Thank you all for your patience. Uh a couple of us had some logistical challenges and uh so we appreciate you u bearing with us here for a few minutes. It's nice to see everyone. Uh we will start off today's meeting with a call
and I'll turn to Secretary K to follow >> Chairman. All right. Mike Alli >> present. >> Dennis Bland >> present. >> Kathy Cabela. >> Ted Casper
>> present. >> Jud Fisher. Go ahead. Samantha >> present. >> Tony >> here. Bill Hannah present. Nancy Jordan
>> present online. >> Molly Kitchell >> present. >> Kramer's here. Pepper >> Dan Peterson >> I am here finally. Mr. Chairman. >> Great. Thank you very much everyone. So
I'd also like to ask everyone to uh if you will please all stand. We are going to uh with the with the arrival of of Commissioner Jenner, she brought along many great ideas, including the fact that uh we are going to begin in future
meetings, including today's with a pledge of allegiance. When we talked about it, I said, I don't know why we've never done that. We really should. So, thank you all for doing this. We'll turn and pledge allegiance to our country. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the
United States of America and to the republic for which it stands nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> I think those online stood as well to
hear. >> It was a chorus. >> It was a chorus >> here. passing the length of this board here. Probably ready to pull it out every time I move it. So, um so I I would also like to Oh, it's fine
to show. Um before we uh move on with the agenda, I would like to uh welcome and recognize the fact that this is Commissioner Jenner's first meeting in this role and um we've had some great commissioners of
this institution and organization and um no one uh moves into this role with any better credibility or or respect. Um Katie is just such a passionate advocate for students uh at all levels and so
we're excited to have you here working with us, leading us and uh just wanted to recognize that fact. So welcome. >> All right. Uh let's see. Moving on with the agenda. Uh today we will begin the meeting with our approval of our agenda.
May I have a motion uh for approval of the agenda? >> So moved. Can I second? Second. Okay. Any questions or comments? All in favor, please say I. >> I. >> I. >> Oppose. Same. All right. Excellent. Um,
your agenda uh book contains the minutes from our September meeting which you have seen. Uh, we would look for a motion for the approval of the minutes from that September meeting. >> So move. >> Second. >> Thank you. Thank you. Were there any comments, questions, corrections?
Okay. Hearing none. All in favor, please say I. >> I. >> I. >> I. >> Any opposed? All right. Very good. Um, number one, I be before we move to Commissioner Jenner's uh comments, I I
did want to do a couple things here. Number one, thank you to Indiana University uh for being our host today's meeting. You'll hear more from them uh later. Number one. Number two, I also uh want to mention that um and even though Jud's not here, he will be in a moment
because he's stuck in traffic on 69. Um but um in in 2024 under Jud's leadership as the as the chair of the commission, we made a very important and pivotal decision I think uh in moving the student success uh committee's work to a
comm a committee of the whole rather than a separate uh independent committee. And uh for that that's I think that's been a very positive thing to make sure that the the integral work of how we support our students is is brought in full uh capacity to the
entire commission. So this definitely created a valuable platform for our institutions to showcase the good work that they're doing and the innovative strate strategies they're employing to really ensure student success uh and high quality outcomes. So, as we look
forward, um to Oh, yeah. Also, as we look forward to 2026, um and I think everyone knows this, we are going to make a change uh to bring and help improve and and streamline our our meetings and make it uh as efficient
as possible to we're going to begin meeting having these meetings here in the Indiana State Library. And uh we we're committed from to hearing from the institutions of course even though we at least for the time being will will not be moving around the state as we've done
in the past. We really we value and it's important that the institutions have the ability to come and really uh interchange with us and and give uh good information about what they're doing around student success as well as every other uh aspect of what they're doing. So um again thank you Indiana University
for hosting. you're going to be helping lead us through that uh part of the topic uh later in the in the uh in the meeting. So, um with that, I will pass it along to our commissioner, Secretary Jenner, for her uh comments. >> Well, thank you, Dan. And uh
occasionally I will look down at my cell phone and usually it's someone in the audience reminding me of things I need to say and that has already happened within the first meeting. And so, uh, Bill Hannah just shot me a text and said, "Hey, Veterans Day this week. It'd
be great to know if we have any veterans in the room." So, uh, if they do, could you please stand? >> Thank you very very much for your service uh to our country. Thank you for the tax reminder. You are
all welcome to text me at any time during the meeting. Um, I tell you what, it's a month in and it's been a real pleasure to get to know so many different people. Had the opportunity to speak with every commission member. Uh,
some multiple times. I'd say probably most multiple times had the opportunity to speak to every one of our public college university presidents multiple times. Uh many of our private college residents have
reached out um had breakfast with Commissioner Lowry, lunch with past Commissioner Lers, coffee uh with past Governor Daniels,
conversation with many many higher ed applicants and there are a ton in Indiana. Um have also had the opportunity to speak to many of our legislative leaders about what's ahead. Uh I believe wholeheartedly uh the way
we build the greatest consensus and synergy all starts and ends with people. It's all about relationship to the building, working together to drive real change. And so I will tell you uh it is an honor to serve with so many of you. Uh in
those conversations what I always listen to the most is you know what are the what's the common ground? What's the opportunity and how can we drive forward and move the needle as quickly as possible. So today, um, I'd like to just
do a couple of levels back there. I I almost always stand when I'm presenting. So this is so different. It's a teacher and me, I think. But since there's a stage, I'm not going to be on that stage. I'm gonna sit right here. Um, but I'd like to level set a
few things. First of all, just a quick level set on um, the education vertical. I think everyone in the room is aware. for those online um will make sure you're aware. Um also levels set the really important role of this commission and exactly what statute charges us to
do. Uh we have several commission members who are uh more senior, not senior in spirit or age but have been around for a while on this commission. And then we also have some who are uh newer. Uh and so just the level set of
what does statute charge us to do? Uh and then finally um I'll get to uh really looking ahead and and what is our shared opportunity? What are the key outcomes that we're focused on? When you when you think about the
outcomes you're driving towards, you always have to think about what are the tactics that are hopefully moving the needle with those outcomes. You think about this at the university level. We think about this at the state level. And then are those tactics showing return on investment? Over the coming months,
we're going to have really honest conversation uh with you and with Indiana. Uh it's it's millions of dollars that we have an opportunity to deploy to support students in our state. So, let's make sure we're we're doing it
to the full benefit. So, uh is there just real quick uh if I'm talking about some This is for my team. I'm talking about something. I'm on the wrong slide. Just like give me like a little signal. Okay, we'll get these signals down in
the future. Don't you worry. Um, so let me start with the education vertical overview. Uh, many of you know, yes, it's Indiana Department of Education, state board of education, uh, commission for higher education. Uh, we also in our vertical and again it's one shared goal,
one shared mission have the charter school board. The charter school board is an authorizer. It's not a a board that looks after all of our charter schools. It's an authorizer. Uh the employee educ the education employer relations board which is specifically
focused on teacher contracts. Uh the Indiana school for the deaf, the Indiana school for the blind and visually impaired and the Indiana State Library which is right here uh where we are today. Beautiful location.
When we think about uh our budget, uh education makes up around 60%. Yes, K12 is by far the the majority of that 60% running typically between 47% and 50%
depending on the budget year. Higher ed uh is about 8 to 10% also depending on the budget year. Uh all in we're looking at about$ 26 billion dollar for education. Uh I've shared this with
educators at at multiple levels and I I want to be very honest and and real with uh this group here. Um what does keep me up at night for sure is we continue to have a Medicaid squeeze. So to think that we're going to get a lot of
additional funding um is just not necessarily realistic. I think we have to do the best we can and the president's and I talked about this. We have to do the best we can to make sure We're showing again what is our return on investment for the money that that we
do have. Here's how we could benefit in investing more. Make sure the general assembly is aware of that. But but it is tight. And again with Medicaid, I I think that it will continue uh that pressure on our state budget.
Let's talk commission structure and responsibilities. So this is all in statute. The commission is a 14 member board appointed by the governor. Serves as the coordinating higher ed agency of the state of Indiana. We are down one
member. The governor is working on uh adding an additional member. Uh the commission operates as an independent agency. We collaborate with those other agencies that I I just listed and with many others like department of workforce development, FSSA, etc. Um that is all
in statute. There's been a number of question about uh is it all going to come? Is it what's it going to look like in the future? Any change ahead would have to be uh legislatively decided. So like the way I look at it is let's do
the very best we can as commission members and u make sure we're setting up higher ed for success just as we'll do uh in the other areas as well. our role as a commission. There's some pretty important things that this
commission is responsible for. I'll get into more details, but the the two overall, yes, degree program review and approval and then also financial oversight and review, but again uh the specifics are uh coming
here. So the first slide you see is specifically about degree program review and approval. Um Dennis Lance has so kindly chaired that committee for several years talking to Dennis talking
to our presidents as well. Uh we're and and then also Mike Calli's on I'm going to say the same for capital projects. We are going to act as look at how we can make sure our processes are as streamlined as possible uh and we can
move as quickly as possible um to make the best decisions for Indiana. So Dennis and I will be getting together. U Matt uh certainly you'll uh be included and I'll also have asked higherend presidents to uh please and so
government rats if you're in the room please make sure this is on your to-do list as well. We'd love feedback on how to ensure these processes are as streamlined as possible to keep moving at the pace of change that we need to. So your feedback will be important. You
can see under this, I'm not going to read all of uh the the sublets here, but a number of responsibilities that come uh in really looking at every program or sustained degree program. The next is financial oversight and review uh
capital projects and I just mentioned this and Mike Ali and I talked he has kindly chaired that committee for several years very knowledgeable. I've also spoken with uh Senator Mishler uh and Representative Thompson uh very
recently um and talked to them about the same you know how might we make sure it's streamlined as possible uh we limit the bureaucracy where we can so that we continue uh moving as a state and again um Mike and I will be connecting with uh
legislative leadership to ensure that what we're preparing and providing as a commission is very inform informative to the general assembly because as you know most of this goes almost all goes to budget committee as well certainly in
capital projects in all um we also as a commission review legislative uh request budgets uh we make recommendations to the state budget committee and the governor of course we we don't formally approve those state
budget committee does we review uh tuition and fees also make recommendations for public institutions and then uh if the public institution goes beyond the recommendation they will go to state budget committee to uh share
their case as to why it should be higher. Uh state budget committee also has the right uh as we all sometimes remind them to call any of us at any time. So they they could call universities uh to the table as well. Uh and then uh campuses and locations. I
don't know that this doesn't happen very often, but uh we are able to vote to approve or disapprove the establishment of any new college or school, branches, campuses, locations, etc. Um that is our commission responsibility
per statute. That's what the general assembly expects us to very much stay focused on. We also in Indiana of course uh uh have boards of trustees at every single one of our universities and they are uh responsible for the management,
operation and financing of each of the universities and I I think that level set is important um and many of you know this in the room because every state looks a little bit different and how they govern what their expectations are. So that is
our our Indiana uh current state as of today. So higher education level set looking ahead uh some key areas of focus and by all of this is very familiar to what we've been working on. Uh we the
team has been just fantastic. Uh we reviewed of course the hope agenda. We reviewed some of the work uh in the past that Commissioner Lovers and team did. Um, so really try to to get a sense of what are our key areas of focus. Uh, I'm
a big believer and and you'll quickly get to know my leadership style. If we try to boil the ocean, nothing will get done. We try to do all the things. So really have tried to narrow it down to three key things. Number one, making sure higher education is more affordable
and accessible to our students and families. There are a lot of opportunities there. some tactics that we've already moved uh some additional that we can continue to deploy. Number two, increasing educational attainment for all Hoosiers. And number three, uh
streamlining our our higher education degree programs to better align knowledge and skills industry demand. And also, and this was a strong theme that I heard over and over again from
stakeholders of all kinds, as public higher eds, we are really absolutely going to do everything we can to provide knowledge and skills to our students in their specific major. We are also, and this is one that is, it's probably not
called out as much. You're going to hear us call it out more. We are also um have a great opportunity to make sure we build and develop the best possible citizens of our country. Uh and and that matters. We want them to not only have
the degree but also be prepared uh to positively contribute to communities, our state and our country. So let's dig into each very quickly. And this is going to be a highlevel data set. Affordability. This is what we know today. Approximately 60,000 students
receive state financial aid annually. That's approximately 32% of Indiana undergraduate residents. Now certainly we could have students who receive funding in other ways to attend our fine
universities. Uh but that is the uh percentage and population we serve with our state. Uh, also I want to give a huge shout out to all of our Indiana public institutions who in June committed to a
tuition freeze uh and and also freezing mandatory fees. That is not easy to do and I again talked to every single president sincerely a sincerely acknowledge uh the leadership they've shown in uh in
making that happen for Hooser families. uh some key tactics working to move the needle in this area and I would note if there are other tactics that we're deploying that uh you say well we shouldn't we should probably look into that please please flag them these are
some of the main ones and these are the tactics in which we are going to be setting return on investment so that's why it's key that we uh we ensure that we have those tactics identified I mean certainly the 21st century scholar program
uh FASA and the impact of that increase, state student financial aid, and then uh tuition and fee spending around each of these big areas. Uh one thing we are going to make sure of is that they all
have smart goals. Uh I think some of the goals have been based on ranking. I think ranking matters. We want Indiana to win every single time. Um but we also have to make sure we're very clear on here's where we are today. here's where we're going, here's the time to which
we're going to hit that goal. Uh so stay tuned for um more information on that and again feel welcome to weigh in. The next big area is educational attainment, both enrollment and completion. So just a a highle sense of
of where we are today in Indiana. um we collect in Indiana for every single cohort which is a a graduating class and for every single student within that cohort
exactly what they want to do right after grad school. Uh we typically have this has stayed pretty pretty similar over the years about 76 of Hooser high school graduates say they intend to go on to some form of higher
learning. When we did a Gallup survey and also studied parents was very stiff was around 73%. So we know that that is an interest. Um we also know the data the commission has elevated this over the years about 52%
actually do. Uh again that those numbers have uh been on a decline. Um 26% of our students who enroll in a two-year college university graduate on time. 53% who enroll in a 4-year college
university graduate on time. uh that does vary from university to university and it's all something that that we are going to probably have on a dashboard to be watching. I understand and I've talked to again all of the college
presidents at this point. I understand um you know all of our colleges have unique qualities and differences. We should talk about that as everybody work together. Glad to hear from you. uh but but one thing I wholeheartedly believe
is we have to be outcomes focused. We have to be very transparent where we are today in order to move the needle for the future. A few opportunities that again this commission has talked about and um a huge compliment to our our higher
education uh partners and and the team in here in Indiana. um we have an increasing number of students leaving with a credential of value in high school. So when we think about college going rate, we also need to
point to and this is data commission members that's going to be coming to you uh probably in into the January meeting. But we have a number of students who are leaving with a stackable credential upon high school graduation. It is growing um
at a significant pace. A lot of that is due to years and years of work by many people in this room uh to ensure Indiana ranks top in the nation for students leaving with college credit. Indiana is
number one in the nation for this. Sometimes Idaho, this is where my competitiveness comes out. Sometimes Idaho says they're number one. They're number one when it comes to a community college only in Indiana in our
huge um success because there are multiple institutions who have their hands in to support kids earning college credit. When you look at all of the college credit and all of our universities, uh we're number one nationwide.
Approximately 62 to 64% of every single high school graduating class had some sort of college credit. The average student used 14.2 credits. I will tell you that's the first time I've ever seen or used that talking
point. In the past, it's always been 13.5, but that shows the trajectory of how it continues to grow. When we run that data across the state, what we see is thousands of students within one to
two to three classes of completing the credential. Many of them in the past have not even been aware. So part of our opportunity together and we work and work on is to totally rethink our system, set students up for success early. And I've shared this example with
probably Dan and others in this room. I think about the uh I didn't run track. You got me tracking here. Okay, you I won't put you on the line race. Um I'll play soccer because I love to
slide tackle that doesn't shock me. But I I love to watch um our track runners, especially in the relay races um because they at full speed, faster
than I could ever imagine running at full speed are passing this baton back in such a scheduled practice way. And rarely do they drop the baton. And so I think that in so many ways resonates with our shared work. How do
we ensure we are not dropping a bit on between K12, hybrid, career, what's uh I know that's something that we've been working hard on uh and will continue to stay laser focused on them.
a few key tactics. Uh and again, if you have other key tactics that we need to run the return on investment on, please flag them for us. Um some key tactics uh that are being deployed to move the needle in this area. Uh number one, um guaranteed enrollment. That's that's
pretty uh new in Indiana, but a number of ways that students can have guaranteed enrollment uh to our colleges or universities. So again trying the path of the upon more seamlessly between one chapter of a student's life to the
next. Uh number two again those credentials of value with the Indiana College Board number increasing there and all the CTE credentials of value the number increasing there. Um that is allowing us to more readily and easily
pass the con. Um and then also I think uh some of our work that we've done so far but really an opportunity ahead is to ensure all the credentials have that ability. Uh so we have a lot of MLUS
uh between one college to another college when talking to parents and families and students unless they're they're very focused on that one thing many don't know the whole system and what all is possible in terms of stackability so how
we work to improve and build stackability among our credentials there are a number of groups working on that uh in in India uh and that will be a major push. Uh the next industry alignment and again
industry alignment and I would also add ensure that uh uh we are ensuring we're doing everything that we can to build uh quality citizens um industry alignment current and future needs data levels better.
Indiana is currently the only state to include graduate retention in its outcomes based performance funding formula. I understand that we did not get that funding this year. I'm already hearing uh from legislators that they're when we get to
2027 and of course a lot could change between now and then uh with the economy. Uh but there's still interest in questions being asked about that outcomesbased funding formula which I know this commission has worked hard on. Uh do there need to be a few tweaks here
and there? Maybe. Uh well we can take a look at that. 73% of Indiana resident students across our public institutions uh remained in Indiana at least one year after graduation.
That's compared to uh 58% of all students. Uh I think uh we have a a breakdown specifically commission members of uh Indiana students who stay in Indiana and non Indiana students who
are coming to India and leave. Uh I have that number in my mind. Our team wanted to do a little bit more facteing. So that would be coming. But again a key benchmark that we will honestly uh take a look at. Uh we also as as you know in
here uh prior to HA 1001 had over 3,400 degree and C certificate programs. Um we'll continue to review and make sure our programs are as valuable as possible. Key tactics working to move the needle
in this area. And actually, let me pause really quick. Um, because with our degree certificate programs, I I want to just flag um and I've shared this uh with all of our commission members and our our presidents. Um, but I want to
make sure um to share a question that we are going to add to the uh program review when faculty submit for review. Again, we want to make sure the industry align, but we also want to produce the best citizens we can for our country. So, one
thing that we will ask them uh to answer when they do submit reviews, how does the proposed program cultivate civic responsibility and commitment to the core values of American society? For example, how does the curriculum include components that must have civic engagement in the duties of citizenship
and improve society? Uh that will that question will be added effective immediately. uh and we look forward to uh hearing responses from any programs that that we review as a commission going forward. Some key tactics uh that are working to
move the needle in this area. First, and I don't know how much uh commission members have talked about this in the past. Um we may need to bring someone in to speak about the talent association development and convening that is happening in our key talent areas that is very much business
and industry le where they're inviting education to the table. So um more to come on that. Also uh the development of the qualifications framework to build out stack and credentials. The general assembly charge
uh our team to build out the qualifications framework to submit to them. That will be public very shortly uh and and you all will be able to see how we are thinking through uh building stack credential system uh in the
future. essentially better honories and offerings for our people. Also already said a couple times the degree program approval and review and then um the growth of apprenticeships
uh really benchmarking and understanding the impact of of that on higher education. There are some additional tactics that were identified in in multiple calls that we may need to develop. uh uh the
one that lacks on BP, we've already talked about it a bit, the graduation retention rate, right now that is a data point. Um I don't know that we have as a state a specific tactic, I think universities do uh but that was flagged.
So just again want to transparently bring that one up. The other thing that was brought up on multiple calls by people is the ongoing impacts of AI. Um AI is something that um I know talking to our our educators, the folks in this
room, it is moving so quickly that in some cases business and industry struggle to tell us how we need to move at that pace. Uh so that is going to be a growing uh focus uh for us
our work ahead and I've already articulated this uh a couple of times and um if if anything will show you how kind of my mind works. It's probably this slide. Ensure we have smart goals aligned to our area of focus. Understand the return
on investment for every single package. Uh what is working? We will seek to advocate for more funding to support. We've been highly successful in K12 in doing that. But we have to show the internal prevention. What is not working? It'll be very honest and
transparent. Here's what our data shows. Let's reallocate that to what is working. Um and then uh evaluate and consider additional tactics that we need to deploy to achieve the goals that we're after in the state of Indiana.
Again, a couple of those were flat. This was all and this will be public. This was all shared uh while it was formally shared. It really meant as a draft to get your feedback to get if there anything that that we're missing or or you think we need to add or look at.
You're welcome to ping me. I saw my phone glowing a few times while I was talking. Can't wait to see what you're saying. Um but uh sure appreciate the opportunity to serve uh with so many in this room and uh I'll pass it over to
you. >> Thank you, Secretary Jenner. Um I and I welcome comments from folks not necessary but certainly uh in response to someone in Secretary Jenner. I would just like to say a couple things real quick and then open it up. Number one, I
really want to commend uh Secretary um when when when it was determined that and I think very rightly so very excited for you to come in as commissioner in addition to the roles responsibilities as secretary overall and leading the entire vertical education. I think the
only hesitation some people had including is how in the world can you find time to do all of this? a really good team, certainly of people, >> but but not only I'm just so impressed. Not only uh are you doing it kind of at
an organizational level, but you with the support of the team are doing it in a very deep way and and I know it's early and that's important to do on the front end, but from what I've learned about how you do your business with Department of Ed, board of ed, all the other responsibilities,
um you are just so impressively and super engaged in talking to everyone that really needs to be talked to to really have a great understanding of what our roles and responsibilities are and how the different parts of the education vertical really work together and can
work together. I have seen a little bit more about how what the potential is for that u for not just efficiencies but for effectiveness of the different parts of the education system to work more effectively together. So thank you for
the what you're doing but also thank you for the approach you're making. I also want to say thank you to uh the entire team CH team which is phenomenal. What a phenomenal group and we've had the luxury of having just one success and phenomenal group of leaders uh along the
way. a testament to the commission and the work we do, but it's a testament to the to the folks that get on board who have really are just bought in and have worked, I think, seamlessly with you and and and and others to really make this transition uh effective and and
appropriate. So, thanks to the team for that. The only other comment I would make and there was a lot in there um in your level set and in your report out from talking to everyone that you talked to and referenced. Um I I go back I always think about when the the
attainment slide when it talks about 76% of students think about that they say they want to go on some form of postsecary education but when time comes only 50 whatever 2 3% has been in that picture. that number was just so and we put a lot of time into that through the
heart or the heart and mind group that the endowment helped support to learn why that is. Um what I think about are the strategies that we have that we have already done but also the potential that we can do more of in different ways across the education vertical to make an
impact on that. So I think about the 21st century scholar program. Since we added a scholar success program, you now have that population which ideally or not ideally practically is the is the group that is the most challenged probably for economic reasons and other
reasons to actually make that decision to go on to school and then complete and they go they actually go at an 80% rate. So um whereas the the population in general drops to a 50 50 some% level
those scholars that go through that program go at an 81% level I think was the last number I saw and actually complete at a higher rate than any other subgroup. So to me that's emblematic of the type of thing that we can continue
to uh not only do with that program but with others. off. Shut up. But I just want to follow on with some thanks to everyone and a couple of following comments. Ted, I see your hands. Madam Secretary, I I'm just really I don't know smart.
>> You ready? Measurable, tainable, realistic. >> I will email you that. Uh you're gonna see some of my uh well I'm I'm a dad nerd but that's the easiest way to Yeah.
>> You can you can hang that on your wall in the future. >> Will you sign it? >> Absolutely. >> Yes. Yeah. when you're chair secretary excellent presentation
outstanding and I wasn't going to specifically just did tremendous job of level setting and I appreciate the strong vision that's articulated there is very impressive
to echo and share his thoughts also want to appreciate and the focus on education containment as Mr. chair stated. I just also want to emphasize the appreciation around the emphasis and overland and condition
in terms of a of a gracious offering that may create opportunity for the state or to achieve what we're trying to achieve funding educational attainment. I have written a note. I have inserted
educational appreciation, interest, preparedness, entertainment. So when in my mind what I what I've seen over the years is that there is a conversation that assumes those three
elements or there's a tendency to overlook the appreciation the interest and preparedness especially in your environment that's what you know but the minute we begin to contemplate
it there are people who have no idea of why people prize education which is what appreciation means. >> I prize it. If it's number, if we don't appreciate that some people
don't have that prize, then we won't appreciate why there is no interest, then we won't appreciate why people are going to school. My father wanted to go to school, but he could not
because of his race in the south. either the sh was a slave as he called himself. Today schools are there but I can't get it or they're there but I won't go.
Buses go by every day but I'm not one. So I think the appreciation, the interest, the preparedness then helps drive the execution which there needs to be attained. So I think there are so much about
appreciation. There's a art appreciation. There are the language arts. They're the visual arts. Well, typically there is an education that makes people appreciate that. So what I'm going to talk about is really education arts that we have an
opportunity to really lift up and expose to size and millions of young people and families. I think that begins to get at the root that then causes more people to start engaging in the education enterprise which then drive all these
targets that you're talking. >> Thank you. Great for your presentation. >> Thank you Dennis knowing that and then we can have some additional followup when we meet here soon. Thank you for that. >> Any other comments? Just make sure that
very quickly and again thank you for join Madam Secretary without I appreciate the alignment piece that we bring to the table starts the same thing. Um so this is going to new opportunities for they want
to say that I see some value sets in here and I want to stress the importance of those and say that they repeating from time to time given the rapid onset of new technology and other things. My fear sometimes is that we be driven by
as opposed to driving change by using those tools to our advantage uh and responding to market leads importance as it is for employers uh sometimes can be trends and so the charge of this group
to keep the big picture in mind look at the entire pipeline and then maintain this set of values on behalf of the future taxpayers and people of this state um I think could be even more important Uh, and so thank you for stating that today. I hope we continue to do that and
we're reminded as needed of what our values actually are. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Bill. And that was something that was loud and clear from commission members. Um, and I will let will not share anything that we talked about, but
um, that was a comment on our bill. So, thank you. Yeah, I've been in the in the spirit of appreciation and thanks one group that I've made a note note to myself to to mention that I forgot to mention. I also want to thank the institutions. We have
phenomenal higher ed institutions in this state as as we all know uh evidenced by how many people from outside Indiana come here and want to get their education here for all sorts of good reasons. So I I also want to thank the presidents and the institutions and uh all the all the
partners within those institutions who have leaned in and worked closely with the team. >> Yes. >> Secretary and and all of us to really make this transition so far very smooth and seamless and I expect the same going forward. So, thank you to the to our
university partners and we really do look at that as partners and yes, we we're here to help support the great work that they do including their boards of trustees which are so committed to hiring and the students in Indiana and beyond. So, thank you. Any other
comments before we move forward? Okay, hearing none. Um we'd like to move uh now to our uh consent agenda which has been posted online as you and you would have seen our uh the consent
agenda for today includes the 2026 commission meeting schedule. You also have a copy of that in front of you and as we've talked but just to reiterate we are moving for 2026 we are moving meetings to this site uh for a number of
good reasons. Um, and so that's part of We are also going to move the timing since we're doing a more condensed uh meeting uh format. We're going to move the timing back an hour to start at 10:00 going forward since we're able to end early enough to allow folks to
effectively and efficiently get back to their homes uh in a timely manner. So uh with that, I would entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as scheduled for 2026. So, so moved. Second.
>> Thank you. Thank you. Any comments, questions? >> All right. Hearing none. All in favor, please say I. >> I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Thank you very much. Motion passes. All right. We're now going to move on. Let me see. Make sure I'm not
missing anything. We're going to move on to our um first item of new business, which is the 20 26 27 Frank Bay grant schedule of awards. Uh Cody Robinson is going to present that to us. I'm just looking forward to your presentation,
Cody. >> Good morning. >> Morning. J. So today we're gonna be presenting the 26.7 uh proposed schedule
of awards for the great grant. Before we get to that point, uh we do have a presentation prepared that kind of level sets on what the grant is, its background, and its recent history. So, I'm going to walk you uh with you through that today.
So, the Franco Banning Grant is Indiana's primary needs-based financial aid program serving Indiana students going to Indiana institutions. It was actually made up of two different awards. the higher educational board which is for students attending public
and for private family institutions and our freedom of choice grant for those students attending private institutions. Uh since fiscal year 2021, so the last few years, the Indiana general assembly
has appropriated 167, you know, almost 168 million annually for the uh those two grant programs combined, which we generally refer to as Frank Oannon. Uh and this has been true for for 26 and 27. And I want to make a note that here
as as many of you know in the 2511 bill a number of things saw reductions um in response to the changing economic climate but the framework did not and that's something we're very thankful for. I also want to emphasize the uh
position of the record banding grant folds not only within our uh financial aid program but our overall mission as a commission. Uh last year there were over 37,000 recipients of the French band grants and that's over half of all state
scholarship recipients. So a very very large portion of our uh state financial aid recipients or scholarship recipients are banning awardees. Uh and like I said, each year we're appropriate about 167 168 million. Um and that is of the
roughly 400 million total of the state and student financial aid spending that we do each year. So as you can see the frame abandon award is a very large and a very important piece of the pie of our overall mission in terms of making uh
education after high school accessible and affordable to students and There we go. Um, so, uh, I also want to touch on a couple of the eligibility requirements for statute. They are all listed here. Um, but a couple that I do
want to highlight. Again, this is for Indiana residents who are going to Indiana institutions like within our state borders. Um students can use these awards for uh an associates degree, their very first bachelor's degree or a
certificate at ITC or Vincent University. There are also different levels or different amounts that students can be eligible for in the award based on how many credit hours they're taking. So students taking at least 24 credit hours uh qualify for one level of the award.
if they're taking more than 30 credit hours, they can uh they can actually be eligible for a higher amount of that award. So that's another component of the eligibility that we consider students. Uh and the last piece that I'll uh I'll highlight here is uh the
importance of the FASA or the Franco program. So, like I said, this is our primary needs-based uh scholarship and how we determine need is through the completion of the pre-allocation for federal student aid. And as a part of that is the calculation known as the
federal student aid index. Uh that allows us to see uh what a level of need students have and based on that level of need, the award amount can change. That's why it's very important for students and families to make sure they're completing that FA by that April
15th deadline each year um and every subsequent year that they'reing a high expectation. So, uh one of the things that we wanted to do is give some insight into what this looks like on the commission side or the staff side in order to administer
uh this grant program. So we uh come before the commission to propose a schedule of awards every year about this time. Uh that timing is specific uh partly because one we have found that over the years that by October we usually have pretty good amount of data
to make a guess at what kind of spending that we're going to be seeing over the next couple years. And then also we want to make sure that we're putting forth a schedule in a timely manner for our institutions. And so we'll come before this body puts that schedule about this
time every year and then shortly thereafter we'll take that schedule to the state budget committee which is often required per statute uh to present that to them. And once that is on their agenda and has been uh and that meeting has been held, we will be able to
communicate that officially to our institutional partners and then begin pulling together uh financial aid packages for students for the upcoming year. uh once students are then attending the universities those institutions will let
us know uh and make claims on uh eligible students will verify that eligibility and then we release those funds from admission to the institutions. So then on the student side of things, what students experience is, you know,
they're uh probably about an hour finding schools that they're interested in. Um over the last schools um and then following that, uh they'll also complete the FAFSA by that April 15th deadline.
And then um the there we go. Uh then students will receive their admittance and their financial aid aid letters from the students. Again, it's super important that we're a good partner so that institutions can deliver that in a timely manner. Um, and then that way
students and families can make those informed decisions about what's next for them after high school. Uh, they need students will need to accept their admissions offers by May 1st. That's a standard deadline, you know, across the country for our, uh, sort of a typical
academia institutions. Uh and then once students are attending and we release those funds uh from the commission to the universities, students will see those applied against their tuition needs. That's a little bit of a look into what the process is like both for us at the
commission and then also for what students experience. The next thing I wanted to do is talk briefly about the last couple years uh history of the Frank grants uh and kind
of how we got to where we are today. So the graph that you see in front of you, the orange bars will represent the reason. So like I said, that's for the last of you spent about 1678 million uh annually. The blue bars then
represent how much we've spent. Uh and the yellow bars represent a balance that was occurring over time of savings from underspend. And as you can see in this graph uh there was a number of years where uh there was a under spend of the award. We were under spending it by
about $30 million. So as many of you know many of you were here but for those who uh were not in 2022 the commission recommended increasing the breaker banner award by 35% in order to bring the max award level equal to about what
it was pre great recession so about that equal value uh that worked the way we thought it would for about a year and you can see that in the graph where we kind of demonstrate the uh increase in spending between fiscal year 23 and fisc
year 24. In 2024, the federal government also made some changes to the federal student aid index. Uh and those changes were unexpected at the time and what they the sort of end result of those changes was it greatly accelerated um our spending
as well with the breaking grant because again we rely on that calculation of the federal student index to determine eligibility. that resulted in the increase that you see between fiscal year 24 spending and fiscal year 25 spending. And that put
this commission in a very difficult place uh between carrying on our mission and but also being consumers of the funds that we've been entrusted by the general assembly. And so this body made the difficult decision to lower awards
last year for the current academic year 25 and 26. Um and that results in what you see there, the difference in spending between fiscal year 25 and fiscal year 26 on that graph. We are currently projecting uh for the current
year spending uh of the award schedule to be about 160 million of that $168 million appropriation. I'll also make a quick note. Um as you can see those yellow bars sort of end at year 24. That
is because as part of uh 101 uh the budget bill in this current uh the 2025 session uh 77 and a half million of those savings that we accumulated um were reverted to the state general fund as part of the larger uh response to the
economic conditions and the frameworks no longer have that uh legal status that allows me to build up those savings. So that is not something that we have going forward at this time. So now I'll get to kind of the schedule of awards, the voting item. Uh, and as I
do, I want to kind of set that by letting you know what were some of the things that were on our mind and some of the really important considerations that we had when we were setting the schedule of awards. So first and foremost was the mission of the Franklin grant uh and the
commission in general and that is that continuing to remove those barriers in this case really financial barriers between high school students or sorry between education beyond high school and future families and students. Uh we also wanted to be good stewards and we and
that means keeping that investment in the program aligned to that budget aligned to that appropriation. We also wanted to be really considerate about how our decision-m process affects our key stakeholders. First and foremost being our who's your families and
students and making sure that when we present an award schedule and we vote and approve an award schedule that schedule is the schedule for the year and that we are not having to uh comment change that schedule uh in order to stick within budget. So that was a
really key uh consideration for us so as not to disrupt students mid academic year. And the last thing that uh we really considered heavily was timing and that is you know the delivery of the schedule in a timely manner so that our institutional partners can build those
financial aid packages. So uh like I said one of the things that we do as we go to set this schedule is we try to predict what that spit will be. Uh and we do that by using a number of different factors looking at how many
things uh you know students will spread across different institutional types different uh levels of credit hours. Um we use a number of factors that you can see there on the slide. One of the things that will be new uh in the next couple months is we will actually be
publishing this methodology uh and that will be become public and we invite our institutional partners, our financial aid organizations or any other stakeholders that are interested in this sort of work to provide us feedback and let us know what they know we could be
doing to improve our methodology because it one just in the spirit of transparency and collaboration but also two knowing that whatever whatever improvements we make will empower this body to make even better decisions going forward. And so that is something that
will come out over the next couple months. You can detain for that and of course invite everyone in this body to take a look at that and provide your feedback as well. So here's where we'll kind of uh present what we're proposing for that fiscal
year 20 or sorry academic year 26 27 schedule of awards. Similar to how all of our institutions have agreed and committed to full tuition flat for the academic year 62.7, we are recommending that the current
schedule awards for the fraing grant in that academic year also be maintained flat to its current the same schedule awards as the current academic year. Um so at UNCZ if that is uh the when we propose that if that's what we vote on
and approve uh we expect the spending of this schedule awards to be about the same in fiscal year 27 as we are currently predicting for fisc year 26. Um I'll also note that um right now the those uh funds do not have their uh
savings status. They they cannot build up savings. Um but there are options for us if there is any monies left over for us to consider and work with the state budget agency uh to apply those towards 21st century or adult student grant um in order to make sure those dollars are
taken within higher education. So that's something that we'll explore later on as we see uh things play out in real time. And how I want to leave you today is uh with one final uh graph. Uh and this one
here um depicts a this orange line here shows the actual spending of the frame payment grant over time. And that blue line represents that trend line. Uh and as you can see even from just a few years ago we are still investing 30
million more uh in the frame band grant the program and what that means for students and families than we were even just a couple years ago. And so um what I think this means for us is that Indiana has been and will continue to be
a leader in the nation in terms of awarding needs based financial aid. And as one of our priorities being making higher education or education after high school accessible and affordable to students and families, that's something that I do not believe is going to
change. Uh and so with that, I'll uh turn it over to you all and uh answer any questions that we may have. >> So if I may just double down on a couple things you said. Uh slide 13. Um I want to to draw attention to uh the
commission has a current methodology. It's interesting when talking to uh some of the public college presidents and especially some of the private college presidents uh they had ideas on the methodology and so
$168 million let's make sure it gets to Hoosiers in the best way possible. So, we are going to transparently share that methodology in January with the public in hopes that we're doing everything we can uh to make sure we have eyes on it
and and are spending that money uh as as prudly and widely as possible. So, I'm excited about that. I love when we can put something out transparently. Inevitably, it's always ended up better when the public can weigh in. Uh slide 14. I want to draw your attention to
that. the green box that shows the 168 um orange bar and the 157 blue bar. It was asked by different folks repeatedly, what happens if we
underspend? Because again that pass under spend the yellow bars there the general assembly swept all of that back in. They reverted everything. So I think it's a really important
question. We do have the ability uh for any remaining balance to be transferred into 21st century scholar fund or the adult student grant fund. Our goal of course and this is why I think putting the methodology out there is so important. Our goal is to get as
close to that 168 as possible. Uh but lesson learned from uh past commissioner who wisely said when you go over you you it's you never want to have to go go back. Um so
that is just a couple details I think we're proactively trying to do to continue to get better uh as a team. So, thank you for your presentation, Cody. And I'd love to hear feedback presentation.
this uh this mic Dan, I would just say the U budget and productivity committee reviewed this last week at our meeting and uh and again covered it pretty extensively and and I'd just like to share that that group
supports this uh uh this approach and and approving this budget. >> Thank you, Mike. Yes, that was a great presentation. someone that seems to be
listening to our commissioner's presentation of the orders earlier. Some of that seems to be conspicuous about absence and maybe it's there another presentation from the ghost of
families, but it seems like there's an opportunity for some preamble when people get awards. Is there an education around all the words you were using earlier
that citizens are being invested here? that you're thought so highly of that investments are being made in your life and in your future and your family so that you can grow, develop your skill.
Return contribution to your family, return contribution to the community, be an outstanding citizen for this state, for the nation that these are to your points. either really investment and and and
I know it wasn't until I got older I'm applying for financial aid but it was never imparted to me that you're able this is not a given that someone has made it possible for you to
have this opportunity. So I I appreciate that now women ever did but no one ever took the time to educate and I'm wondering if over time they're just those very nice insightful messages
consciousness raising people are not just that much more appreciative but then you have more people wanting to stay in your state and wanting to turn around and see how I can invest in return value and return plans because of
the states. very generous investment. Then maybe there more inclination to to steward that investment. Higher completion rates, higher retention rates, higher persistence rates. Just starting with the investment
of the message of investment, the great organization, >> not on your eloquence, but I make a motion that Dennis writes the letter that goes. I I I love when we uh delegated task.
>> Um you know beautifully said. >> Yeah, it really was that we invest in people. We believe in you. We Yeah, I was quoting him as well. U Molly, the one thing I was looking back and um some of the again members Cody maybe you
could you could hit on that. I'm sure folks in the audience who've been around um know how this is communicated. Looking back at slide seven, it looks like we as a commission communicate with the institutions and then the institutions
communicate with the student. Um now that's not to say we could not include some sort of a letter with that uh communication uh but it's something we could we could talk to our institutions about. So I think it's a good a good
flat. I mean it is an investment uh and we believe in that person. We're investing in you to enroll and complete an education and then uh be a good citizen of our country uh matters. So um yeah uh once we talk to our institutions
Dennis uh uh we'll get you the timeline so you can write the letter and Dennis you uh every time. Every time. I mean, the substance substance of what you say. >> Yeah. >> But also the the way you say it is just
so much appreciated. For those of you who are old enough in the room, you'll don't be embarrassed by this, but every time you talk, I think it's EF, you know, you tuned in. >> Yeah. When talks, you know, the old ad
where everybody's in a restaurant talking real loud, Mr. starts to speak and everybody just shuts up and listens and uh again not good marriage but that's I think about it every time. So thank you for what you do and what you're saying
and thank you uh good reputation very much appreciate I just have a couple quick questions. One is is factual federal student index. Is that just for
the cost of living? In other words, do we know whe students in the cost living? So, I'm just wondering if we more sensitive to the the cost of living
where they might be. >> That's a good question. They do know that it takes into account um a family's uh income uh and their assets because again do not believe it takes into account um the the state or where they
might it's blank for their country. >> So that might to do we potentially need to adjust that more expensive. Um but then more broadly um and then
this sort of follows on you that was just saying a little bit how we know whether these grants are working. So I think when you're helping people in need every dollar
and cents your own but um secretary of general just laid out all these other rules. So you might wonder how are they abandoned scholarships? How many of the attendance one one quick metric might be how many
these scholarships end up? So it's called a table. So that would be >> Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I don't have that off the top of my head, but I know we have a really strong business intelligence team and um I think that
that's definitely something that we can like take that consider we will kind of build that into our as we build out these more explicit our lives. I think that's something we can we can work on. And I just kind of double down on the
text, not only the take up rate of the state student financial aid and really looking up that little pie chart we saw beyond Oannon um but it also we can probably run the data on you know retention of students yearover-year who
get I mean there are a number of data points that we could look at to better understand the impact. Thank you kind of. Y first and then everybody great uh presentation very
helpful and um you know two years in um on the commission just having a question about maybe more from a policy standpoint. So when you look back into some of the years uh where we you know
we're way under spin would that have been what would be the reasons is that maybe direction or was that yeah what would be the reason just as we think through the future I love the the thought uh secretary Jenner
about getting as close as you can right because we know the people we know students in need and I'm just thinking back some of those years Um and kind of also thinking ahead could this happen again or asked if I under or did it just was
it part of the process that came under? >> Yeah, that's a great question. Let me uh I don't know off the top of my head exactly. Um so let me get back to you on that one. Um and kind of figure out where but what is that what is really
that difference between what we're setting the budget at and what we are coming in at. So I can look back at that those communications if I can get you more detail on that. >> And Dan just said Michelle might be an expert on this. So yeah a little bit
while they're investigating. Um you many of you may recall that the reward was around the recession. um part of the reason for the 35% increase a few years ago when somebody geted back to those improvements measured levels and there was some guidance for a period of time
after that not to adjust the schedule of awards back up and then coupling that with um the declining college rate there was certainly some understanding related to that as well and then if you think about the continued growth of 21st century scholars for is really
meant to be for those low-inccome students who either move into the state during high school and missed that sign up window in middle school for 21st century scholar or don't meet the requirements to activate their 21st century scholars award. So we've done a better job of enrolling uh students into
the 21st century scholar program and helping them achieve that award. It affects the frank spending and as well a combination of different factors. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, helpful. Thank you Michelle. Thank you Cody. >> Terrific comments by everyone. Thank you
very much. I look at um a lot of things similar to um in working for AT&T signal strength that nobody notices the investments that we put into the network make the ability to connect
broader better um but everybody notices when the signal goes down it's the end of the world and it's this is broaden nobody cares terrible even though we're investing billions of dollars in making it better on the time, similar to the
state investing millions into students to make them, their families, and their future better. So, um, when when this grant amount goes down, I'm concerned that it will be perceived as
catastrophic when it's not. It's it's the investment that's been made into into the programs, into the people that has been very important. I love what Dennis said. Similar to that that when it's a handout, you don't appreciate it.
It's similar to the investments that we make in the network. It's expected. I I'm I'm I don't have what someone else has. And so to level the playing field, I expect that handout. And and it's just
it's aired mentality, id thinking. But Dennis, when we speak about investing, we took the time. We invested in you. We invested in your family. We invested in your future. That's what makes the difference. That's what drives those
metrics. And he's got that magic song from the Center for Leadership Excellence. So, I'm counting on his letter. But it's it's also a mentality of how do we duplicate that mentality at the state level at at the community level that we really are investing in
people. >> Great point. >> And then one just uh first of all that was a great commercial for AT&T 69. Listen um the the uh just appropriation
at 168 million has remained steady since fiscal year 2021. Um and then what it what the commission is voting on today is the same as so there's not a reduction what we're
voting on for students. Okay. I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you. I and I apologize wrong wrong language but >> yeah and again it's not catastrophic it's the investment the amount that has been invested >> thank you popper
>> yeah the trend line is to me the part of the message there on that graph that's showing we continue yeah we wish that glitch hadn't happened any other questions for Cody Cody great presentation thank you and really advice
a lot. I think it's we hear this you know once a year and it's for even after hearing it many many times over the years it's it's good to refresh our minds and understand how the process works. So that was super super helpful.
Um so we do have to vote and in approval uh approve these uh this recommendation. So I would entertain a motion for the uh approval of the Frank Oannon uh schedule of awards as presented by Cody. So >> move.
>> Thank you. Any additional comments or questions? >> Okay, hearing none. All in favor, please say I. >> I oppose. Same. Okay, very good. Thank you very much. Motion approved. All right. Uh we are moving into our
budget productivity committee uh section of the meeting. We have two capital projects for full discussion. Uh the first project is the purchase of 501 Indiana Avenue by Purdue University from the Purdue Research Foundation.
Materials were shared online. You've got information your books. I will turn to Mike Ally on the phone who's the chair of the budget productivity committee who will take us through this. >> Well, thank you very much, Dan. Uh, our committee did meet last week on the 6th
and reviewed both of these uh capital project requests and uh supported moving them forward to the full uh commission for consideration. So, I'm assuming I'm going to turn over to uh to Cody and probably Kendra, I assume, is going is there and will present on behalf of
Purdue uh these two projects. I would suggest that uh we consider each of them separately. Uh but again, the uh uh budget productivity committee did review these and is supportive of moving them forward to the full commission. So, I'll
turn it to you Cody, let you drive drive things there in person. I can wait here quickly. Cander, but just wanted to let you know for both of these projects uh like uh uh said the staff does recommend. So, I'll let uh
come up and explain more about them. >> Good morning, commission members, Dr. Jenner. Um thanks for having me today. Uh if you'll indulge me for just a moment, I'd like to give a little bit of background on both of these two projects. So you'll see in addition um
to the standard Excel sheet and items that we turn in for all capital projects, Purdue also included a trifold of our um campus master plan of our Purdue Indianapolis um location. And for those of you that
aren't familiar with this, a few years ago, um, IUPY went through a split where now, um, Purdue has a full campus here, R1 institution um, in Indianapolis and so
through our counterparts at IU. And so these two capital projects are related to our Purdue Indianapolis campus. Um, this project as a whole is our number one institutional priority for the next year, standing up this campus, adding
programs um, and bringing the full force of Purdue University to Indianapolis. So, there's some um, kind of background about why we're here today. So, the first um, project that I would like everyone to consider is the acquisition
of 501 Indiana Avenue from the Research Foundation. The property includes 1.5 acres of developed land and a paid parking lot. The acquisition provides the university with both near-term and long-term benefits, increases parking capacity, and provides space for student
programming in Indianapolis. The purchase is being funded by $9 million of reserve operating funds, which is equal to the purchase price that research foundation um from a street development. I'm happy to take any
questions. Any questions online? Right. Very good. Uh Cody, you already recommended that staff is fully in support. Any other comments or from you or Mike uh for consideration or you
good? We're good. Thumbs up. All right. So hearing none, um would uh entertain entertain a motion for approval of the 501 India Avenue purchase property. So >> second. >> Thank you very much. Any other
questions, comments? Okay, hearing none. All in favor, please say I. >> I >> oppose saying. All right. Very good. That's motion approved. move on to the second one, the canal square apartments.
>> So the next project for your consideration is um a transaction of purchasing canal number apartments from the research foundation. The property includes a housing complex with nearly 500 beds, a parking garage, retail space along the Indianapolis canal block
adjacent to pretty diverse meaningless. Acquiring this property allows us to increase our on campus housing inventory for students, expand our footprint in Indianapolis. This purchase also aligns with our PR campus master plan. The total purchase cost is $70 million and
will be funded by non-free replace auxiliary health and dining funds supporting their bond issuance. I'm happy to take questions. >> Okay, same same game here, Cody and Mike. I think we're good to go. Um, any
other comments or questions from anyone? All right. So, I would entertain a motion for approval of the Canal Square Apartments by Purdue. >> Thank you. >> Second. >> Second. Okay. All right. Unless there
are any other questions, um, I will, um, appreciate your vote here. All in favor, please signify by saying I. I. I. I. I. oppose. Same. Wonderful. Thank you very much. >> Thank you.
>> Uh motion approved. Both motions approved. I will pass along to my one daughter who um lived in those apartments while she was a graduate. So now by Purdue and she'll be thrilled with that. All right. Um let's see. We now are
moving on. Got to get caught up here. Oh yes, academic affairs. Um we have three academic uh degree programs for expedited action. Um going to turn it over to Dennis chairs the academic affairs and quality committee. Um these
are expedited action but just as a reminder we do need to break out the ones uh from the um IU uh type of the media school because Ted needs to excuse himself from that as as a faculty.
>> Yeah. Allow me to Yeah. I'm not here to matter of their work, their involvement, their preparations and and readiness for our day a committee meetings has no actually
accused himself this question that it's been a value so really thank you so much so that your turn to the academic affairs and quality event October 27th and discuss the three
programs on on the issue today that recommend they be placed on today's agenda for expedited action. Those being Indiana University Bloomington, a bachelor of science in sports media and a bachelor of science robotics
for Ry Lafia, a master of science in strategy and security and defense technologies. Thank you Dr. Butler. Uh and I just say that uh being on that committee robust discussion about all the three programs and very very enthusiastic and support
of those um the the sports market or sports media uh degree. Let's take that one first if we could uh since Ted has recused himself. So uh I would entertain a motion for approval of that program. So
thank you. Need a second. >> Second. >> Thank you very much. Any comments or questions or concerns on that? Okay, hearing none. All in favor, please say I. >> I. >> I. >> I. >> I. >> Say I.
>> Was that a line for approval or Okay, I take the question. Thank you. Sorry. Uh, was that a bay? It was Mike Alley. >> Did he say name? It's just confirmed.
>> Commission member Ally, can you hear us? >> Are you there? >> Was that a Was that >> Yes, I'm here. Yeah. Can you hear me? >> Was that a name or was that just a delay? Yay. >> It's a yay. Yeah. Yes. Yes. company. We
just wanted there was a delay. We just want to make sure it came in after I asked for any opposition. So, we just wanted to make sure we captured your intent correctly. So, thank you. >> Yes. Sorry about that. >> All right. Now, I think we can take the
other two programs, the robotics program. Um, and now I'm short-term memory loss space. The second one, >> the defense program. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Very good. Very good. We can take those together. and Ted, you are now able to vote on this session.
So, I would entertain a motion for approval of the other two consent agenda items for expediting action. Thank you. Motion to approve, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Bill. Second. >> Second. >> All right. Thank you. Any other comments, questions on those?
All right. Hearing none. All in favor, please say I. >> I. I. >> I. >> Any oppose? All right. Very good. Those programs are approved. Thank you all. All right. Finally, I'm going to move on to our um
our student success program uh presentation. So, we're going to hear today from Indiana University Northwest on their uh presentation on student success. Uh we have presentation from Brenda Stoer, which is vice president for student success, enrollment, and
institutional effectiveness at Indiana University. So, thank you for being here today. Take a seat. >> Sure. >> Great. Good morning. Never hear me. Might have to pull that mic in for those
on >> everybody hear me. >> Yeah. >> Good morning. Um, my name is Brena Stoer. Uh, I'm the vice president, I serve as the vice president for student success, enrollment, and institutional
effectiveness at Indiana University. Um, my team is laser focused on improving student outcomes and maximizing organizational efficiency um, across our enterprise. I came into
this role uh July 1 of this 2025. Um and I'm super passionate about this work. Uh actually I have two children uh that are at IU. So I I see a lot through their lens and that is what really drives me
to um to to help make it better for everybody. Our team squarely focused on advancing the goals and objectives of our IU 2030 uh student success pillar of our strategic
plan. At the heart of this commitment is retention, a key indicator of student success. Higher retention rates lead to a stronger graduation outcome, which translates to better workforce readiness.
Retention also reflects how well our students are thriving academically, socially, and holistically, showing that IU is supporting them every step of the way. across all campuses. We're driving strategic initiatives to
improve fall-to-fall retention using the fall 22 cohort as our baseline benchmark. Both Bloomington and IU Indianapolis have set ambitious goals. IU Bloomington
aims to be in the top 25% of the AAU universities while IU Indianapolis is striving to be among the top 25% of its peer group. This slide shows two years of retention
numbers against our baseline which was fall 2022 for students who return in fall 2023. As you can see, we have a lot of variability happening. Only three of our seven campuses have
improved from the baseline. Indianapolis, Cooko, and Northwest. These results underscore critical imperative. We must sustain and sharpen our focus on targeted scalable efforts
to drive retention improvements across all campuses. Ask you question. >> Yeah. What is what does it mean to be in the top 25%? What is that number you're
shooting for? for AA's it's mid like about for Bloomington it's about 93%. >> Okay. Okay. So we're looking at we need a 3%. Okay. Thank you for that. Today I'm going to cover a few key
initiatives um that we are leaning into heavily uh that have actually shown positive impact on student success. These include early proactive advising, our focus on DFW
rates, an enhanced student engagement initiative, our stellic um and other technology implementations, and the standing up of centralized student journey communications team.
>> What is DFW? It's it's the when students receive a grade of a D, an F, or withdraw from their course. >> Thank you.
>> When you hear academic advising, you might think of course planning and registration, and that's part of it, but the best advising goes much further. It creates space for deeper conversations that help students clarify their
academic and career goals, talk through challenges, and feel a stronger connection to the university. And when we time those intentional conversations well, we see real results. This chart shows one-year retention
rates for firsttime IU students in the fall 24 cohort. So the the students that started in fall three ward students who did meet with an advisor early in the fall 24 term returned to IU
at a 79% rate. But those students who did have an early advising meeting returned at 83% a nearly 4% increase. That's a meaningful difference at our
scale. And this pattern holds true even when we control for high school GPA, demographics, campus manager, incourse engagement, and other advising interactions. So this fall, we're we've
taken what worked or what showed worked and made it a coordinated strategy across the entire IU enterprise. And and when you look at that early advising, is it early advising just the
freshman year? Is it every single year? Is it uh ongoing? Can you say a little bit about what what means? >> So for retention, what we typically are measuring is first year to second year. So starting freshman.
>> Yeah. And I'm not talking retention. Let me clarify. >> Sorry. >> I I'm assuming you can define the tactic early advising. >> Oh, okay. Yes. Yep. Let me get to this next slide and talk to you about that. So, um the the model that we are using
is um focused on this early advising initiative. And what we've learned is is we target weeks 2 through seven of the fall semester as the key opportunity. Week one, advisors are still messing
with the schedule, right? Like link changes to somebody's schedule. weeks eight they're actually and beyond that they're actually working on the next term. So right now we're in the planning time or where people are trying to plan for their spring schedule so
that weeks two to seven are the critical the critical planning time. Um, so we're focusing outreach on a group of students who are less likely to be retained without proactive support and and have
launched these early advising appointments dedicated across all of our campuses. When they come in for these early advisory meetings, advisors use coaching based techniques to build rapport, help students talk about their
goals and anticipate any sort of obstacles. All our advisors are now trained on these techniques. The goal is simple. Meet the right students at the right time with the right conversation. So we're using our
limited staff resource where they'll have the biggest impact. Compared with fall 24 participation in early advising meetings among all first year students increased by 13 percentage
points this year just now. So a lot more students met with advisors early in the term. So we're optimistic that this will will show us good results. um the intervention reached the students who need it the most. So we look at our
priority population, those who most likely based on our data not to be retained. 62% of those completed a meeting this year compared to 55% of non priority.
Um, high engagement among the priority group is a meaningful success given that they're harder to get in touch with. Um, we will continue to focus on this priority population as we as we move
forward for spring. We will update this list using the students first semester results and do a coordinated outreach effort that escalates email to texting to personal phone calls ensuring timely
and almost in truth support to these students. Can >> I ask just a quick question? Excellent results. Thank you. I'm curious what what have you found are the things that most incentivize students to
take advantage of this advising because I mean obviously it's not mandatory and I remember 45 years ago when I was a friend I didn't I don't remember any advising I don't was an advisor I should have seen and just blew it off or what
but um I'm just kind of curious so much focus on this today which is awesome but how do you ultimately incentivize those students to take advantage of, >> right? We are um moving towards more mandatory. So basically what happens is
a hold, which I'm not a huge fan of holds. So a hold will prevent registration, that hold gets placed and until they actually meet with the advisor, that hold won't live and they can't register. So there's an incentive on their part,
but there's an incentive on our part because we want you to continue. So it's a balancing act. But yeah, but I think that's why we're also it's it's hard for us to try to have advising for all almost 90,000 students across. So we're
really trying to target in on those that that you know metrics that you know they may they may have challenge keeping. Thank you. Okay, another uh key area that affects whether students stay on track, the
number of students who fail to withdraw or barely pass their courses. This is um the DFW rate. And this matters because each D, F, or W in the first semester a student gets cut students odds of
returning by more than half. It's very discouraging when that happens. Here you will see the progress we're making. This chart shows that across all IU campuses, the percentage of students
getting a D or F or withdrawing from a course has dropped from 13.5% in 2022 to 10.8% last fall. That should according to our data mean
that more students will stay on track towards retention and graduation. Can I ask a quick question on that? What are what was the intervention that you guys how did you drive?
I I got I was writing it to myself and then I got excited about it. >> So the DFW rate decline isn't happening by treatments. Obviously, this reflects targeted work happening across IU to help more students succeed in their
classes. For example, IU Northwest um new students are placed into course plans that spread out the toughest classes instead of staging them all in the third semester. At IU Bloomington, faculty and high-risk courses are
redefining how they teach based on student student feedback, especially about around belonging and support. At IU Minianapolis, instructors are using tools um like AOT and adaptive learning
to personalize support throughout the semester. and and across all campuses, we're now flagging students who fall behind on assignments and sending them timely nudges to help them re-engage. So, what we're doing there, just want to
explain that a little bit, is that we we can go in and monitor in our learning system. If there's assignments that are due and and if a student isn't engaging or hasn't logged into it's called
Canvas, if they haven't been in there, then we can nudge them and and try to say, "Hey, you know, we need you to did you remember to put an assignment due?" That kind of stuff. And that has really positive impact too. But these are just a few of the smart
focused changes our campuses have been making to improve this metric. Student engagement. I want to talk to you now about the impact of engagement on student student success. Research shows that co-curricular
engagement positive positively influences student success with involved students demonstrating higher persistence and graduation rates compared to their non-engaged peers. At IU, an enterprise level contract with
the anthology engage is the primary platform used to measure student participation and co-curricular activities. Each instance is uniquely branded for its respective campus. For example, the Bloomington platform is
called be involved. While at Cooko, it's known as Cougar Life. in 2024 25 there in 2024 25 um there were 9,000 for just
Bloomington 9,692 registered activities in this be in bulk um platform generating 75,000 attendees with 22 22,000 unique students participate.
So what we started to do was measure measure the engagement in this platform. So this this chart presents the one-year retention rates from fall 2020 for beginners at Bloomington
compared to this past fall. So fall of fall retention. The bar on the left reflects the retention rate of students with no documented engagement. So in this platform, we couldn't find any
indication that they were engaged. These students were retained at 81%. The bar on the right shows the students with at least one documented engagement and they were retained at a significantly higher rate, 90%.
This represents a nearly 9 and a half percent point increase underscoring the strong cognitive impact of engagement on student persistence. So building on this clear link between
co-curricular engagement and retention, we've we've taken several steps to help our campuses connect with disengaged students. We're generating systematic engagement reports from Anthology, the platform
that tracks tracks participation to identify students with no documented engagement. These have been shared this fall just in the last let's see two weeks I would say um with our campuses
student affairs units. The reports identify individuals who are just disengaged or seem to be disengaged based on what we can tell and who may be at risk of leaving IU due to limited
connection or belonging. So, we've handed this information off to our campus leaderships leadership teams um and asked them to engage in activities to reach out to these students.
As of this fall, we've we've worked with um the campuses on adding even more information into this anthology platform. For example, at Bloomington in Indianapolis, we are trying to integrate the recreation center deck so that
students check in as they go in to work out or things like that. So, we're trying to build other data points to see if we can if we can see any other engagement, but we've emerged data from um these systems
um with zero co-curricular engagement, those that failed to meet with the advisor in week 2 through 7 and then those that had low Canvas the learning system activity scores. and we identified 1,600 students across our
whole enterprise who were who just had no activity. We engaged our um IU call center uh that is based down in Bloomington to actually make good oldfashioned phone calls because I said we've got to move quick.
We can't wait for the campuses to get engaged because they have to shift gears. Let's get the call center on the on the phone and reach out. They actually had 25 I was stunned by this and they were stunned by this. 25%
of the students pick answered the phone. Stunning. And they had deep conversations with those people in the call center. And I'm hopeful that this would show a connection or make a connection for the these students. But a
lot of times it was about um you know needing guidance or needing to know where they go or you know which is just I think we're just such a big institution that sometimes people just be a loss to be honest. So 25%
um of those people that they called they left messages from for a bunch of them and then of course there was like about 10% where the phone numbers don't work. So that's a whole another thing we're looking into. That's about engagement. The next one I
have here is um an update on our new student success tool called Stell. So do you know do you collect the data? Why do students choose IU? Do you know like individual student
because we're a school choice K12 obviously in higher ed too. Do >> we know why they're choosing you? >> Yeah. So we do an entering student survey across all of the all the campus and or all the enterprise and we do
collect the why and what they're interested in, what groups they're in, what hobbies they have, what activities they might like and that's our next step is to try to how do we pull that and really lean into that earlier to help them engage. Well, and I was just
thinking about um we know based on research that successful athletic programs and teams can drive up enrollment and drive up a number of other data points quite frankly. And Ted, I'm sure the acade I
know the academics are out and there uh but I go tailgate at IU and a lot of those kids really love that. So, so what um what I'm wondering though is you said we're trying to get the data from the recreation center, trying to get the data from um some kids are going to IU
because of they they want to >> right so taking that yes all of that worse retention >> I would say we want >> this is the exercise we are trying to build all of this like I've even asked
Okay, maybe they're involved in a fraternity or sorority. Why? How do we get that in there? How do we get that or club sports, huge club sports in in in especially how do we get that because they might be engaged, we just can't
quite we don't have consolidated them yet, but we're working on that. Well, it'd be interesting if there is a large percentage of your civ in athletics and they're they're going to I am uh you know is there a way to and I'm thinking out loud this is not for those listening
this is not a set in stone but is there a way you could incentivize even your person on the list to get a ticket then you're not a DFW or right but it's I'm just thinking through why are they
coming and how do we incentivize that? >> Um, so >> yeah, >> you can keep keep going. >> I'll be watching those tailgators on Saturday. >> Could I actually step in when you did a question? Um, this is about slide 12.
So, um, first of all, I have a difficulty that the delta here because the slide starts at 75%. sort of makes it a little bigger. Um 90 81% and you've said several times that
this is significant. Um but as I understand it, this is unadjusted for student or institutional characteristics. This is not a result of a regression. This is just students who had engagement 91% retention. Students
didn't have engagement 81% >> retention. Which makes me say well what if it's simply active students are the high students who get engagement and also are retained words this could be
just correlation and no causation uh and I think that comment also applies to um slide six. So what we need is to see uh some kind of a controlled experiment where we took a random sample of meeting
students and then randomly assigned this one to the advisor group this to the non-advisor group and then if there was a difference there I I believe the doctor a lot more. So that's that's one thing. Um and then secondly, I I
appreciate all the effort that's going into uh trying to help students stay in school, but from a I'm factor. So, but from a classroom perspective, I think one way we can easily retain students
would be just give them all A's, right? But obviously, we don't want to do that because the degree is supposed to be a signal to the world. Let's look at it from an employer standpoint. I have Indiana University believes to signal a dwelt certain kind of
achievement effectiveness. But what if the signal gets diluted because a significant number of students are getting this degree only half them because of extraordinary efforts that have been made on their behalf. I like those efforts. But I'm also mindful of
the fact that uh you know we if we say to the employer this young person is more than happy to work if they get a reminder phone call every morning they get driven on a golf course to their you
see what see what I mean? Uh so um the the focus on uh you know to getting rid of the T's and FS and W's is not a you know it's not a oneway street there there are some issues there and then the
last thing is after speaking for well other faculty I know it is really jarring to hear an academic institution referred to as enterprise it's just a choice of words I But
there are a lot of people in that posity who are very angry at the idea of university being an enterprise. It sounds very I'll just explain why I use it because I know we're not a system and I think that I hear that a lot and I
don't want I try really hard not to confuse people because we're not really a system either. So that I can use I can just say multi institution. >> Yeah. Thank you.
>> Um let's say Stell uh so we're um Stell is our new modern degree uh degree planning platform. Um um so a modern degree planning platform
should campaign at least three core functions degree audit. So think think about what courses do I need to take to get this degree. The pathway is really the class plan of what should I take
each semester and then registration that's the actual adding adding the courses to to your cart and and being enrolled. So what's the problem? Well, for the last 20 years IU IU had a mix of different tools to help students and and
actually advisors with these things. But these tools weren't seamlessly integrated and they all look different. I don't know if you can really see that screen, but um they they just look very very different. So, when students try to
sign up for classes, they've had to put through at least three different screens. The screens didn't always match up. It was very confusing and frustrating. Um and in in some cases, we realized it might even stopped or caused
some students to stop even with registering. So, the academic advisement report, it's it's highlighted with the scroll bar. This is the old version of the degree audit. Um, and it looks it looks like
it's something, you know, the old dot matrix. Um, and and I'll tell you from my from my son's experience with the transfer statement, his AAR was 17 pages long.
He couldn't figure it out. I I I went to the president and said, "I should get an honor interview degree because I figured it out." But it took I said, "This is what we're dealing with. We're not doing right. We're not doing right." So, so we've been in the process now of uh
implementing Sellet. You can tell right away it looks different. It's It looks more modern and and it puts everything students need degree audit, class planning, and registration all in one system. But it's
not just about looking better. We really chose this product um because students need tools that can that they help them navigate things clearly and pursue those academic interests. They can see how close they are to finishing their
degree. they can make their graduation plan. Explore majors and minors. They need a students need technology that enhances their experience, removes barriers, and helps what I call the business of being a student, which I
will tell you we've coined that Bob, the business of being a student easier. So to do that we found this technology that is integrated merges seven different systems that we have degree audit
planning registration academic workflow exception management milestone and course exploration. We want to remove the stress of navigating administrative infrastructure
by putting everything in one place. Both students and IU need connected technology that drives datadriven insights. This tool will help us be proactive even when we need to look at future class
planning. In short, Stell is a big step forward for us. It will help students stay on track, explore their interests and graduate without all the confusion. This has been a huge project, huge, as you can imagine.
um with all of our campuses and all of our programs to get this built out has been a huge effort on you you see up there, you know, almost 500 people have been involved with this implementation. We started it in fall 2023. I'm happy to
report we brought both Bloomington and Indianapolis up on Stell this this fall. So, our students in Bloomington and Indianapolis are now able to see their degree audit with what they need to take
and um it's working really well. So, we're we're really excited about that. The uh student journey communications team is a new centralized team that is bringing the subject matter experts and enrollment in the student journey and
they're dedicated to ensuring consistent high impact messaging. We ran several pilot campaigns this summer as proof of concept with much success. The regional reinrollment campaign proved that we can drive improved outcomes by centralizing
our resources and messaging. We assisted in driving increased fall 2025 reenrollment with a with a centralized email, text, postcard, home, and social media campaign to all non-enrolled students at our five regional campuses.
As of May 25, our population of unenrolled students increased by over half or 55% in a two-month period. We also ran two campaigns in the first start communication space that had tremendous
results. We increased our first start communications from once to twice a month this summer. Saw a huge reduction in our accounts receivable. And then for the first time ever, we actually sent out a welcome message this
August to all students and parents highlighting what to expect through the billing cycle and explaining how to get thirdparty set assignment to have access to the students firstart account. We saw 2,776
new third-party signups from August 15 to August 29th. The burser's office had never ever seen that kind of response of signs. The ultimate goal is to make it easier for students to navigate the
administrative task from admissions to graduations so they can spend more time and energy on academics and engagement activities. our considerator and and um manager start on Monday. So, we're moving
forward very quickly with this work and I'm super super excited for this. The other part I'll say is what we've learned through our discovery is that while PE while our staff's intent is to communicate well with students and in
their heart they're doing the right thing, unfortunately there's tons of different departments trying to do the same thing. So students are basically getting spammed and and it's really hard for students to figure out
which message I should be listening to. So this is going to hugely help that is what one consistent message and um like I said we're excited about this work. Students are the center of
our universe. We're we're here to help move the needle on persistence, retention, and ultimately graduation. >> Okay, any questions? >> Thank you for a great presentation. That's really interesting.
Well done. Good luck moving forward. I know you're in the early stage of some parts of the journey. So, yeah, Tim, >> can you explain what the word will mean? Holistic is um basically a wraparound.
The way I think about it is um when we think about well-being, all things that would fit into that per student, whether that's some of their mental health services, whether that's um you know,
access to financial resources, access to uh training platforms about how to manage your resources, things like that. It's about um engagement and getting involved. It's about tutoring.
It I mean it spans all like the academic what I call academic engagement offerings their whole life. Mhm. >> Well, um given that they might be of interest to take note that IB
ranks the lowest number at the bottom two or three out of 100 nationally in terms of so wonderful presentation, but it seems to me there might be an elephant in the room in terms of canvas
culture. a disconnect between parents and taxpayers and many students and um say the culture that exists that I do and I suspect that's not in your
wheelhouse but uh you know it seems to me that that situation is provided really strong evidence and if I explain this decline in retention I Any other questions or comments for
>> So I appreciate your focus on um recruiting and retaining students. There are always ways that we can improve and um but I really appreciate that you showed us some data today. I understand.
Uh and and Tad um I think maybe just like Dennis was delegated a good task today. Uh maybe you could, you know, help set up an experiment on on how to look at return investment and data in some of this. Uh I'll tell you in nearly
every one of our K12 tactics and soon to be all the higher ed, we pull the smartest people in the room especially experiment to best understand what is driving and moving the needle. uh so the first step is to find the challenge and then going after the solution. I think
uh what is always beneficial is if it's a you know I'm all hands in together for the sake of IU. Uh we need IU to be successful as a state. Uh it is getting a lot of press uh around the country. Um
I do think uh a lot of that is due to the athletic success um which we've seen. Um freedom of speech matters. I think it's something that uh the university is is
absolutely aware of and and working through. But again uh we'll do everything we can to make sure I succeed. uh we have to succeed as uh as succeeded as say at the university or
state and um keep on pushing and Ted take that delegated task. I'd like to see the homework assignment submitted on that uh how the experiment can be set up to understand the return on investment there. So thank you very much for your time.
Thank you so very much for your reason and you all work. Notice there have been a few occasions where you listed that a used as a tool and instrument that's very intriguing. Could
you share more about it's being used in this law graduation? >> Yeah. Um I some of our uh some of our faculty I know in Indianapolis
specifically are using that is are using AI to help um sort of redesign some of of their courses and and making sure that the courses are relevant. So they're asking a lot of questions and
taking that feedback. So that kind of I would say avenue there. I will tell you in my uh in the student journey space we are using AI to help us. Um how do I say this?
I I I call it higher ed ease which is our language in the higher ed like bart nobody knows what a bursar is nobody knows what a provost is and asking AI to help us translate that into language
the regular world would would understand. So, we're using that to really help us because, you know, we live in this world or I, you know, I live in the work. I think it sounds fine, but then I go and I talk to my neighbor or my son's friends and I say
some of these words and they look at me like, who I don't know what you're saying. So, we've got to figure out how we can communicate better. Um, so we use that use AI health feedback, too. on slide 10 where it says what's behind
active three depth rates and 10 one of the buildings is a high adaptive learning tool that's an example >> thank you very much >> thank you >> yeah thanks again um
any come to the end of our agenda for today so I would offer up before we adjourn if there any other topics or uh any other rules or business that anyone wants to bring up including any comments from the uh the folks online?
>> Yes, >> I'm good. >> But I just want to say sincerely have the things that I share here motivated by our commissioner's remarks. So it was really my thinking all the
things that she had laid out in terms of inspiration actually that I think that's coming and I'm sure wisdom comes somewhere deep within. Um so January uh just so you all know the
game plan that is when we will share the methodology very openly. Frank Oannon. Here's where we are. Seek public input including from universities. We will also uh begin the process and again Ted this might be
a great action item for you uh to help us think through how to best understand the return on investment for some of the tactics that we're deploying. I mean, as a state again, uh, billions are spent in the K12 space, billions are spent in the higher ed space, and how do we make sure
what we're spending on is really moving the needle. Uh, so we'll begin the conversation more deeply with some of those tactics. Uh, and uh, that's it for me. Thank you, sir. >> All right. Y just want to um say I
apologize to Dennis and to Dr. public before, but MSAQ meeting that I think caused some issues with some of the institutions. I never apologize to them. So, publicly uh sorry for that. Um I know it pushed back some of the um thing
we do here and caused some issues. So, I just want to apologize for that. I wanted to tell you on vacation 15. >> Good for you. Well, you need to say that's Mr. Chairman. Uh, we would be remiss if
he did not congratulate Secretary Chad on receiving the five leader development leader of the year award. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. being at that event and her not only was it much deserved but your remarks were
awesome. So it was really uh it was fun to be there. Yeah. So thank you all and again welcome officially to be here >> first meeting all good unless there's anything else. Um everyone happy holidays enjoy this uh beautiful weather
today and and hopefully it'll stay cooperative with us. So thank you all very much for meeting J. Yeah. >> Great meeting. Thank you. Thanks, Larry. Hi, everyone online. Yes. >> And and the mics are hot.