THE ENDURING LEGACY OF PRATT’S FOUNDING FAMILY Guided by the values of the Institute’s founder, today’s descendants of Charles Pratt continue a family tradition of giving back. By Charlotte Savidge
T
his past spring, Edmund “Ned” S. Twining III, his wife, Diana, and several fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-generation descendants of the Institute’s founder, Charles Pratt, gathered in the conference room on the top floor of Myrtle Hall, with stunning views of Pratt’s historic Brooklyn campus, for presentations by talented industrial design students. For a full morning, they deliberated to assist in the selection of the 2011 recipient of the Charles Pratt Memorial Scholarship. Five student finalists chosen by a faculty panel were on hand to present their finest work to the assembled Pratt family members, who came together with a single goal: to identify one third-year student who demonstrated outstanding creative achievement and best exemplified Charles Pratt’s ideals of leadership, community service, and self-motivation.
The winner of the Charles Pratt Memorial Scholarship, awarded to a student from a different Pratt academic department each year, receives a special opportunity: to have a significant portion of his or her senior-year tuition covered by the award. “Opportunity was everything to [Charles] Pratt,” says Twining, who is the great-great-grandson of the founder. “He was providing opportunity for people to whom that opportunity had tremendous value.” This year’s scholarship recipient, William Bausback of Randolph, New Jersey, was also chosen in part because his furniture and household-item designs focus on sustainability, exemplifying both the Institute’s and the founder’s desire to be a catalyst for positive social change. It is a value shared by Twining, who likes to quote his greatgreat-grandfather: “The giving that counts is the giving of oneself.”
Clockwise from top: The Pratt family, including Charles Pratt (in light-colored jacket) • Portrait of Charles Pratt, founder of Pratt Institute, circa 1888 • The Pratt Institute campus in 1948 • Charles Pratt II (grandson of Pratt Institute’s founder) as a boy in front of the Caroline Ladd Pratt House at 229 Clinton Avenue 13