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A Gift of Gordon Parks
Last month, I received a five-volume boxed set of the collected works of Gordon Parks. It came out of the blue—as a gift from the publisher, Gerhard Steidl, and Dr. Thomas Schwarz, the president of SUNY/Purchase, which is where the Gordon Parks Foundation is housed. It is a magnificent collection—one that reflects the arc of…
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Why Teens (and Pre-Teens!) Love FIT
It seems oddly quiet—and calm—on campus this week, and I know why. Our summer precollege programs, which this year brought 2,000 teens and preteens to campus, just ended. While we always have college students taking courses during the summer, they seem to disappear into the ether when these highly energized youngsters arrive. With an astonishing…
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The Creative Process and Critical Thinking
As I walked through the exhibits of our graduating Art and Design students at the end of the spring semester, I was reminded of a wonderful story about the composer Johannes Brahms that people like to tell when talking about creativity–or the creative process. One evening in Vienna, so the story goes, Brahms was with…
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Expanding Arts Education in New York City
New York City got some excellent news the other day when Mayor De Blasio and Comptroller Scott Stringer announced that as part of the new fiscal budget, $23 million will be spent to expand arts education in the city’s schools. This news follows a report issued by Comptroller Stringer in April which found that many…