The Graduating Student Exhibition at The Fashion Institute of Technology has been a staple and tradition of the School of Art and Design for years, allowing students to build career opportunities and connections by exhibiting their work through an Opening Reception. It is a time for graduating students to connect with industry professionals, recruiters, and professors, in order to build the successful future that FIT promises its students ever since their orientation 4 years prior. The school is currently creating in-person receptions and events for various majors across the school, but has left the graduates of the School of Art & Design to fend for themselves.

Although we are privileged that this year's Art and Design Exhibition will be in-person with the graduate works on display, The Fashion Institute of Technology has made the decision to omit a public opening due to their own choice of COVID restrictions, which is completely contradictory and hypocritical to the school's past and current actions towards the pandemic. For the past 2 years, the school has held online receptions for the graduating class, proving to be extremely unsuccessful for students to gain jobs and work opportunities. The school has plans to do the same type of reception this year, even though the works are hung in person.

The school has been operating fully in-person classes and activities since August of 2021, as well as its dormitories, gym, lounges, and hallways allowing for students to congregate. Most hypocritically, the school has allowed for a maskless and "non-distancing" cafeteria to be open, allowing for hundreds of students to gather at a time together. Additionally, if the school cared so much about COVID restrictions, they wouldn't have rid their vaccine mandate as restrictions began to lighten in NYC back in March 2022. The final nail in the coffin remains the fact that in the past week, the school held 2 large-scale events to celebrate the end of year festivities, (RHA Block Party held at FIT and The Spring Semi-Formal held at Chelsea Piers), completely mask-optional, with majority mask-less. 

It's extremely obvious to students, professors, and family that the school is not considering the effect that the Opening Reception of the Senior Show has on its graduating class, something that the school continuously claims to take so much pride in. Students can pay up to $20k a year to attend and build their careers off of their degree from FIT, a school that claims to be one of the top design schools in the world. Individually, students paid up to $500 in promotional material, framing for work, and supplies for a senior show that will now be barely advertised, hidden in the school's remote basement location of the Museum at FIT, with the promise that an opening reception would be held. Let alone the fact that the school continuously remains ominous as to when the show actually will be opening, claiming it opens Tuesday, May 17th, when in actuality, the Museum at FIT remains closed on Tuesdays.

As schools such as SVA, RISD, Pratt, and Parsons are allowing their students to celebrate their hard work spent through in-person Opening Receptions, for FIT to not hold one is disgraceful and disrespectful to the students that pay their tuition. 

On behalf of the students of Art & Design at FIT, we urge you to host an in-person reception to celebrate its graduates. This is a shameful disappointment from a school we have dedicated so much to. 

Sincerely, 

The Students of the School of Art & Design (Fashion Institute of Technology)

The Majors Affected:

• Advertising and Digital Design
• Animation, Interactive Media, & Game Design
• Communication Design
• Fabric Styling
• Fashion Design
• Fine Arts
• Footwear and Accessories Design
• Graphic Design
• Illustration
• Interior Design
• Jewelry Design
• Menswear
• Packaging Design
• Photography
• Spatial Experience Design
• Textile/Surface Design
• Toy Design