2015 Parsons Undergraduate Catalog

n Communication Des nd Design History and ments Product DesI s n gn Strategic Design a e Arts Architectural on Design Art and De sign and Technolog Fashion Integrated Media, and Technolo graphy COMMUNICATIO illustration interio Management Archite nstructed environm ry and Theory Design Strategies Fine Arts nd Technology Inte r Design Photograph

P RSONS PA THIS IS YOUR MOMENT

TO DISCOVER HOW CREATIVITY CHANGES

Discover a university dedicated to unleashing your creativity.

Parsons School of Design, recently ranked the country’s top art and design school, has offered *

students innovative approaches to education since its founding in 1896. Today we’re the only American art and design school within a comprehensive university—The New School— which also houses a rigorous liberal arts college and a progressive performing arts school. Here you can master established art and design fields or advance emerging ones and study across all university disciplines.

EV

VERYTHING

Parsons students used weather balloons outfitted with digital cameras to map Union Square and other Manhattan green spaces to study change in urban ecosystems over time.

YOUR STUDIO

For Empowerhouse, students across the university partnered with local civic and government agencies to demonstrate how design and policy can improve social and environmental conditions on scales ranging from a single home to a national organization’s system of building. The project resulted in a two-family house built with Habitat for Humanity and changes in Habitat’s construction policies to allow for more energy-efficient and affordable dwellings.

A recent course challenged students to design a garment leaving no scrap fabric. An anorak created for the class was put into production and sold by eco-fashion retailer Loomstate, the external partner for the project.

SUSTAINABILITY

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9

Can a School Change the Way You Think About Art and Design?

From the moment you arrive at Parsons, you sense that in the right hands, art and design can be more powerful than you imagined. They have the capacity to disrupt the status quo. They can confront climate change, address race relations, and transform industry through thoughtfully conceived objects and ideas. Here becoming an artist or designer means working across disciplines, learning to collaborate, and questioning every assumption in order to create more reflectively and responsibly.

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OPPOSITE: Professor John Jerard recently led an interdisciplinary class in which students designed and built sets, props, costumes, and posters for productions staged by Mannes Opera, an initiative of The New School’s Mannes School of Music.

Students and faculty of Parsons’ DESIS Lab, the U.S. branch of an international social innovation incubator, interviewed Brooklyn residents with the aim of developing environmentally sustainable alternatives to cars.

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Can the Walls Between Classrooms and New York City Disappear?

NYC offers endless creative inspiration and opportunity. And at Parsons, it’s a vital shared workspace. From the first semester, courses take you out into the city to design creative ways to improve urban life. In internships and collaborations with nonprofits, government, and commercial partners, you test ideas and develop skills and networks that support you during your time on campus and beyond.

TOP: First-year students visit Flavor

Paper, a small-scale Brooklyn producer of handcrafted wallpaper, and develop their color theory abilities on-site.

BOTTOM: Part of your education at Parsons involves exploring ways in which green spaces like Manhattan’s High Line park (shown here) make cities more livable, resilient, and inclusive. Here, art and design are means of engaging with communities and with urbanizing settings.

For the Experimental Typography course, students placed 3D letterforms throughout the city, giving subway commuters an opportunity to reflect on public art and students a chance to witness the effects of changing scale and setting in communication design.

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Experienced in a range of media and teaching methods, Parsons instructors can help you express your ideas effectively and explore new techniques.

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Build a Learning Community of Faculty and Peers At The New School, you’re surrounded by teachers and peers who help you grow as a creator and a member of a community. Our accomplished faculty encourage you to boldly experiment and guide you to become technically proficient, conceptually sophisticated, and reflective about your work. They are also working professionals who share their experience and creative connections. Your fellow students are your collaborators and critics, and even become your professional colleagues. They are open-minded, independent, diverse, and aware. And they come from every state in the United States and more student body the most international in the country.

Your community lasts long after you graduate. Alumni connect at universitysponsored networking events and reunions. Some students start businesses together after graduating.

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than 100 countries worldwide, making our university’s

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ACADEMICS

Make Four Years Last a Lifetime Learning here readies you for a creative life of your own design. For four years, you’re challenged to elevate your creativity with critical thought. You partner with peers throughout the university—performers, media makers, policy analysts—sharpening your collaborative skills. You focus your vision while broadening your abilities. Parsons’ approach to education sets us apart and sets you on your path—with the tools and a creative community to last a lifetime.

Academics

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ACADEMICS Our curriculum spans all art and design disciplines and draws on a range of newer interdisciplinary fields, such as service design, urban design, and sustainability studies. We also offer minors in a variety of disciplines, such as foreign languages, psychology, and management. See page 36 for details.

Majors Offered in New York City Architectural Design (BFA) Communication Design (BFA) Design and Technology (BFA) Fashion Design (BFA) Fine Arts (BFA) Illustration (BFA) Integrated Design (BFA) Photography (BFA) Product Design (BFA) Strategic Design and Management (BBA)

Majors Offered at Parsons Paris (See page 41.)

Art, Media, and Technology (BFA) Fashion Design (BFA) Strategic Design and Management (BBA) newschool.edu/parsons/academics

Schools Undergraduate and graduate programs at Parsons are grouped into the following schools to facilitate collaboration and resource sharing: School of Art and Design History and Theory (ADHT) School of Art, Media, and Technology (AMT) School of Fashion (SOF) School of Design Strategies (SDS) School of Constructed Environments (SCE)

The School of Art and Design History and Theory offers an array of seminars and lectures in history, criticism, and writing that focus on visual and material culture. These courses are integral to studio work and help you develop a systematic understanding of the role and function of visual culture, art, and design over time and in various geographical settings.

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Interior Design (BFA)

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ACADEMICS

TOP: A first-year visit to an urban bike-making studio introduces you to ways designers can promote health benefits and awareness of the consequences of fossil fuel use.

BOTTOM: Policymaking at The United Nations directly affects global climate change. In the first-year Sustainable Systems class, you learn how.

ACADEMICS

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Your First Year Your first year is one of discovery and exploration. Studio courses build a variety of making skills, while seminars expand your ability to reflect critically on art and design and their connections to the wider world. Together they provide a base for your creative practice over the next three years. They also introduce you to systems-based approaches to design, in which you consider a range of factors—sustainability, technological change, user experience, globalization—to create work suited to the rapidly changing world.

The process takes you throughout New York City, where you encounter firsthand the ways creativity fuels urban life.

You apply your new perspectives and critical-thinking and

For those entering as undeclared students, the first year also allows you the opportunity to explore a range of art and design disciplines that help you decide on a major.

First-year studio-and-seminar pairings enable you to explore topics creatively through research combined with making and followed by written reflections on your work. These broadly applicable design processes serve you during your education and later in your creative career.

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communication skills to share your insights.

ACADEMICS STUDENT PROFILE

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Eva Neves BFA Integrated Design/ BA Environmental Studies Senior

“Stories are within each of us; through art and design, we discover ways to build community around them, stepping outside our comfort zone along the way.”

Eva draws on various media to tell com-

Studies program, involved research into

pelling stories interwoven with economics,

food systems, providing her with skills and

politics, and culture. She often creates

new perspectives. She joined the fields in

textiles—a preferred medium—that are

a self-designed interdisciplinary project,

equally rich tapestries of color, fibers, and

Depending on the Cotton, which examines

narrative (see photo). It’s a natural way of

the cotton industry.

working in Parsons’ Integrated Design

program, where students combine disci-

lation piece explores cotton’s history and its

plines and formats to remarkable effect.

effects on U.S. culture. She created a narra-

Eva’s interests include agriculture and

tive on cotton fabrics printed with historical

writing, so she opted for the BFA/BA dual

scenes linking the Industrial Revolution,

degree, which allows her to explore envi-

slavery, and cotton’s origins while raising

ronmental studies and communications

awareness about present-day working

in depth alongside her studio art.

conditions. As a radio drama plays in the

background, viewers are invited to pin or

A Parsons class in dyeing fabrics with

Anchored by a story quilt, Eva’s instal-

natural materials sparked Eva’s curiosity

stitch their own contributions onto the quilt.

about cotton, a material deeply rooted in

Eva explains, “Stories are within each of us;

American history. Urban Agriculture and

through art and design, we discover ways

Food Activism, a course in the Environmental

to build community around them, stepping outside our comfort zone along the way.”

ACADEMICS

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Architectural design (BFA)

School of Constructed Environments In this pre-professional program, you investigate environmental, cultural, and theoretical concerns using methods ranging from full-scale constructions to digital animation. You create socially engaged, collaboratively made, and globally oriented work.

Courses guide you to explore the body in space as well as environmental and cultural factors influencing design. You study form, tectonics, structure, energy, and urban dynamics.

As a senior, you can apply to participate in the Design Workshop, a design-build project. Lectures and visits to studios like Morphosis and Diller Scofidio + Renfro expose The new school PARSONS

you to current work and professional practice. Internships and projects with peers in related programs—interior, product, urban, and lighting design—build your collaboration skills and broaden your design knowledge.

Career paths include— architecture, landscape architecture, environmental art, and urban, exhibition, and interior design

model, The Edge TOP RIGHT: Manasi

Punde, rendering, Descending Pavilion, project for Studio 2 BOTTOM: Mitsuto Mori,

rendering for Tall Buildings Competition

newschool.edu/bfa-ad

TOP LEFT: Angelina Putri,

ACADEMICS

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Communication Design (BFA)

School of Art, Media, and Technology In this major, you focus on typography and interaction and choose an industry track such as Advertising, Information Design, Branding, Editorial, Motion Graphics, Type Design, or Web/Mobile Product Design. You learn how to create and share compelling messages from concept stage to final form. You explore the social and environmental dimensions of communication.

You work directly with peers throughout the university— including fellow students in programs housed at other schools within the university—and with external partners in hands-on, collaborative courses. Electives on topics like package design, environmental graphics, and design for social engagement—and ones in areas including the humanities, media studies, and business—enhance your learning.

Career paths include— advertising, motion graphics, publication design, package design, branding, information visualization, interaction design,

newschool.edu/bfa-cd

exhibition/retail design, environmental graphics

TOP LEFT: Gabriela Demato, publication, Young Gun Magazine, Issue 01 TOP RIGHT: Huy Luong,

publication, The Memory Cookbook BOTTOM RIGHT: Nika Simovich,

digital interface, Post Nostalgia

ACADEMICS

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design and technology (BFA)

School of Art, Media, and Technology Choose a pathway—Game Design or Creative Technology— and solve design problems by remixing software, hardware, art, and design creatively. Code becomes your second native tongue and expressive means of connecting with others.

You develop a sustainable process for researching, experimenting, designing, prototyping, iterating, and producing projects that keeps pace with evolving technology.

The Game Design pathway at BFADT emphasizes the aesthetic aspects of designing games. It gives you tools that grow and expand with your skill set and provides you with an understanding of the process from brainstorming The new school PARSONS

to game publication. Creative Technology focuses on methods of combining physical computing, creative coding, user experience, responsive environment, and immersion technology for innovative design solutions.

Career paths include— game design, virtual reality and immersion experience design, motion graphics, animation, film, advertising, software design, hardware engineering, graphic arts

BOTTOM: Or Zubalsky, installation and instrument with electronics, Meeting Table

newschool.edu/bfa-dt

TOP: Jon Murry, virtual reality project, Ready Made Exhibition

student profile

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Jessy Jo Gomez BFA Design and Technology Junior

“Designing games that make working together and fighting injustice fun is my idea of a worthy challenge.”

Jessy Jo first encountered Parsons as a

Arduino technology to create interactive

Parsons Scholar, participating in the

objects and games designed to promote

school’s intensive college preparation and

social good. She also leads coding

art and design program for New York City

workshops at Win to Learn, a company

high schoolers. Jessy Jo’s creativity had

she co-founded offering computer science–

already brought her to an arts high school,

focused STEM classes to middle and

but the Scholars program took her abilities,

high school students. These experiences

ambitions, and cross-disciplinary approach

sparked a recent discovery for Jessy Jo:

further. When it was time to apply to college,

interest in a career combining design and

she chose Parsons for its embrace of young

education. “Designing games that make

creators eager to pioneer new fields.

working together and fighting injustice fun

is my idea of a worthy challenge. Digital

Jessy Jo had been interested in digital

technology, youth rights, and education

design might be my route to becoming a

for years. In high school, she joined Games

teacher.” As a teacher, Jessy Jo says, she

for Change and Global Kids, working on

could design curriculum empowering a

justice-focused digital games. In her degree

new generation to foster social opportunity

program, she’s combined disciplines and

through technology.

interests, employing digital code and

ACADEMICS

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FASHION DESIGN (BFA) School of Fashion

This innovative program has trained five generations of designers who have shaped the global industry. Employing design thinking and creative problem-solving strategies, you explore form, silhouette, material, and process—including social and environmental imperatives—to create beautiful, sustainable, and responsible fashion for an evolving field.

The holistic design-led curriculum encompasses concept and research through 2D, 3D, and 4D processes, balancing hand-making and digital skills with an integrated approach to construction, which develops your technique while refining your creative vision. Courses in business, visual communication, and history broaden your knowledge. You define your The new school PARSONS

design philosophy in a senior thesis, which is expressed as a collection or a variety of research outcomes presented in media, narrative, or documentary format. Professional faculty, lecturers, and critics engage you on creative, intellectual, and practical levels while external collaborative projects develop your design sensibility in an industry-focused context.

Offered both in New York City and at Parsons Paris.

Career paths include— fashion design, styling, merchandising, marketing, public relations

MIDDLE: Moon Kyung Hwang,

menswear, Detective RIGHT: Leonid Batekhin,

womenswear, Numbereleven

newschool.edu/bfa-fd

LEFT: Atsuko Yagi, sketch, menswear

ACADEMICS

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Fine Arts (BFA)

School of Art, Media, and Technology This major exposes you to a range of studio practices, ideas, communities, and global dynamics related to contemporary art. You learn to translate concepts into expression through composition, color, form, space, and performance while developing skills and artistic strategies. You cultivate the conceptual and critical abilities needed to establish a professional art career.

This program guides you to discover your voice, familiarizing you with traditional techniques of painting, drawing, and sculpture as well as innovative interdisciplinary methods in media involving public engagement, video, animation, photography, and digital imaging. Internships and electives in topics such as art history, theory, and professional practices broaden your perspective.

Career paths include— fine art, arts administration, curatorial studies/practice, museum/auction house/gallery/art fair management, art

newschool.edu/bfa-fa

history and criticism, education, publishing

TOP LEFT: Andrea Sundt, sculpture, Water Compulsion TOP RIGHT: Nina Torr, sculpture, Mettle BOTTOM: Robert Hickerson, photography, Objekt Permanence

ACADEMICS

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Illustration (BFA)

School of Art, Media, and Technology Cultivate your vision, authorial voice, creative problemsolving abilities, and curiosity while translating ideas into forms including picture books, graphic novels, handlettering, editorial and advertising illustrations, toy designs, animations, and surface and display design. In this major, you create work for mass reproduction and distribution, developing your visual storytelling skills through representational drawing and painting, in three dimensions, and across time.

University electives broaden your skills and perspectives. You apply your learning in projects and internships with partners including Nickelodeon, Toon Books, the New York Times, The new school PARSONS

Moleskine, Barnes & Noble, and Brooklyn Industries. Events like Comic Arts Brooklyn, MoCCA Fest, and professional organization gatherings build your network.

Career paths include— illustration, comics, graphic novels, publishing, toy/product design, pattern/surface design, advertising, motion graphics, fine art, animation, installation design

TOP RIGHT: Julia Marti, comic,

36 Grad BOTTOM RIGHT: Sophia Coco,

handmade book, Love Immortal

newschool.edu/bfa-illustration

LEFT: Anna Outridge, animated short still, Eliot Trix

ACADEMICS

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Integrated design (BFA) School of Design Strategies

Today, as technology and global networks transform the world, designers must be versatile, knowledgeable problem solvers. This program develops these capacities, preparing you to work in social, cultural, and ecological fields. Many graduates combine design and entrepreneurship in innovation-focused businesses.

The flexible curriculum, which provides a creative and intellectual base for integrative work through thematic interdisciplinary studios and labs, facilitates focused study or disciplinary exploration. Learning is anchored in collaborative and entrepreneurial approaches applied in projects with partners including New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, United Nations, and JPMorgan Chase.

Electives offered at Parsons and throughout The New School broaden your knowledge and interdisciplinary skills.

Career paths include— entrepreneurship, service design, urban design, fashion design, sustainability management, consulting, fine arts

newschool.edu/bfa-integrated

and career paths related to minors offered at Parsons

LEFT: Daniela Jacobs, jewelry, untitled MIDDLE: Amplify: Creative and Sustainable Lifestyles in the Lower East Side. Amplify addressed sustainability and the everyday needs of older adults in NYC through collaborative support services.

RIGHT: For her LYSIS collection, Integrated Design student Alexis

Walsh fashions couture garments featuring 3D sculptural elements created with Shapeways software.

student profile

Peter Zweifel BFA Product Design Sophomore

Peter Zweifel came to Parsons to study

a problem-solving system. And that it is

product design after many years in another

as expressive as the field I was already

expressive field—classical dance. Aware

in.” He traveled back to Texas, where he

that a dancer’s career has limits, he began

was a principal dancer with the Texas

looking for a way to combine his creativity

Ballet Theater, with a plan.

and passion for environmentalism for the

next chapter of his life. A trip to New York

sophomore, putting his ideals into action

City to see his sister’s graduation show from

through projects exploring new materials,

Parsons’ BFA Product Design program gave

methods, and settings where design

him some new ideas.

makes sustainability a priority. He’s also

discovered the broad applications of the

Taking in the impressive student

Now Peter is a BFA Product Design

work on view at a major industry venue,

design research process. Working with his

Peter imagined himself on a new creative

sister’s social innovation–focused design

path. Much of the student work reflected

firm, Peter has helped lead workshops

surprising ways of thinking about

demonstrating to major companies how

environmental sustainability, community,

to apply design methods to promote

and the boundaries of design itself. “Until

innovation. “Design is giving me a career in

then, I hadn’t made the connection that

which my values are central to the process.”

product design—all design, really—involves

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“Design is giving me a career in which my values are central to the process.”

Student Profile ACADEMICS

30 30

Katiuscia Gregoire BFA Fashion Sophomore

“What I learned in the first year led me to explore sustainable fashion.”

Raised by family members who designed

to understand how learning about ecology

their own clothes, Katiuscia was at home

and sustainability would take my design

creating colorful fashions at her arts-focused

to the next level.”

Miami high school. For her senior show,

she presented a collection reflecting a

her first-year Sustainable Systems class

love of painting and ability in draping and

and was rewarded with discoveries that

construction. So, arriving at Parsons with a

changed her creative work and daily life.

solid base of art and design skills, Katiuscia

“Surprisingly, my most important learning

expected to dive straight into fashion.

didn’t have to do with a new garment

construction technique or fabric—it was

But she discovered that the first year

But she brought an open mind to

at Parsons is a carefully thought-out path

about sustainability and our food system.

through art and design. In paired studios

What I learned in the first year led me to

and seminars, students explore a variety

explore sustainable fashion.”

of topics, media, and techniques instead of focusing on a single discipline immediately.

The process took some getting used to. “I made art every day in high school. I wanted to get right to work on dress forms in the studio,” says Katiuscia. “It took me a while

ACADEMICS

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INterior design (BFA)

School of Constructed Environments

In 1906, Frank Alvah Parsons established the country’s first interior design curriculum, framing the practice as an intellectually rigorous creative force in everyday life. Today this research-based, design-intensive major prepares you for careers in which you create comfortable, imaginative, and intelligently designed interiors.

You work with faculty, peers, and outside professionals designing interior environments that reflect an understanding of sustainability, cultural differences, and human needs for comfort and well-being. Courses guide you through study of materiality and two- and three-dimensional form and space, and a studio sequence introduces interior and architectural The new school PARSONS

issues of increasing complexity. You develop designs using hand drawings, physical models, collage, and digital renderings.

Lectures and access to local firms and showrooms broaden your practice. Seniors can apply to the Design Workshop, Parsons’ signature design-build program.

Career paths include— interior design, sustainable design, set design, exhibition design, historic preservation, consulting

TOP RIGHT: Hayden Manders and Meredith Woolfolk, rendering, co-housing project for recently homeless mothers, created for the Design Studio 3 course BOTTOM: SeulBi Lee, model, The

New School Museum

newschool.edu/bfa-id

TOP LEFT: Natacha Hongladaromp, rendering, Social Interactive House

ACADEMICS

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PHOTOGraphy (BFA) School of Art, Media, and Technology

In this major, you develop the aesthetic, technical, conceptual, and professional skills needed to establish a successful creative practice. You explore analog and digital platforms and photography’s intersections with video, installation, and design.

Curricular pathways let you specialize in social engagement, fashion culture, creative industry, imaging technology, or contemporary art while acquiring research, writing, and critical skills in art and design history and theory courses.

You focus your interests in electives offered throughout the university and in internships at galleries, publishing houses, and cultural and commercial organizations. Access to state-of-the-art labs, shooting studios, and equipment supports your creativity; student exhibitions and critiques build your network.

Career paths include— commercial, editorial, or fashion photography, visual art, photojournalism, publishing, gallery/studio management,

newschool.edu/bfa-photo

arts production/administration

LEFT: Zeta Gao, fashion editorial, Youthquake RIGHT: Patricia Lopez Ramos,

digital C-print, Food for Thought

ACADEMICS

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PRODUCT DESIGN (BFA) School of Constructed Environments

In this major, you cultivate the technical and critical skills needed to design products that enhance human abilities and relationships. You address contemporary realities including sustainability and technological change while exploring materials, fabrication, aesthetics, and social engagement in both local and global contexts.

Courses help you acquire broadly applicable studio and critical thinking skills, including graphic representation, prototyping, and research and presentation techniques. Electives—such as user-centered design, digital and physical model making, professional practice and entrepreneurship, material innovation, experimental ceramics, and design for the public realm— The new school PARSONS

enrich your practice. Projects and internships with companies like Harry Allen & Associates and Movado Group engage your creativity. Museums, archives, and organizations like Material ConneXion complement Parsons’ research resources, including the Angelo Donghia Materials Center.

Career paths include— industrial design, product development, manufacturing, furniture design, humanitarian/service design, health design, toy design

Frisk, chair

TOP RIGHT: Gabriella

Ravassa, coffee bean collecting bucket, Coco

BOTTOM RIGHT:

Daniel Martinez, Prism

newschool.edu/bfa-pd

LEFT: Carl

ACADEMICS

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STRATEGIC Design and management (BBA) School of Design Strategies

Immerse yourself in the entrepreneurial side of design and the design aspects of business. In studios and seminars combining business, design, and liberal arts, you apply interdisciplinary learning through projects and research.

This curriculum integrates innovation and sustainability research, entrepreneurial skill building, quantitative reasoning, financial management, visual communication, and information design. Courses and projects led by practicing professionals enable you to work with entrepreneurs, designers, activists, and academics at organizations like the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, JPMorgan Chase, LVMH, and Memorial Sloan-Kettering. In electives offered throughout The New School, you explore interests and career paths; internships give you real-world experience. You graduate prepared to develop design-driven strategies, manage projects and marketing, and assume entrepreneurial and leadership positions.

Offered both in New York City and at Parsons Paris.

Career paths include— management, innovation, entrepreneurship, branding and marketing, design strategy

LEFT: Students create media in a range of platforms to market design-focused goods and services.

newschool.edu/bba-sdm

BOTTOM: L. Curry Aycock, mobile app, The Art of Balance

Student profile

Alex FiCquette BBA Strategic Design and Management Alumnus

If you wonder whether design can bring

synthesizing his insights on untapped

people together—or drive them apart—

opportunities and proposing design-based

ask Alex. While a student in the BBA

approaches to address needs. From his

Strategic Design and Management program,

studies at Parsons, Alex knew that

Alex delved into the human factors that

problem-solving techniques based in

effective design takes into consideration

design research are surprisingly adaptable

to make products and services successful.

to a range of settings. But in the course of

His aptitude for listening, reflecting, and

researching user experience for a media

finding creative solutions to problems big

client, he learned just how valuable his own

and small brought him success in intern-

design and management skills had made

ships at Michael Kors, Stella McCartney,

him. Word of his talent at predicting user

Barneys New York, and a Broadway PR

behavior and success in coordinating the

company. He ended up in one of his field’s

many steps to positive user experience

most coveted positions: design researcher

quickly got around. Soon he was approached

at IDEO, the legendary design and innova-

for a media job, which led to his current

tion consultancy.

position as Associate Plaza Producer for

NBC television’s Today Show. Reflecting

At IDEO, Alex took the human-centered

“what if we…?” approach he learned at

on his providential career shift, he says,

Parsons and applied it to projects for local

“Parsons taught me that observation and

nonprofits and global firms. He interviewed

asking questions are as important as studio

research participants across the country,

skills—they can take you anywhere.”

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“Parsons taught me that observation and asking questions are as important as studio skills—they can take you anywhere.”

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ACADEMICS

Minors A growing array of minors offered at Parsons and throughout The New School advances your study of art and design, broadens your professional skills and perspectives, and gives you a competitive edge on job and graduate school applications.

Alternative Fashion Strategies*

Food Studies

Anthropology

French Studies

Art and Design History

Gender Studies

Capitalism Studies

Global Studies

Chinese Studies

Hispanic Studies

Comics and Graphic Narrative

History

Communication Design

Interdisciplinary Science

Contemporary Music

Japanese Studies

Creative Entrepreneurship*

Jewish Culture

Creative Technologies for Performative Practice*

Journalism and Design

Culture and Media

Museum and Curatorial Studies

Dance

Music Composition*

Data Visualization Design Studies Digital Humanities Dramatic Arts*

Literature

Philosophy Photography* Politics

Economics

Post-Genre Music: Performance and Creation*

Environmental Studies

Printmaking*

Ethnicity and Race

Psychology

Fashion Communication*

Religious Studies

Fashion Studies

Screenwriting

Film Production

Social Practice

Fine Arts*

Sociology Sustainable Cities Temporary Environments Theater Urban Studies Visual Studies Writing newschool.edu/academics/minors *Space

limitations in some programs make applications necessary for selected minors. For updated information, visit newschool.edu/ academics/minors.

ACADEMICS

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BA/BFA Option In this five-year interdisciplinary program, you combine indepth study in art and design and the liberal arts, earning a BA from Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts and a BFA from Parsons.* The BA/BFA (BAFA) dual degree equips you with the superior critical thinking and studio skills you need to succeed in today’s complex globalized workplace or in advanced study.

Pre-College and Continuing Studies Want to build a portfolio or take art and design courses before beginning undergraduate studies? Parsons offers ages for credit or on a noncredit basis. Classes for high school students are held on Saturday mornings and over the summer. Intensive courses for undergraduate and graduate credit are offered each summer on the New York campus and in Parsons programs abroad. Some courses are offered online. newschool.edu/parsons-continuing-studies newschool.edu/parsons-precollege newschool.edu/parsons-summer

*Students

in BBA Strategic Design and Management, BS Environmental Studies, and BS Urban Design cannot participate in the dual-degree option.

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open enrollment courses for nondegree students of all

ACADEMICS

41

Parsons Paris Parsons Paris, located in the heart of the city, gives you another cultural capital in which to create and explore, guided by Parsons’ signature curriculum. The learning community, drawn from around the world, is made up of students in undergraduate and graduate programs, including ones studying abroad for a semester. Bachelor’s programs currently offered are Art, Media, and Technology (BFA), Fashion Design (BFA), and Strategic Design and Management (BBA). Summer Intensive Studies programs are open to pre-college students (ages 16 years and older).

In Paris, recently voted the best city in which to study,* you discover how bringing together heritage brands, new technologies, and social science insights enriches your work and atelier-model environment fosters close interaction with faculty and interdisciplinary collaboration with peers in all programs as well as with New York–based visiting students from Parsons and throughout The New School. Our exclusive local partners—Sciences Po (Institut d’études politiques de Paris), which enables you to complement your studio work with courses in subjects like cultural history; ENSCI–Les ateliers (École nationale supérieure de création industrielle), where you can explore a range of studio practices; and renowned institutions including the Musée des Arts Décoratifs and Foundation Yves Saint Laurent—offer you unparalleled opportunity. It’s part of the university’s commitment to preparing you for global creative industries. newschool.edu/parsons-paris

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makes craft and design relevant worldwide. The intimate,

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Explore Art and Design in Global Settings Art and design speak clearly in the global cultural and commercial conversation. Learn the language through workshops and courses in which you work directly with creative communities around the world, sharing skills, knowledge, and perspectives. International educational partners—and Parsons Paris, our European hub—offer sustained cultural and academic immersions. Parsons orients you in global contexts, where creativity catalyzes innovation and change.

Designers at Parsons’ PETLab gaming incubator and residents of St. Louis, Senegal, created a game to develop climate-related disasterpreparedness systems for the Red Cross/Red Crescent. Versions of the game have been tested in Namibia, Kenya, Indonesia, and the Philippines, and the project was presented at the UN Climate Change Conference.

OPPOSITE, TOP: Designer and alumna Donna

Karan partnered with faculty and students on an initiative in Haiti, working with local designer Paula Coles on the DOT (Design, Organization and Training) Center, a new vocational education hub for Haitian artisans. Students helped design the space, explore products to develop, research local practices, and lead making workshops.

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The new school PARSONS

MIDDLE: Parsons and Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts students explored the relationship between the arts and urbanism in Phnom Penh and New York at the Season of Cambodia Festival.

Students curated a related multimedia exhibition documenting the role of arts in civic life.

BOTTOM: Students from Parsons’ School of Constructed Environments and graduate students in the university’s International Affairs program traveled to Jinga, Uganda, to collaborate with Slum Women’s Initiative for Development (SWID) on a project to develop housing.

47

Transform Your Concepts into Creations Center facilitates your creative growth and gives you hands-on experience using everything you’ll need as a creator. Available are 3D printers; laser cutters; CNC routers; high-speed plotters; printmaking equipment for all media; woodworking, metalworking, and sewing tools; and digital imaging, audio, and production gear.

Photo studios, fabrication and modeling shops, a lighting simulation lab, a video “green room,” and our new Innovation Lab engage your imagination in a range of media. You can work with peers throughout the university at staffed computer stations and collaborate with partners around the world using networked meeting spaces with video links. Groupwork meeting rooms, quiet-study areas, and practice rooms for students creating with performing arts peers offer you additional collaboration spaces. The University Center, our sustainably built campus anchor, encourages interdisciplinary work through its open design and ample co-working areas.

Supporting your research are the university’s libraries and some of the country’s best academic resources, available through the online Research Library Consortium of South Manhattan. At The Kellen Design Archives, you can explore Parsons’ celebrated history in studio disciplines and design studies. The archives span Parsons’ history from its founding to today, conserving primarysource materials produced by our community, including illustrations, graphic design samples, fashion sketches, articles, photographs, and recordings.

The new school PARSONS

Access to state-of-the-art and traditional tools at the Making

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Surround Yourself with Creativity and scholarship The Sheila C. Johnson Design Center (SJDC), shown on the facing page, is a university hub of creativity and scholarship.

Located on the ground floor of Parsons’ building at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 13th Street, the center offers programming including exhibitions curated by the SJDC staff, student work exhibitions, and a rich variety of events advancing the university’s mission to promote public dialogue on the role of art and design in civic life. Gallery spaces offer students opportunities to curate as part of their coursework or by invitation.

The New School’s Art Collection makes passing through campus buildings a transformative experience. Installations created expressly for our community—such as Glenn Ligon’s work For Comrades and Lovers (bottom center), which envelops University Center Event Café visitors; José Clemente Orozco’s A Call for Revolution and Universal Brotherhood, a sweeping fresco created in 1931 for The New School; and Kara Walker’s Event Horizon (bottom right), an immersive artwork filling Arnhold Hall’s stairwell—engage with themes and spaces of The New School. Pioneering works from the collection of nearly 2,000, including pieces by Martin Puryear, Adrian Piper, and photographer and New School teacher Berenice Abbott, are found throughout campus, offering you moments of inspiration and discovery.

In Become Paris, a digital artwork by Diva Helmy, images of historic Parisian statues are projected onto tourists’ faces, suggesting the layers of experience making up an individual’s identity. The use of new media to make historical art relevant is one way that Parsons students create work that builds on the past while looking to the future.

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Can art and design prepare you for a world that doesn’t exist yet?

At Parsons, we embrace the new, the unknown, the unimagined. It’s our legacy as innovators since the school’s founding in 1896. Here you boldly face the future with our proven approach to learning, which gives you the perspective and skills you need. Discover creative problem solving, collaboration, visual communication, iteration, prototyping, and analysis—tools that enable you to confidently, flexibly navigate a world in the making. On the solid platform of your Parsons education, you can become a leader in fields that already exist—or pioneer in new ones.

BFA Product Design students developed humanpowered vehicles for the Prototyping 3 course, building mockups to test the components and constructing working final products. The Monster, shown here, features rack-and-pinion steering and a seat that glides, turning the drive chain.

In a collaborative class, students from Parsons and Mannes School of Music reimagined ways to present live music. Parsons students created wearable technology and other devices with motion-capturing sensors that controlled projected video animations, transforming a recital into an audiovisual experience.

The new school PARSONS

Students Zach Lieberman and Evan Roth created EyeWriter, a low-cost eye-tracking apparatus built on open source code that allows graffiti artists with paralysis to draw through eye movements.

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Discover Your Creative Path Staff from throughout the university are on hand to help you find your way through your studies and later to a creative career. We listen and offer thoughts on your choice of courses. We show you how to apply classroom learning in professional contexts such as internships and develop job-seeking skills, materials, and networks. And at events, we help you explore careers and find work after you graduate—and even jobs while you’re a student. Our Parsons Career Expo has grown so large that it now takes place at the nearby Metropolitan Pavilion, where more than 100 recruiters gather to discuss creative positions with you, review your portfolio, and invite you to apply for jobs. And if you want to pursue advanced studies or start your own business, we offer resources for those next steps, too. Parsons Alumni offers you ongoing career resources along with opportunities to stay connected to the community.

Souda designers, graduates of the BFA Product Design program, shown here in their studio, employ hand processes to make one-of-a-kind pieces and machine tools for production-scale manufacturing.

They partner with outside designers who create pieces that are compatible with their sustainable production business model.

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Join A Community Designed for your success We do everything possible to help you join the Parsons community and make your experience transformative.

Our team is ready at the planning stages—applying, making the financial commitment, finding housing—and once you’re on campus as well. Staff members devoted to addressing learning-related needs ensure that your academic life flourishes.

Housing Housing isn’t just four walls and a roof. It’s an opportunity to form bonds, ease the transition from home to college, learn to appreciate differences, and make new friends for life. Our five residences extend from Greenwich Village to Chelsea and offer a nurturing, supportive environment for every student as well as many social, educational, and cultural activities. We guarantee housing to every incoming freshman who applies by the housing deadline.

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Financial Aid

Student Resources

The New School is for students from a

We want you to enjoy yourself, make new

variety of backgrounds. We help fund

friends, and have an easy adjustment to

institutional scholarships, fellowships,

college life. We are here so that you don’t

grants, and stipends as part of a compre-

have to do it alone. If you have questions,

hensive financial aid program. We also

we have answers on these topics and more:

participate in government grant, loan, and work-study programs as well as programs for veterans of the U.S. armed services.

If you are admitted to an undergraduate

• Athletics and recreation • Health and wellness • Student disability services

degree program, you will automatically

• Student employment

be considered for merit aid on the basis

• Meal plans

of academic and artistic ability.

Students interested in applying for government and institutional financial assistance programs must file the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), using The New School’s code of 002780. File this application electronically at fafsa.ed.gov.

You can email your questions to sfs@newschool.edu.

newschool.edu/prospective-student-info

• Safety and security • Technology help

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International Student and Scholar Services

Center for Student Success

We welcome students from around the

We want your experience at The New

world; in fact, we have a higher percentage

School to be rewarding and inspiring, one

of international students than any other

you look back on with satisfaction. We are

American university. Whether you are

here to help you make that happen.

an international student or scholar or an exchange visitor, you are joining a diverse and thriving academic and artistic community in one of the world’s great cities. We offer both immigration advice

Our advisors can guide your academic experience and help you succeed creatively and intellectually. They will work with you to help you navigate

and cultural support in a welcoming and

matters including—

friendly environment. We want The New

• Courses

School to be your home away from home.

• Degree requirements • Academic policies

• Providing expertise and support

• Internships

throughout the U.S. visa application process and offering advisement

• Career options

on the maintenance of legal immigration

• Study abroad programs

status, employment, reinstatement,

• Veteran services

changes of status, program changes, and other immigration-related matters • Advising incoming students and scholars on higher education practices in the United States and other cultural adjustment issues • Supporting U.S. students seeking to study abroad through Fulbright programs • Providing excellent international student programs at The New School and with other institutions in New York City and in other countries

The new school PARSONS

We achieve this by

Can Looking Closer TAke you further?

COME VISIT

Glimpse your future in the present. At Parsons, seeing isn’t just believing—it’s what changes everything. newschool.edu/visit Connect with us. We‘re waiting for you with information, answers, questions of our own, and thoughts that can transform your path ahead.

72 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10011 212.229.5150 or 800.292.3040 thinkparsons@newschool.edu newschool.edu/parsons

Parsons and other colleges throughout The New School offer a rich mix of undergraduate, graduate, and associate’s degrees as well as continuing education, pre-college, and certificate programs.

Discover how design sparks change at newschool.edu/ parsons/academics.

A FEW FACTS THAT

THE NEW SCHOOL

SET US APART

AT A GLANCE

#1 FOR SMALL CLASSES:

• Founded in 1919.

Among national universities, The New School had the highest proportion of classes with fewer than 20 students. 2014, U.S. News & World Report #1 ART AND DESIGN SCHOOL:

• Located in the heart of NYC in Greenwich Village, with a branch campus in Paris.

• Houses five schools and colleges.

Parsons School of Design was named the Best

• Offers 130 degree and diploma programs and

College for Art and Design in the United States.

majors and more than 50 minors.

2015, Quacquarelli Symonds 2015 World University

• Has more than 10,000 degree-seeking students.

Rankings

#1 MOST INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY: We have a higher percentage of international students than any other U.S. university.

*

2014, U.S. News & World Report

#1 FOR SUSTAINABLE BUILDING: The American Institute of Architects named the New School University Center one of the greenest buildings in the United States—and it’s the largest LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold Certified urban university building.

• Students come from all 50 states and 118 foreign countries.

• The New School also offers a range of graduate programs. See details at newschool.edu/academics.

Membership and Accreditation The New School is a member of the Association of American Colleges and Universities and is accredited by the New York State Board of Regents and by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools.

*

By Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings, a London-based global provider of specialist higher education and career information. Ranking based on feedback from both academic peers and employers.

Parsons and The New School are fully accredited by the Commission on Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools.

The New School, a privately supported institution, is chartered as a university by the Regents of the State of New York. Parsons is also an accredited institutional member of the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD) and a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design (AICAD). BBA Strategic Design and Management meets NASAD standards for the Bachelor of Arts—4 years: Design and Management.

Registered as a BBA through the New York State Education Department (NYSED). For full information on the university’s accreditation, visit newschool.edu/accreditation-and-state-regulatory-authorizations.

In the United States, most registration boards require a degree from an accredited professional degree program as a prerequisite for licensure. The National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB), which is the sole agency authorized to accredit professional degree programs in architecture offered by institutions with U.S. regional accreditation, recognizes three types of degrees: the Bachelor of Architecture, the Master of Architecture, and the Doctor of Architecture. A program may be granted an eight-year, three-year, or two-year term of accreditation, depending on the extent of its conformance with established educational standards. Doctor of Architecture and Master of Architecture degree programs may require a pre-professional undergraduate degree in architecture for admission. However, the pre-professional degree is not, by itself, recognized as an accredited degree. Parsons School of Design offers the following NAAB-accredited degree program: Master of Architecture (pre-professional degree + 90 credits). Next accreditation visit for this program: 2016.

For important information regarding your rights as a student, visit www.newschool.edu/your-right-to-know.

Published 2015 by The New School. The New School is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution. Produced by Marketing & Communication, The New School.

Undergraduate Programs PARSONS

Culture and Media BA

SCHOOL OF DRAMA

SCHOOL OF DESIGN

Economics BA

Bachelor’s Program

Environmental Studies BA or BS

Dramatic Arts BFA Integrated training in acting,

Architectural Design BFA

Communication Design BFA

Global Studies BA

Design and Technology BFA

History BA

Fashion Design BFA

Interdisciplinary Science BA

Fine Arts BFA

Journalism + Design BA

Illustration BFA

Liberal Arts BA or BS

Bachelor’s Programs

Integrated Design BFA Interior Design BFA Photography BFA Product Design BFA Strategic Design and Management BBA

BA concentrations in Urban Ecosystems and in Public Policy; BS concentration in Urban Ecosystems

Self-designed program

Literary Studies BA

Concentrations in Literature and in Writing

Philosophy BA Politics BA

directing, playwriting, aesthetic inquiry, design, and new dramatic media

SCHOOL OF JAZZ Bachelor’s Program Jazz and Contemporary Music BFA

Concentrations in Instrument or Vocal, including Bass; Drum; Guitar; Piano; Saxophone; Strings; Trumpet, Trombone, and Horn; Voice; and Other Instruments

BACHELOR’S

Psychology BA

PROGRAM FOR

Screen Studies BA

ADULTS AND

PARSONS

Sociology BA

TRANSFER STUDENTS

PARIS

Theater BA Urban Studies BA

Bachelor’s Programs

Bachelor’s Programs Environmental Studies BA, BS

COLLEGE OF

PERFORMING ARTS

Food Studies BA, BS

MANNES SCHOOL OF MUSIC Bachelor’s Programs

EUGENE LANG

Classical Guitar BM, BS

Global Studies BA

COLLEGE OF

Composition BM, BS

Liberal Arts BA, BS

LIBERAL ARTS

Harpsichord BM, BS

Art, Media, and Technology BFA Fashion Design BFA Strategic Design and Management BBA

Orchestral Conducting BM, BS

Bachelor’s Programs Anthropology BA The Arts BA

Concentrations in Arts in Context, Dance, and Visual Studies

Contemporary Music BA

Orchestral Instruments BM, BS

BA concentrations in Urban Ecosystems and in Public Policy; BS concentration in Urban Ecosystems

Food, Culture, Media, and Communication; Food Health Science and the Environment; Food Policy and Politics

Self-designed program

Media Studies BA, BS Musical Theatre BFA

AMDA Integrated graduates only

Piano BM, BS

Psychology BA

Theory BM, BS

Urban Studies BA

Voice BM, BS

Associate’s Degree Program Food Studies AAS

Architectural Design Fashion Design Art an oNstructed Environ OGY Design Strategies ent Fine Arts Fashion ments Product Desig agement Fashion Fine Design Communicatio STORY and Theory De Strategies Fine Arts F gn Illustration Art, terior Design Photog IGN Product Design TRATegic Design and M al Design Fashion co Art and Design Histor d Technology Design tration Art, Media, an rAted DESIGN Interior