Category Archives: education & training

Steve Forbes Accepts 26th Prism Award from NYU-SCPS at Record-Setting Event

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Steve Forbes (right), chairman and editor-in-chief, Forbes Media LLC, accepts the Prism Award from Mike Federle, COO, Forbes Media LLC.

The graphic communications industry continues to struggle with declining sales, squeezed profit margins, restricted access to capital, and business pressures of every imaginable kind. But, none of that has dampened the enthusiasm of those who support the Prism Awards, a high-profile achievement recognition program that rings with optimism every year under the auspices of New York University’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies (SCPS).

On June 21, the event marked its 26th anniversary with a record turnout and another record for revenue generated on behalf of the M.A. program in Graphic Communications Management and Technology at SCPS. A large part of the draw was the presence of this year’s Prism Award recipient: Steve Forbes, chairman and editor-in-chief, Forbes Media LLC. The ceremony, which took place at Gotham Hall near Herald Square, also featured the presentation of an Alumni Achievement Award to Michael J. Mulligan and a Student Achievement Award to Eunic M. Ortiz.

The Prism Award has been given annually since 1986 in recognition of distinguished leadership in the graphic communications media industry. The Prism Award luncheon is the industry’s longest-running and most successful educational fundraising event, having collected millions of dollars for graphics studies since its inception.

This year’s ceremony was emceed by M.A. program advisory board co-chairs Martin J. Maloney (Broadford & Maloney) and Kathy B. Presto (Williams Lea North America). Prism Award committee chairs were Francis A. McMahon (Océ North America) and Laura C. Reid (Hearst Magazines).

All proceeds from the $750-per-seat event fund scholarships for students enrolled in the M.A. program in Graphic Communications Management and Technology, which has been in existence since 1981. Every year since then, many high-ranking industry executives have served on the M.A. program’s advisory board as curriculum consultants and as providers of internships and career guidance. The program, managed by academic director Bonnie Blake and assistant director Ansley Dunn, also enlists industry professionals as adjunct lecturers.

Enrolled in the cross-disciplinary program are working professionals as well as full-time students, including a significant number of international participants. Topics of study include executive leadership, entrepreneurial thinking, finance, global marketing, managing the media mix, and graphic communication technologies.

Michael J. Mulligan (left), recipient of the Alumni Achievement Award, with Martin J. Maloney, co-chair of the advisory board for the NYU-SCPS M.A. program in Graphic Communications Management and Technology.

Mulligan, the Alumni Achievement Award recipient, credited the program with helping him to reimagine the mission of Advanced Business Group Inc. (ABG), a New York City digital printing company he founded in 1992. Billing itself as the city’s leading digital print provider for business, ABG offers a full range of quick-turnaround production solutions and marketing support services. Mulligan said that attaining an M.A. in the program led him to rethink his role as the CEO of the company that he started and continues to transform.

Accepting the Student Achievement Award, Ortiz described herself as “the epitome of the digital consumer.” Professionally, she is a senior account executive at Fleishman-Hillard, where she develops online, digital, video, and social media campaigns for clients in corporate, government, and technology- related industries. She also has served as a Web, digital, and social media manager for the New York City Council.

Maloney congratulates Eunic M. Ortiz on her receipt of the Student Achievement Award.

Ortiz said that what she wanted in graduate studies “was a program where I could not only learn another level of leadership and management skills, but a program that would be up to date on the work I was involved in daily. I needed a program that could keep up with me.”

“The experience I’ve had while in the Graphic Communications Management and Technology program has exceeded my every expectation,” she declared.

Among the media properties managed by Steve Forbes are the namesake bi-weekly magazine, with a circulation of more than 900,000; the RealClear group of Web sites, including RealClearPolitics.com, which together with Forbes.com are said to reach 33 million readers every month; and 21 local-language licensee editions of Forbes publications for readers around the world.

The Prism Award recipient also has written or co-authored four books and was, in 1996 and 2000, a campaigner for the Republican presidential nomination.

Forbes told the Prism Award audience that while there are few “playbooks” to guide people in their career and life choices, a good education can help everyone to cope with the inevitable uncertainties ahead.

“The true source of wealth in an economy is people’s minds,” Forbes said, adding that the ingenuity of educated people is what gives value to oil, microchips, and other commodities prized by business and society.

He advised the students in the audience to accept the fact that at some point, “a crisis will hit you” during the pursuit of entrepreneurial ambitions. When it hits, he told them, the question to ask is, “What is the purpose of communications? What are you trying to achieve?” With the help of a big-picture focus, Forbes said, “you’ll have a little more serenity—just a little more—in terms of going forward.”

Still an advocate of the political and social changes he called for during his quests for the Republican presidential nomination, Forbes briefly addressed the subject of health care and its future after the Supreme Court’s pending decision on the national health care plan put forth by the Obama administration. According to Forbes, the controversy surrounding the health care debate misses the point.

“Why is the demand for health care seen as a crisis, and not as an enormous opportunity for entrepreneurs?” he asked. “How in the world do we get the patients in charge again, like the consumer is in charge of everything else?” Permitting the purchase of health insurance coverage across state lines would be one way of spurring entrepreneurial competition and “turning scarcity into abundance” in the health care marketplace, Forbes said.

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GCSF Celebrates Its 10th Anniversary with Scholarship Grants to 27 Students

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First-time and multiple recipients of GCSF scholarships on stage with GCSF trustees in the Joseph Urban Theatre, Hearst Tower, New York City.

“We saw that there needed to be a future workforce for the graphic communications industry, and we saw that we needed to do something about it.”

With that simple but far-reaching plan in mind, Bill Dirzulaitis and the other founding members of the Graphic Communications Scholarship, Award and Career Advancement Foundation (GCSF) set out to finance their vision of a self-sustaining scholarship fund for the industry’s next generation of creative talent. On June 20, GSCF marked the tenth anniversary of the realization of that goal by presenting $40,000 in grants to 27 students commencing or continuing college-level studies in graphic communications.

The presentation ceremony at the Hearst Tower in Manhattan also featured the bestowal of a GCSF Service Award to Dirzulaitis as well as the recognition of Matthew McDowell (Pantone Inc.) as this year’s recipient of GCSF’s Champion of Education Award.

The student scholarship winners either attend or are entering colleges and universities with degree programs in graphic communications. Their areas of study include advertising, design, interactive media, printing, publishing, journalism, digital asset management, and photography.

Conceived by a small group of metro area industry members who wanted to coordinate fundraising for graphics education, GCSF is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit group that channels 100% of the money it raises to scholarships. To date, the group has awarded $313,000 in 94 grants endowed by a long list of graphics industry donors. Most of the 2012 recipients are in their second, third, fourth, or fifth years of qualifying for the stipends.

GCSF has no professional staff and relies entirely on the voluntary efforts of its officers and trustees. Its scholarship selection committee picks recipients by examining their SAT scores, grade-point averages, portfolios, letters of recommendation, and application essays.

GCSF also provides advisement, mentoring, internships and work-study opportunities for students enrolled in graphic studies degree programs at Pratt Institute, New York University, Rhode Island School of Design, The School of Visual Arts, and Carnegie Mellon University, among other institutions. (See video.)

As Pantone’s national sales manager, McDowell has spearheaded that company’s steadfast support for GCSF since its earliest days. In his acceptance remarks, he told the student recipients that in order to stand out among the 720,000 graphic designers now at work in North America, they would have to work hard at building their portfolios, their reputations, and their brands.

“Become lifelong learners,” he said, “and be sure to be proud of your work.” McDowell also urged the recipients to “network, network, network” at the many industry meetings and events where participation by students is welcome.

David Luke (left), president of GCSF, congratulates Matthew McDowell (Pantone Inc.) on his receipt of the foundation’s Champion of Education Award.

“Bill made it happen,” said Mark Darlow, a GCSF founder and trustee, of Dirzulaitis’s leadership in getting the foundation off the ground. Accepting his service award, Dirzulaitis—a president of the New York metro area’s principal trade association for 15 years—said that one of the drivers was the realization that while the industry was changing rapidly, its traditional workforce was aging at the same pace.

Meeting in borrowed space and keeping handwritten records on tablets (the paper kind), the founders raised and distributed $5,000 worth of grants in the first year. They also consolidated a number of existing scholarship funds that were not being actively managed. Since then, said Dirzulaitis, who served as the foundation’s first treasurer, GCSF has raised more than a half a million dollars to underwrite industry education.

Bill Dirzulaitis (left), founding treasurer of GCSF, accepts a Service Award from GCSF trustee Mark Darlow.

GCSF’s present slate of officers includes David Luke (president), Steve Kennedy (vice president), Ellen F. Hurwitch (second vice president), Jerry Mandelbaum (treasurer), Nick Patrissi (secretary), and Richard Krasner (immediate past president). The foundation (www.gcscholarships.org) may be followed on Twitter as @GCSF1.

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Pace U. Publishing Program Hosts Educational Event for Biggest Publishing Media Business in China

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Delegates from the Phoenix Publishing & Media Group at the opening session of an educational exchange program hosted by Pace University in New York City. Seated center: Patrick Henry. Seated second from right: Prof. Andrea Baron, Pace, program coordinator. Seated right: Prof. Xiao Chuan Lian, Pace, translator.

On May 29, the MS in Publishing Program at Pace University convened a three-week seminar on printing technology for 16 representatives of the Phoenix Publishing & Media Group (PPMG) of Nanjing, the largest business of its kind in China. Through June 15, at the program’s academic center in midtown Manhattan, the senior managers will attend a series of educational sessions led by U.S. print and publishing executives. They also will visit print production sites and other places of interest in the NY-NJ metro area.

The visit is being coordinated by Andrea Baron, an adjunct professor in the publishing program, who describes the purpose and the agenda here. Pace has been cooperating with PPMG since 2006 in a variety of educational initiatives, all of them aimed at fostering better cooperation between the U.S. and Chinese print and publishing sectors.

With invaluable help in translation from Professor Xiao Chuan Lian, a senior staff associate of the publishing program, I led the opening session with a report on the present state of the U.S. printing industry. We covered industry demographics, game-changing technological trends, and revenue opportunities for printers both inside and outside the press department.

The visitors are a formidable audience. They all hold high-level positions in production and publishing in various divisions of PPMG, a group that employs 12,000 people, owns more than 1,700 bookstores, and claims annual sales in excess of 12 billion RMB (about $1.9 billion). They were attentive, inquisitive, and particularly eager to learn about developments in digital print manufacturing.

A number of them had been to drupa where, it was clear, they’d been mightily impressed (if not also a little baffled) by the new line of nanographic printing presses from Landa Corp. Web-to-print was another high-priority topic, with a few of the visitors mentioning the tentative first steps they were taking toward e-commerce. Concern was expressed about the re-shoring of book production from China to digitally equipped plants in the U.S. Apparently, some volume loss of that kind is being experienced by PPMG.

By the end of the seminar, the visitors will have heard from representatives of Quad Graphics, Idealliance, Baker & Taylor, Hearst, Time Inc., Group FMG, Brown Printing, Red Tie Ltd., MediaNeutral LLC, the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), Publishers Press, Toppan Printing, XMpie, HP, Fry Communications, SAPPI, Random House, Periodicals & Book Association of America (PBAA), and Brown Printing. The site visit itinerary includes Hearst, Time Inc., Book Expo America, SCI Strategic Content Imaging, and Bloomberg Financial.

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Tips from Pros, Taste of the Real World at ADGA Portfolio Review

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On May 24, more than 90 students received intensive critiques of their work during the third annual student portfolio review sponsored by the Department of Advertising Design and Graphic Arts (ADGA), New York City College of Technology (City Tech). Publishers, advertising executives, and media professionals reviewed the students’ creations in a continuous session that ended with awards to three seniors and congratulations to all who took part. Above, from left: student honorees Norali Zamora (second place), Rudra Melaram (first place), and Eva Hruzikova (honorable mention). Below: a video captures the feel of the one-on-one evaluations and the students’ responses to what were, for many of them, the first high-level appraisals of their portfolios by potential employers.

I had the privilege of serving as one of the evaluators, and I was deeply impressed by much of what I saw. ADGA clearly has become one of the metro area’s most significant incubators of graphic talent for broadcast, video, advertising, Web, and game design. Whether it fully appreciates the fact or not, New York City’s media community has a major human resource for employment in this career-oriented academic program. If you’re interested in seeing this year’s crop of ADGA portfolios for yourself, please let me know.

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City Tech’s Department of Advertising Design and Graphic Arts Will Hold Third Annual Portfolio Review on May 24

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The Department of Advertising Design and Graphic Arts (ADGA), New York City College of Technology (City Tech), will conduct its third annual student portfolio review on Thursday, May 24, from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. The review will take place in the Times Square offices of Adobe Systems Inc., the host of the event.

More than 90 graduating ADGA students will present their work to City Tech faculty and industry professionals in a series of 45-minute sessions. ADGA hopes to attract enough outside attendance so that each student’s portfolio can be critiqued by two or three experts in related fields.

“As in previous years, one of our goals is to gather information that will help us keep our curriculum relevant to the current needs of industry and its employing companies,” said M. Genevieve Hitchings, assistant professor, ADGA. “Portfolio reviews also let students practice their interview skills and receive honest feedback on their work in a non-competitive environment.”

“Most important, portfolio reviews also give senior-level students an opportunity to network with potential employers,” Hitchings said.

The reviews will begin at 3:30 p.m. and run at 45-minutes intervals until 7:15 p.m. At 7:30 p.m., ADGA will announce three winners for the most outstanding portfolios.

Industry members wishing to take part in the reviews should RSVP to MHitchings@CityTech.Cuny.Edu. Pre-registration is necessary for admission to the space being provided by Adobe at 1540 Broadway, New York, NY, on the 17th floor (entrance on 45th Street).

ADGA has promoted the event with a postcard (above) designed by one of its students, Alfredo Lopez, who specializes in web and mobile design, online advertising, and brand identity. Printing was provided by Duggal Visual Solutions, which ran the job on an HP Indigo 5500 digital color press at its production center in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Duggal, a supporter of City Tech, also has hosted field trips that introduce ADGA students to many of the latest technologies for graphic imaging and reproduction.

ADGA held its first portfolio review at the Openhouse Gallery in SoHo  in December 2010. Last year, the event took place at the Type Director’s Club in midtown Manhattan.

With an enrollment of about 1,300 students, ADGA is the largest academic department at City Tech. It offers degree programs in the career tracks of advertising and graphic design, interactive media, broadcast graphics, illustration, and graphic arts management.

ADGA graduates have gone on to successful careers at Condé Nast, The New York Times, Hearst, Essence Inc., Deutsch, EURO RSCG, DraftFCB, Grey Advertising, and many other firms.

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NYU-SCPS Names Steve Forbes Recipient of 2012 Prism Award

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The Advisory Board of the NYU School of Continuing and Professional Studies (NYU-SCPS) Graphic Communications Management and Technology program will present the 2012 Prism Award to Steve Forbes, chairman and editor-in-chief of Forbes Media LLC. The Prism Award is presented annually in recognition of distinguished leadership in the graphic communications media industry.

Sponsored by the Master of Arts in Graphic Communications Management and Technology program at NYU-SCPS, the 2012 Prism Award will be presented to Forbes during the 26th Annual Prism Award Luncheon at Gotham Hall on Thursday, June 21.

Previous NYU Prism Award recipients include: Thomas J. Quinlan III, president and chief executive officer of RR Donnelley; Vyomesh (VJ) Joshi, executive vice president, HP’s Imaging and Printing Group; Cathleen Black, president of Hearst Magazines; Antonio M. Perez, president and CEO of Eastman Kodak Company; Anne M. Mulcahy, chairman of Xerox Corporation; and Janet L. Robinson, president of The New York Times.

The net proceeds of the Prism Award Luncheon help to fund student scholarships for the NYU-SCPS masters degree program in Graphic Communications Management and Technology. Since its inception, the Prism Award Luncheon has raised millions of dollars for scholarships for students in the program.

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