MMC Professor Alister Sanderson to Retire

After 25 years of teaching, leading and innovating at Marymount Manhattan College, Alister Sanderson, Ph.D., is retiring.

Professor Sanderson’s many accomplishments speak highly to both his drive and his creative spirit. He established and was the founding director of the Dept. of Communication Arts’ Theresa Lang Center for Producing, which provides the production facilities for MMC students to work creatively in video, sound design, graphic design, and new digital media. He has produced, written and directed for the History Channel (for which he received the American Advertising Federation’s Addy award) as well as for Biography, the Kennedy Space Center, the Smithsonian, and the National Constitution Center. His own films include the award-winning A Little Tour of Manhattan, Sun Tea and All the Time in the World. Chase Games, made with Prof. Elizabeth Higgins and featuring MMC dance students, was shown at the Utah Arts Festival and the Independent Film Festival in Florida. A number of his films, including Herbarium (2013), which explores the scientific mission of the New York Botanical Garden, can be seen on his website, http://alistersanderson.com/.

In recognition of what Professor Sanderson means to the MMC community, The Alister Sanderson Fund for Creative Media to support the Communication Arts’ Division’s Innovation Lab was founded to encourage students to think out of the box and use technology to solve the problems that face our global community. Students without fabrication experience will appropriate, hack, and build in order to test, to experiment, and to prove their ideas. The Innovation Lab will equip students with the ability to iterate ideas and prototypes quickly and cost-effectively.

A party was held in Professor Sanderson’s honor on the evening of May 20th.

Published: May 22, 2014