Fall is a special time at Pratt, electrified with beginnings even as campus and the city transform from green to autumn gold. In this phenomenal creative environment, for our community of explorers, the world is new.
Our students and faculty are settling into fresh routines, spaces, and cohorts, with novel inquiries to pursue. They are experimenting across domains, from the tactile to the digital, from materials to structures, in the studio and in the field. They are investigating deep questions within themselves, but also deep questions they have of the world around them. They are imagining new futures.
In this moment energized with possibility, we’re excited to announce World Makers | The Campaign for Pratt Institute. This ambitious campaign builds on our foundational strengths and progresses us toward the goals of Setting the Standard, our Strategic Plan, positioning Pratt for greater accessibility, academic innovation, and institutional sustainability as a leader among creative institutions.
Here at Pratt, as so many of you have experienced firsthand, you can find the tools to pursue your explorations and make the impact you’ve imagined. World Makers builds the resources that equip our students and faculty to do what they do best: Ask the questions that we didn’t know existed. Engage communities in their inquiry. Think about the effects of their work, on local and global scales. Develop revelatory designs, systems, and creative works that reflect the depth of their investigations.
This campaign advances Pratt along the trajectory that makes that work possible: enhancing our learning environment, from buildings to technology and other infrastructure, supporting the success of our faculty, and enabling exceptional individuals anywhere in the world to access a Pratt education—and beyond graduation, to strengthen their connection to Pratt and their professional network as alumni.
World Makers is about opening doors, for our students and faculty, and also for you, our Pratt community of alumni, families, colleagues, neighbors, and friends. Together, we have an extraordinary opportunity to invest in Pratt’s future and that of our World Makers—the people who will build our cities, create our landscapes, shape our cultural experiences, and develop design solutions that make a difference in our lives.
You can learn more about the campaign here, and throughout this issue of Prattfolio, I hope you’ll find inspiration in the stories of so many Pratt World Makers from across creative realms and generations. Join us in shaping the next chapter.
—President Frances Bronet