FASHION INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
INTERVIEW: Elaine Stone, Professor Emeritus
INTERVIEWED BY: Benjamin Weaver
August 22, 2006
BW: This is Ben Weaver. I am here interviewing Professor Elaine Stone, professor emeritus of
fashion merchandising management at FIT. Today’s date is August 22, 2006. Professor Stone,
could you please tell us how and when you first became associated with FIT and how long
you’ve been associated with it?
ES: My original association started while I was still in the industry. I was the merchandise
manager at Macy’s and a vice president for stores. We always fought very hard at the Christmas
break to get students from FIT to come in and put in their six week internship with us. So I
guess that was my first connection with FIT. I was always very impressed with them, and over
the years friends of mine who taught here would invite me in to lecture. You know, as a guest
lecturer.
BW: Sure.
ES: I loved them, I loved the students. The students here are just really something very, very
special. When I retired from the industry I went back and got my masters in education because I
decided I wanted to teach, and I wanted to teach at FIT. I was very, very lucky. I started
teaching one course in the summer of ’75 and they voted me in full-time in the fall of ’77. So I
was very lucky. I’ve been here ever since.
BW: Not always in the same department?
ES: Yes, always in that department; it used to be called Fashion Buying and Merchandising.
Over the years I have served as the coordinator and then director of something that started as the
small business center. I started it, and it came to be called The Enterprise Center. I had done a
study for Marvin Feldman, the president of FIT at that time, who was a wonderful guy. You
could go in and just chat with him about your ideas. He agreed that many, many of our students
had to go into business for themselves, particularly being design students. They had no idea of
what business was all about so we started a small group of courses on how to start a business. It
just grew and grew and grew. Today, The Enterprise Center is a real moneymaking part of the
continuing ed. and professional studies program. Besides doing it for our own students where
it’s for credit, we have many, many programs for industry people, mostly funded from
Workforce Development. We get money from SUNY, from the state, from the federal
government. And then, for a short while, I acted as an acting dean for continuing ed. and
professional studies. So I’ve been a faculty member, a director, and an acting dean but my
favorite job has been being a teacher. It’s just wonderful. So there it is! For the last 30 years,
I’m here. It’s my home and then when I retired they were gracious enough to appoint me a
professor emeritus. Of course, nobody knows what that means! But, that’s okay; we do.
BW: We do. Congratulations for that.
ES: Thank you, I’m very proud of it.
BW: You’ve mentioned President Feldman. Were there any other colleagues or contemporaries
with whom you worked that you recall?
ES: Oh, yes! Oh, yes! There were some very outstanding people here. One among many, many
others was a gal by the name of Jeanette Jarneau. Jeanette Jarneau started in the fashion buying
and merchandising department. She was a merchandise manager at Abraham and Strauss at the
time, and became involved with people here. Originally the courses were kind of brief and had
to do with design and production mostly. She said, “No, let’s make it broader for our students
and teach them retailing and merchandising.” So she started that. She’s a real character, and I
think she brought a lot of attention to the “F and M” department but she never really wanted to
run it. She hired a young man by the name of Newton Godnick who became the chairperson of
that department for as many years as he was here - 30 years – he also came out of the industry.
In fact, he and I were buyers together at Macy’s - we knew one another; then I ended up working
for him. He just had such a way with people, both students and industry people, which I think is
the great strength here. First of all, if you look back at why FIT even came into being, it was the
industry itself who said, “We need a place to teach young people our business.” At most
schools, that’s not their basic reason for going in. It's for education, yes, but this is such a
specific education that I don’t really think there are too many other schools like this anywhere.
There are some overseas which we helped start. We helped start schools in Israel, in Italy, in
India, in Korea that are based on the theory that FIT has about educating people for the fashion
business. By the way, Marvin was very good that way. He never minded giving our course
calendars and the way we teach to anybody who came. I remember being upset about it. Here
Marvin was giving away our… He said, “No, no, no. They’ll do it their way but we should help
them because the more people who are schooled in this, the bigger the industry is going to
grow.” He was always very inclusive and a wonderful man. That was the feeling we all got.
The other thing that I think made FIT faculty different, was that in order to be hired here in
whatever, whether it was the design department, the advertising department, the merchandising
department, the technical department, you had to have worked in that part of the industry for a
minimum of five to 10 years at an executive level. So basically, it was not faculty teaching from
a textbook that somebody else wrote. It was faculty teaching from their everyday experience and
living it. I think the other thing that made us very special is we had this constant contact with the
industry that we serve. We were calling them and they were calling us; they came in to be guest
speakers. They still do, but we started that back then. I think that is really what makes us
unique. Am I boasting too much?
BW: No, no! Absolutely not! You mentioned a lot of the administration, as well as President
Feldman. Did you get to know many other faculty members and staff members?
ES: The nice thing about it was everybody knew everybody. You knew everybody, certainly in
your own division which would be business and technology, but Marvin, again, was a great
believer in “We’re a family. We're a school, but we're a family - whether we're we’re staff or
faculty or administrators. We are a family.” I think that was wonderful. I don’t really think it
exists today because we’ve gotten a little more sophisticated about being a family. The other
thing that I think made us what we are today is that almost every administrator (after the initial
ones we hired) were faculty members who became administrators. Again, that was very much
like the industry we came out of. First you were an assistant buyer. Then you were an associate
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buyer. Then you became a buyer. Then you became a merchandiser. We kind of did that here
as we learned and got more information about how to do things. And then many of us went back
and took courses in academe. But it was wonderful to have your administrators, your deans
particularly, be ex-faculty. I think those were really the heydays; everybody working together
and understanding where we were going and what we wanted to accomplish and working
together to do it. Today we have school administrators that have never been faculty members.
The other thing was that meeting-wise; we had meetings in halls. Marvin would see us in the
lunchroom and he’d say, “C’mon. Let’s get together and discuss what we’re doing.” As you
grow a little more sophisticated, that disappears, but it was very important back then. We had
people like Jack Riddenberg who was a faculty member in F and M. He was an outstanding
dean for the business and technology area. Under his time we brought in menswear. We never
had a department in menswear before, but he knew that the industry needed that, so he brought
that in. He brought in direct marketing. I can make a call today to almost anybody, and they
will pick up the phone and at least answer a question or send things that I need for a classroom.
Again, that contact, that access, is one of the important things that have kept us on the cutting
edge of what’s going on.
BW: Sure, absolutely.
ES: That was also true in art and design. We had a faculty member in the fashion design
department. Her name was Hilde Jaffe; she was the dean of art and design. Having been a
faculty member and knowing some of the problems of the faculty, she made a wonderful dean.
In fact, Hilde was the one who started a program called Saturday Live. Now that means that you
come to school on Saturday and it’s live. It was the beginning of “Saturday Night Live,” on TV
that gave her the idea. It involves high school kids interested in fashion. We still have it today
and it’s grown into thousands. If you come in here in the summertime, you’ll see all these kids
kind of roaming around like little bees. It’s wonderful because they get an idea of what we do
here and whether it’s really what they want to do. You know a lot of kids think, “Oh, I want to
go to FIT ‘cause I love fashion.” OK, that’s good, but let’s get into it a little more seriously so
on and so forth. Very creative things happened in those days. I guess that’s true when you’re
kind of young and starting and growing. I guess that’s how large corporations do it also. Almost
all the chair people, of course, were faculty members. The deans had been faculty members. It
made us all so close that there were no kind of boundaries - you know, “He’s the boss” kind of
thing. No, we all worked together. I think that had a great deal to do with our success. The
other thing about our success was, again, even our early trustees ware all people from the
industry. Top owners of top corporations in the fashion industry who were very, very… Did I
mention Shirley Goodman? Throughout all of this, all the presidents including Marvin, Shirley
was right there. Shirley was the one who started the educational foundation. Again, I can’t
emphasize enough this contact and feeling of the school and the industry we serve. It’s just like
a brother and sister who like one another.
BW: Were you ever aware of any town-gown problems or problems with the relationship
between the school and sponsor, the City of New York Board of Education?
ES: I’m sure there must have been, but at the faculty level I never really felt that.
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BW: You were removed from it?
ES: Pretty much. I wasn’t here when things were so bad that people believed we weren’t going
to make it. This is a story. I presume it’s true; I’m not sure. There was a time when the
treasurer went to Marvin and said, “We’re not going to be able to make the payroll tomorrow.”
We didn’t have the money in the bank. Marvin made a call to Albany. I don’t know who he
called or what the story is, but we got money in the bank and they met the payroll. I think in
those days Marvin, particularly, had a very close affinity with people in Albany who really
understood how important the Fashion Institute of Technology was to the city and the state. I
presume we’ve not been like that since then. Yes, every once in a while I heard that they were
hassling us about something or other. I think by and large, whoever was running the school took
care of it. Do you get affected by it, up at SUNY?
BW: With the state funding, you mean?
ES: Yes.
BW: Oh, sure. All SUNY schools are affected by Albany’s decisions and the University at
Albany is no different.
ES: The only way I guess we might be affected, we do feel that sometimes we need more faculty
and we can’t hire them because there’s just not enough funding for it and so on. I know they had
some trouble with Mayor Giuliani; he cut back all of the schools.
BW: Right, because with the state universities, the university centers and the four year schools,
they’re sponsored completely by the state whereas the two-year schools and the community
colleges are sponsored by the state and the sponsor – cities, school boards, counties or groups of
counties.
ES: Yes, and by the income of the people paying.
BW: Right, the student’s tuition. In regard to the city Board of Education and their sponsorship,
were there any problems with that that you are aware of, or was it pretty much the same as the
state funding?
ES: I would say, again, and I don’t know…we do very well in a Democratic period. We didn’t
do quite so well under Mayor Giuliani. I would think that might have been party politics.
BW: So it changes with politics?
ES: Yes.
BW: Interesting. OK, thank you. Do you recall when collective bargaining came to campus?
ES: I would check with the union on that to make absolutely sure because I wasn’t here. There
couldn’t be a union before the Taylor Law. According to them, and I wrote it down here
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somewhere, their first collective bargaining was in 1967; that’s when they got their first contract.
I believe they said the Taylor Law was probably passed in 1966, which even allowed them to get
into this. I wasn’t here when it happened. I don’t really know why they wanted a union
although I think everybody was becoming unionized. We come from an industry that is highly
unionized. I don’t think it was because they were that unhappy with administration; it’s just like
it was THE thing to do. Other teachers were doing it. It was being done all over. We’ve always
had a very strong union here but not on a very mean, nasty, "I-don’t-talk-to you, you-don’t-talkto-me." No, no it’s always been rather nicely done. As a faculty member I certainly have to
thank both the union and administration because I believe we do as well financially as the
teachers from Harvard.
BW: Thank you. Do you recall how the college worked to develop the physical campus and all
the buildings and the closing of 27th street? Do you recall when that all happened and how?
ES: Again you have to remember there was a time when Marvin could literally pick up a
telephone and talk to a politician and it happened the next day. I do remember though when FIT
was just being built, I had nothing to do with the place then. I was still in the industry. I was
over at Macy’s. I remember sometimes walking past the place and there were huge signs. The
neighborhood was horrified, wanted no part of FIT. I guess they threw down some homes that
were here or whatever. We were not, from what I could make out as an outsider, really welcome
in this area. But, as usually happens, they kind of got used to us. You do know we started on
one floor in the high school? The first building put up on this campus is what we call C building,
which is the middle building. The group marched over from the high school and went into C
building. It was when I was still making guest appearances here that they began building the
other buildings. I think primarily Shirley Goodman had a great deal to do with that. I believe
she got the funding through the educational foundation. You understand what that is?
BW: Yes.
ES: OK. That’s when we did buildings A, B, C, D and E. After these - there was no private
money - although one building was named for someone. It was named for David Dubinsky, and
it’s still called the David Dubinsky Student Center. He, at the time, was the president of the
ILGWU, which is the huge International Ladies Garment Workers' Union. They felt that they
would honor him, and I think they probably gave us some money, but basically the money for
buildings came from the city and state, and there may have been some federal funds. The dorms,
on the other hand, did get some private money. That’s why they’re named after people and so on
and so forth. That was another thing we didn’t do a lot of and I didn’t realize that until we began
to have to do it. Marvin’s theory was that we were a public school, therefore we lived on public
funds or grants from public organizations and there never really was a great push to get outside
money. That, of course, has changed…Greatly!
BW: I’m sure!
ES: Now every thing’s named. We did have, and I will again say this for the faculty, the faculty
really were the first people to start giving scholarship money in their names or if somebody died
and they’d get it. Really, the faculty first started establishing gifts before FIT started getting big
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money. In fact, I have one that I did in my mother’s name when she died, and I just gave another
one. If you look at most of our scholarships at least half of them are faculty-funded which I
think is nice.
BW: Absolutely.
ES: The faculty has a great love for this place. You love it. Either you love it at the beginning or
you get out! If you stay, you just love it.
BW: Yes, I can see why everybody does. You had mentioned the education foundation. Is that
the same thing as the college foundation?
ES: Today?
BW: Yes.
ES: Well no it’s still the education foundation. The big difference from what I could see is that
the educational foundation was a separate entity. I think the paperwork is here somewhere on
how the funding came from the educational foundation to the Fashion Institute of Technology.
Shirley Goodman was the executive director for the educational foundation, which was totally
separate from the Board of Trustees. In other words, Marvin was president and ran the school,
and Shirley was executive director of the education foundation. I know Marvin over the years
tried to merge them, but she fought him and it never worked. However, today it’s working; our
president is also the president of the education foundation. I don’t know quite what happened
there.
BW: What do you think were some of the most interesting or exciting times at FIT while you
were affiliated with the school?
ES: Well, as I say, I guess the middle‘70’s to the late ‘80’s were very exciting for the school.
Here are the reasons why: We were still growing. We were still expanding. We, as a group, had
this feeling that administration supported any idea we had. Not that they always sanctioned it,
but they would listen to it. Everybody was always saying, “OK, what else can we do? How can
we make ourselves better? How can we put in more types of courses that will enlarge our
school?” The other thing is we became very international. Very, very international. There again
is a name of a wonderful faculty member, Arthur Price, who unfortunately just passed away a
few months ago. He was the one. I remember he got a call from Taiwan. A Taiwanese student
called that had been a student of his. The student went back and worked in the government or
something of Taiwan, and said that that they were already in the industry but they needed some
education on how to do better at it. The student had the government of Taiwan talk to Arthur
Price. They formed a group of people to go to Taiwan to help them learn about fashion
education. I remember I was fortunate enough to be on that first team. There was Arthur Price
who was a textile expert. There was Hilde Jaffe who was a design expert. There was Morty
Silverstein who was a production man. I was the merchant. Shirley went with us because we
were dealing with the government of Taiwan and she was the head of the educational foundation.
Anyway, that was our first real foreign trip and, because we did so well, we traveled primarily all
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over the world. We went to Japan many times. We went to Korea. We went to India. We went
to Egypt. We went to Israel. In many instances, the trip was sponsored by the foreign
government. When we spent all the time in India it was the Indian government that was paying
for us. There’s now a school called NIFT, the National Institute for Fashion Technology, in
India. So the school became very, very international and we got many more international
students, which I think is a plus for American students. We’re a global world and they’re going
to have to meet them wherever they work. Arthur and I took a trip to Colombia. The
government sent us there because they were sending a lot of dope into America. The
government figured out that if we could get those women more interested in making clothes and
knitting, they would not go into the poppy fields. I was saying to Arthur, “What?” He said,
“Let’s go.” We went to Cochabomba. That trip was arranged through the Catholic Church; we
worked with these women. They were very interested, but when the poppy fields had to be cut
or whatever, they went left. I have to tell this story. Arthur and I were in a jeep and we were
traveling into a place, a church, where they had a large group of women that we were going to
train. We were stopped by a bunch of army men with machine guns pointing at us. I said, “Here
I am. I’m going to get killed by a bunch of Colombian drug dealers.” No, they were American.
That was when Reagan sent them in to burn the poppy fields. So I’ve had a lot of exciting things
happen to me here at FIT! I can remember saying to Arthur, “Let’s get out of here. We’re going
to be killed by our own people!”
But, I think we have a wonderful reputation. Georgianna Appignani is now in charge of our
schooling of foreign students. We kind of stopped sending personnel overseas as a school. I
guess we’re not getting funded as much. I think the government finally realized we were
training our competition. But it was wonderful. It was wonderful for the students. It was
wonderful for the faculty. It was good for everybody. I tell you, it’s a great place to work!
BW: Thank you. What do you think the impact of FIT has had on the community? By
community I mean New York City and New York State and the fashion industry?
ES: New York City. I think we've had a big impact on New York City. We, in a way, have
become a tourist attraction. We have a very heavy tourist draw in our museum, which is
outstanding.
BW: I’m going to check on that before I leave.
ES: Yes, are you going to go in?
BW: Yes. Absolutely.
ES: Is somebody going to take you so you can see everything and not just wander in like a
tourist?
BW: I’ll probably wander in like a tourist.
ES: It’s exciting. But what you won’t see are the floors upstairs where our students learn.
Where they will take an original Chanel that has been donated, and show the students exactly
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how one was done in 1940, how one was done in 1960, and how we do it now. It’s incredible
the kinds of things we have in our museum that are very nice to show people but originally used
to help educate our students about what the business is that they’re going into. The other thing is
that we have an impact on the Small Business Administration in the city. We train people to
have jobs here in New York City, and we also assist in helping people trying to start small
businesses, which in most cases have been minorities. Of course, that’s very important to the
city. They look at it that way. We used to have the Coty Awards here at FIT. Of course the
Coty Awards don’t exist any more but when they did, they were held here at FIT, which was
very, very important. When they first, I guess this goes back to the ‘80’s, the early ‘80’s, wanted
to make New York the fashion capital of the world - it wasn’t always the fashion capital of the
world; that whole thing started at FIT, and most of those meetings were held here at FIT. Shirley
Goodman was a big part of making New York the fashion capital of the world. I think FIT has
had a major impact on that. There's another way that we’ve had a major impact in a slightly
different way - community colleges.
We have many adjuncts, from Suffolk, who teach here too. Again, Marvin was very, very
supportive of letting them take whole programs from FIT in SUNY. We don’t do it anymore,
but I remember I did it when I first came. We ran summer sessions for teachers all over the
country who taught fashion. We had them here. We charged them. We made money but also
kept them up to date on the techniques of teaching fashion. We took them out into the industry
to make sure that they were up to date. The other thing that our faculty has done over the years
is we write the textbooks of fashion. There are two fellows who were in our interior design
department, Marty Zelnick and his partner, who have written outstanding textbooks in the
interior design business. I modestly say I’ve written about six books. One of my books is the
best selling book on fashion merchandising.
BW: Congratulations! Wow!
ES: Thank you, it’s called The Dynamics of Fashion. It’s carried in almost every school that
teaches fashion merchandising. I have another book called Fashion Merchandising that’s also
printed in Japanese and Chinese.
BW: That’s wonderful!
ES: Yes, but that’s because the faculty here has always been supported in trying to do as much as
we could for the students and the industry.
BW: Terrific, thank you. Is there anything that you wish had been achieved at FIT which has not
been?
ES: I always laugh when I think of that. We are a community college that gives bachelors and
masters degrees, OK? Could we get any better than that?
BW: I see how you feel.
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ES: You know, I tell that to some of my friends who are with the University of Iowa and they
say, “What?” Yes, I say. We do, we do, we do, we do! I remember going to a meeting when
Marvin first wanted to put in the baccalaureates. They had all the schools, you know, NYU and
City College and whatever school was around here. They asked them whether they would be
okay with us awarding bachelors degrees. He in his inimitable way, Marvin convinced them that
we would be no competition to their baccalaureate degrees. We were not giving baccalaureate
degrees in science or math or English or psychology. We were giving it in graphic design,
fashion design, fashion merchandising; they had never even heard of it. They said, “Fine. Do
whatever you want.” Then it got a little sticky when we first did our masters. We really wanted
to do an MBA in retailing and fashion merchandising. That we got stopped. All we can give so
far is a Master of Professional Studies - MPS. It doesn’t carry quite the same weight as an MBA.
But we do have very many masters' graduates. We’re unique. We’re wonderful and we’re
unique! Everybody who comes to teach here kind of passes that on to the next group that comes.
You know we’ve hired a lot of industry retirees over the last 10-15 years. But the people who
come in, come from the industry and love what they’re doing. Now they’re trying to make the
young students love what they’re going to do. You know I say to my students, “Look, a lot of
you look down your nose at retailing. I couldn’t wait to go to work. For thirty years I used to
count the money and yum! I hope that you, too, will get that feeling.” There’s nothing more
precious than going to work at something you like. Very few people do it, unfortunately. I think
most of our students have that feeling that when they leave FIT. They have such an
understanding and love of what they studied and what they’re going to do to make a living. I
think that’s a big plus for us.
BW: Yes. What, if any, were the most difficult problems you faced while you were associated
with the college or that the college faced while you were part of the faculty?
ES: Every once in a while Marvin would call us and say, “Look, we’ve got a little problem here.
We have to watch it. You have to stop. We have to save a million dollars this year.” OK, fine.
We’d do it. All those other kinds of things never ever, I don’t think, were shared with us to
hinder or make us worry. I don’t know how to explain it. Yes, we all knew what was going on.
Nobody held anything back and yes there were some very tough financial times. The city was
having a bad time. There were times where our registration wasn’t as good as we wanted it to
be. Somehow or other when you work together you can always handle that kind of thing. I
guess we did. I never remember anything we could not handle really. You know, there were
some people that I didn’t like, but I had to live with that!
BW: What programs or other college services such as student services, or community
involvement were going on at FIT while you were here?
ES: We always, as I say, had very good outreach. I will say there is a pretty good separation
between student affairs and the academic side of the house, so to speak. They’ve been working
on that. I don’t want to be negative. We have many clubs. You see we are a commuter school.
You have to realize that up until recently, we only had twelve hundred beds and yet we had
eleven thousand students. Now with the new dorm I think we have 2500 beds. Again, as
commuter students, they don’t have that same campus feeling as a student that lives on campus.
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BW: I see.
ES: For the students who do live on campus though, we have a very nice student affairs
department. We have forty different clubs; all kinds of clubs that students can belong to. We
have a wonderful internship department; both paid and unpaid so that students can really get a
feeling for the industry. Our students work hard. My niece was a student here. She was a dorm
student and she was in graphic design. That was her major. She worked. She had no time for
student “things.” She was busy working, studying, and doing homework. However, she got a
wonderful education and worked for some of the top advertising agencies both here and in
Kansas City, and today she has her own business. So our students do well. They don’t always
have a great campus memory, but they have a great departmental memory. They remember the
department and the teachers. That’s always very close. I went to NYU, which was also an urban
campus, but I had more of a feeling of...I didn’t work then. My entire time was at school and
there were great social events and dances and things like that. Our kids are much more career
oriented. I think that’s our beauty, our uniqueness, our success. Not that we don’t have dizzy
people.
BW: In your opinion what was it about FIT that attracted the students from some of the other
competing institutions like Pratt or RISD?
ES: One thing is cost to be a blunt as I can be – certainly for a New York State student. But we
have students from all over the country and all over the world because we have our reputation
and we work very, very hard to keep it polished. RISD has a fabulous reputation too, but it’s
slightly different. If a student is really, really interested in RISD, they would not be interested in
us and the other way around. Pratt, maybe the same student, but again, financially, quite a
different thing. Meanwhile, we take one out of every ten that say they want to come here. It is
the industry itself that tells young people who come to them, “You want to get into this business?
Go to FIT.” Do you watch Project Runway?
BW: I did last season.
ES: A lot of people thought that was just Pratt. Two of the big winners were FIT students in the
first year. Are you aware of that?
BW: No. That’s one thing I wish that they would announce - what schools the participants go to;
make it known.
ES: They want you to think it’s just Pratt. Every year one of our students is either one, two,
three.
BW: That’s terrific. You talked a little bit about the relationship between the school and SUNY
Central Administration in Albany. Has the relationship changed over time? Has it always been
a constant relationship that was favorable? Was it a good relationship?
ES: As a faculty member?
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BW: Yes, as a faculty member, what’s your opinion?
ES: It doesn’t affect us one way or the other, really. As a person who has been at a level where
I’m aware of it, I would say at one time we probably listened less to SUNY. I think the current
president, because she comes from CUNY, is much closer to SUNY than the presidents before
her like Hershfeld or certainly Marvin. Marvin kind of ran his own show, but it was a successful
show and why interfere with success? I’m sure every once and a while SUNY said, “Oh God,
FIT…” But then again what are we? Artistic!
BW: And what was it that attracted you to FIT?
ES: Well, as I said, I knew the FIT students as an executive in the industry, and out of all of the
different colleges that we used to get kids from, I was most impressed by these young hardworking mostly middle- and lower-class students. The daughters of store presidents and
companies were going other places. I was just very impressed by how they performed on the job
in the six weeks we had them. When I began guest lecturing for some of my friends who were
adjuncts here, I was doubly impressed. I remember we were teaching in Quonset huts when they
were building. You couldn’t do it at that building, but we were growing. So they had a whole
bunch of Quonset huts and they were okay. They were air conditioned, they were quite fine.
When I did decide where I wanted to teach I called FIT and got called by Newton Godnick, the
chair of the F and M department, and I said, “I just finished my masters and collected my
sheepskin.” He said, “Fine. Can you take a course this summer?” It was the summer of ’75.
I’ll never forget it. I said, “Yes.” And that’s how I started. I taught a course in fashion
merchandising that summer, and through 1976 I was an adjunct. I taught a course during the day
or something, and then as I say, I’ll never forget, I was doing some consulting for a chain of
stores and Newt said, “You know, we have an opening for a full-time faculty member and we
have meetings." I said, “Well, I can make two of the three meetings, but that last meeting, I’m
on the road and I get paid a lot of money to do that, so I can't come to it." So he said, "All right,
come to the first one." Anyway, I did, and P.S. they hired me. Probably because I wasn’t there!
It was wonderful; I loved it. I've loved it ever since. After 1977, I’ve been here every day and
love it, just love it.
BW: That’s good to hear. That’s the last of my questions. Are there any other things you’d like
to add, any comments you’d like to make?
ES: Yes. Have you just been doing us or have you been doing other community colleges?
BW: All 30 community colleges.
ES: You’ve done all 30?
BW: This is the last one that we’ve done.
ES: In your mind, how are we different?
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BW: In my mind? Well, in my mind the community that you serve is different because it’s not a
geographic community. It’s not that you’re serving just Manhattan or New York City. You’re
serving the industry. Whereas the other community colleges serve their geographic community
and train people for whatever they want to go into, although many have students who come from
a distance, and about half now have housing for students.
ES: Our big push college-wise is global now. We train people now to look globally at every part
of our business. Is that being done at other schools?
BW: You mean train people to look globally or attract people from other countries?
ES: To look globally. As Americans, are they being trained to work in global marketplaces?
BW: I would assume so, but I didn’t get the sense that it is as strong as it is here.
ES: We really firmly believe in that.
BW: Yes. I didn’t get a sense that that is something they believe as strongly in as you do here.
ES: You know we have new majors. We have the international trade major, which takes students
all over the world. We have this new graduate degree called global fashion management which
is a master's degree. We work with a school in Paris and one in Hong Kong because our industry
has moved globally. The other thing that we have done is to put more emphasis on foreign
languages. You can’t just speak New Yorkese anymore. You really have to have at least one
foreign language. I wonder if the rest of the colleges were also realizing that, as flighty and
artistic as they think we are, we are looking at the world that is approaching and the one our
students will have to function in.
BW: Say, in far upstate New York where they’re training people to work at the local industry,
they might not need as much of a global focus as the fashion industry where you have all these
other schools that are popping up across the country like you said, or across the world.
ES: Well, as I say here, our students are people who really love the place. I think you’d have a
problem finding somebody who would speak against it. Maybe against a boss, but for what we
stand for, and our students, and what we think we bring to the industry, I think everybody is
pretty proud and happy.
BW: It seems to be the case from what I can tell even just walking around the campus. Thank
you so much for taking the time, I really appreciate it.
ES: My pleasure.
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