George Wybenga interview, 1995 March 28, 1995 March 28

Associate Professor of Fashion Packaging and Advertising Design George Wybenga started at FIT in 1979. Each year the department accepts 25 students and Wybenga says they have a placement rate of 100%. He discusses the department’s coursework, including bridge courses, and details different types of packaging design. He talks about how the German green laws inspired FIT to focus on environmentally-minded design; each year the New York Department of Sanitation puts on a competition and FIT wins all the major environmental awards in packaging. He discusses other competitions such as one put on by the Tube Council of North America, and then he discusses a scholarship from Avon as well as various industry grants the department receives. Wybenga mentions that the International Toy Fair asked students to design posters and discusses freelance work. He then talks about how valuable the adjunct faculty is and the difficulty in recruiting teachers when they do not want to leave the business. Many alumni do end up hiring students from FIT. Wybenga says the department receives materials from industry players such as the National Paperbox Association, and then he launches into a discussion of student demographics. He thinks the international students have been a huge boon to the program, especially as packaging grows as a global industry; in the United States it is already the second largest industry after Agriculture. Finally he talks about how most students are the first of their families to join the industry and the continued growth of the program.