
out of the space that I work into um because I wanted her to see the opportunity for the entire business like I mentioned and that's how she got connected with Steve, right? So, oh check. We we met an objective of Emma's internship because she sees the power of
networking and the internal relationships, but she came to me and so I had she's like I said, I I'm in contact with the president of USI and she was like I'm like really that's great, you know, and she said and he
answered my emails even though my title says intern and he set up a call with me. I said okay that's so we're getting somewhere. So, I just wanted to say that that shows what kind of a person and um how he supports students in higher education. So, that was um really nice
of President Bridges to do that with Emma. >> That's our fabric. That's who we are. That's how I was talking. >> Thank you. >> I would I would just like to add that with Lauren's comment whenever the first meeting that we had because we're so proud of this group because the first
meeting we had, they all sat around the table. We talked about the project and they were literally like, "What are they talking about?" You can see it. You could see it in their faces. I mean, they were like deer in the headlights. So, they've come a long way as a group and uh to see how they're they're
reaching out to us now as mentors. Uh before you you literally had to ask them questions to to try and get anything out of see how they've grown as a group. And just as an added note, uh we have hired one of the members as an intern, a year- round intern out of this program. So,
>> good other questions, but I would just tell you this is u this is exactly what we want to do. Um again, it's who we are. Um finding an opportunity for students to learn is the is the best thing we can do. I had the opportunity to celebrate
Lily at their 150th this week. These types of things are meaningful for our companies. Uh Bill Norman, who is the um rigid packing packaging solutions for North America president
said to me, I will be telling the company about what we're doing in Evans, Indiana. Those are the types of things we need in the state, the liies, the amores to stay and to build. We want to do business too, but don't forget about the businesses we have. And it's so critical and when we talk outcomes, this
is an outcome. So, we appreciate it. >> Well, President Bridges, you sent me a text a week or two ago and said I think it was a very simple tax. You're going to love the presentation we had. And uh I think I just I was probably
driving so I just hearted it. And I've since then I've been thinking I wonder where you guys up this leave. But hearing from business and industry and our own students, that's that's the best. And uh one of
you both, by the way, students, I wrote down so well spoken. Thank you. >> Uh and and one of you started with I knew nothing. You said it twice. And then I don't know if you realize, but by the end of the presentation, you said I just get really excited about
talking about this. So you went from I knew nothing to really kind of lightening that fire in you and um I just appreciate President Bridges and and also what you're doing in trying to bring
real experiences in to assist in building the knowledge and skills. Uh and I also huge thank you to Anforing this, learning from this and now your commitment to make it official and grown
it. Uh so I did like the presentation >> follow that any other comments other than I think everybody probably say amazing presentation just on every level. So, thank you all to the students. Good luck to you. Uh, did it
actually I do have a question. Did it um what did it kind of inform as far as from your standpoints what what you want to do in the future or don't want to do. >> So, okay. I >> Oh, come up. So, it's online. Sorry.
Normally, I'm pretty loud and people want me to stop talking. So, okay. I honestly at first I wasn't sure where I wanted to go with marketing. I didn't know if I wanted to do digital marketing, if I wanted to do anything else of that nature. I really decided I
love consumer research. And I know that that like the glasses portion may not be super huge right now, but at some point it's going to be and there's no doubt about that. seeing the information that we were able to find just from our small
um you know internship that is going to be huge in any market at some point and so being able to see that and you know be able to learn how to use that technology before it's huge was absolutely incredible and so I
absolutely found my footing in the consumer research portion and so without that I don't know if I would have found consumer research so that's my opinion on it >> also as any healthcare workers sadly I don't really see myself working with and quite
after this but it has opened new horizons because at USI for our doctorate program we do at the end of our program do this thing called a capstone so it has opened my eyes and opened my thoughts of different ways to take consumer research this internship
and put it into a research a whole research project to see maybe how more occupational therapists or more healthcare workers can get into these doors into these places so we can start from the ground up to influence ideas
and innovation to be able to make the world a more accessible and easily used place. >> Awesome. Want to add one? >> Sorry guys. Anyway, uh no, I just wanted to explain the reasoning behind some of the push
that we had for why we chose and why we asked for the variation in the roles when we're looking at this. So at Amcor, one of the things that we're looking at, we're finding is inclusive designs are not out there and and we don't have a
whole lot and we have customers coming to us, the the big ones, the unilver, the L'Oreal and those guys saying, "Do you have an inclusive design for something like this?" And we don't. And so that's why we were like, okay, we have to pull in occupational therapy or
somebody that thinks that way to kind of spark that for us along with the technology and the marketing. So we don't have that in our company today, but that doesn't mean we won't in the future, but it's it's it's that thought process that we needed.
>> Great comment. Thank you. And I'm going to disagree because you're not getting away that easy because that's exactly the type of feedback we need from >> consumers and from the industry. >> Yeah. >> I just wanted to make a quick comment,
but this is exactly what the commission loves to see this workforce development pipeline and this is exactly what creates jobs in Indiana and makes people stay in Indiana. So, I just wanted to say thank you to Nikki. Well, what a great way to end the
meeting for every reason that Sam has said and all of you just did a fantastic presentation just reiterates so many important messages. These are all ways and said the thing that I think we get the most out of and really seeing the impact um in in real life if you will
for students and universities and what a great u yeah what a great way to end the end the meeting and to to celebrate Sam uh having your presentation here. So thank you all very very much. That brings us right on time to our
meeting conclusion unless there is any other business for the good of the order. Final words of all right meeting is adjourned. Everybody have a great