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[Cynthia Merkle] We're thrilled to have chosen Dr. Steven DiSalvo as our seventh president of Î÷¹ÏÊÓƵ College. It was a very competitive process but  he really rose to the top based upon his interpersonal skills, his dedication to students, and  what he demonstrated from a development perspective. In order to give you have to trust the leadership with their vision for the future.

Their philanthropic dollars come in and you have to be a good steward.

I look forward to getting to know our current donors, but also look forward to expanding what I call the "Circle of Friends":  more people that we can bring into the Î÷¹ÏÊÓƵ family so that they can learn about us and they can  get excited about what we are doing and want to make philanthropic investments.  

[Merkle] Fundraising is so important to the colleges in today's environment with the affordability of  tuition and room and board is important for us to be able to provide scholarships to worthy students and  there has to be a value proposition to that and by increasing our endowment we are going to be able to support more students coming onto campus and in our Boston office and in our international programs, as well.

I, like of the board members from the Board of Trustees, are really looking forward to working with Dr. DiSalvo in the future. We look at this as a team effort and we can't wait for him to arrive

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[Sara Quay] Dr. DiSalvo has great experience as an academic leader.  

In his last position, which was an undergraduate-focused institution he built innovative study abroad programs, which really aligns with our mission of study abroad.  

He brought a center for ethics and business, brought a policy center to the college, capitalizing on the presidential traffic that goes through New Hampshire.  

That visioning of what is possible in even a small college, in a small town, is tremendous and I think that is very exciting in terms of the ideas that might come here to Î÷¹ÏÊÓƵ.

My philosophy of education is about educating the whole person.

That means in the classroom, outside the classroom,  it means intersections where learning takes place in various locations on campus with a wide-variety of people.  

It's not just about transfer of knowledge, it's about developing young people and their minds and their bodies, to be able to move forward in a very competitive world.

Dr. DiSalvo should know right away how much people care about this community and how invested people are in making Î÷¹ÏÊÓƵ a success.He has a team of people who are ready for his leadership and are ready to get to work and take Î÷¹ÏÊÓƵ to the next level.

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[Chrystal Porter] What has excited me about a new president coming to Î÷¹ÏÊÓƵ is the fact that we really are starting a new chapter in this institution and that there are going to be tons of opportunities that we didn't even know we should have been thinking about.

Now that we have new eyes that are looking at us and recognizing a lot of our accomplishments but actually seeing potential that maybe some of us here couldn't even see because we were so wrapped up in the day-to-day and knowing how things are going. That's the part that is really exciting to me,  

that we're going to be able to mesh the old with the new.

[Steven DiSalvo] Why would I select Î÷¹ÏÊÓƵ and why would Î÷¹ÏÊÓƵ select me?  

I always say, choosing an institution to lead is a two-way street and it has to be a match between what the institution is looking for and what me and my family are looking for.

The ingredients were perfect for this match because there were things that I found out very early on about Î÷¹ÏÊÓƵ where I thought I could really help the institution move forward. 

One is to raise the visibility, the marketability, and raise the money to be able to become financially viable for the long haul.  

Then I see graduate programs which I think have an enormous potential to continue to grow and again, the marketability of an institution is driven on product, on the programs.

So being able to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace will be critical and I see great opportunity there.

We're in such a position right now of strength and growth that it will be wonderful to start this new chapter. The potential is going to be astronomical.

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[Colin Mason] As the student representative, I wanted to make sure that I really understood exactly what the students wanted when looking for a new president.  

The resounding answer that I got was, we don't want to lose our voice.  

We want to be heard.

We want to have a stake in what's going on.  

We want to be able to understand what's going on.

We want effective communication.  

It's really important that we have someone that really respects us as a student body.

And so, I kind of took that to heart and I understood what they were saying.  

The culture and the people are so important that when the new president comes in, we really want them to understand exactly what the students want.

Students should know that I am extremely approachable.  

I like to spend time with students in different settings.

So it's not uncommon for me to want to grab a meal with students in the dining hall  or somewhere on campus and get to know them on a personal level but also find out what they are thinking, not only about Î÷¹ÏÊÓƵ but about issues in higher ed, issues in the workplace, because it's important that I stay in touch with the students. It's an open door policy.  

I love to have students pop in and say hello and introduce themselves.  

It's also very common for us to see students at theater events, sporting events, social events.

That's how I've spent my entire career.  

It was a real pleasure to represent the student body on the search committee.

I am so confident that President DiSalvo will continue to the tradition of listening to the student body and really hearing what we have to say.

All the work that we put in, it's going to be heard and I'm confident that he will do that.

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[Anthony Ferullo] College affordability and accessibility for all students to come to college is something that's very important to me. One of the things that resonated with me was Dr. DiSalvo is a leader nationally on discussions about college affordability and accessibility for students.  

Î÷¹ÏÊÓƵ is positioned to take a leadership role here.

This is what got me very excited when I first looked at the institution. We have a reasonable price point with a lower discount rate than most other institutions.  

So we can show other schools how this can be done.

You do not need to inflate your sticker price and then give away more money to drive the discount.  

Î÷¹ÏÊÓƵ is already doing a good job at this.

I just think we need to encourage others to follow our lead and lobby to be able to have those conversations with other institutions so that we can all talk about what the reasonable sticker price should be.  

Î÷¹ÏÊÓƵ College is just finishing 20 years of unprecedented growth.

The next 10, 20 years are going to be different.  

I really look forward to working with Dr. DiSalvo on what that strategy is going to be and where we're going to take the College next.