EXPERT FACULTY

Rhonda Schaller

Director, Center for Career and Professional Development

Rhonda Schaller, director of Pratt’s Center for Career and Professional Development (CCPD), is on a mission to get Pratt students and alumni to bring a business-minded approach to their creative careers. Schaller has taken this to heart in creating a number of new initiatives at CCPD: providing workshops and one-on-one opportunities for mid-career professionals looking to make a change; creating a more robust internship and mentoring program that takes advantage of the great number of Pratt graduates living in the New York City area; and creating a network of support for entrepreneurs.

Schaller’s own background informs her role at Pratt. Before joining the Institute she had an established combined career as an internationally recognized artist, gallerist, fundraiser, author, and educator. She has been working with creative visualization meditations as a career-planning tool since 1985. At the School of Visual Arts, Schaller advised students and alumni in their Career Development office, as well as teaching courses including Creative Mind Business Mind and Visualize Your Future, Fund Raising for Artists.

“A renaissance is unfolding in art and design that holds great potential for Pratt alumni and students. The corporate age is being replaced by a new era, where everyone is a maker, an artist and a businessperson,” says Schaller. “The CCPD is part of this renaissance at Pratt, helping alumni develop this new ‘thinkset’ and feed the momentum that allows the creative mind to bridge to the business mind.”

For Schaller, any sort of professional development—and, in turn, career success—must be informed by a holistic approach to one’s life goals. Her recently released book, Create Your Art Career: Practical Tools, Visualizations, and Self-Assessment Exercises for Empowerment and Success was written with this in mind.

Text and Production: Bay Brown
Video and Production: Peter Tannenbaum