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Students and staff were eagerly welcomed back to campus this fall after rigorous protocols— including requirements for masks, vaccines, and testing—were put in place to ensure the community’s health and safety. Parsons had gone fully remote last March in response to the pandemic, and community members came together to support one another and imaginatively enrich online learning. Students faced challenges as well as opportunities for greater access to peers and faculty, who offered virtual office hours and online sessions. Students shared work on social media using the hashtag #ParsonsMakes. Working within the constraints of home and limited resources sparked new methods and outcomes. BFA Fashion Design student Zara Zaman salvaged local palm fronds and used them in sustainable garments. Professor Dan Michalik tasked students in the Designing Chairs class with creating models using found materials and received miniature models including a broccoli bergère by Maximilian Paek, BFA Product Design ’21, and a banana lounge and accompanying ottoman by Product Design student Grace Wang. BFA Architectural Design student Kohki Hiramatsu used collage and photography to cope with pandemic-driven isolation, creating Resilience Journal. Jiangnan Hou, MFA Design and Technology ’21, mastered new software and made The Beaks, a VFX film featuring masks like those used for protection against COVID-19, to comment on separation and the challenges of communication. Her film was nominated for Best Experimental Short and Best Visual FX in this year’s Indie Film Fest. Outside the classroom, faculty advanced public health creatively. David J. Lewis, dean of Parsons’ School of Constructed Environments and professor of architecture, and his firm, LTL Architects, researched historical urban pandemics to develop their Manual of Physical Distancing, a guide for practitioners adapting temporary spatial adjustments into long-term ones to fight the spread of the coronavirus. The New School Urban Systems Lab (USL)—supported by the National Science Foundation and others—was established to equitably build resilient cities through research, design, and practice. Led by The New School’s Timon McPhearson, associate professor of urban ecology, MS Data Visualization program director Daniel Sauter, and lecturer Chris Kennedy, a team of USL researchers including students from throughout the university created COVID-19 resources and an interactive layered map depicting COVID data (e.g., testing and mortality) in relation to socioeconomic and climate change data and location. The integrated tools both underscore the role race and class play in the differential impacts of health crises and climate change and call for recovery strategies reflecting the special vulnerabilities of different communities.

Bhavya Gupta, MFA Design and Technology ’21, recently received a Schmidt Futures Award for her project providing resources to migrant women business owners in India affected by the pandemic. The $25,000 prize—given for the new Reimagine Challenge, which called for innovative ways to rebuild communities and areas heavily hit by COVID-19—will be used for Parsons scholarships. Luis Berríos-Negrón, BFA Fine Arts ’03, was one of four students shortlisted for Harvard University Graduate School of Design’s 2021 Wheelwright Prize, which carries a $100,000 award. Berríos-Negrón’s project proposes greenhouse technology to address climate change resulting from colonialism. Ash—an at-home sexual wellness diagnostics start-up launched by Mio Akasako, MS Data Visualization ’20, and others—won a Cornell Tech 2020 start-up award, which provided $100,000 in pre-seed funding to help bring the venture to market. BFA Fashion Design students Ar’Myiah Lee and Yetunde Sapp won 2021 Gucci Changemakers North America Scholarships, awards providing financial support, mentoring, and internship opportunities to promising fashion students. Frankie Bingxin Yu, MFA Interior Design ’21, won in the Best Student Design category in Interior Design magazine’s Best of Year awards for her ReDefine chair collection. Tômtex, a compostable biomaterial alternative to leather created by MFA Textiles program graduate Uyen Tran ’21, recently won the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) Design Scholar K11 Innovation award and a Judges Recognition Award in the Biodesign Challenge 2020. Parsons Design and Technology graduates Emily Gobeille, MFA ’05, and Theodore Watson, BFA ’05—founders of Design I/0, a firm that also includes Nick Hardeman, MFA ’05—were recently awarded Cooper Hewitt’s National Design Award for Digital Design for their interactive storytelling solutions. Gabriel Gianordoli, MFA Design and Technology ’15, and his New York Times colleagues won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for public service for its multimedia COVID-19 coverage. Forbes again included Parsons on its 30 Under 30 list, naming Myles Loftin, BFA Photography ’21; Nour Chamoun, MFA Design and Technology ’15; Lisa Qu, BFA Fashion Design ’19; and Maisie Schloss, BFA Fashion Design ’13. Recent CFDA Design Scholar Award recipient Jacques Agbobly, BFA Fashion Design ’20, was featured in Teen Vogue and Hypebeast for design that engages with incarceration and Black men. Faculty award recipients included Jennifer Bolstad and Walter Meyer, instructors and co-founders of Local Office, who won a Climathon Global Award in the Cities Track category for their public green space project in Miami. Koray Çalıs¸kan, an associate professor at Parsons’ School of Design Strategies, won a 2021 Falling Walls Foundation Science Breakthrough Prize for work bringing together computational analysis and global ethnographic research related to cryptocurrencies. LEVENBETTS, the architecture practice of associate professor of architecture David Leven and Stella Betts, was recognized as the 2020 AIA NY State Firm of the Year.

The New School announced the launch of Parsons Entrepreneur Academy, a digital program headed by Christina Long, director of Digital Learning. The program provides entrepreneurially minded creatives with the tools necessary to build a business around their art form from their homes. The academy was developed by leaders at the cutting edge of their fields, including Parsons faculty and alumni; the curricula emphasize collaborative strategy and communitybased support. Uniquely tailored to working professionals, the program offers participants the opportunity to receive training and mentorship, attend courses, and connect with a worldwide network—all online. Long says of the program, “We don’t all walk the same path to becoming an entrepreneur, and our online programs make space for that. Our online community of instructors, mentors, and peers can help creatives launch, grow, and expand their businesses.”

Last year, the Office of Alumni Engagement launched thenewschoolnetwork.com, an online platform giving community members a new way to connect and support one another. The site’s business directory—MadeNEW Market— features hundreds of alumni-owned companies,

Allen Keith Yee is co-founder of cloudred, an award-winning Allen Keith Yee is co-founder of cloudred, an award-winning digital design studio located in Brooklyn, New York. He graduated digital design studio located in Brooklyn, New York. He graduated with a B.A. in Architecture from the University of California, with a B.A. in Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley and an M.F.A in Design and Technology from Parsons Berkeley and an M.F.A in Design and Technology from Parsons School of Design. He currently lives in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. School of Design. He currently lives in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

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including ones offering products selected for the first-ever Alumni Holiday Market. More than 30 alumni entrepreneurs from the past 30 years— from makers of apparel and jewelry to health and wellness experts to branding consultants— presented 250 items on the university’s merchandise site, The New Store. The Alumni Holiday Market spiked upon its launch, bringing in the greatest sales and traffic ever on the New Store website. Available goods included corduroy bucket hats by Amina Suleimanagich, BBA Strategic Design and Management ’16; Moonlit Skincare products by Stephanie Kim, BFA Communication Design ’12, and Krisztina Matyi, BFA Product Design ‘12; and silk head wraps by Chardae Adams, MFA Interior Design ’12. The Alumni Holiday Market returns this winter, offering pieces by Parsons alumni for seasonal giving. Alumni are encouraged to join The New School Network and list their businesses in MadeNEW Market. Selected product lines will be sold at The New Store.

Rodrigo Sanchez, MFA Design and Technology ’04, and instructor Dan Bullock, MA TESOL ’18, co-authored the critically acclaimed How to Communicate Effectively with Anyone, Anywhere, which offers a communication system aimed at changing the way people interact in global settings. Debut young adult author and illustrator Veronica Mang, BFA Illustration ’19, published Secret Spy Society: Case of the Missing Cheetah, which details the lives of female spies in history. Jasmin Hernandez, BBA Strategic Design and Management ’02, the founder of Gallery Gurls, curated We Are Here: Visionaries of Color Transforming the Art World, documenting 50 groundbreaking Black and Brown artists and art workers, including queer, trans, and nonbinary subjects. Featured in Vogue magazine, Open Source Fashion Cookbook—conceived by Angela Luna, BFA Fashion Design ’16—is aimed at democratizing fashion and calls for ethical approaches to the industry. Photographer and creative director Mayur Tekchandaney, BFA Communication Design ’00, captured the early-morning colors of Mumbai in Still Bombay. Allen Yee, MFA Design and Technology ’04, published Visual Discoveries: A Collection of Sections, a visually rich work that employs architectural section drawings to explore the history of medicine, transportation, product design, geology, and landscape architecture. Visit the 2021 Alumni Bookshelf to see the full list of alumni authors who released a book this year.

Notable recent faculty publications include MA Fashion Studies professor Christina Moon’s Labor and Creativity in New York’s Global Fashion Industry, which delineates the various sites and practices of fashion labor and their implications for the global industry. In Black, Brown + Latinx Design Educators: Conversations on Design and Race, BFA Communication Design professor Kelly Walters collected 12 interviews with graphic design educators of color showcasing their stories, which address the complexities of race in design and education. A thought experiment by BFA Integrated Design faculty member Otto von Busch, The Psychopolitics of Fashion: Conflict and Courage Under the Current State of Fashion imagines fashion as a state and offers a critique and alternative practices to produce a more engaging experience that he calls “deep fashion.” Sam Mejias, associate professor of social justice and community engagement, and Shakuntala Banaji co-edited Youth Active Citizenship in Europe: Ethnographies of Participation, an analysis of what “active citizenship” means in and to European youth culture. Multidisciplinary artist and instructor Andrea Geyer published original artwork in Andrea Geyer: Dance in a Future with All Present, a monograph tracing the pivotal role women played in the development of American Modernism.

The annual Parsons Festival reached a broad audience this past summer, featuring graduating students’ exhibitions and research symposia on an interactive online platform. On view and related to the theme of this issue of re:D were projects by a number of students, including Taylor Su, MFA Design and Technology ’21, who presented COPE, an animation and accompanying tool kit destigmatizing PTSD; Feras Alhabeeb, MArch ’21, who proposed a holistic homeopathic wellness

space at Fort Tilden, an abandoned site in Rockaway, New York; Sarah Nguesso, MA Fashion Studies ’21, who shared Photoshop and Other Drugs: Fashioning the Instagram Self; and Ashley Lehrer, MS Design and Urban Ecologies ’21, who presented Regenerative Growth, a proposal for a plan to promote equitable urban food systems. Video projections installed at Parsons’ windows on the corner of 13th Street and Fifth Avenue will showcase student work publicly until fall.

Since summer 2020, MFA Lighting Design faculty member Craig Bernecker has been collaborating with Parsons’ Healthy Materials Lab (HML), Davida Smyth (associate professor of natural sciences at Lang), and an SCE graduate on a cross-disciplinary initiative to develop a UVC germicidal ultraviolet light system for sanitizing interiors. Today UVC technology is employed in healthcare facilities to quickly kill bacteria and viruses in the upper air, but it must be used carefully to minimize human exposure to the light, which damages skin and corneal tissue. (UVC also degrades pigments, wallcoverings, and fabrics, posing sustainability challenges.) The design developed by Bernecker’s team, which includes HML researchers Meryl Smith, MArch ’21, and MFA Interior Design/Lighting Design double major student Katrina Matejcik, discreetly incorporates UVC fixtures into architectural lighting to continuously lower a room’s viral and bacterial load from occupants. Computer modeling is validating their design’s efficacy, and the team is preparing to test lighting gear on both a surrogate virus Smyth developed and building products. The technology represents an alternative to commonly used cleaning products containing antimicrobials—toxic chemicals that disrupt human developmental, hormonal, and reproductive functioning—and less effective HVAC-based sanitizing systems.

Parsons Paris and the legendary Paris-based magazine L’OFFICIEL celebrated their shared centennials together with the largest-ever Printing Fashion festival. Led by Marco Pecorari, Parsons Paris MA Fashion Studies program director, students were given access to L’OFFICIEL’s physical and digital archives of nearly 900 issues to use in their academic research and for the third edition of the festival. The partnership marked the first time the archive was opened for academic purposes. Held this past March, Printing Fashion included roundtables, lectures, and conversations on the theme of value and topics such as the economic transactions involved in making the magazine; the cost and conventions of print, magazine advertisements, image making, and criticism; and pressures to increase magazine revenue. Speakers included Stefano Tonchi (L’OFFICIEL), Peter Behrman de Sinety (Purple magazine), Marie Amélie Sauvé (Mastermind), Yann Weber (Antidote magazine), and Elise By Olsen (International Library of Fashion Research). MA Fashion Studies students also created Printed Dialogues, an exhibition organized with Bibliothèque MAD Paris and RareBooksParis.

External partnerships connecting the university to industry continued throughout the pandemic. Recent initiatives paired celebrated interior design firm Sister Parish (a company previously led by Interior Design program alum Albert Hadley ’49) with MFA Textiles students, who were asked to address the problem of textile waste. Guided by program director Preeti Gopinath, students researched and presented an approach to textile making and business based on longevity and reuse. In spring 2020, the BFA Fashion Design program partnered with Special Olympics on a class challenging athletes and student designers to collaboratively create figure-skating warm-up gear and costumes. Organized by faculty leads Ranjit Lalvani and Yuchen Zhang and faculty mentor Grace Jun, MFA Design and Technology ’16, the class had students work with Clo3D, a digital 3D fashion design software company, to develop a custom body avatar for each athlete. Acclaimed musician and activist Travis Scott recently announced a partnership with Parsons through the Cactus Jack Foundation, which created the HBCU Waymon Webster Scholarship program and is now sharing Parsons curricula with Houston youth through Scott’s organization, My Brother’s Keeper. The United Nations recently invited students in Parsons’ Global Executive MS

in Strategic Design and Management (GEMS) program to assist with the organization’s Global Communications group’s Decade of Action campaign. The GEMS cohort outlined solutionbased goals to be attained through education focused on children and their parents. In a project led by Christopher Musci, director of Parsons’ Art and Design Summer Intensives and PreCollege programs, and faculty members Aneta Genova and Gregory Gertz, Parsons recently partnered with New Jersey’s Newark School of Fashion & Design to create interdisciplinary fashion curricula for the new high school, whose mission is to develop the academic and creative potential of local students through changemaking design practices. IBM collaborated with Parsons’ School of Art, Media, and Technology (AMT) on Quantum Computing, a new class that provided students with access to cutting-edge computers and opportunities to develop skills critically needed in high-tech careers. This past spring and summer, students from Parsons’ BFA Product Design and BFA Interior Design programs teamed up with Shanghai-based NIO, a leading manufacturer of premium smart electric vehicles, to transform leftover airbags, seat belts, microfiber, leather, and aluminum into apparel, accessories, and home goods. Selected designs were promoted throughout the NIO Life product ecosystem.

The New School welcomed its ninth president, Dr. Dwight A. McBride, in April 2020. Before his appointment at The New School, Dr. McBride was the provost and executive vice president for Academic Affairs at Emory University, where he was also Asa Griggs Candler Professor of African American Studies, Distinguished Affiliated Professor of English, and associated faculty in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Dr. McBride has published award-winning books, essays, and articles and has edited works examining the connections between race theory, Black studies, and identity politics. He is also the co-founder and co-editor of the James Baldwin Review. In May 2021, the university announced the appointment of Dr. Renée T. White as the university’s next provost and executive vice president for Academic Affairs. Dr. White previously served as provost and professor of sociology at Wheaton College in Massachusetts and is an accomplished higher-education administrator and scholar of race, gender, and social inequality. Both appointees represent the university’s commitment to interdisciplinary inquiry and inclusive leadership in support of excellence in teaching, learning, and research.

Speakers often come to campus to share new ideas, and this year, the online format enabled audiences around the world to benefit. Racism, Classism, and the Constructed Environment— a School of Constructed Environments (SCE) course led by assistant professor Cotter Christian and adjunct professor Randall Jones, MFA Interior Design ’19—invited industry stewards and social justice scholars to explore opportunities to undo systemic oppression with students and the public. Speakers included Canadian artist and architecture scholar Esther Choi; Tasoulla Hadjiyanni, a professor and refugee from Cyprus, who founded the nonprofit Culturally Enriched Communities; and TRNK NYC co-founder Tariq Dixon. AMT’s fall and spring Artist Lecture Series offered conversations with local installation artist Abigail DeVille, multidisciplinary artist and social practitioner Mary Mattingly, Beijing-based artist Guan Xiao, and others. The Design and Technology program presented Cloud Salon, a series connecting participants to professional artists and designers including musician and theorist DeForrest Brown Jr. Milano and Parsons faculty member Michele Kahane engaged with Jacqueline Novogratz, a New York Times best-selling author and the CEO and founder of Acumen, in an online New School Public Program discussion of entrepreneurial ventures aimed at addressing global poverty.

The university conferred diplomas virtually this past May, with addresses from Parsons Executive Dean Rachel Schreiber and student speaker Sunghyun “Julie” Ahn, BFA Communication Design ’21. Honorary degree recipients included National Medal of Arts winner Ping Chong, a theater director, choreographer, and video artist, who was named a Doctor of Fine Arts for his body of work challenging audiences

to reconsider critical topics and communities including racism, colonialism, people with disabilities, the casualties of war, and survivors of sexual abuse. Forward-thinking community philanthropist Darren Walker was named a Doctor of Humane Letters for his work as president of the Ford Foundation, whose sales of a first-of-its-kind Social Bond raised $1 billion for nonprofit organizations affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. José Alberto and Luz Mery Gutiérrez of Bogotá, Colombia, were named Doctors of Humane Letters in recognition of their efforts to establish a free community library. The university honored Parsons faculty members Nadia Williams and Matt Whitman with Distinguished University Teaching Awards. The complete Commencement 2021 ceremony can be viewed online.

Parsons Benefit 2021, coinciding with the school’s 125th anniversary, raised an impressive $3 million for scholarships and was held in person at The Rooftop at Pier 17, in the city’s Seaport District, and was streamed to a global audience. The event honored visionary figures including Jeff Gennette, chairman and CEO of Macy’s, Inc., recipient of the Parsons Table Award; Angela Ahrendts DBE, former SVP of Apple Retail and CEO of Burberry; designer Gabriela Hearst, who received the Frank Alvah Parsons Award; Pyer Moss and Reebok designer Kerby Jean-Raymond; multi-platinum-selling musician and innovator Travis Scott; and fine artist Carrie Mae Weems. Entertainment included performances by R + W (Ricardo Arbiza, Mannes ’21, and BFA Fashion Design student Weijing Xiao) and the Bergamot Quartet, led by four female musicians. On display was work by the MFA Textiles Class of 2020 and BFA Fashion Design Class of 2021. Parsons Executive Dean Rachel Schreiber wore a look by Saya Zalel, MFA Fashion Design and Society ’18, and Parsons Paris Dean Florence Leclerc-Dickler wore an ensemble by Gabriella Naoum, BFA Fashion Design ’21.

Thirteen MArch students taking part in the Design Workshop—the long-standing signature design-build program of Parsons’ School of Constructed Environments (SCE)—have developed comprehensive site plans for Urban Sprouts, an Atlanta-based organic farm and food education community nonprofit. For the past year, students collaborated virtually with faculty leads Mark Gardner and Dr. Sharon E. Sutton (see p. 24), architect and urban planner Tonja Adair, and multidisciplinary artist and Georgia Tech artist-in-residence Ruth Dusseault. Local leaders from AgLanta Initiative and students from Spelman College facilitated the students’ extensive research and community engagement, which included conducting stakeholder interviews, analyses of factors ranging from pollution to sound conditions, and zoning and financing investigations. The extended timetable of the project, which was paused by the pandemic, enabled students to create and pitch three competing design schemes featuring a greenhouse, a common-use building with a green roof, gardens, and even an Airbnb dwelling.

Abrima Erwiah was recently appointed to lead the Joseph and Gail Gromek Institute for Fashion Business at Parsons, a new academic center aimed at fortifying the university’s educational mission of interdisciplinary design education and innovation. The position, along with a new faculty appointment, was made possible by an $8.5 million gift—the largest from an individual donor in the school’s history—from Joseph R. Gromek, then the chairman of the university’s Board of Trustees. Gromek says that with the founding of the institute, he hopes to establish a “crossroads for the study of fashion business, retail, and brand management.” Of her appointment, Erwiah says, “I’m thrilled to expand my work at Parsons, where my goal is to create an inclusive and innovative institute that leverages the best of business, fashion, and design in a city I love. The institute will aim to transcend borders, cross-pollinate across the industry, and disrupt the fashion system in every way.”