While she has many memories of her undergraduate years at Pratt, Patricia Tuohy (B.F.A. ’79) cherishes her time in the Institute’s Library most. “Before Google, the library gave people access to the world’s information. It was a place to explore,” she says. At Pratt, she recalls discovering “Italian designers, Renaissance painting, and social etiquette, all in the library.”
Tuohy’s career is a tribute to her combined passions for art, design, and libraries. After working for the United States Holocaust Museum, she went on to establish and lead the exhibition program at the National Institute of Health’s National Library of Medicine—one of the largest repositories of medical knowledge in the world. Over the past 17 years, she has developed and overseen an exhibitions program that includes on-site installations, traveling exhibitions, educational resources, and websites. She credits much of her success to the creative problem-solving skills she gained at Pratt.
To help ensure that future generations of Pratt students will have the opportunity to benefit from the Library’s rich resources, Tuohy has made a planned gift through her retirement account in support of the Pratt Library. “I wanted to make a gift that touches the entire college and all of its students,” she says. “Considering the impact the Library had on me, it was an obvious choice.”