We're coming back this summer! The Educators Summit is a unique opportunity for the advertising, media, and design education communities to come together.
Whether you're a tenured professor or interested in starting your career as an educator, we want you to leave this summit ready for the 2025-2026 school year with new insights on trending technology, creativity and equity in the classroom, and creating a career-ready creative. You should leave the Educators Summit with actionable takeaways for your students, your faculty, and yourselves.
This two-day event will be hosted at The One Club For Creativity (450 W 31st Street, New York, NY 10001) on July 24 and 25.
2025 SPEAKERS
Speakers were selected from our creative community and include both professionals and educators in the advertising and design space. Additional details on speakers, schedule, and site visits are coming soon.
Interested in getting your school or company involved? Email us at education@oneclub.org.
Chandra Guinn
Executive Director, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging, McKinney
Details coming soon!
Decoding DEI & Disrupting Unconscious Bias in the Advertising Classroom
This interactive workshop equips faculty with a framework to evaluate and enhance course syllabi through a DEI lens while exploring strategies to incorporate DEI into assignments. Participants will engage in a structured approach to help students critically examine unconscious bias in creative work, moving beyond surface-level judgments of "good" or "bad" ads. By fostering deeper analytical skills, faculty will empower students to apply these insights throughout their careers in advertising, media, and design.
Process. Practice. Pitch. Closing the Soft Skills Gap in Creative Education.
Every designer has a story, a journey shaped by passion, refined through practice, and defined by their ability to pitch, connect, and belong. But while design programs often teach students how to make, they rarely teach them how to navigate. And in today’s creative industry, that’s no longer enough.
Or Szyflingier
Design Educator & Creative Recruiter
George Garrastegui
Department Chair / BFA, Communication Design at City Tech, CUNY
Diana Lodi
Graphic Designer, Educator, and Graphic Design Program Coordinator at Flagler College
Diana Lodi is a Graphic Designer, Educator, and Graphic Design Program Coordinator at Flagler College with over 20 years of experience. She teaches design methods, branding, packaging, and interactive design courses. Her interdisciplinary research explores UX, AI in education, and sustainable design, blending theory and practice to advance ethical, user-centered design solutions. Through her involvement with professional organizations like AIGA and the American Advertising Federation, Diana actively mentors students and supports their professional development. She also incorporates community-based design projects into her teaching, partnering students with non-profit organizations for impactful, real-world design experiences.
Rethinking Creative Pedagogy Through Immersive Student Events
This session explores how multi-day creative events—organized by students and supported by faculty—can serve as immersive teaching tools that build leadership, collaboration, and professional readiness. From branding and logistics to programming and public speaking, students take ownership of real-world deliverables while gaining hands-on experience that directly translates to industry skills. This session will share planning frameworks and adaptable strategies for educators, instilling confidence in their ability to implement these events into their curriculum.
Fearless Creative Leadership by Following.
We all know that leaders need followers. But how do you lead from an inappreciable or misunderstood position? It’s a challenging task. And it is exactly where creativity finds itself when your advertising department is housed in the journalism school of a university. This session will share and explore our experiences with the stories of our peers about how to make creativity a priority in an environment that doesn’t understand its importance.
Jennifer Johnson
Advertising Senior Lecturer at the University of Minnesota
Shayla Thiel-Stern
Associate Professor in Strategic Communication, University of Minnesota
William Colgrove
Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at Rochester Institute of Technology and Founder / Chief Experience Officer at Threespot
William is an Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at RIT and the founder and Chief Experience Officer of Threespot, a digital strategy and design firm. He graduated from RIT with a BFA in Graphic Design and an MFA in Electronic Media Design.
Early in his career, William’s mentor and moral guidepost, Mach Arom, passed away unexpectedly. This altered the way William chose to use his talent and the time he had left; he helped lead Threespot to serve clients who shared a more progressive worldview exclusively. While at Threespot, William led major redesigns for organizations such as the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, the National Park Service, and the Smithsonian Institution.
After over twenty-six years of running Threespot and guiding it to become one of the premier social impact agencies, William has returned to teach Graphic Design at his alma mater and help inspire the next generation of change agents.
William’s work has been recognized by prestigious competitions and publications, including Communication Arts, Graphis, HOW, One Show Interactive, Print, and the Webby Awards. His professional speaking engagements have run the gamut, from Creative Mornings to several sessions at SXSW Interactive, on topics such as life as a creative and managing challenging personalities, of which he is undoubtedly one.
From Practitioner to Teacher
This talk is meant for those who still have fresh wounds inflicted by clients from what it’s like “on the outside.” Being a teacher, especially a teacher in design, is not simply stepping into a classroom and spouting off knowledge. Students today can find any number of videos on the internet that can do that. This talk is about the journey and the meaning of becoming a teacher.
Age of CI: Creative Intelligence Amplified by AI
Led by educators from FIT’s Creative Technology & Design program, the presentation features award-winning student and faculty work that integrates AI into design, from concept generation to user experience and storytelling. It will highlight how curriculum aligned with industry prepares students to thrive in an AI-augmented creative landscape.
Christie Shin
Professor of Creative Technology and Design, FIT; Partner & Design Director, Cynda Media Lab; Co-Founder, DesignPortfolio.Center; Leader, Friends of Figma Education
Christie Shin is an educator and design director with 30+ years of experience in branding, UX/UI, digital product design, and typography. She teaches at SUNY FIT, where she also chairs the Curriculum Committee and co-coordinates Creative Technology & Design. Her accolades include the SUNY Chancellor’s Award (2023–24) and the 2017 Faculty Excellence Award.
A Pratt alumna, she holds a BFA in Graphic Design, an MS in Communication Design, and an MFA in Digital Product Design.
Shin is Partner and Design Director at Cynda Media Lab, with 60+ design awards to her name. In 2024, she launched the Design Portfolio Center and co-founded DSGN BY D., an eco-conscious brand. She frequently speaks at institutions like RISD and Cornell, bridging design education and industry.
C.J. Yeh
Professor of Animation and Game Design, FIT; Founder & Executive Creative Director, Cynda Media Lab
C.J. Yeh is a creative director, artist, educator, and author. Yeh is the founder of Cynda Media Lab, an award-winning interdisciplinary design studio. Cynda Media Lab’s list of clients includes Google, legendary composer Alan Menken, and GUND. As an expert in digital branding and visual identity system design, Yeh has been awarded the Communication Arts Typography Award, the HOW International Design Award, and the iF Design Award. Yeh has had solo exhibitions at the Queens Museum of Art, The Museum at FIT, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei. He has also lectured extensively around the world, speaking at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Cornell University, the United Nations, and TEDx.
Troy Richards
Dean, School of Art and Design, Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT)
Troy Richards is the dean for the School of Art and Design, overseeing the school’s 17 associate and baccalaureate programs as well as the gallery space in the Pomerantz Art and Design Center. He came to FIT in 2017 from the University of Delaware, where he worked from 2008 to 2017 as an associate professor in art and design and served in a number of leadership roles, including interim associate dean for the arts. He holds an MFA from Cranbrook Art Academy and a BFA from the University of Arts in Philadelphia.
As an artist, Richards works in a range of media and often collaboratively. He has exhibited widely nationally and has received numerous awards and grants, including the 2007 Ohio Arts Council Grant for Individual Excellence and a 2017 Delaware Division of Arts Individual Artist Fellowship, Established Professional category.
Richards has had solo exhibitions at Grand Arts (Kansas City, MO), Thomas Robertello Gallery (Chicago and Aqua Art Miami), and Whittier College (Whittier, CA). His work has been shown in exhibitions in New York City at P.S.1, White Columns, Socrates Sculpture Park, the Queens Museum of Art, the International Print Center, and the Center for Book Arts, among other venues. “The Criminal Us,” an ongoing project with Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, is included in the exhibition Prisons Today, which won the overall prize for excellence from the American Alliance of Museums in 2017. His work has been reviewed in The New York Times, New Art Examiner, Time Out New York, NY Arts magazine, Newcity (Chicago) magazine, and others.
TICKETS & PRICING
Tickets: $199 (Member Tickets: $149)
DATES & DETAILS
Thursday, July 24 & Friday, July 25, 2025
New York, NY
Tickets to the Educators Summit include two days of summit access, off-site excursions and visits, post-event access to recorded content, plus breakfast and lunch.
If you have any questions please contact Jenna Brandvold, Education Manager, at jenna@oneclub.org