These opening day remarks by the Fashion Institute of Technology's (FIT's) retiring president focus on the Institute's educational history, mission, and future. First, the paper discusses FIT's finances which are undergoing a period of retrenchment due to a $700,000 cut in state aid, and an anticipated $500,000 reduction in city funds. The next section provides an update on institution-wide efforts to increase diversity, highlighting the Minority Recruitment and Retention Committee's newly established Committee on Diversity (which has developed an action plan to address student recruitment and retention, faculty/staff relations and administrative policy), and the Bias Mediation Committee (designed to help resolve matters of bias based on sex, race, religion, age, or disability). The final section, which focuses on the future direction of FIT, emphasizes the following activities/goals: (1) rekindling a common vision of FIT's history and mission by facilitating communication between the College's growing adjunct faculty and its more experienced full-time faculty; (2) maintaining institutional commitment to a professional education by supporting the 2 + 2 format which requires students to earn an associate in applied science degree before enrolling in a baccalaureate program; and (3) changing FIT's organizational structure and curricula to meet the complexities of the changing fashion industry. The paper concludes by tracing the 40-year growth of FIT's facilities and mission, beginning as a trade school primarily concerned with technique, and expanding to an internationally recognized institute of technology concerned with meaning, moral implication, cultural context, design, and communication. (JMC)