The Fashion Institute of Technology’s longtime leader Joyce Brown is stepping down as president.
After what will be a nearly 26-year run, Brown will exit that role at the end of the 2024-25 academic school year. When she first took on that post at the school, which is a part of the State University of New York, in 1998, Brown was FIT’s first female and first African American president. In an exclusive interview Monday, Brown said she was feeling “quite proud of all the things that we’ve been able to accomplish over the past 25 years.”
Embarking on her 26th year at FIT, Brown said that realization was a reminder that “these are not lifetime appointments.” During a convocation Monday with the faculty, she shared her belief that “you should leave while everyone is still laughing. Everyone is feeling positive about the program, the strategic plan and the new [West 28th Street academic] building and ways that I have made faculty to do research and cutting-edge types of breakthroughs for the intersection of education and industry,” she said. ”It’s a logical moment. It’s not like I had to do it.”
Most notably, one of Brown’s achievements was the promise and execution of the new 10-story academic building on West 28th Street, which includes energy-efficient facilities and flexible learning spaces. Brown also singled out “advancements in curriculum and technology, as well as creating a new platform from which FIT competes with the best in the world in terms of product design, emerging technologies and creative designs.”
The latest round of faculty includes 21 new members, and Brown has maintained a rate of at least 20 new faculty members each year. The new recruits include a lot of people who at one point would not have considered coming to a school like FIT but have done so due to how its schools of liberal arts, art and design and business and technology have been built up, Brown said.
Partial to purposeful-driven initiatives, Brown, 77, has no plans to retire and is exploring new challenges and opportunities. She is expected to have an active role in the transition and running the college during the next academic year. The academic leader said FIT has revisited its strategic plan every five years and recalculated it based on whether goals were being met, or new initiatives and programs were needed. That “just makes the time go quickly,” said Brown, who noted that at year 17 she couldn’t believe that much time had passed. “We just keep going and we have a lot to show for it. That makes it good as well. You’re not really counting the days.”
She continued, “The truth is I could stay. There are lots more projects that we could do and achievements that we could achieve. Every place benefits from new ideas and new leadership.”
“Figuring out” what she will do next, Brown said she will ensure a good transition that will “bring in someone who can bring the college to even greater heights.”
Born in New York City, Brown attended its Catholic schools, and went on to earn a B.A. in psychology from Marymount College. Brown later earned a masters degree in counseling psychology and a Ph.D. from New York University. Prior to joining FIT, she held jobs at the Borough of Manhattan Community College and Bernard M. Baruch College of The City University of New York. In 1993, she was appointed deputy mayor for public and community affairs by then-Mayor David Dinkins during his reelection. After Dinkins’ mayoral loss in 1994, Brown became a professor of clinical psychology at the Graduate School for The City University of New York, where she worked until 1998.
Brown, whose husband is the former New York state comptroller and former New York State Sen. Carl McCall, has been an omnipresent leader in education. She has also been affiliated with such boards and organizations as Linens-N-Things, Ralph Lauren, Neuberger Berman, Paxar Corp., the United States Enrichment Corporation, the Warm Up America Foundation, Marymount College and the Metropolitan Chapter of The Links.
Like many other university leaders, Brown has been steering FIT during what has been a tumultuous time in recent years. Students and faculty have been dealing with such cultural milestones as the COVID-19 pandemic, the migrant crisis, and the Black Lives Matter and the #MeToo movements. In addition, the Israel-Hamas war has led to multiple on-campus protests, encampments and arrests at FIT, as it has in other schools. The handling of on-campus protests and demonstrations were not a factor in Brown’s announcement, a FIT spokesperson said Monday.
Brown is the second New York City school leader to reveal plans for a departure within the last week. Columbia University president Minouche Shafik resigned on Aug. 14. Brown said her decision was not prompted by the on-campus protests. “Look, I’ve been around for a long time. I was around for the last round of protests. I came from the City University of New York. I’ve lived through it. Look, it’s unpleasant, difficult and fraught with a lot of misguided kinds of goals. But I’ve dealt with it. I know how to deal with it. I hope we get a cease fire [between Israel and Hamas] and this will all end. And students will figure out other ways to contribute to the dialogue of furthering our way of government, because this is not the most effective way.”
Having been there and dealt with on-campus protests, Brown said, “It’s not what you hope to have your days taken up with. But it certainly did not factor into any decision that I made.”
A FIT spokesperson reiterated that Monday.
During her tenure at the New York City campus, Brown established the Social Justice Center at FIT, an initiative focused on increasing the number of Black, Indigenous and people of color in roles across the creative industries. In an effort to increase the prevalence of technology, she worked with faculty to infuse it into their teaching and curriculum in recent years. The Center for Innovation at FIT, an off-campus center for faculty to pursue research, and the DTech Lab, FIT’s on-campus innovation lab merging design thinking with emerging technologies, were also launched.
During Brown’s run, FIT awarded 82,389 degrees and certificates, with the number of bachelor’s degrees increasing by 348 percent. Thirty-three new degree and credit certificate programs at the graduate and undergraduate levels were introduced in-person and online. FIT also built upon degree programs in computer animation and interactive media, cosmetics and fragrance marketing and management, fashion design, footwear and accessories design, liberal arts and sciences and toy design.
FIT’s board of trustees chair Robin Burns-McNeill said Brown’s commitment to technology, innovation\ and DEI “modernized the college, while also deepening its commitment to our mission and to graduate success. The college will have the benefit of her strong leadership over the next year as we embark on a search for the next visionary to become the president of FIT.”
She is also credited with creating a culture of flexible learning, building faculty ranks, adding new programs and interdisciplinary minors, and raising the profile of liberal arts.
One of Brown’s other maxims is said to be, “’When I am gone, I want everyone to know I was here.’”