CUAA 2024 Founder's Day Awards

The 2024 Founder’s Day Award ceremony was held on February 8, 2024 in The Cooper Union Frederick P. Rose Auditorium. The annual event honors alumni excelling in the fields of art, architecture, engineering, and public service. This year's honorees included Barry Rosenbaum ChE’63; Catherine Seavitt Nordenson AR’94; Ann Agee A’81; Shigeru Ban AR’84; Dean Maltz AR’84; Laura Spinner A’90; and Standish Lee AR’11. President Laura Sparks offered welcoming remarks and alumni trustee Carol Wolf A'84 served as emcee. Over 150 Cooper community members including alumni and family as well as current faculty, staff, and students gathered to celebrate the awardees.

Photos by Marget Long

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.