Pratt Institute President Thomas F. Schutte and The Board of Trustees of Pratt Institute will hold a dinner to celebrate the establishment of The Marc Rosen Distinguished Visiting Chair in Design on Tuesday, June 16, 2009 at The Gramercy Park Hotel Roof at Two Lexington Avenue in Manhattan. The event will include a cocktail reception at 7 p.m. followed by dinner, and will celebrate the first endowed professorship in the history of Pratt Institute and the first and only chair that currently exists at a college of art and design.
Guests will include Iris Apfel and Carl Apfel; Robert Bradford and Barbara Taylor Bradford; real estate mogul Charles Cohen and Clo Cohen; Randall Jones and Connie Jones; Chris Meigher and Grace Meigher; Pratt President Thomas F. Schutte and Tess Schutte; Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel and Ambassador Carl Spielvogel; Chairwoman of the Rallye Group and Pratt Trustee Juliana Terian Gilbert and Bruce Gilbert; Geoffrey Thomas and Sharon, Countess Sondes; Barbara Tober and Donald Tober; Bruce Weber and Nan Bush; Mario Buatta and Ann Downey; actors Arlene Dahl, Dickie Moore, and Jane Powell; Bruce Bent; Wendy Carduner; president emeritus of the Fragrance Foundation Annette Green; Sylvia Hassenfeld; theater and arts advocate Anita Jaffe; antique dealer and lifetime trustee of Pratt Institute Bruce Newman; New York City Mayor’s Office of Film, Theater, and Broadcasting Commissioner Katherine Oliver; Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne; Rex Reed; Marty Richards; Donald Stannard; and Democratic strategist and CNN Lou Dobbs Tonight panelist Robert Zimmerman.
Performing at the dinner will be Anna Bergman, internationally renowned singer and actress, whose signature repertoire celebrates the American songbook.
The Marc Rosen Distinguished Visiting Chair in Design professorship will provide funding in perpetuity to allow Pratt to bring stellar designers and lecturers in a range of areas to the school to promote interdisciplinary education in design. Established through the generosity and foresight of Pratt alumnus, trustee, and faculty member Marc Rosen and his industry colleagues and friends, the professorship will build on Rosen’s legacy in packaging design, emphasizing the connections between product, packaging, and branding as they relate to the consumer’s identity and experience.
“The Marc Rosen endowed professorship will enable us to expose our students to the most brilliant and cutting-edge thinking in all fields of design,” said Pratt President Thomas F. Schutte. “We are grateful to Marc for ushering in a new era for academic excellence at Pratt,” he added.
The Marc Rosen Distinguished Visiting Chair in Design professorship was announced by Schutte at the milestone 20th anniversary celebration of the Marc Rosen Scholarship Fund for Graduate Packaging Design on April 21, 2009. The annual black-tie fundraiser has raised more than $1.5 million over the past 20 years for Pratt Institute students in the Graduate Department of Communications/Packaging Design.
The Pratt program in which Rosen teaches-Graduate Communications and Packaging Design- is ranked as one of the top 10 programs in the country by U.S. News and World Report.
Rosen’s unique packaging design course has attracted over 300 national and international students to Pratt from such countries as Argentina, Canada, Ecuador, France, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Korea, Lebanon, Mexico, Norway, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Uruguay, as well as from across the United States.
Rosen is an internationally acclaimed designer and head of Marc Rosen Associates, New York. Rosen is a seven-time FiFi award winner-the fragrance industry’s equivalent of The Academy Award. His designs are in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Museum of Fashion and Textiles in Paris.
For over 20 years, Rosen has designed packaging for such famous “beauty” manufacturers and fashion names as Elizabeth Arden, Revlon, Estée Lauder, Nina Ricci, Sanofi, Perry Ellis, Oscar de la Renta, Avon, Halston, Princess Marcella Borghese, Chloé, Karl Lagerfeld, Fendi, Bath & Body Works, Victoria’s Secret, and Burberry. Prior to establishing his own firm in 1989, Rosen was Senior Vice President of Corporate Design and Communications for Elizabeth Arden Worldwide.
Pratt’s master’s degree program in packaging design offers a broadly based curriculum centered on the decision-making process for new product/package development, featuring courses in packaging design, brand development, visual communications, digital technology, marketing, and form. The final stage of the curriculum is the thesis, which provides knowledge of the problem-solving process through directed research and, over the succeeding two semesters, gives students the opportunity to develop an extensive, innovative project.