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Why has this changed?

Various SWAIA Boards and staff have been agonizing over the abolishment of the program for 25 years and while none elected to fully end the program, 17 years ago SWAIA decided no more artists would be added to the program.  Artists would have naturally lost tenure status through death or missing Indian Market for some reason.  This meant that the number of tenured artists would get smaller and smaller over the years.  Unfortunately, not all Directors chose to follow this policy and awarded tenure status to some artists for many different reasons.   Four years ago, the Board came to the decision that in order to be fair to ALL artists, the tenure program must end.