In 2024, the United States was anything but, with extreme polarity dividing the nation, the upcoming presidential election fueled by a dizzying array of untruths, the emerging post-pandemic economy straining households to breaking points, and the war in Gaza further fueling religious intolerance and racial hatred, hardly provided an environment for celebration.

I dreaded the thought of standing at a podium, sounding like Mary Poppins advising that a spoonful of sugar was all you needed to make the medicine go down, and I didn’t want to share tired platitudes about this being the beginning of the rest of their lives, and how everything was going to be so very wonderful.

So, how to be positive in such a negative time?

For the class of ’74 there were different fears that still resonate today.

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And then, one day I woke with the recognition that I had graduated from RIT 50 years earlier. By describing what I was experiencing five decades ago, I didn’t have to refer to the news of today, and each graduate could relate our shared future to my past:

Fifty years ago, 
when I sat as you do today, 
the global headlines were dire,
the world was struggling,
and, as the Class of 1974,
we had constant concerns and fears for the future.  

In my Freshman year, as long hair, bell-bottomed hippies
we launched the first Earth Day,
planting the seeds for a global awareness
and response to the impact of climate change.

The polarizing Vietnam War, 
which began in 1955,
was still tearing our nation apart.  

We were vocal and earnest supporters 
of the Equal Rights Amendment.

The earliest version of the ERA 
was introduced in Congress in 1923.  

The Equal Rights Amendment, proposed in 1923, sought to prevent discrimination based on gender. Congress passed the amendment in 1972 for ratification by 38 States. Virginia only ratified the Amendment in 2020 but gender rights are now under attack again.

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Today, 101 years later,
we await the recognition of men and women as equal
with the ratification of the 28th Amendment of the Constitution.

For about a dollar, you could get two gallons of gas.

The DOW averaged 759.13 for the year.  

In Senate hearings,
the extent of the Watergate Scandal was exposed,
and President Nixon, facing impeachment, resigned.
“The more things change,
the more they remain the same.” 
French journalist and novelist Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr
Is credited for writing that assessment in 1849.

It stands with another adage we hear often:
“It is what it is!” 

I have always viewed both refrains, not as permission
to cave, or quit and shake my head in disgust,
but rather as a call for action and a time for change.

Yes, “it is what it is”, BUT, then it is what YOU make it!

The reason I leave my bed each day is to meet the calls,
the challenges, and the constant concerns with action.
Actions, that now, we will take together.

I stand with you,
a Generation eager for equity,
deliberate in your drive for dignity,
and insistent that your abilities for innovation
will in fact deliver the ever-elusive
CHANGE of our collective dreams.

Your creativity represents a global ability
to confront discord, hate, and prejudice.  

Your collaborative spirit,
your unique capacity to challenge inequity,
and the technology you utilize,
will forge us forward as never before. 
I am honored to work with you until I take my last breath.

So, let me share some highlights from my playbook,
with the hope that they assist you to formulate yours:

Forget your childhood training and talk with strangers. 
Take the buds out of your ears,
and when we pass each other on my morning walk,
please smile and return my greeting.

Be kind. 
At least once each day,
surprise someone with a flower,
offer up your seat,
or share your umbrella.

Keep a candy dish on your desk. 
You will always be popular with people.

Celebrate your Birthday and
the Birthdays of your friends and family with deliberate excess. 
Recognize that the single date of your birth is a nice start,
but you need to claim the entire month that you entered this life
as cause for great annual joy. 

Tell everyone you encounter it is your Birthday
so that they have an opportunity to be a good citizen
and enhance the economy by providing you a pressie.

Don’t take no for an answer.
Persevere.
Be persistent,
by being persuasive.

Pay attention to the other people in your sphere,
and take a sincere interest in their lives and projects.
Support their work. 
Engage in their activities. 
When you focus on others,
your efforts will improve,
and together you will deliver outcomes you hadn’t imagined.

Volunteer. 
Be charitable. 
Support good causes
and they will support you.

Be nice.
Be particularly nice to people
who are unkind to you.
It will confuse them and
you will convert them.

Dress for success,
especially when you fly.
The time for flannel pajama bottoms and flip flops is officially over.

If we are seat mates,
I don’t want to see your bare feet.
Having designed a number of aircraft,
I assure you that beyond civility,
covering your flesh from the neck down
is a critical safety consideration,
in the event that we need to utilize an emergency slide.

Mind your manners.
Your level of civility will define you.

Send snail mail.  

Write in cursive.

As soon as you can,
after today’s festivities,
pen a letter to every person in your life who got you to this point.
Thank them for their guidance, love, and support.

And after you have written those precious “letters”,
write one more,
the most important of all.

Write a letter to yourself.
Remind yourself of your dreams for this day,
of your sacrifices, your failures, and your successes
that brought you to this starting point.

Tuck that missive in a safe place.
Keep it with you always, and,
whenever you feel lost,
or whenever you wonder
what it is your life is about,
sit in a quiet corner,
and read your words again.
Remember this moment.

From this day forward,
embrace your role as a Leader.

More than any generation before you,
you have been graced with potential
for creating a world of love and respect,
equity and quality of life for all.

Believe in that potential,
and lead with your brilliant heads and beautiful hearts.

A very popular poem on campus in the 1970s
was written in 1927 by Max Ehrmann.
Desiderata, Words For Life, has resonated with me
in every moment since my graduation.

I leave you with this verse:

You are a child of the universe,
No less than the trees and the stars;
You have a right to be here.

And, allow me to add,
You have a responsibility with that right.
You are responsible for the great gift
That is your time on this planet.

Be Bold.
Be Brave.
Be the CHANGE.

As I neared the end, I was struggling to hold back tears.

There had been no waving of flags, or screams of protest, as had interrupted numerous proceedings at other universities.

The auditorium was completely silent and then, came a standing ovation.

With the applause, my tears became obvious, and as I turned away from the podium, 

I saw the President wiping his face.

Message received. 

For one day a week from 1979 to 1982, Pattie Moore travelled around Canada and the US disguised as women in their 80s. Pattie wrote a book ‘Disguised : A true Story‘ about this experience and used it to inform her work. Pattie is recognised as one of the founders of ‘Universal Design’. Photo: Bruce Byers, NYC.

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In 1991, the Industrial Designers Society of America celebrated the first decade of the Industrial Design Excellence Awards with a compilation of the 1988, 1989, and 1990 awardees. Beyond recognizing an array of significant creative accomplishments and innovations, “Designing for Humanity” launched a new era for American Design.  

Beginning with submissions in 1990, a focus on “positive social impact” was required for selection, noting the explicit expectation that exemplary Design was responsible to global humanity.

I was honoured to write the Foreword for the book, highlighting goals for a holistic, global Design agenda:

Today’s answers must support tomorrow’s questions.

There has never been a more exciting or vital time for the presence of Design, and, the need for “humanism” in design has never been more crucial to our future.

By focusing our talents on the needs of each individual as equal, designers have given birth to a new order: “Humanity By Design”.

This philosophic challenge doesn’t simply ask “Why?”, but rather, “Why not?”.

We don’t speak of limitations. We focus on possibilities.

The emergence of “universality” in design supports the conviction that where there is a “deficit”, we will present a solution.

Where there is ignorance, we will strive for enlightenment.

Where there is a roadblock, we will create a pathway.

No longer can we speak of the “dis-abled”.

Our charter is to enhance a person’s abilities, with the recognition that we are all of us, “differently-abled” and that design and designers, are the “enablers”.

Gone is the time when we focus on the variable of numeric age as a limitation to a response.

Our “elders”, not the “elderly” require the impact of good design in their lives, as do people of all ages.

From birth to death, it is the lifespan that is the domain of the Designer.

With the dawn of the new millennium, the designer has emerged as the navigator, the translator for what we want and wish, our hopes and our desires.

There has never been a more critical time for our work and never a greater opportunity for our impact. 

Ours is an amazing charter.

Beyond the confines of the aesthetic, we have the capacity to fashion the very quality of life itself. 

Design is no longer a mere variable in determining the course of the future, it is the means of our very survival.

I’m being kept company by historian Lucy Worsley as I write, which is to say that I have her brilliant BBC program, “Investigates”, on in the background.  I like hearing voices, when I work, and having this particular piece in my ear has inspired a thought.  

She is examining the cause of the Black Death. The bubonic plague, the pestilence, the great mortality, struck Britain many times, but the worst outbreak came in 1348, reducing the mainland population of Britain from 6 million to an estimated 3 million.  Lasting and reoccurring for 300 years, the Black Death impacted culture, economy, and the psychology of the people for generations.

From the birth of the marvels of computer-driven communication to the current digital divide that now defines the internet, has a new Black Death emerged?

Partisan politics have always been a scurge for equality. Choosing a side, picking a fight, deliberately manipulating facts and creating fiction is the work of dictators, not leaders.

We have survived the presence in history before and we will succeed their goals again.

I truly believe that the lies that we have been told and the ramifications can be addressed and 

While it can be argued that American democracy is struggling through a phase of failure to keep church and state separate, it is not a time to surrender that core ideal. Just as the promise of the marvels afforded us by the creation of the digital realm, devolved into demoralizing and divisive dregs, it is Designers who have both the power and responsibility to correct course and provide accuracy, truth, and a pathway of equity for all humanity. Lofty goal? Certainly, but as we review our portfolios brimming with products and places that have defined the quality of life for people worldwide, had their ever been a time when Design wasn’t at the core, center stage to the creation of comfort, delight, productivity; safety for every day of our lives?

In a recent article for INNOVATION, Tucker Viemeister, (Yes, he was named for the Tucker automobile. His Father Read was on the Design Team.), recalled the Ten Principles for Good Design proposed by Dieter Rams in 2017:

Good design is innovative.
Good design makes a product useful.Good design is aesthetic.
Good design makes a product understandable.
Good design is unobtrusive.
Good design is honest.
Good design is long-lasting.
Good design is thorough down to the last detail.
Good design is environmentally friendly.
Good design is as little design as possible.

And then Tucker provided an update for our consideration:

Good design is beautiful.
Good design is environmentally positive.
Form follows happiness.
Good design is empowering.
Good design is thorough.
Good design is powerful.
Good design has no victims.
Good design is not doing too.
Good design: Less is more.

Raymond Loewy, Time Magazine, 31 October 1949.

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In the 1950’s, Raymond Loewy, Father of American Industrial Design, introduced his MAYA Principle, directing that solutions be “the Most Advanced Yet Acceptable”. After graduating from RIT, I joined Loewy’s New York City office as the only female Industrial Designer. Having Mr Loewy as a mentor, at the beginning of my career, is something that continues to amaze me.  

He once shared that we often had to prepare one hundred proposals in order to be retained by the a client. At the time, that struck me as a very depressing proposition, but when combined with another piece of his sage observation, his insistence that as soon as we completed a project, it was time to start anew, we have the very definition of what we Designers must always do.

I delivered the opening keynote address at last year’s World Design Policy Conference, one week to the day, after the re-election of Trump. I had outlined the speech around the event’s theme of “Beyond Borders”, but I really couldn’t finalize my remarks until I knew who would sit in the Oval Office come 2025.

When the election result was clear, I returned to the task of writing the speech.  Just as I had determined not to reference the current headlines for the RIT Commencement Address, I decided to embrace a message inspired by my past for the future of Design’s policies.

I thought of my Irish ancestors sailing into New York harbor and the moment they saw the Statute of Liberty in the distance. Cast onto a bronze plaque and mounted inside the pedestal is Emma Lazarus’s sonnet “The New Colossus”, written in 1883:

“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

The border between Canada and the USA. A divide that is becoming ever more divided.

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My “Beyond Borders” message:

While conceived in Canada, I was born in Buffalo, New York. She is called the Queen City and is known for bitterly cold and snowy winters. Robust Buffalo Bills football fans cheer in an open-air stadium and hold a record that legendary quarterback Jim Kelly proudly proclaims, will never be broken. He led the Bills to the Super Bowl four years in a row [1991 through 1994] and lost every one of them! Buffalonians are quite proud of that accomplishment.

Or perhaps, you recognize my birthplace for the creation of the legendary Buffalo Chicken Wings, (For the record, do cease referring to this artery clogging treat as “Buffalo Wings”. Buffalo do not have wings. They are chicken wings.).

Most people know Buffalo for her proximity to the honorary 8^th Wonder of the World, Niagara Falls. There are actually three distinct Falls, with the Horseshoe Falls, the largest straddling the international border of Canada and the United States.

Travel between these two great nations is achieved by crossing the Peace Bridge. Construction for this remarkable span began one hundred years ago, in 1925, and in 1927, it opened to the public.

I have a distinct memory of my crossing in 1957. I had entered Canada many times before, but my recollection is that at the age of five, children were expected to answer the question of citizenship on their own.

My parents rehearsed my response with me for weeks. I remember thinking it was odd that they should be so anxious, but being a dutiful wee one, I practiced the answer, “Buffalo NY” with obedient fervor.

When the appointed day arrived, my Father carefully aligned our car with the Custom Agent, and I paid strict attention as my parents answered questions related to our purpose for entering Canada, and their place of birth.

Then, it was my turn.

The humorless, uniformed man, scowled at me and demanded, “Where were you born?”

I proudly announced, “AMERICA”!

The brutish Agent glared at me and shouted, “There is no such place” and in disgust, told my Father to move along.

I don’t recall anything else that happened that day, but I do know I was delighted to be in Canada, where my family have a lovely, little cottage on Rice Lake. It is there that I spent the happiest days of my life, with my GrandFather, in a red rowboat, fishing for hours with a drop line, and knowing the meaning of Heaven on Earth.

I also remember the saddest of times, the first day that I saw adults cry. It was Friday the 22^nd day of November 1963, my parents’ wedding anniversary, a day they never celebrated again. It was the day that President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas Texas.  

Jacqueline Kennedy was widowed at the age of 34 and on the day of the funeral, his innocent namesake celebrated his 3^rd birthday, at a party in the White House.

In his inaugural speech, one thousand days earlier, President Kennedy encouraged Americans to not ask what their country could do for them, but rather, “What can you do for your country.”

A signature accomplishment in his all too short term was the founding of the Peace Corps

To promote “world peace and friendship” through three goals: to help train men and women in sustaining skills, to promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of people being served; to promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

I had planned to join this remarkable effort when I finished my university studies, but an offer I couldn’t refuse was presented to me. I became the only female Industrial Designer in Raymond Loewy’s New York City office.

Among my most joyous recollections of Loewy’s storied career is the vision of him sitting on the floor of the Oval Office with JFK, surrounded by colored paper and paste, cutting shapes and together designing the iconic Presidential aircraft, Air Force One.

As the Father of American Design, Loewy had been selected to represent the United States for a Soviet Détente Design Agreement.  I proudly served on that legendary project.  Imagine the promise of Americans bringing a higher quality of life to the people of the USSR, by Design.

We created new products and re-imagined existing hydrofoils and the Moskvitz, the last vehicle Mr Loewy designed.

I admit enthusiastically that I am a hopeless Pollyanna and that I will always believe in the power of people coming together, with head and heart, to make the world a better place. A place of purpose and equity for all.  By Design, all challenges can be met. For every roadblock, for every barrier, for every wall, Design can build a bridge.

In 1971, John Lennon released his seminal song IMAGINE.  The powerful lyric serves as a plea for peace:

Imagine there’s no countries.
It isn’t hard to do.
Nothin’ to kill or die for
And no religion, too.
Imagine all the people livin’ life in peace.
Imagine no possessions.
I wonder if you can.
No need for greed or hunger.
A brotherhood of man.
Imagine all the people sharin’ all the world.

You may say that I’m a dreamer. But, I’m not the only one.
I hope some day you’ll join us
And the world will live as one.

[Late on the evening of December 8^th 1980, John Lennon was assassinated by a Beatles fan who had received Lennon’s autograph on his copy of Double Fantasy earlier that day.]

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In November of 2024, I was deeply humbled to accept the Sir Misha Black Medal, for distinguished services to Design education. I shared an overview of the past five decades of my life, as a Designer, and highlighted the continued expectations I see for us, going forward.

Among the challenges I hold most dear are the calls to change a medical model of ageing by creating a consumer driven-array of supports for our homes and communities. Taking great care to avoid exclusivity, with universal and inclusive solutions for the plethora of daily tasks of everyday living, we can, by Design deliver equity and the highest quality of life, for all.  

By encouraging the sensibility that is empathy in all things, we can finally see each individual’s capacity, by enhancing their abilities and providing the safe haven that is the security of a home they can call our own.

Usability, more than ever before is the goal for dignity by Design and every living being on our precious planet has a right for the expectation that we will proudly and boldly accept the responsibility that is our role as Designers to make it so.

Bless us.

Pattie Moore receiving the Sir Misha Black Medal, for distinguished service to Design education in 2024, with her dear friend and mentor, Lady Helen Hamlyn.

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Pattie Moore