MFA Design Department Co-chair Steven Heller and other winners of the 2011 National Design Awards were honored by first lady Michelle Obama at the White House this week (watch video below). Heller was recognized for earning the Design Mind Award, which honors “a visionary who has effected a paradigm shift in design thinking or practice through writing, research and scholarship.”

According to Businessweek, Michelle Obama offered another nod to SVA during the ceremony, quoting the College’s Acting Chairman Milton Glaser. “Good design is good citizenship,” she said, emphasizing that good design improves life for everyone.

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Dario A. Cortes, PhD, President of Berkeley College, today testified in Washington, DC, at the Joint Hearing on “The Gainful Employment Regulation: Limiting Job Growth and Student Choice.”  The Joint Hearing comprised the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs, Stimulus Oversight, and Government Spending, and the House Committee on Education & the Workforce, Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training.

“Berkeley College is proud of its standards, regional accreditation, and 80-year history of preparing students for career success,” said Dr. Cortes following the hearing.  “I urge those whom are in positions to do so, to lessen the regulatory burden being imposed on private sector institutions, so that our attention and resources may be placed where they duly deserve to be – on the preparation, teaching, and learning of our students.”

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A team of students from Monroe College took part in the annual Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) competition – an international organization that provides a forum for students to apply classroom knowledge in solving actual challenges in the community. Bronx Assemblyman Nelson Castro (first row, far right) sponsored a resolution honoring the students and the college, and Bronx Senator Gustavo Rivera welcomed the delegation to the Senate and co-hosted their visit.       

The team won the regional competition and finished 20th out of more than 300 teams nationally. Their project, “Their Need … Our Movement,” focused on improving the quality of life for underserved youth; supporting businesses with “green” initiatives; addressing the need for worldwide hunger relief; assisting entrepreneurs; providing eyeglasses to economically-disadvantaged people all over the world, and more.   

The SIFE team was led by Monroe College President Stephen J. Jerome, his wife, Alumni Director Leslie Jerome and Vice President of Student Affairs Roberta Greenberg.

The National Stationery Show® (NSS) and Kate’s Paperie have named LIM College students Alexis Michaelides and Margaret Carroll as winners in “The Paper Runway” competition, for “Feather Fantasy.” The paper fashion contest and exhibit was a feature of NSS 2011, offering some 11,000 attendees a unique demonstration of the paper-fashion relationship. The students will receive a $1,000 cash prize and window display at Kate’s Paperie during Fashion Week this fall.

Runners-up were “Orange Burst” by Alexis Michaelides and “Golden Warrior” by LIM College student Gina Mercatili. The students worked under the supervision of Marjorie Lee Woo, LIM College’s Associate Chair of Visual Merchandising. Also participating in the exhibit was Kate’s Paperie, with several paper fashions from cutting-edge designers, as well as NSS exhibitor DCWV, Inc.

LIM College Visual Merchandising students also designed and installed a 1,600 square-foot venue at the front of the exhibition hall at the NSS to highlight Best in Show product.

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Photo Caption: Participants in the Ribbon Cutting Ceremony to celebrate the opening of the Berkeley College Brooklyn Campus at 255 Duffield Street in downtown Brooklyn are(left to right): Glen Zeitzer, PhD, Provost, Berkeley College; Beth Coyle, EdD, Senior VP Administration; Kevin L. Luing, Chairman of the Board, Berkeley College; Timothy D. Luing, Trustee, Berkeley College; Conrad I. Walker, Campus Operating Officer, Brooklyn Campus, Berkeley College; Dario A. Cortes, PhD, President, Berkeley College;Michael Burke, Executive Director, Downtown Brooklyn Partnership;Hon. Marty Markowitz, President, Borough of Brooklyn;Carl Hum, President, Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce;Tyrone Woods, Community Liaison, Office of NYC Council Member Albert Vann; Cynthia Rubino, Vice President Government Relations, NY, Berkeley College;Allan Joseph, Special Assistant, Office of Congressman Edolphus Towns;and Oscar Jonas, Community Liaison, Office of NYS Senator Velmanette Montgomery, 18th District.

More than 100 dignitaries, business and civic leaders from the Brooklyn community celebrated the grand opening of the Brooklyn Campus of Berkeley College located at 255 Duffield Street (off Fulton) in downtown Brooklyn on Friday, April 15.

Honored guest speaker, Marty Markowitz, President, Borough of Brooklyn, said, “If you’re a college whose specialty is business education, you couldn’t ask for a better place to be than Downtown Brooklyn. For business students, the world right outside Berkeley College’s doors is like a living classroom. Just look at all the activity in the hospitality industry on Duffield Street—with the Sheraton Brooklyn New York and, coming soon, the Aloft Hotel and the 718 Hotel. So no matter how you look at it, for a college like Berkeley, the place to be right here, right now, is Brooklyn. And I know that for Berkeley, the next 80 years will be even better than the first!”

Dario A. Cortes, PhD, President, Berkeley College, described the efforts that went into establishing the new campus and acknowledged all of those who helped to bring about this day of celebration in such a short amount of time. 

“Today we have more than 500 students taking classes at the Brooklyn Campus,” said Dr. Cortes. “Berkeley College will continue to support community and business associations and the next generation of Brooklyn citizens who can benefit from Berkeley’s outstanding record of educating and changing lives for 80 years.”

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Following the devastation of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, efforts to raise money and send aid have been coming from all corners of the globe. Two alumni of the BFA Illustration and Cartooning Department are doing their part to help the survivors. Dice Tsutsumi (BFA 1998 Illustration), an art director at Pixar Animation Studios, has created Artists Help Japan (AHJ), an open call to artists who want to help raise funds to help Japan. “As a Japanese native working in the creative industry, I created this movement calling for artist communities to come together to help victims in Japan,” says Tsutsumi. “We have raised over $54,000 through cash donations and are planning to have 10 – 12 fundraising art events in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Paris, Toronto and more.” Artists and/or donors who want to help can visit artistshelpjapan.blogspot.com for updates on AHJ fundraising events and information on how to become a part of the organization’s activities.

Fellow alumnus Daisuke Takeya (BFA 1993 Illustration) is a Toronto-based artist and one of the organizers of ASHITA: Artists for Japan, which is hosting an event on Tuesday, March 29, 7pm, at Toronto’s The Great Hall. The event’s host is Japanese fashion model Nana Akimoto and features music by Ashley Ingram, “Super Hero” dancing by AKA Dance, poetry by Ewan Whyte and a silent auction of works by Toronto artists. For more information about the event or making donations to ASHITA, visit ashita11.tumblr.com.

Katie Buhl, left, and Rebecca Snow visited Albany with a delegation from the School of Visual Arts to take part in the annual lobby day sponsored by New York 11 – a coalition of the state’s 11 public and private colleges offering four-year degrees in interior design.  Representatives from the other 10 colleges also attended.

Nobel Prize-winning biologist Dr. Gerald M. Edelman has accepted an invitation from the School of Visual Arts to speak at the 2011 commencement exercises. The event will take place on Thursday, May 12, 2011, 10am and 2pm, at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, 10 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York City. The ceremony is a ticketed event and open to students and invited guests only. A live webcast will be streamed at www.sva.edu/commencement.

Dr. Edelman is director of The Neurosciences Institute and President of Neurosciences Research Foundation, a publicly supported not-for-profit organization that is the Institute’s parent. Separately, he is professor at The Scripps Research Institute and chairman of the Department of Neurobiology at that institution. His early studies focused on the structure, diversity, and function of antibodies. In 1972, he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on antibodies, which transformed our understanding of the immune response. His subsequent work led to the discovery of cell adhesion molecules (CAMs), which have been found to guide the fundamental processes by which an animal achieves its shape and form and by which nervous systems are built. To understand higher brain functions, Dr. Edelman and his colleagues designed and constructed a series of mobile devices with simulated brains. These brain-based devices (BBDs) were shown to be capable of learning, operant conditioning, and episodic memory. Dr. Edelman has also formulated a detailed theory to explain the development and organization of higher brain functions. This theory was presented in his volume Neural Darwinism (Basic Books, 1987). More recently, he described a theory of consciousness in his book Wider Than The Sky: The Phenomenal Gift of Consciousness (Yale University Press, 2004). His latest book, Second Nature: Brain Science and Human Knowledge (Yale University Press), appeared in October 2006.

Dr. Edelman will join a distinguished group of leaders in the arts, humanities and public service who have spoken at SVA’s commencement exercises in past years, including playwrights Edward Albee and Tony Kushner, historian

Matteo Bonomo, an Iraq veteran and student at Berkeley College, at podium, took part in a March 14 news conference at the Capitol in Albany, sponsored by Sen. Greg Ball, (R-Patterson), right of Bonomo, to introduce legislation benefiting veterans.

At right, Bonomo testified with Richard Robitaille, assistant vice president for military & veterans affairs at Berkeley College, at the Senate's Veterans, Homeland Security and Military Affairs Committee, which Sen. Ball chairs. Bonomo, a criminal justice major, is vice president of the Student Government Association on Berkeley's New York City Campus.

Read news coverage of the event:

Senator Ball introduces bills pertaining to veterans’ issues
Senate passes bills to protect, assist veterans
Senate passes legislation to support veterans

Berkeley College recently kicked off a yearlong celebration honoring its 80th anniversary. The theme for the year-long celebration is Changing Lives for 80 Years. The anniversary year will focus on commemorating the many lives that have been changed by the College over the years.

“The year 2011 will be a significant one for Berkeley College, not only because of all we plan to accomplish through our strategic planning initiatives, but also because 2011 marks the 80th anniversary of our ever-expanding teaching and learning community,” said Berkeley College President Dario A. Cortes, PhD, in an address to faculty, staff and guests at a holiday reception held at The Venetian in Garfield, NJ.

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