Photos by Mark DiOrio

Colgate faithful gathered at New York City’s Paley Center for Media in February to hear from innovative alumni about their work and their thoughts related to the University’s development of a new Middle Campus Plan for Arts, Creativity, and Innovation outlined in The Third-Century Plan.

Titled “Innovation and Creativity: A Conversation with Alumni Leaders,” the panel was moderated by Global Chairman and CEO of EY Carmine DiSibio ’85, P’18,’21 as part of Colgate’s Professional Network series of events designed to bring together alumni for career networking and immersion in dynamic conversations.

Hatkoff, Bruno, Reid, Morgenstern, DiSibio standing next to each other
L to R: Hatkoff, Bruno, Reid, Morgenstern, DiSibio

Panel members included Craig Hatkoff ’76, co-founder of the Tribeca Film Festival and the Disruptor Foundation; Angela Morgenstern ’97, Netflix director of product innovation; Denniston Reid ’94, chief schools and innovation officer at Excellence Community Schools; and Jennifer Levene Bruno ’94, vice president, group publishing director, and chief revenue officer for Hearst Luxury and Design Collection.

Lesleigh Cushing, associate dean of the faculty, opened the evening with a tour through early plans for major changes to Colgate’s Middle Campus, specifically the area between Case Library and Dana Arts Center. “We see the Middle Campus as a site for experimentation — with rehearsal and performance spaces for student theater and improvisational groups; for maker spaces for traditional crafting and digital fabrication,” Cushing said, adding that plans include computer labs for coding, photography, archaeological labs, music, entrepreneurial endeavors, and flexible gallery spaces.

Panelists pointed to their Colgate education as sparking the curiosity and the complexity of thought essential to success in their careers. At EY, DiSibio said, he values the concept of protecting those who are working on projects that could result in drastic change. “At a big company, you need to isolate those innovators,” he said. “Otherwise, the immune system of that company will try to shut it down.”

Craig Hatkoff ’76
Craig Hatkoff ’76

Hatkoff said he encourages people to spend most of their time thinking about the problem they are trying to solve, and the solution comes after understanding the issue at hand. “Everyone is talking about big data, but what we really need to focus on is the search for big wisdom. I think that’s a major opportunity for Colgate and the Middle Campus,” he said.

For Bruno, who has led several legacy brands and magazines (including Town and Country) at the Hearst Corporation for the past 13 years, innovation must be guided by the brand principles that have anchored those publications through the years.

“We are leveraging real-time data to inform us, as content creators, on insights into content strategy for our editorial and business partners,” she said. “This helps build brands, but we also can’t lose the art of telling stories.”

Denniston Reid ’94
Denniston Reid ’94

Reid said many of his best experiences at Colgate happened in student government, where he learned to improvise, and he hopes that spirit of collaboration and creativity will be bolstered through the Middle Campus plans. “I discovered that I could reinvent myself in many different ways,” he said. “I came to school thinking I’d be a lawyer and left being a teacher.”

Architect Lea Ciavarra ’91 attended the event because of the constant discussion about creativity in her industry. “Creativity and innovation happen best when you collaborate, and that is what’s exciting about some of the things proposed in The Third-Century Plan,” she said. “Those cross-disciplinary interactions — that’s where it’s at right now.”