 The Maine College of Art has just released the fall schedule for its Continuing Studies program. Tom talked with Sarah Gibson, the program's director, about the wide range of classes that are available to students of all ages. Sarah, thanks for coming in. Thank you for having me. The Maine College of Art is our next door neighbor, and you're the director of the Continuing Education program. So I guess that's starting up right now. Could you describe a little bit of what that program's all about? Sure. Continuing Studies is community programming. It's open enrollment programming for students of all ages. And what open enrollment means is that there's not an application process. It's actually a registration process. So basically students can look through our catalog course listings, find something they'd like, and they just complete a registration form or register online. And then they're basically in the class. And the Continuing Education is for anybody in the community. It's not for people who are matriculated already. That's right. It's open for all ages of our community. We have youth programming for ages 9 to 17. And then adult programming starts at age 18 and all the way up to 90. So we have a wide range of students. And how many students do you usually get to enroll during a semester? We do actually three terms. We do fall, winter, and then again in the summer. And typically we have around 500 students per term. It varies a little bit depending on the programming. We also offer a pre-college program in the summer, which is a four-week residence program. Last year we had 31 students from basically all over the country. And they came and stayed with us and basically got a college experience before. You know, it's time for them to actually apply for college. 31 high school students who are looking to come to school. 31 high school students. Yep. Wow. So that's an extensive. Now about like how many courses do you offer? What's the range and what are some of the examples of the courses? What's the most popular course? So the most popular course would be Janet Manion's painting courses. Anything she offers. It's the first course to fill up every time. But we offer a wide range of courses. We do other painting courses. She does a little bit more for the experienced student. But we have a lot of courses for beginning students. Painting for the True Blue Beginner. And also we have drawing for the other beginner. So there's courses that for students who have always thought about taking a course, that that would be a good place for them to start us with some of our entry level courses. We also move into ceramics. We offer glass, which is off-site. We offer, let's see. Do you have, you said there's no prerequisites for this. But so when people decide which course to take, they pretty much gauge for themselves what level they should be at. Sure. And if they have any kind of question about what their skill level might be, they should just call the office. We have three people working in our department. And we are there to help counsel students and help them find the right course for them. Because it does vary. And a lot of times our students are a little bit nervous. You know, it can be their first time even coming on campus. So we like to just make it very welcoming for them and let them know that we're there to help them. You know, all your courses are right downtown here, right in Mecca. If people are concerned a little bit about parking, or how do they can fit it into their schedule, the time of day. Do you have some idea about location and timing for these classes? Sure. A lot of our adult classes do take place in the evening, because we are sensitive to the fact that people do work. And they also want to be able to do these things for themselves as well. But also we offer courses during the day too. So we're trying to really do a wide breadth of course offerings to accommodate the community because, you know, everyone's schedule varies so much. As for the parking, we have the Free Street lot right in the back. And actually that entrance to the college, the continuing studies department, is right inside the entrance doors. So anyone who feels a little bit nervous about coming downtown or coming onto the campus, they can just come right in the back door and find us really easily and we can help them find their way. Now, you mentioned that there's three terms during the year. This next one, the one that's starting up in the fall. When does that actually start? When does that deadline? September 17th, it starts. We actually accept registrations up until the day the class starts. So it kind of fluctuates depending on when the classes start. Our extended classes, which are like our 12-week classes, they all start that first week. But we offer weekend workshops and shorter length courses throughout the entire term, which goes until December. So there's pretty much something starting all throughout the entire term. Can people get college credit for this or CEUs or something? It's not college credit. It's actually CEUs, which is basically time-earned for hands-on instruction. And a lot of educators use that time towards their certification. Youth classes, we don't offer any credit except for the pre-college program. In the pre-college program, they can earn credit towards high school graduation. Great. So now, if people need more information or want to find something, you know, ask any questions, where can they go? Well, they can always call our office at 207-699-5061 and also our website, MECA.edu. And they can register online at MECA.edu backslash-cs-register. Great. Well, thanks a lot for joining us. It sounds like a very interesting program. Great. Thank you.