NEW YORK—Famed fashion designer and author Joseph Abboud will join the Fordham University business faculty during the fall 2005 semester to teach a class titled the Marketing of Creativity.
“This is not about teaching fashion,” said Abboud, the only designer to receive the Menswear Designer of the Year distinction two years in a row. “This is about teaching entrepreneurship. What I try to teach students is how to make a living out of something they love doing.”
In addition to providing key learning points from the highs and lows of his 30 years in fashion, Abboud will teach students about licensing, how to drive revenues, and how to weave creativity with business. He will also call upon students to share their own professional and entrepreneurial experiences in an interactive classroom environment.
“The opportunity to have an industry leader teaching our students speaks to the power of our New York City location in the heart of the world’s commerce capital,” said Sharon P. Smith, Ph.D., the dean of the Fordham Schools of Business. “The benefits of having someone with Mr. Abboud’s entrepreneurial success, business acumen and innovative thinking far outweigh the value of any textbook.”
Abboud, who in 2004 published his memoir Threads: My Life Behind the Seams in the High Stakes World of Fashion (HarperCollins), has also taught marketing at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and at Sacred Heart University. He holds a B.A. in English and French from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and an honorary doctorate of fine arts from the University of Massachusetts.
“The addition of Abboud’s course to our academic offerings gives us further depth and breadth within the marketing area and the interactive nature of the class will allow us to give our students a very personalized experience,” said Lauren Mounty, associate dean at the Graduate School of Business Administration.
Fordham’s Schools of Business, which date back to 1920, provide students with a dynamic combination of liberal arts and business education on the undergraduate level, while preparing students for leadership roles in the changing global environment on the graduate level. Fordham is also the degree-granting institution for the Beijing International MBA program, established in 1998, as the first foreign MBA program in Beijing to be approved by the Chinese government. More than 1,000 Chinese executives have graduated from the program.
