 Good afternoon everyone. I'm Susan McTiernan, and I have the great pleasure of serving as dean of the Mario J. Gebelli School of Business here at Roger Williams University. I want to extend to all of you a very warm welcome. President Farish and members of the Cabinet, members of the GSB Advisory Council, Dr. Michael Melton, Director of the Center for Advanced Financial Education, the Student Investing Program, faculty, students, alumni, staff, and friends, a very special and warm welcome is extended to Ms. Kristen Avensino, President of the Wigan Foundation, who is joining us today via video link from Las Vegas. We are very proud, by the way, that Ms. Avensino holds an honorary doctorate from Roger Williams University. Welcome, Ms. Avensino. Last, but certainly not least, we welcome Mr. Mario Gebelli, RWU trustee, member of the Wigan Foundation Board, and a great friend to the school that bears his name, who is also joining us via, I think, video link and phone. Mario, did you want to say something? Just let me echo all of your... Thanks very much Mario. Thank you Mario. We appreciate you're joining us. We are so very grateful to the Wigan Foundation for the extraordinary and transformative generosity that has allowed us to be here this afternoon to celebrate the dedication of the E.L. Wigan Center for Advanced Financial Education. As many of you know, the Center for Advanced Financial Education was established originally through the generosity of the Foundation in 2004. And under the continuous and excellent leadership of Dr. Michael Melton, the cafe has succeeded beyond our most ambitious expectations and has become a marquee program of the school. Its students have benefited greatly from the technology and the unique instruction provided through the program, which supports student management of two separate financial portfolios, real money being managed in real time. You'll hear in a few minutes more details about the experience from some of our students. The generous grant from the Wigan Foundation has enabled us to nearly triple the amount of space available to this exceptional and exceptionally experiential program. And of course experiential learning is at the heart of an RWU education and is consistent with the GSB vision of applying theory to practice and translating this into the most positive outcomes for our students. Cafe equips graduates with the skills and insights that employers across the full range of the financial services industry demand. Virtually every one of the program's 200 graduates has been launched on a successful career in the financial services industry, largely as a result of their experience in the cafe program. We are indebted to the Wigan Foundation for making possible this new space, which so closely replicates the environment of industry and which will enable us to further achieve the GSB vision to launch many more students on successful career paths than ever would have been possible in the investing program's former and very constrained home. As stated on the plaque that is displayed adjacent to this beautiful new facility and that both recognizes and thanks the E.L. Wigan Foundation for making it possible, the Center for Advanced Financial Education reflects the timeless professional ethics espoused by the foundation's namesake, Edwin L. Wigan, and is driven by the same spirit of ambition where creativity is accelerated through a combination of imagination, professional experience, the right technology, and emulating real world conditions. Again, I welcome everybody to this wonderful day for the Gabelli School of Business and for Roger Williams University. I said this morning the Weather Committee did not do a great job, but I really appreciate everyone being here, especially with the weather the way it is. It's now a great pleasure for me to introduce Dr. Michael Melton, Founding Director of the Center for Advanced Financial Education and Professor of Finance at the Gabelli School of Business. Michael, you're still here. Thank you, Dean McTernan. I would like to take this time to personally thank Ms. Kristin Avensino, President of the E.L. Wigan Foundation for its financial support and the creation of the E.L. Wigan Center for Advanced Financial Education. The construction of this center directly ties with the mission and vision set forth by President Donald Farrish and Roger Williams University. That is one of preparing our students for success after graduation through experiential learning. What you see behind me is the exact replica of industry. Understanding the importance of giving our students this rural world experience, the E.L. Wigan Foundation recognized the need for such a unique setting. This new and larger space provides for greater capacity, allowing for a greater number of students to participate in the portfolio management program. As we say in the cafe, in greater numbers comes greater ideas. I have been fortunate enough to be the Director since the inception of the cafe when the E.L. Wigan Foundation graciously donated to establish the original program in 2004. Since that time, thanks to this unique setting, I have witnessed this program win countless portfolio management awards, including bringing home two national championships. With the creation of the new E.L. Wigan Center for Advanced Financial Education, the technology and environment will only improve the quality of our graduates far beyond their peers at other universities and ensure their success after graduation. I would now like to introduce Mrs. Veronica Bullman, the Chair of the Center for Advanced Financial Education Advisory Board. Veronica was a student fund manager in 2008 and has witnessed the growth and success afforded by the Center throughout the years. Everyone, please welcome Mrs. Bullman. Thank you, Doc. As Chair of the Cafe Advisory Board, I'm extremely grateful to the E.L. Wigan Foundation for providing the next generation of student fund managers with a superior environment for learning equipped with state of the art technology. The Foundation's generosity will improve the cafe experience program, which provides students with real-world experiences. These experiences have prepared all of the alumni for life after graduation. The cafe has afforded us opportunities and success in industry that we may not have achieved if not for our participation in the program. The brand recognition of this program starts with the Center for Advanced Financial Education. With the construction of the new cafe and a greater emphasis on the current needs in industry, the advisory board is looking forward to witnessing the greater successes of the future graduates. As you see to my left, over half of the cafe alumni have given back due to their fond memories and experiences during the program. On behalf of the Cafe Advisory Board and the cafe alumni, we offer the utmost gratitude towards the E.L. Wigan Foundation. Thank you again. Thank you, Veronica, for those kind words. To truly measure the level of gratitude that we have for the E.L. Wigan Foundation, we should hear from those who truly benefit most on a daily basis. I would now like to invite out my associate director, Ms. Corinne Haymack, who was also a student fund manager in the fall of 2017. What makes Corinne so special is that she's experienced fund management under both settings, the old cafe and the new E.L. Wigan Center for Advanced Financial Education. In addition, I'd like to bring up Lily England, who is a current student fund manager and certainly can honestly say that the cafe is her home away from home. She lives in them. So anyway, Corinne, Lily. Thank you, Doc, and hello, everyone. From the first day the semester begins, student fund managers walk into the E.L. Wigan Center for Advanced Financial Education and recognize that this experience is not a class, but rather on the job training. We would like to thank the E.L. Wigan Foundation for providing an environment like no other at any academic institution across America. As everyone can see behind me, the cafe is a real-world work environment that you would find in industry today. It not only looks like a trading floor, but we also get to analyze, strategize, and execute our own stock trades without having to bring it to an advisory board that who would make the ultimate decision. We make the choice and live by our portfolio results. The new center also came equipped with more large-screen financial workstations, allowing the student fund managers to perform all financial analysis techniques, from fundamental to behavioral to technical in real time. We use the real-world financial platforms you'd find in industry and the floor of major exchanges across the globe. These platforms include Bloomberg, Money.net, and TD Ameritrade. With greatly enhanced computer power, we are able to research and display information from 32 different websites at any given time. To keep us informed of the most up-to-date financial information, the center also now has two televisions and a ticker reel, giving us access to live news feed and stock quotes from all around the globe all day long. It is this real-time component in the most up-to-date financial, I mean sorry, it is this real-time component in execution of our own trades that differentiates our program from competing schools. The EL Weekend Foundation has truly provided us with an experience like no other. To build on this foundation, the cafe also gave me the opportunity to present our portfolio management methodologies at financial institutions across the globe, such as Axia Investment Bank in Athens, Greece. When my group of student fund managers had that opportunity, we recognized that this was going to replicate this real-world setting in every fashion. Finally, the overall design of the EL Weekend cafe provides that free flow of information found in industry today and enhances the ability for us to successfully manage two real-dollar portfolios. As Doc has said many times, in this environment he does not teach students, but rather trains analysts. On behalf of this current group of student fund managers and all of those to come, we thank the EL Weekend Foundation for providing us such a setting that can only enhance our success after graduation. Thank you so much ladies. We would now like to finish up this dedication with some words from our president, Dr. Donald Farrish. Without his commitment to experiential learning across campus, certainly such a center like the EL Weekend Center for Advanced Financial Education would just only be a dream rather than a reality. So President Farrish, please. Just looking over my shoulder, I see the dollar is down 200. Shouldn't you people be selling something somewhere? So it's great to have you all here and I think this is one of those days that we can celebrate in the collective because this is not the effort of one person or two people. This is the combined effort over many years of people building on each other's strengths. The Weekend Foundation trusted us 12 or 13 years ago to get this program started. Mary Gabelli has been with us from the start helping with the Bloomberg terminals and the funds that are being invested. Michael Melton has led this organization from the very beginning and done just exceptional work, two national championships, preparing 200 financial analysts over that period of time. The people that are here today represent some of those individuals. You're coming back and you're part of this again today and I think what that allows us to do is build on the success as it goes along. So now the Weekend folks are back again helping us do this. This is a dramatically different vision of how it is that I mean can you imagine how prospective students are going to react when they walk in and see this? You came long before that was here. I mean there's no excuse now. We should have national championships every year because we're going to get the very best. Yeah, no pressure. But I really want to thank the Weekend Foundation. I want to thank Mary Gabelli who's been a great friend of this university for a very long time. But I don't want to not thank the people who have been part of this program making it work because it's the credibility that collectively you have brought to bear that allows these programs to grow and continue to expand and there's great work that's going to come in the future. So if ever there's a case of building on the shoulders of those that came before this is it. If ever there's an example of paying it forward this is it. So you should feel very proud of the role that you have played as an individual and especially in the collective at getting this university to this point in this program. We're not done yet. And yes thank you Michael for your comments about my commitment to experiential learning. It's very much part of what I believe is part of a university education. But I'll tell you the CAFE program existed before I arrived here. In a sense what I've done is looked at what you have done in the CAFE program and said let's do the equivalent of this across the face of the campus. And I think that's what we're doing and I think that's one of the reasons why we're having great success right now as a university. So again the CAFE program it's not just local it exemplifies the very best of what we can do at Roger Williams University and the people who are our graduates exemplify the very best of who our students can and are going to be as they move out and establish their careers. So it's just a great celebratory day. The only thing that's lousy about it is the weather. Everything else is perfect. Thanks for being here. Thank you Michael for letting me be a part of it. Thank you again everyone for being here. This is as President Farrish said a very rainy day obviously but a really great day for the CAFE program the Gebelli School and the university. We appreciate your presence with us to celebrate. I'd like to invite President Farrish and Vice President Raola and Dr. Melton forward to cut the ribbon officially on our officially cut the ribbon on our new EO Wigan Center. Would you all come forward? And I still have Mr. Gebelli on the phone so I'm going to put him in my pocket for a minute while we do that. Actually Provost Workman is here too. Why don't you come forward with us and help us cut the ribbon. All of the current student fund managers in this semester's class are in the audience today. They'll be happy to show you around the Truman Awards at the CAFE at this moment. But first before we do that President I would love for the current student fund managers to be able to take a picture with you in the dean's. So, in the dean's. Coming. I think over here and Michael.