- 538 everyone's that I know of is coming. So we will I'm gonna oops. Call this meeting to order at 538. This is the Monroe County Women's Commission is July 17.
- The commission self serve as an advisory role to assist residents, businesses and the government of Monroe County and addressing issues of gender equity. The mission is to advance the status of women in marginalized genders. Of all county life. So did wait, did we want to skip the approval of minutes then? Yeah, I need to update him and get him out. The ones that I sent were the same ones and I can't seem to find the updated one, so I'll get him out.
- and then we will go to commissioner updates. We feel like we haven't seen each other in so long that we have a lot to update. One of the things that I thank you to Julie for putting a fire under me, just lit me up about numbers and all sorts of things. But one of the things that I've done is I've updated the orientation.
- been, was waiting for Molly Turner King to send me some updates. She has, but honestly, I don't know what they are. And that, so I am still working on that. I've also forwarded that. So I'm on the fire protection district board and I'm making them do an orientation for the new board members because that's just how I roll. So it is the up, the one that I've updated is inner files.
- Yes, on Teams, and then... You still can't, you didn't get a hold of Greg. Well, Greg, we were supposed to get something from Greg about whatever that app is, and I never received anything. I kept forgetting to email back and say I didn't get it, so we need to let him know. Did anybody else get that? I'm in.
- Do you have to use an authenticator app? No, I understand. But there was information he was going to send us, and we never received it. Yeah, I never did either, but I don't know. I still can't. I mean, I authenticated three times. And it just went back to that screen that I screenshotted or whatever. Yep. So we need instructions. Greg was saying he was going to send instructions, and I haven't received it. And I don't know if anybody else has. So follow up on that.
- can hook us up. Okay well when we get access it is there and I mean I think at some point I would like to present it again in our meeting here just so you get we all know what what it is and offers
- you know, feedback, so. What other news do I have? I, you know, the Women's Commission, the State Women's Commission has just kind of fell apart. I know Jordan, who I haven't even talked to in a million years, has stepped down. I wouldn't be surprised if it was dissolved, so, but I don't know for sure. When did that happen? When did Jordan step down?
- I got an email not that long ago saying that she was quitting her. Because I got an email from her about the, yeah, was it, so it was after that? Oh, I'm sure it's, you know. It's unclear what that commission does, did anyway. Besides the awards? Besides the dinner.
- Speaking of, so I'm gonna throw that in here. Actually, I meant to mention that anyway. So I went to an award the other day called, we did talk, I think, anyway, I'm pointing at Liz. I went to the Women Engage Bloomington Awards from the, what is it? Oh, the Web Awards from the Chamber. Chamber, that's it.
- the other day because one of the one of my co gosh never let me talk after 3 p.m. She was nominated and she received awards someone that I'm on the fire protection district with so a whole bunch of us went to support her and I was sitting there
- And I had already talked about, and we've kind of talked about this too, about a women's award for Monroe County. And then after attending that or during it, I texted David Henry, who's one of the county counselors. And it was like, we're having it, we need to have an award for Monroe County.
- Like if Bloomington has at least two that I know of, so the status of women has one, and then the Web Awards, because they're both called Bloomington Awards, and there's nothing called Monroe County. And he was like, well, how much money would it be? And I was like, it just depends what we wanted to do. So just trying to figure out what that meant. And I don't know, just really acknowledging people that live in the county, not necessarily within city.
- would be a nice thing to do eventually, so. And I was talking to someone else at my boss about it, actually, and she was like, yeah, you don't even have to, it doesn't even have to cost money. You could just acknowledge, you know, and invite someone, you know, to hear and it doesn't have to be a big fancy shindig. And for us to think about, I think,
- Yeah, that's all I have. Julie? All right. Let's see. This is what I want. So I think I'm maybe getting a little bit better organized with presenting these topics. We'll see. I'm trying something with the topic for this month and looking at the status of women in Monroe County. So this month, which is actually last month's topic, is education.
- and women. We didn't have last month's meeting, so we're kind of moving the topics forward a little bit. But looking at education and women and marginalized genders, what I'm starting off with is what I ended up narrowing down to the raw data sources. So this is the info that I'll share with you all for notes, and I think that might be useful, especially for the
- The subcommittee that's that's looking at stats and numbers but for education and women and marginalized genders. The raw the data sources that came up were iPads, which is the integrated post secondary education data system.
- And for IU Bloomington, which is in Monroe County, they posted 2024 stats for iPads. So that's the most recent that's available there. And it looks like what I could find is that Ivy Tech has them posted for 2022 to 2023. So that's, I think, as recent as Ivy Tech has.
- Beyond that is some national sources. So there's the National Center for Education Statistics, NCES. And that's from the Institute of Education Sciences, which is the independent research statistics and evaluation arm of the US Department of Education, which who knows what that means now. But they have data that's been posted as of 2024, I think. So we have that much information at this point.
- and who knows what will happen in the future. And then the other source is the National Post-Secondary Student Aid Study, NPSAS.
- It's a report, but it's from the Department of Education, that same Institute of Education Science. And it's a first look at student financial aid estimates. And this data is a little bit older. It's from 2019 to 2020. But it had some information that came out. So anyway, those are kind of the raw data sources that people were using. And the reports that were using those sources are kind of where I'm at with
- what I'm gonna share today. And the reports that we're using those sources is the Data USA from Monroe County, Indiana from 2023, which is a report that I've used in previous topics that's come up before. The Institute for Women's Policy Research, they have a report out called Investing in Single Mothers Higher Education in Indiana. So it's an Indiana state focused one at least. So that had some information
- that was shared based on those data sources. And then the education data initiative student loan debt by gender and student loan debt by state. They had two different views and the one by gender is nationwide and the student loan debt by state view that they have does not break down by gender. So we get some numbers but they don't necessarily compare with each other.
- So it's not that it wasn't so easy, from what I was seeing, to find data about women in education narrowed down to Monroe County, Indiana. That's pretty hard. That seems to be pretty hard to come up with. But there are some specifics available, and there's more that you can say at the state level, and then there's more generalization that can be made at the national level.
- What I was seeing from the DataUSA report was kind of interesting. They had a view from the IPEDS data showing that women received about 48% of the total degrees awarded in Monroe County in 2023. So they're only receiving 48% of degrees. But based on IPEDS data from 2024, the split between men and women as students, enrolled students, is 50-50. It's real close.
- there's barely any difference. So women are receiving slightly fewer degrees, but there are just as many women as there are men enrolled in education, in post-secondary education. I did not get a chance to dig into what the Ivy Tech iPads data from 2022, 2023 said. So that's another area that could be looked into. And then there was some iPads reporting on marginalized genders of students. So there were 139 undergraduates.
- in at IU Bloomington in 2024 that identified as gender unknown or another gender. And there were 53 graduate students at IU Bloomington in 2024 who identified as gender unknown or another gender. So those options have only been available for students to even use as of 2023. So there's only been like one or two years that students could even declare that they are not male or female.
- So, and who knows if that's going to remain an option. So, but it's been kind of interesting to see those numbers, they kind of spiked up after 2023 and all of a sudden there were all sorts of, you know, there were numbers, there were people reporting that they are not actually male or female. So, so that was, it was interesting to see that data from iPads.
- And another view on women that I got from iPads is the number of women at IU Bloomington, the number of women teaching in post-secondary schools. So full-time instructional staff, women make up 44%. Part-time instructional staff, women make up 57%. So there's a big difference. There are many more women proportionally who are teaching part-time than there are women teaching full-time at IU Bloomington.
- And then comparing that to a little bit to the number of women teaching in P through 12 pre K through through 12 through 12th grade.
- And I could not find anything for the state of Indiana or from Monroe County, but Pew Research used NCES, the National Center for Education Statistics data, to estimate that 77% of P through 12 teachers nationally are women. And if you narrow that down to just the elementary school grades, 89% of those teachers are women. So you have a much higher proportion of women teaching in the elementary education grades.
- than you do in any sort of post-secondary situation. Another area that I tried to look into was I tried to look at it as the number of women going to school as head of household. And we had some head of household views that we could get in terms of women living in poverty. But it didn't necessarily line up how I thought I'd be able to find it. So I ended up being able to find something that dealt with single mothers enrolled in school.
- So that's the Institute for Women's Policy Research. It's a 2020 report on what they're estimating is the number of single mothers who are in post-secondary education. So they don't have actual hard numbers for Indiana or Monroe County, but they went into the IPEDS data
- for the state of Indiana, for all the post-secondary schools that report iPads data. So they took that iPads data and then they used, they compared or multiplied that. I think it was a multiplication, yes. They multiplied that by the regional percentages of single mothers from the, actually they said that was from the NPSAS report, that study, the National Post-Secondary Student Aid Study.
- taking the percentage of people reporting as single mothers, they are estimating that across the state of Indiana, there's 39,000 or so college students who are single mothers in the state of Indiana, almost 10% of post-secondary students at that time in 2020, which seems pretty big. That was kind of surprising to see that. So I'm kind of interested in if there's more to look at there.
- But so that report, I think, might be interesting to dig into some. And then I try to look into some student loans, student debt information, see what I could find regarding women. And the number of women with outstanding student loans, there's nothing for gender by state, but the national trend. National trends are suggesting that women carry more student loan debt than men overall.
- Yeah, the national post-secondary student aid study from 2019-2020 is one of the main sources for this information. And it reports that 74% of women receive financial aid, while only 68% of men did. And they also report that 67% of genderqueer, gendernonconforming, and different gender identity students receive financial aid. So this is all forms of financial aid, not just loans. But you can see proportionally that women
- getting more financial aid or dealing with more financial aid than other genders.
- So in there, there's a specific table that talks about student loans. And that's showing a significant difference, saying that almost 39% of female undergraduates have student loans, while only 32% of male undergraduates have student loans. And their estimate is that 33% of those that have a different gender identity had student loans. So women are still, as a defined gender, still pretty
- higher in terms of having student loans than other gender, students of other genders. So then the amount of money that women owe in student debt. This is also something that doesn't have anything by gender for Monroe County or the state of Indiana. But nationally, that's where the Education Data Initiative did a summary by gender based on the NCES statistics.
- And that is that is just a straight up report that they show and they say that nationally almost- sixty four percent of student loan debt belongs to women. And the average amount of student loan debt for women is thirty one thousand seven hundred dollars. And that is as I think that's recent that's I think as of twenty twenty four or twenty twenty five it's it was updated recently- and they also they didn't have numbers with this but they also noted that black women have the
- So I think there's also something there to look into. And then they had student loan debt by state. And within the state of Indiana, the average student loan debt is $33,234. So nationally, women are faring a bit better with their average student loan debt than student loan debt overall in the state of Indiana. Women nationally are dealing with slightly less on average.
- student loan debt than students in general in Indiana are. But there's no gender breakdown within the state. So there's no way to know what that looks like between men and women from what I could find. And that data, they said they did not have enough information to say much of anything about transgender, non-binary, and other gender identities in student loan debt. So there's not a whole lot to know about student loan debt in that case.
- Anyway, that was kind of the picture. It's like we got the same number of women and men are going to school. Women are ending up with more debt. And we know from previous topics, women are not earning as much when they are graduating and getting jobs. So they are, in fact, in worse shape after graduating than men are.
- And I'm not sure what it looks like for folks who are non-binary or have other gender identities, but they might actually financially at least be faring a little bit better than women are in a general statistic sense.
- Where did you, did you say that the same number of men and women are going to school? It's in Indiana. Yeah, in Indiana, the IPEDS report for IU Bloomington, at least. It may be different on other campuses around the state, but in IU Bloomington, the IPEDS was showing that it was almost exactly like, I think maybe a difference of like 50 people. Yeah. So it's very, very close in numbers. Yeah, for undergraduates and for graduates. Yeah. That's nice. Thank you.
- I'm curious about the reporting on the debt, right, on the student loan. So does that mean that like, is that upon post-grad, like upon graduation? Yes, yeah. I think that's when it turns into, yeah, that's when the student loan turns into the student loan debt. The date, like graduation. Yeah. Yeah, because if it was, I was curious, because if it was any time farther out, then that would speak to the,
- wage gap, wage disparities, perhaps. But if it's right after graduation, then that's something preceding is causing women to have more debt limit. Right. There's some theories that the reports have, but I don't know that anything is based on data. They're supposing things. And I think there may be some data that's being shown, because I wasn't quite sure what
- what I was seeing, but it looked like there was a certain sort of category of loans that parents can take out. And I think you can identify those. And they were saying that it looked like men's parents took out more of those loans than women's parents, which is kind of interesting, I think. So it's basically like the student's not, there's student loan debt involved here because somebody's taking out a loan, but it's not necessarily the student that's taking the loan out.
- In the case of a man, it's maybe his parents that are doing it. Those parent plus loans. Yeah, I remember seeing that, parents plus. So I think there's potentially something interesting going on there, but I don't quite know. A lot of that was like, we're supposing this based on the numbers that we're seeing, but it wasn't necessarily something they were definitively saying, this is happening. So I think that's potentially something else to look at with that report, though.
- questions for Julie. I will share the data sources and the reports for the minutes. I was going to share it later, and I should have sent this in earlier, and I don't know, but I just want you guys all to know that I have started. This is all a Julie's data from the last meeting or the meeting before.
- Like, so I'm working on some data sets. So I have taken everything she has and like this meeting I will take from the transcript and pull it out and put it into data sets or yeah, into graphs and stuff. So, you know, as continue to work on, as we continue to work on, sorry, hold on.
- data sets and a potential dashboard and stuff. I just want everybody to know that this is something. Thank you. That's awesome. Totally. It's helpful. I mean, I need the motivation, so it's very helpful. And I don't remember what the next month's topic is, but I will look at it. Yeah, if you can get to it earlier, I can certainly add
- it and turn it into graphs and stuff so we can, yeah, so we have some visual aids too, I think is helpful. Thanks. It's very informative. Thanks for doing the research so we don't have to. I'm getting it started. I can't say I'm like fully done. That's pure research.
- or just commissioner updates in general? Maria, do you have any updates? You know, I do. So the NAACP was off for July, so we did not meet in July, but the NAACP Youth Council now has a charter of which I'm the advisor of, but I'm looking for another co-advisor as well. So if you know anybody,
- And I do want to let everyone know that Hoosier Asian American Power has served the state of Indiana with the second notice of violation of House Enrolled Act 12, or NVRA, the National Voter Registration something, that, and I misspoke,
- the House Enrolled Act 1264 is in violation of the NVRA. And so the HAP has that partnership with the NAACP state, the League of Women Voters, Common Cause of Indiana, and we do also now have one individual plaintiff. So we will see what happens with that.
- She says that she is online but having trouble un-muting and turning on her camera. I feel like I see her. Oh, there is Jody. I don't know why. We can see you now. Yeah, it's small. Thank you for being here. That's all I have. Oh, there we go. We can see you now. Now you're the main.
- picture. We're in the room behind your head. I was like, it's almost like she's here. She can't talk. Can you talk now? Can't hear you. Yeah, we can't hear you.
- they working on it? Molly, do you have any updates? No, I'm boring. Do you have any Tiana? Do you have any updates? No. I can give some updates, but no, I do not have any. All righty. Let's go on to old and ongoing business. She's waving. Can you say anything? Or do you want to put it in chat?
- She has the bass. Goodbye. Two words. She's going to mime it out. Just mime it out. Are you working on the sound? I don't think Chad's able to. I don't think he can. Wait, Roxanne left, I think. I don't know what happened. Can you guys hear me now? Oh my gosh, yes.
- Thank you. OK. All right. There we go. Perfect. Sorry about that. And you are here. And we're live. OK. Did you have an update? Did you?
- have an update. I'm sorry guys asking me if I had an update. Yes, no. Do you have anything you think? I'm OK, but thanks. OK. Uh, uh, policy subcommittee. We, uh, Commissioners Hearst, Ian Douglas. Um, we are continuing
- to work on reviewing the resources that the gender studies librarian from Indiana University supplied to us. And we've had a discussion with them since the last time we all met. And the
- The resources that we've gotten are providing some perspective that we don't necessarily have in the gender equity rubric that is really kind of looking at a gendered perspective that's queer, not
- that isn't necessarily binary, not female, not male, and contemplating criteria from that perspective. We also had a discussion about including a definition of gender as part of the guidelines document that goes with the rubric to make sure that that's completely clear what we're referring to when we're saying gender.
- So and then we had a little bit of discussion, which potentially will feed into the guidelines about what we want to get out of having this rubric out there. So if there's any sort of reporting back mechanism, if anyone makes use of it, especially if it's used within county government, it'd be good to get feedback on what that experience was like, if it was helpful, if there are things that were confusing or useful.
- that sort of feedback. So does that? So I've been thinking about it was great to meet with you and Nikolai. And I've been thinking that what we were looking at was what we talked about a couple meetings ago, which was what were the outcomes of the rubrics that
- you know, we drew from the research that we drew from that sort of thing. So we've been looking into that a little bit more. And so this is new to Julie because I just like have been thinking about it that I'm curious if some of these rubric rubrics or these publications of these rubrics are somewhat performative because we're not finding a lot of use of them. We're not finding a lot of
- like reporting or follow through from them. So in my mind, I'm kind of like, hmm, why do you create something and not have some outcomes from it if you took time to create a thing? So that's just a little curious to me. Because I mean, we're scouring the internet, the interwebs for this information. And Nikolai,
- subject matter expert was they found a few things for us, but nothing that was, we created this equity rubric, this rubric to measure equity and it was used in this way and this is what the outcome was. I'm like, it's 2025. That's just curious to me. It is kind of interesting to see that. Yeah.
- I think there's more discussion that we should have about that because I think if we want to have this available, we do want to see feedback on it. We do want to see what is it that is useful about this or what is it that is not useful about this. Who are you hoping to get feedback from? Well, I mean, we've had the conversation about this being something that we make as publicly available as possible.
- Just make it a resource available in the county, available online. So if organizations or businesses make use of it for whatever work they do, creating policies out in the world, out in the community, being able to ask them for feedback if they're going to make use of it within county government, I think particularly if it's ever used, it would be useful to hear.
- to hear back from that process and how that worked. I would think that you could contact employee services through the county. I don't know. That would be where I would start, I think.
- employee services to work on your rubric, right? To get feedback from employee services about the rubric, is that what you're looking for? This would be more like if the commissioners or the council were to use it for any sort of policy development. Oh, that, okay. Yeah, and getting feedback from making use of the rubric for, yeah. You could send it to the council email address and have it shared with the whole county council, and I'm sure you could do that with the commissioners as well.
- Yeah, well, we were kind of sort of hoping we could have it posted when it's ready on the Women's Commission's page. And then it's just out there for anybody that wants to make use of it. And then we would want to try to encourage people, government organizations to use it. I think to get feedback, then you have to have some kind of questionnaire, right? I mean, you can't just open-end it.
- post a rubric, and then if you use this, please fill out this survey or whatever. Yeah, it's probably going to be something along those lines, I think. Yeah. I mean, short, because you know nobody likes a survey. Yes, exactly. But yeah, I think something where we can have some follow up and actually be able to share what happened or not happened.
- I think one quick question or just point of order. Whatever is done before it is finalized, the commissioners do want to see it before it's posted. And I think the appropriate point would be either at a work session or I know this is hard for people to get off work in the middle of the day.
- you know, perhaps we can make a presentation that we can show at a commissioner's meeting or the commissioners can attend one of our meetings, something like that. But I think they would have a lot of interest in seeing a project like this. If a recorded presentation is possible, is that what you're saying?
- Yes, I know that the commissioners meetings are at 10 o'clock in the mornings on Thursdays. So it's not a time that a lot of people can readily get off work. Yeah. I think a recorded presentation for the commissioners meeting, I think, is for sure possible. But depending on how far ahead it gets planned for being part of a meeting, it's, yeah.
- depending on the schedule, I could potentially try and get away from work to do it in person, too. And that is the intent. We do have a slide deck that's ready to go that actually we've shown the commission here and then receive feedback. And now we're doing this other work. So yeah, our intent is to get on the agenda and make a presentation. Thank you.
- But having the option of a recorded presentation is helpful to know. Thank you. Awesome. Yes, I've seen others do it. And again, that gets it out for the public, lets them know just for transparency. But also, I think it's always good to have this full and robust discussion about these things as possible as well. Thank you. Thanks.
- Anything else? We did we did public comment for regarding the jail, but that was at the county council and commissioners meetings, and it's all it's all part of the the meeting records there. So I don't know that we need to say anything here about it. Yeah, that happened. Data subcommittee. Maria and I.
- So one of the big things, well, I've been working. We've been working. So one of the things that I talked about months ago was reaching out to somebody to work on a capstone data collection project for us while I have someone who is interested in doing a project with us.
- It wouldn't be until next summer. I think when they have something next available, it's through SPIA. It's actually the same professor that did the work for the city when they did their capstone project a couple years ago. So I think they already have a good idea. I think one of the things that I guess we should probably vote on this today so I can move forward is if that's the direction we want to go.
- that we can move forward with and presenting data. I'd probably invite them to come, the professor to come to see and give a good idea about the data that we're interested in collecting over the course of that summer. Because I definitely have, as I've been digging into numbers and even hearing Julie's numbers, I've realized how much work there is to be done and to really get an idea of what's really feasible
- to be collected would be really helpful. So if I make a motion, what? Take it in the microphone. So I would like to present, yes, that we move ahead with
- formalizing students at SPIA at IU to work with us next summer to collect data to help us fulfill our data landscape. Is it students working with us directly or working with the professor? I'm confused. What are you having somebody do? Maybe I'm missing something. So one of the parts that we're going to do.
- years ago they did a class, did a data landscape for the city, right? But it didn't really include the county. We have that information. We would like to make that information broader for the county. Part of one of the things that I've been working on in the data analysis set for the data is that there's so limited data. There's no data on, you know,
- to even really build much of a dashboard about the status of women in Monroe County and getting this class to help us build a data set and collect data about the status of women based on the parameters that we give them. So. So the ask is if we're having somebody help us build a dashboard.
- a data dashboard or report about the status? I think I would say the report on the status of women in Monroe County is that we could utilize to build a dashboard. If we need it. We need it. What kind of debt like how would we define the status of women? Would that be like health socioeconomic sort of broadly across the board? Would we
- allow the students to define that, would we set parameters? So I think some of the work that we've been doing, so it's like digging into the data landscape and trying to figure out how defining the status and the needs of women in marginalized genders in Monroe County. So your basics is demographic, economic, health, and social indicators, and then trying to figure out breaking that down.
- you know, like a document that talks about demographic data is population by gender, age distribution, languages, female-headed households, economic indicators of median income, poverty rate, employment status and such, health and safety, we could do healthcare and insurance coverage, maternal health indicators, rates of domestic violence, and then education, we drop out rates and educational attainment. So, I mean, there's obviously,
- you know, there are more like indicators, I guess, about the status. So I think it's really would be about trying to decide, you know, especially, you know, us presenting, you know, this big, you know, picture and letting them tell us what they think is feasible to, you know, to gather in that time and trying to come up with something together that would be, you know,
- And that's something that's been really productive and helpful for us. It seemed like there's a gap because of Julie can only find information from 2324 we're in 25. Yep. And then there's still some information prior to COVID to dismiss them. So that's why I was asking, like, what are we trying to create? But yeah, because there's a lot. Based on the data that I've gathered, I mean, a lot of the general statistics that I have for the, you know,
- population, degrees, employment rates, and stuff like that. It barely breaks out women a lot of the times, especially on the county level, let alone marginalized genders. That data is not existent, especially on the county level. So trying to figure out that data would be, I think, would be the ideal goal to start building a dashboard based on what we decide is or whatever
- But they will be collecting the data. But then who's building a dashboard? They're going to help us do that, too, or that's what you're going to do? I could do that. I mean, we could do that. Oh, OK. Yeah. But I mean, whatever to me is based on what they ask and what they can provide based on their limitations of the class would be interesting. Well, I'm also wondering if this is working with that professor that helped with the
- Bloomington report and what the what the areas were that were focused on in that report that maybe that is like an outside containment area. And if they need to, if they don't have the capacity to cover all of that at the county level, maybe there's something they can focus in on within that at the county level.
- Yeah, especially because I mean, well, the last project looks like they were done over, you know, the spring semester. This is a summer class. So, you know, it's probably a lot more limited in the, you know, their report. Oh, Dr. Diana Henschel. Gosh, that was driving me crazy. So, I mean, once you guys have access, we have access to, I mean, that capstone projects. We can all see it. They did. Oh.
- They did climate change impacts, gender perspective, climate economy, energy, family planning, reproductive services, local food and food security, freshwater security, transportation, city survey, et cetera, et cetera. They talked about the questionnaire design, their methodology, data processing, limitations, and then they provided an analysis. So it'll be interesting to see.
- I was thinking, oh, well, that would be over the fair, which I think would be a great time to try to collect data, because you just hit a whole different, I mean, it's just a different demographic. And so that would be my thought too. I have a couple of things. One of the authors or whatnot of that, is there one by the name of Whitney?
- students. Yeah. Whitney calling. Yes. Okay. Cool. Um, that was the, so this was the report that the chamber distributed far and wide when white whatever year was, but they literally were like printed it and distributed it. Um, okay. So I know that I'm on the committee with you, but full transparency. Susan's done all the work. Um,
- that she's been talking about right now. And also full transparency, this is the first time I've ever heard us talk about a dashboard. So I would be curious as to, one, if I missed something, two, which is very possible, two, for what purpose? And I'm curious about, similar to the rubric questions, after this capstone, the city did this capstone, do we have any,
- information on how they used this capstone because I wouldn't want to make sure that we're spending this time and energy and the student resources in a way that will produce action because now is not the time for non-action.
- not now is not the time to do something just to be doing something. I'm not saying that we are. I'm just saying that I would like us to be very action driven and not just like, look, we made this thing. Well, I think a lot of, well, one, it's part of the, especially the subcommittee is trying to figure out who we serve. So we don't know who we serve. So there's a part of that. So I mean, like that's,
- I think that is the lens we have to remember. Who does the Women's Commission serve? I mean, the data subcommittee's mission is to figure out who we serve through data. Yes, the women's commission. The women's commission, sir. Who do we serve? I've lost the plot, apparently. For the data lens. I really did think we talked about a dashboard at some point, but I don't remember. I feel like we did. But I could be wrong. I thought this came out with trying to see
- I know the rubric, what Julie's working on, and how we're going to use the rubric, what policy, because I was thinking about some things even at IU, how they can actually use the rubric, which now I don't know how we can use it, but that's whatever. Nope. Anyway, I don't want to talk about that. But I'm just curious if we do this dashboard or present this data for what? What are we going to do with it?
- I mean, the original question is trying to figure out who we serve. We don't know who is in this county and what we don't. We don't know. We don't know poverty rates. We don't know education rates. I mean, that's part of what we're trying to understand is who, again, I get it. I don't know necessarily the next step after figuring out who lives here and who we serve.
- Is it trying to figure out this is who we serve? Now, how do we serve them? What is the next step that would help amplify them? Do our holes in services gonna become glaring as a next step? I think my hope in that is the next step will become obvious once the data is acknowledged. I think it's gonna be
- I don't think there's, in my mind, going to be a whole lot of surprises for me. I think, actually, there was one, because I didn't realize how many women were farmers. That kind of information. So it's like trying to figure out, if that's true, then if that's true, do we target those women, the female farmers, and figure out, do they need voices amplified?
- You know, that's an audience that maybe hasn't been recognized. And I think that's the goal. Right. We've got a commissioner who is a female farmer. Oh, yeah. And when we established the data,
- Yeah, committee. It was a different time. It was like over a year and a half ago. So that's why I was just kind of like wanting to review what we were, you know, and make sure that it's action oriented because now is not the time to not do something that's action oriented. However, we yes, but we don't even have the foundation in my mind of who we're serving. So therefore,
- I think that needs to be established. I do think that there are definitely actionable items. But I definitely feel like there is a foundation that can be laid at the same time. So I'm clear. So what we're doing is we are trying to represent the women in Monroe County
- and advise the commissioners. Because we don't necessarily serve anybody. We're an advisory group to the commissioners. So we're trying to figure out who we're representing
- what they need so then we can advise the commissioners. Well, I think it goes both ways, right? So it's also in the sense of, you know, when you have Jodi and Liz here all the time, you know, they hear like some of the directions and information that we're gathering and think about the work that they're doing that they could target ask us like, oh, so we are thinking about doing XYZ, you know, a farmer program. Oh, so, you know,
- Are there groups that we could be ignoring? Or could you help us gather data on how many women farmers there are? Those kind of things. And then also, so it comes down. And then it could also go kind of like the jail. It went both ways, right? They were creating this. We were a gender equity lens on the ongoing project. So just disseminating information
- Well, there we were going up, but hopefully with, you know, with that was the big excitement with Liz and Judy or Jody coming all the time is that, you know, they could see the work that we're doing. And so they could help us, you know, with action items and focusing support for them. Okay. Thank you. Does that make sense? Okay. Who knows? I don't know how well I'm articulate sometimes. So.
- But do we feel okay? Yeah, I don't know. Are we voting? Yeah, no, I feel fine. Thank you for that. Any other questions? Can I ask a newbie question? Sure. Newbie. I thought you said easy. Yes. Again, this is just me new to these meetings and new to how to word votes and things like this. I talked to Molly about, you know,
- basically how these commissions are supposed to work with the commissioners. When you guys did this project before, did you do a vote to then take this project to the commissioners? Did you do a vote on the project? When I asked Molly, she seemed to say the vote was a vote to basically take the project to the commissioners.
- We have not done this project before. Okay. So you're saying if we take on these students, what's the next step? The data project. Or I guess the data project that you guys worked on with the city. We didn't. We did work on the one with the city. We just have that information. Oh, okay. Well, then I must have gotten my wires crossed before when I asked her,
- about how you guys worked on a project before because I've been trying to figure out how commissions work with commissioners and it seems to be different with each commission or across commissions and that doesn't make it easy to understand how these things are supposed to work. What do you guys typically do when you guys take a vote on a project? Do you usually take a vote and then start? Do you usually take a vote and then
- you know, take it to the council and take it to the commission. You know, how does that usually work? So the process should be that, I mean, really the only active project outside of, yeah, is the coding the website camp. And that has been, you know, a struggle. So that was something that we inherited. And so moving forward, if, you know, I think, you know, it's like the rubric, we do that. And then, and then if,
- eventually, obviously, then we take it to, you know, commissioners to get approved, to get it disseminated. And the same way today, once we vote on, you know, engaging with, you know, the IU class about helping us gather data next summer, then it would go to be presented at the county commissioners for, okay, is my understanding. Okay, gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah.
- Okay, that clarifies things because, yeah, I didn't know if you guys could basically start or where it kind of moved next in the chain of command, if that makes sense, right? Thank you. That clarifies things. Yeah, and I mean, I have to say that in the past, no one's really paid attention to us. We didn't have a commissioner or council member coming to the meeting.
- if we saw something that we wanted to support, such as a free health clinic at the Banneker Center, then we voted on that and we supported the free health clinic at the Banneker Center. Well, I mean, we do have, I mean, it was, there was, I mean, I have an official
- I mean, and it's been presented here before procedure for obtaining approval for Monroe County Women's Commission activities that has been worked out with Molly. And so we, you know, we do have official steps, which is, you know, what I just said, we review and vote and then it gets added to the agenda and then et cetera, et cetera. So. Gotcha. So like any other agenda item. Okay. Thank you.
- the risk of sounding, you know, new, I guess I'll just sound new. We've gone through this a couple of times trying to figure out what to do. And sometimes we do something and then have to be like, oh, sorry, that was not the right way to do it. So that's right. And honestly, well, thank you so much. I appreciate it. No, we've been really good, really good in 25. I will say that. I don't know. I guess this is new as well.
- Maybe we both had the same question. I don't know. But thank you so very much. That was very clear and helpful. Thank you. I do realize that was supposed to be it. I had put in our new business, but I guess technically it all went into the subcommittee. So I am new as well, but I did serve on the Women's Commission years ago as not a counselor. So I have experience on the Women's Commission itself. And it has changed in how it operates, I would say a little. I'll just put it that way.
- you know, we could always decide or somebody could decide to change that again if they wanted to. So I don't know, I don't know if I would like to propose that we move ahead with and I, cause that's what I told the professors that I would get back to them with final information. So our approval and we didn't have the meeting last month. So I haven't reached back out to her.
- that's my. Can you can you state the motion again? Sorry that we would engage with, uh, the, uh. Oh gosh, I don't be a class. Yes, this be a class and Dr Henshaw move ahead with the data collection and on the status of women in Monroe County. Next summer.
- second all in favor say aye aye aye aye abstentions that will move forward thank you Tony I'm not sure you and I have a vote just so you know yeah not on this work we don't know either we'll take it if you got here
- that's right. You have anything else you'd like to report from the data. No. Thank you. My work. Uh, the outreach subcommittee erosion belt in an auto. Jennifer is not here. Updates on the web design
- I checked my email. The last correspondence was April 21st from IU's assistant. I don't even know her title, but that's all I'm going to say. No updates. I pinged her, though, just now because I wanted to make sure I wasn't reporting the wrong information. Because in their last message, she said that before it's finalized. So this is August.
- and they do listen to our minutes and they will read them and hopefully she responds. But nothing. But I would, I'm going to talk to my subcommittee because I have a proposal by working at IU too. I'm going to have one of our graduate students reach out because we're actually doing a high school conference and it
- will involve some of the stuff that we did in the web design camp. So it's a way that we can partner with them. But I'm going to have them reach out. So it won't be a conflict of interest, because I'm not the IU representative. I'm the Women's Commission representative. So Paul Macklin represents the Luddy School. So I'm just reporting back. So I think that's another route that we can go as well, because they're moving. So we can talk about that.
- If we want to do something with IU, I mean, I think that would be up to a vote. Absolutely. Other than what's already on the table. If we want to do something other than what's already on the table. It's already on the table. Can I ask, I mean, I would consider this an outreach, I'm going to ask an outreach question and, you know, because, I mean, and I agree.
- action items is do we feel like there's something else that we could be doing in these times?
- we can have a working session and come up with many things that we could be doing. It's not us. It's not, yeah. I didn't know if there was something that was like a burning thing in your mind that you had been thinking about. Oh, I have a ton of things. But also, the answer to your question is no. I think we're doing great. I just didn't know if there was something else, like something that else was.
- I think it's going to be so cool with that data, just even having a grid on the website to show who we're serving and the populations. That's a plus. We're making strides. This will be a good stride if we get this approved too. I don't know, and this is something that I can work with Julie about the data and trying to figure out a dashboard.
- you know, working with. Yeah, moving. Things and understand that not certain things aren't perfect and then just being OK with starting to share data and you know, just keep understanding it's a living project and you know, I don't want to have to wait necessarily as we acquire data to make you know till next for a year. You know before we can present something when we've already started
- in my mind, acquiring excellent data to be shared. I have some ideas, but I'm at capacity. I'm trying to finish a dissertation. So once I'm done with that, I'll be able to share some other ideas. I have ideas, but your girl is tired, so I will share them when I'm not tired. It's just even thinking about it.
- period supplies at my house, menstrual products. And I was like, you know, and every time I go to the bathroom in here and it frustrates me that, you know, the county doesn't have free products places and, you know, doing things like that. So. And IU they do. Yeah. And IU and I think the city does too and some places, but the county doesn't. So, or, you know, I was like, Oh, where can I donate my supplies? And then it just led me down, you know, my whole rabbit hole of stuff. So.
- project. Somebody on another subcommittee of the outreach committee. I mean, yeah. Okay. So new business, obviously already covered the capstone project, the women in Monroe County. We can put, you know, elsewhere. Um, I don't think. Is there any last item that anybody would care to share comments?
- Otherwise it is 642 and I will call this meeting adjourned. Thank you all very much. Thank you Commissioner Madeira for coming. Councillor Feidl for coming. Pleasure to be here. Thank you.