The Daily Hub

Lilian Thomas Burwell, who studied art education at Pratt from 1944 to 1946, was featured in a New York Times article on the oldest one percent of the workforce. At 95, she recently had an exhibition and discussed her long career as an art teacher: “I said to myself, ‘I’m really somebody.’ Not because of who I am. But because of who I made.”

Nick Higgins, MSLIS ’08, Karen Keys, MSLIS ’07, and Leigh Hurwitz, MSLIS ’13, are Library Journal Librarians of the Year for their work at the Brooklyn Public Library to fight book banning efforts across the country. Higgins, the chief librarian, said: “We wanted to resituate that conversation about freedom to read and intellectual freedom where it belongs, in public libraries and in schools.”

Madelen Nyau, BFA Fashion Design ’21, was named a 2023 Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) Fellow in the Launch Pad Program, which provides support and mentorship to early-phase brand BIPOC female founders.

School of Information students in Projects in Digital Archives made significant additions to the Lesbian Herstory Archives online collections, including the restoration of a 1980 film strip that is one of the early uses of multimedia to teach people about LGBTQ+ communities.

Pratt’s Spatial Analysis and Visualization Initiative (SAVI) worked with Riverkeeper and Save the Sound on an interactive map showing where in New York State people use coastal waters. The map of activities like kayaking, dragon boating, and swimming is now online and part of ongoing advocacy for stronger water quality standards.

Animation pioneer Bessie Mae Kelley, who enrolled at Pratt to study art in 1910, has been newly recognized as one of the first women to hand-draw films, work that had long been overlooked. Recent research on her legacy was highlighted by NPR and the New York Times.

Ron Shiffman, professor emeritus in the Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment (GCPE), was interviewed on WBAI radio about his over 50 years of planning work in New York City neighborhoods, including as a co-founder of the Pratt Center for Community Development.

Dezeen highlighted a Staten Island animal shelter designed by Garrison Architects led by James Garrison, adjunct professor in Graduate Architecture and Urban Design (GAUD), that involves locally made materials and animal-friendly features: “Animal shelters are interesting buildings—they reflect broadly our values and relationship to nature.”

Signs naming a Los Angeles intersection “Robert Vargas Square” in honor of Fine Arts alumnus ​​Robert Vargas, known for his large-scale murals in cities across the world, were unveiled this month in Boyle Heights.

Pratt Trustee and alumnus Derrick Adams, BFA Art and Design Education ’96, is one of the artists being commissioned to create prototypes for more inclusive monuments on the National Mall in Washington, DC. As reported by the New York Times, Adams has proposed a playground that would explore histories of desegregation.