In a general salute to education, the nation’s oldest graphic arts fraternity presented its highest honor to a premedia company president and the president of a college at a ceremony in New York City last Friday (May 29). Accepting Gold Key Awards from Gamma Chapter, Gamma Epsilon Tau were Diane Romano, president and COO of HudsonYards, and Russell K. Hotzler, president of New York City College of Technology (NYCCT). The awards, conferred annually by Gamma Epsilon Tau since 1956, recognize exceptional contributions to education and professional development in graphic communications. Introduced as a person who “has broken more glass ceilings than anyone else in this industry,” Romano has been a leading figure in prepress and premedia for more than 40 years. Active in industry affairs throughout her career, she chaired the New York metro area’s largest printing trade association and currently co-chairs the advisory board of the Center for Graphic Communications Management and Technology at New York University. As president of NYCCT, a unit of the City University of New York, Hotzler oversees the institution where the Gamma Epsilon Tau honor society was formed in 1953. Since his appointment four years ago, student enrollment at “City Tech” has grown from 11,000 to 15,000 in a downtown Brooklyn campus that includes one of the country’s largest graphic studies programs: the Department of Advertising Design and Graphic Arts (ADGA), in which more than 1,100 students are pursuing two- and four-year degrees. Also saluted was TanaSeybert, a Manhattan commercial printing company that has been exceptionally generous in providing internships and other kinds of support to graphics students from throughout the metro area. At the Gold Key Award presentation ceremony, from left: Joel Mason, department chair, ADGA; Joseph Hoffman, plant manager, TanaSeybert; Lloyd Carr, program director, ADGA; Diane Romano and Russell Hotzler, Gold Key honorees; and Frank Adae, ADGA faculty advisor to Gamma Epsilon Tau. In her acceptance remarks, Romano noted that “talent, perseverance, commitment, and excellence are the keys to success, and success is being who you want to be and doing what you want to do.” “You never know it all, and you’ve never paid your dues,” she told a roomful of City Tech students and alumni at Club 101 on Park Avenue. That’s why it’s necessary for everyone seeking success “to make a lifelong commitment to learning,” learning, Romano said. Other noteworthy events promoting graphics education in the New York metro area include the presentation ceremony of the Graphic Communication Scholarship and Career Advancement Foundation on June 22; and the NYU Prism Award luncheon, honoring HP’s Vyomesh Joshi, on June 24.