FASHION INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY: DM: A PERFECT FIT

Q: What is the only college to offer a bachelor of science degree in direct marketing?

A: The Fashion Institute of Technology.

Come again?

That’s right. Direct marketing is the new style for FIT’s Business and Technology Division, which graduated its first class of about a dozen DM majors last May.

The program is headed by Terrance M. Fiore, a 30-year veteran of advertising and direct marketing, who had been an adjunct professor at George Washington University in the 1980s.

“I knew I liked teaching,” says Fiore, “so I was pursuing opportunities in this area on the premise that you take what you know and do something with it.” When he saw a posting for the FIT position, he applied and was selected just over a year ago. Now, he says, working with this new program is a little like launching a new business product: “I’m marketing not just to students but to the industry to prove that we’ve got good academic content and can produce good quality candidates.”

The DM program draws students from all the New York state university campuses, by way of a direct mail campaign to transfer/guidance counselors. It accepts only students who hold an associate’s degree, says Fiore, because direct marketing “is too focused an area for an 18-year-old.” It’s very common, he adds, to recruit students from FIT’s fashion merchandising department to the upper division program in direct marketing.

The Fashion Institute of Technology and Design was founded in 1944 by Mortimer C. Ritter and opened with 100 students. Today it boasts more than 11,000 from all 50 states and 65 foreign countries enrolled in 30 programs.

According to Loretta Lawrence Keene, vice president of external relations and overseer of the college’s marketing and communications effort, about 6,000 are full-time students. Full-time New York residents pay between $2,500 and $3,000 per year while out-of-staters pay between $6,200 and $7,300. Some 9,200 applications were received last year for 2,900 available slots.

In addition to admissions outreach – a program of print material and advertising – the college maintains a Web site (www.fitnyc.suny.edu) that receives an average of 6,000 hits per month. “It’s highly significant,” says Keene. “Information about the college is available to the world. We’re there when they’re there.”

Manhattan-based FIT (the name was shortened in 1970) uses the industries and companies of the city to give students real-world experiences. Mentors, speakers, adjunct professors and internships offer practical as well as classroom experiences to students.

During the junior and senior years of the DM program, students take an introductory course, as well as courses in database marketing, DR media planning, finance and operations, and DM communications. They also take a variety of liberal arts courses, notes Fiore, because the DM field is numbers and communication driven so students need to be well-grounded in math, English and economics.

A course called “Creative Process” prepares students to work either in or with an agency. “I wanted to take these two approaches to the creative process and morph them into one course,” says Fiore, noting that whether students take jobs as marketing managers or on the agency side, the more familiar they are with the creative process the better they’ll work within it.

Right now Fiore is the only full-time faculty person because enrollment has not yet reached the college’s maximum class size of 27. Adjunct professors from industry teach some courses.

Increasing enrollment is a short-term goal, says Fiore, both to grow the program and to be “a little more selective” in accepting students. Long-term, he says, “I’d like to see the curriculum become a major area and include courses such as e-marketing. Students need to study more than just the core.”

Another facet of Fiore’s long-term plan is intensifying industry relations. “We’ve got a good industry advisory board,” he says, “but we need more DM agencies and industries.” He also wants to establish a DM club and get students involved in the DMA’s ECHO award program.

“My goal is to open students up to the career opportunities in direct marketing,” says Fiore. “They don’t realize they can do anything…work for virtually any kind of company…tourism, financial, Disney.”