 Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Don Tuske, and I'm president of Maine College of Art. I want to thank everyone for coming out today. This very special day, actually very exciting day, but also very historically important day for not just Maine College of Art or SALT, but really the state of Maine and beyond. Before I get to that, I'd like to acknowledge and welcome some important people. I'd first like to welcome and acknowledge Debbie Reed, the board chair at Maine College of Art. Debbie Reed. Thank you very much for coming. I'd also like to acknowledge all of our trustees at Maine College of Art who are here today, focused on a retreat. Maine College of Art trustees, could you raise your hands? Give them a round of applause. Thank you very much. And all the faculty, staff, and students at Maine College of Art and SALT. Can we give everybody else a round of applause there? And finally, I'd like to thank and welcome the SALT leadership and SALT board of trustees who are here. Thank you very much for coming. Just give them a round of applause. Raise your hand. Thank you very much. Maine College of Art was founded in 1882 with the mission of educating artists for life. And we take that very seriously every day at Maine College of Art. When we heard about the potential closing of SALT, like many organizations, we reached out to them to see if we could do anything. At the same time, we were invited by the Quimby Family Foundation to some meetings about the opportunity to collaborate and partner with SALT to move it forward. From the start, we were very conscious about the need to preserve SALT's identity and independence. And after much talk, discussion, planning, more talk, discussion, and planning, we are very excited to announce that SALT will continue as part of Maine College of Art. Congratulations. Thank you. We believe in the importance of partnership and collaboration, and Portland's great about that. It's a true community. We were all very lucky to be in such a supportive city around the arts and culture. I'd like to tell folks that Portland is very fanatical about the arts. And we couldn't be in a luckier place than in Portland, Maine. We strongly believe in the collaboration brings great synergy and efficiency, so much so that we think these two great Maine organizations, Maine College of Art and SALT, will continue on together, expressing a real sincere interest in preserving the mission identity independence of SALT within Maine College of Art. This could not be possible without the great support of the Quimby Family Foundation. So let's thank the Quimby Family Foundation for their great support to making this happen. I also want to thank Donad Galuzzo, the executive director of SALT, and Ian Anderson, vice president and dean of the college for all their tremendous work to put the proposal together. Ian Anderson and words Donad, thank you very much for the great work that you've done to make this happen. I'd also like to introduce somebody who, with her courage, guidance, and leadership, also made this happen. And this is Kimberly Curry, chair of the board of SALT. Kimberly Curry. Thank you, Kimberly, for making this happen. Special adjustment. Good afternoon, everyone. And thank you so much for being here. This is such an exciting time to celebrate. And I have to tell you, a year ago, when the board of prestige of SALT was meeting, and we were like, what are we going to do? It was a really heavy time and a very difficult time. And that's why I just come to you a year later to share our profound sense of relief and gratitude that really has come. And we're just thrilled. And we're so grateful that SALT has found a new home at Maine's educational institution of, I'm sorry, with Maine Educational Institutes of Mecca's High Caliber. We really appreciate the work that gets done here. But also, we're so grateful for the Quimby Family Foundation for stepping forward to also support this endeavor. Looking forward, we cannot overstate our enthusiasm with Mecca's willingness to incorporate SALT into its already bright consolation of academic programs with Maine's creative community. The economies of scale offered by Mecca far exceed those SALT could have ever achieved, thus lowering the operating costs on everything from classroom square footage to supplies and state-of-the-art equipment, like being in this gorgeous facility of the Bob Pruse program that they have down here with the RILT. And this also, in turn, gives us a dedicated, we can then dedicate a significant portion of the SALT's remaining resources to the permanent preservation of our archives, which we'll always consider the heart and soul of SALT. Our alumni have traveled far and wide. We're proud of the work they have done and continue to do to promote the tradition of storytelling. And we cannot wait for the many stories the next class of SALT students will produce here at Mecca, keeping the SALT tradition alive for generations of storytellers to come. I have a statement here I'd like to read from Hannah Quimby of the Quimby Family Foundation. Hannah is both an alum and also the chair of the Family Quimby Foundation. And she cannot be here today. And this is what she has to say. The Quimby Family Foundation has been a long time supporter of SALT. For years, we have witnessed the exceptional talent of SALT students and the quality of work that is produced by the radio, writing, and photography semesters. Like hundreds of others, I was surprised and sad to learn that SALT was in a position where they were forced to close their doors. Thanks to the effort of many dedicated individuals and the partnership opportunity with the main college of art, SALT can thrive once again. Over the past several months, we have met with the executive director of SALT, staff at the main college of art, representatives from SAVE SALT, the SALT Board, the SALT Alumni Board. While there are varying perspectives on how best to support the school we love, we agreed that one of the most important things is their SALT to continue their unique semester programming in the style of documentary storytelling that they are known for. We are thrilled that SALT will be partnering with MECA and are confident in this effort based on MECA's solid reputation and support of infrastructure, as well as witnessing the great care they have taken to listen and understand the desires of the wider SALT community. We have appreciated the great working relationship with MECA in the past and have tremendous faith in the skilled leadership of MECA. It's an exciting opportunity that has been thoughtfully considered, and we are pleased to support this collaborative effort. Sincerely, Hannah Quimby. On that, I would like to introduce you to Ian Anderson. He is the vice president of academics and the dean of the college. Thank you. Thank you, Kim. I appreciate it. Hi, everybody. How are you all today? Good, great. As Kim said, I'm Ian Anderson. I'm the dean of the college here at Main College of Art. And I'm here to tell you why SALT and MECA make so much sense together about our future plans for the SALT semester program and about the impending public release of the SALT story archive. So first, let me say that, as Don and Kim have reiterated, here at MECA, we are absolutely thrilled to be part of SALT's ongoing legacy. SALT and MECA have been neighbors within one block of each other on Congress Street for about eight years now. I walk by SALT Institute almost every single day, sometimes with a coffee in hand. We've always admired SALT's mission and the stories that students have told through writing, photography, film, radio, and new media. After several months of research, passionate alumni advocacy, and the support of the Quimby Family Foundation, SALT will be able to thrive and continue its work as a program embedded within MECA. SALT and MECA make sense together because we share similar missions, similar pedagogy, a similar educational philosophy and approach, and we share core values. And I was really excited and pleased to learn this. The more I researched, the more I heard about SALT, the more I talked with SALT alum, staff, and so forth. We even require the same types of facilities, digital output photography labs, black and white photography labs. As Kim mentioned, last summer, we built the State of the Art Recording Studio here in the Bob Crue Program for Art and Music. This amazing facility, part of which is to our left and the gallery to our right, will now serve future SALT students in radio, film, and multimedia. We're really excited about that. One thing that was absolutely clear in everybody I talked to, everyone passionately agreed about how SALT's semester program has been a powerful experience that has literally changed the students' lives. And I can sincerely say that MECA's singular goal and our interest in working over these last several months in this project has been to preserve this educational experience. It really is unique. And looking at the landscape of documentary, other colleges and organizations that are doing this type of education, there is not another program like this in the country. To that end, our plan is to relaunch the SALT semester program in fall of 2017, making it the SALT Graduate Certificate in Documentary Studies. We'll maintain the four current tracks offered at SALT, writing, photography, radio, film, and media. This gives us and SALT the right amount of time to market the program, get approval from our two accrediting bodies, build additional facilities to support the SALT students, and to hire future program faculty. Artists, designers, and storytellers, as we all know, actively contribute to culture, and SALT students are no different. Through the SALT semester program, students uncover stories about the people of Maine that would otherwise never be told. It celebrates and archives forever Maine's unique cultural heritage. And I don't think that should be lost when we think about the contribution that SALT plays. One thing that everyone should be really excited about is that soon the public will be able to see, hear, and read these stories for themselves. Starting today, SALT will begin releasing the SALT Story Archive. This is a repository of all SALT stories and publications collected since SALT's inception. This new digital archive is an incredible resource to the people of Maine and to the world. It tells compelling stories in short film, radio, photography, and writing. The archive contains 16,000 images, about 500 radio shows, 850 writing projects, 251 multimedia projects, and more than 500 articles and 56 publications, and three books created all these stories created by over 1,000 storytellers over time, 1,000 SALT storytellers. And it really is remarkable. I have personally been listening to reading and viewing and watching these stories over the last couple of weeks. And I've been touched and inspired by them. And I've learned a lot about places and people in Maine that I otherwise would have never known about. And I have to say I'm truly honored to be a part of the SALT Institute of Documentary Studies at Mecca and to help foster the creation of many more stories for years to come. Thank you. And that's it. If there is any questions, we're happy to take them. Thank you all for coming. And look forward to more details in the future. What's up? Why are we already cutting in? But we're happy to have you. Well, first, the question was, how is the archive being launched, the digital archive? Our first obligation is to release the SALT alum so they can have time to review the material. Obviously, the nature of documentary is there may, on occasion, be some types of stories that should no longer be in the public domain. So we're releasing it to SALT alumni first. After a few weeks of review by SALT alumni, then we'll release the archive to the public. And we'll make another announcement about that. Is this partnership going to work? I guess, yeah. June, July, the largest research conversation. There was an initial conversation. And then in January, we signed a memorandum of understanding. And then we completed the merger last Friday. Thank you. Is it an academic program in fall 2017? Yeah. Yeah, we thought it would unwise to try to rush, given everything that had to be done. Our obligation is to secure the future. And being an accredited institution, we have to make sure that we get the permission of our accrediting bodies as well. And we're finishing our due diligence on that right now. Where does that stand? We've submitted proposals to our regional accreditor. And we just have to complete the proposal, which I'm 85% done with, to our professional accreditor. I'm sure you'll find the writing compelling and fascinating. And if you'd like a personal copy, I'm happy to give you one. OK. Yeah. Where have the enrollment levels been before? It was around $17,000? Yeah, so what I looked at was a five-year enrollment trend at Salt. And Salt had had about 25 students per semester over the course of the last five years. For Main College of Art, we're an institution of about 450, 470 students, depending on the year. And for us, that's an important number of students. And we believe if the program is accredited, if we were able to get, as long as students were able to access federal tuition dollars in the future, we think that we'll be able to serve 25 students and attract at least 25 students a semester and maybe more. All the models that I've built are premised on getting about 20 to 28 students a semester. It's a one-semester program. And so that'd be anywhere between 44 and 50 students a year. What size of the group? The gift is big enough to support two to three years of operating for Salt. So how big is it? The gift is to support two or three years of operating. So you're not going to give that up. No. Thanks. Yeah. Anything else? What happens after those two to three years? What happens after two to three years? Well, first of all, our dual obligation to Salt seems really clear to us. Preserve the Salt semester program. Preserve and maintain and take adequate care of the archive. Make sure the program gets stable. That's, you know, it's had a track record of success. It has great brand recognition throughout the United States and the region. And so that's our first part in the first two or three years. After that, of course, we're looking at other types of ways that the Salt program can interface with other things that have happened at the college. But our first obligation is to make sure that we've secured that program and it's running successfully on its own. Tuition? The tuition will stay basically the same. We're not looking at changing the tuition model at all. We think that would be kind of a shock to the system. And the program could be viable at its current tuition model. Great question. What is that? It's just under $10,000. I think currently $9,548 or something like that. Yeah. But it's just under $10,000. I mean, I think that's, given the experience students have, I think $9,000, $10,000 is a very reasonable expense for the caliber of experience that I've learned that students have at Salt. What does that say about storytelling? Is it being considered a fine art? Is this storytelling considered a fine art? I think what we do here at the college, we do everything from tell stories to make paintings, to make movies, to make music. And so if you come through our building on any given day, I think you'll see all those types of activities. We have taught classes in documentary photography. We have students that do documentary work and filmmaking. So this is not, and we have a public engagement program, which really aligns with many of the ethics of the Salt program. So this type of activity is not alien to us in any type of way. But we're not trying to push the notion of, say, fine art onto documentary storytelling. We think what's important to preserve is the, at least, particularly for now, is the important and specific nature of the Salt curriculum. That's what makes it unique and special. And we're not looking to water that down any type of way.