New Standalone College Recognizes $25 Million Gift From Pamela and Rob Sands, J.D. ’84

State-of-the-Art Performing Arts Center to be Included In Transformation of University’s Flagship Home at One Pace Plaza

Pace University’s board of trustees voted yesterday to launch the Sands College of Performing Arts this fall. The college, which will commence with the 2023–2024 academic year, is named in recognition of a $25 million gift from Pamela and Rob Sands, J.D. ’84, and becomes the seventh school and college within Pace University.

Sands College will build on the global reputation of one of Pace University’s flagship programs, which includes undergraduate and graduate degrees in acting, directing, musical theater, commercial dance, production and design for stage and screen, and stage management. The college will draw upon the vast creative resources of New York City to cultivate the talent of a new generation of diverse performing artists.

“The creation of the College and the transformation of One Pace Plaza will cement Pace’s place in the downtown arts scene—and Pace’s reputation as a leading performing arts school,” said Rob Sands, J.D. ’84, chair of Pace’s Board of Trustees and board chair of Constellation Brands, a Fortune 500 beer, wine, and spirits company. “Pamela and I are proud to have our names associated with such a rich history of student success, and we’re excited about the University’s bold plans for supporting our students as they work to meet the challenges of our time.”

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This announcement comes as Pace is in the process of transforming One Pace Plaza, its flagship home in lower Manhattan, to include a state-of-the-art Performing Arts Center with three new venues—a 450-seat proscenium theater, a 200-seat flexible theater, and a 99-seat black box theater—supported by scene and costume shops, dressing rooms, rehearsal rooms, green rooms, and public spaces, and complemented by dance studios. The One Pace Plaza renovation will also provide new academic spaces, common spaces, and a modernized residence hall to serve the full University community.

The Sands donation is part of a larger campaign for the transformation of Pace’s lower Manhattan campus that includes private donors, significant investments from Pace, and $30 million in support from New York State and the federal government. The start of this phase of work on One Pace Plaza will coincide with the completion of a new building at 15 Beekman, which is slated to open in Fall 2023.

“The Sands College of Performing Arts will be a path-setting performing arts college for the 21st century,” said Pace President Marvin Krislov. “Our performing arts students, like all Pace students, are talented, ambitious leaders—who have amazing careers. Now, thanks to the generosity of Rob and Pamela Sands, their opportunities will expand, and these remarkable programs will get the attention they deserve. We’re excited for the future ahead, and we’re all so thankful to Rob and Pamela.”

Established in 2014 within Pace’s Dyson College of Arts and Sciences, the Pace School of Performing Arts (PPA) was the first new performing arts school in Manhattan in nearly 50 years. In less than a decade, it became a powerhouse, with alumni regularly working in film, television, and theater.

“Pace Performing Arts’ innovative programs draw upon the vast creative resources of New York City to cultivate the talent of a new generation of diverse artists,” said PPA Executive Director Jennifer Holmes, Ph.D. “We admit top performing arts students and pair them with seasoned faculty to become disciplined professionals who are dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in their craft. Our students will be the changemakers shaping the performing arts industry of the future. This gift enables us to grow our cutting edge and inclusive performing arts school, and to attract a broad array of exceptional performing arts students and professionals.”

About Pace University

Since 1906, Pace University has been transforming the lives of its diverse students—academically, professionally, and socioeconomically. With campuses in New York City and Westchester County, New York, Pace offers bachelor, master, and doctoral degree programs to 13,600 students in its College of Health Professions, Dyson College of Arts and Sciences, Elisabeth Haub School of Law, Lubin School of Business, School of Education, and Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems.

We’re down to the final stretch of the academic year at Pace University, and it’s turning out to be a really big finish.

Yesterday we announced the first new school or college at Pace since 2010: the Sands College of Performing Arts. It's the new home for all our world-class performing arts programs, which will launch with the new academic year. It will be an exciting chance to bring even more prominence and recognition to our already world-renowned programs, and to create a new model for performing arts education for the 21st century. We are excited to develop the future for Sands College, and we’re also deeply appreciative to our Board Chair, Rob Sands, JD ’84, and his wife, Pamela, for the generous gift that we’re recognizing by naming the college in their honor.

Just the week before, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced the winning bid for a major new climate change research center on Governors Island, and Pace will be a key part of that, too. The winning group, called the Climate Exchange, is led by Stony Brook University, and we’re one of a handful of core partners (and, not incidentally, the one located closest to the island). The project is focused on research into solutions to address climate change, as well as training for the jobs that will be created by the green revolution, which means it lines up perfectly with two great Pace strengths: environmental law and protection, and experiential education that prepares students for great careers.

Elsewhere in this issue of Pace Now, you’ll learn about just some of the recent accomplishments of our remarkable Pace students—like Tasfia Rahim, who built an innovative, mutual-aid solution for food insecurity on campus that will live on beyond her graduation next month; Alexa Slack, a fellow graduate whose steadfast commitment to community service will help her achieve her goal of being a leader in the public health space; and Jerry McKinstry, who manages to be both Pace’s assistant vice president for public affairs while also completing a master’s in communication and digital media this spring (and we promise didn’t pitch and place this story on himself).

Like Tasfia, Alexa, and Jerry, I’m really excited for Commencement in 11 days—not that anyone’s counting—and I hope I’ll see you all there. We’ve got a great lineup of speakers, headlined by Telfar Clemens ’08 and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, we’ve got our biggest graduating class in at least five years, and we’ve got plenty of pomp and circumstance planned.

Congratulations to the Class of 2023, and see you at the USTA Billie Jean King Tennis Center on May 15!

Marvin Krislov
President, Pace University

Alexa Slack ’23 has made a significant impact while at Pace. Earning a bachelor’s degree in health sciences and a minor in public health, she’s excelled admirably in the classroom—earning an impressive 3.96 GPA and establishing herself as one of Pace’s highest achieving students.

At the same time, she’s also dedicated her undergraduate years to helping others; serving as a mentor to younger students while proving to be an effective leader through several different leadership roles across multiple organizations. Her commitment to service has been duly recognized by the Pace—she was presented the 2023 Westchester Campus Community Service Award, an award that is presented to only one graduating senior, recognized for their outsized impact to the surrounding community through social responsibility.

Alexa has long been an advocate for student needs, empowering her fellow Pace Setters to thrive in their own undergraduate experiences. This skill of hers has been on display for several semesters now as a University 101 Peer Leader, through which Alexa co-taught and mentored 21 first-year honors students with assistance from a faculty advisor, equipping them with the know-how and support to succeed socially and academically.

“It wasn’t something I initially set out to do,” says Alexa of her role as a Peer Leader. She notes that she was swayed by the support and enthusiasm of Honors College Senior Staff Associate Carol Turco, whose mentorship has played a major role throughout Alexa’s college career—ultimately inspiring Alexa to become a mentor to others.

“I love getting to interact with the younger students and guide them as they adjust to life at Pace, and help them grow,” adds Alexa.

I love getting to interact with the younger students and guide them as they adjust to life at Pace, and help them grow.

Alexa will graduate as one of the College of Health Profession’s brightest stars, but her path to health sciences wasn’t exactly straightforward. In fact, she entered Pace not as CHP student, but as a prospective political science major. After taking some courses in health science, Alexa realized the policy and community change she was seeking in political science may in fact be more impactful through working for meaningful change in health care.

“I switched into health sciences and I took my first class, which was Health Care Ethics with Sheryl Scalzo. I fell in love with the subject of health sciences and public health.”

Slack credits professionalism of the CHP faculty and the high quality of the health sciences program for helping her find her professional calling. After graduation, Slack will be pursuing a master’s degree in epidemiology at The George Washington University—building upon her studies as an undergraduate to help implement holistic models of public health that look beyond individual-level diagnosis.

“One of my favorite things about epidemiology and public health is that it looks at the whole community—it gets down systemic roots of diseases and different healthcare inequities that I think is very, very important.”

Wherever the future takes Alexa, we know the communities she serves will have a fearless advocate, intent on fostering positive change through action.

Camden Robertson ’23 is busy.

It’s her final year at Pace as a double major in peace and justice studies and political science. She’s minoring in creative writing, a member of the Pforzheimer Honors College, and a 2022 United Nations Millennium Fellow. She helped bring affordable online healthcare to students on campus through a healthcare startup, has been a Peer Advocate Against Sexual Assault for three years, and she won a Girard Cannon Award for Poetry in 2021.

Oh, and did we mention she’s graduating early?

Her packed schedule has had no negative impact on her enthusiasm for the work she’s doing, however. In fact, she credits her time at Pace for her passion for equity. “I think my work in peace and justice studies have really informed my interests as a student and my eventual career path,” she says. “Peace and justice studies is a field uniquely situated at assessing social justice issues and inequalities in the present day and creating a more sustainable vision for the future. I think the research I have done has really put me in touch with the social justice issues I’m activated on outside of school.”

I think the research I have done has really put me in touch with the social justice issues I’m activated on outside of school.

Camden was recently featured in a Forbes article, where she discussed her passion for affordable, online healthcare for students and how her work at Caraway, an independent healthcare start-up, is helping bring that to fruition. “Caraway is a start-up healthcare company specifically for women and people who were assigned female at birth in college,” Camden explains.

The outside work she did with Caraway went hand-in-hand with her work as one of Pace’s Peer Advocates Against Sexual Assault (PAASA), and she utilized Pace’s Office of Sexual and Interpersonal Wellness to help spread the word. “We went to a Reproductive Justice 101 panel and spoke to the importance of accessible healthcare, specifically online. We came up with a toolkit for abortion resources for students in New York City,” she says. “Pace students are extremely activated by social justice, so our goal was to create events that spoke to that.”

Camden has experience creating this type of programming through her work as a member of PAASA. She and five other students provide confidential support to members of the Pace Community who have experienced interpersonal violence. Camden says, “Our other responsibility is to create workshops and events around healthy relationships, bystander intervention, consent, hookup culture, and more.”

Pace students are extremely activated by social justice, so our goal was to create events that spoke to that.

As a UN Millennium Fellow, she focused on UN Sustainable Development Goals three (good health and wellbeing) and five (gender equality) by creating a bystander intervention toolkit for individual use and through the Office of Sexual and Interpersonal Wellness. She also gained political experience working with a political consulting firm that recruits progressive women to run for office in her home state of Connecticut.

These experiences are not only informing her work with Caraway and PAASA, but also helping open paths for her future career. “I’ve been lucky in my undergrad experience to have a lot of work with nonprofit membership orgs and advocacy and that is where I want to continue to be, but maybe not in the capacity that I have been in the past,” she says. “Where I really want to focus my attention now is research and academia. My plan is to take a year after graduation to work and then go back to school and eventually get my PhD. That experience of doing the undergraduate research experience really in depth about something I was really passionate about solidified my interest in research. That’s where I want to end up.”

It’s the support I’ve had here at Pace that has given me the motivation to do the work that I’m doing.

Camden has managed to fit a lot into her three years of undergraduate education, and she believes that tight deadline is part of why she has felt so driven. “I’ve felt the drive to fit as much as I can in the three years. Sometimes I find myself wishing I had that additional year to just continue to be at Pace and work with my network here.”

But that’s really where she feels the credit is due, the network she has built right here at Pace. “My drive really comes from the network that is available to me at Pace and in New York City. Specifically, my faculty in my majors. These are a group of professors that are so motivated by student need and passion,” Camden says. “It’s the support I’ve had here at Pace that has given me the motivation to do the work that I’m doing.”

Wherever her passions take her after graduation, Camden’s advocacy for the wellness of her peers will certainly leave a lasting mark on the Pace Community that so inspired her.

For more information on PAASA and other sexual and interpersonal wellness resources, visit The Office of Sexual and Interpersonal Wellness. Learn more about Pace's Wellness initiative.

“All it took was a little idea.”

Tasfia Rahim ’23 is set to walk across the Commencement stage later this month with a BA in Political Science, a BA in Economics, and a Community Service Award. But she’s leaving one of her greatest accomplishments behind, right here at Pace.

Back in 2020, Tasfia Rahim ‘23, Alex Kennedy ‘22, and Marisa Medici ’22 had a small idea. They had long been acquainted with jokes of college students surviving off ramen or sleeping through meals, but the pandemic brought the issue of food insecurity into even sharper focus as they saw food pantry lines stretching across their neighborhoods. Newly selected as UN Millennium Fellows, they came together with an idea for a project: tackling food insecurity on campus.

For a year, they conceptualized an idea, collaborated across multiple University departments, and finally solidified their idea. They established Fare Trade, a mutual aid fund where students could re-allocate meal plan dollars to students in need. Beyond running and marketing the program, they also planned to help fortify existing food insecurity services and raise awareness.

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Fare Trade launched in the Spring semester of 2022. In the meantime, both Alex and Marisa have graduated, leaving Tasfia to continue the custodianship of the program on her own. Now, three semesters later, Fare Trade is stronger than ever and is firmly established as an institution created by students, for students.

The shape of Fare Trade has grown but by its very nature, it’s ever-evolving. “During our first semester, we distributed $500, but last semester we saw significantly less,” Tasfia explains. Interestingly, that dip in donations may come from Fare Trade’s mission of raising awareness about food insecurity. “There was so much conversation about food insecurity, and students rising up to voice their concerns,” Tasfia explains. “So, their mindset was less about giving but rather about having their voices heard.”

Little passion projects like that makes such a huge difference to students.

Fortunately, those conversations did elevate the issue and ignited action from across the University. New York City’s Student Government Association rose to the challenge and donated $5,000 to Fare Trade to be distributed. Which proved necessary, as Fare Trade’s dip in donations coincided with a rise in number of appeals. Fare Trade began with 10 applicants in the first year to now 96―likely, once more, the result of raised awareness, and expected to grow. With this help from SGA, Fare Trade distributed $5,538.50 to 50 students in need this spring.

Pace also launched a Food Insecurity task force, where Tasfia participates in the funding group. “There’s only so much students can do for each other, the University needs to take a step to address this issue. Which they are now with the Food Insecurity Taskforce,” Tasfia says. “There’s a lot of conversation, which I appreciate. Now we need to see action.” Since its founding, Pace has urged community members to support food assistance programs currently in place, created a permanent food pantry on the Pleasantville Campus, and is currently re-evaluating meal plan options for students.

The program is in safe hands, even after Tasfia graduates. Fare Trade is now officially recognized and falls under the umbrella of the Dean for Student’s department, ensuring its longevity. Even more encouraging is that the Fare Trade Coordinator will be a work-study position, empowering student workers to dedicate the time and effort Fare Trade demands. “It’s a lot of work because there’s so much communication, not only with the student body but also with the administration and other collaborators,” Tasfia explains. And even better? “With our expansion onto the Westchester Campus in the fall, they’ll be a paid coordinator position on both campuses.”

I never anticipated my freshman year that when I graduated I’d have this big project—a legacy—I’m leaving behind.

She’s not just excited about where Fare Trade will go but is thrilled to see other students rising up to make an impact. “So many good things come out Pace and especially the UN Millennium Fellowship, such as the period poverty project. I love that there are now so many period products in the bathrooms, I see such a big change… See? Little passion projects like that makes such a huge difference to students.”

Tasfia’s plan for after graduation is to continue on to law school, but in the short term she’s excited to see what new passion project grips her.

“I never anticipated my freshman year that when I graduated I’d have this big project—a legacy—I’m leaving behind. I would have never guessed,” says Tasfia. But according to her, that’s what is special about Pace. “You will find your community somewhere here. Someone shares the same values as you and you’re going to help each other work on something you care about. It’s amazing that Pace gives these platforms to students, and that’s something I’ll always appreciate.”

Learn more about the food insecurity initiatives and programs at Pace.

“I think the big philosophical takeaway for me was—as an employee and worker at Pace—being a student at Pace gave me the fullest understanding of what we’re all about.”

Later this month, Jerry McKinstry will walk the Commencement stage at Arthur Ashe Stadium to receive an MA in Communications and Digital Media. Jerry, however, is far from your traditional student. After an accomplished career spanning multiple decades in journalism, this will be Jerry’s second graduate degree.

But perhaps more notably, Jerry’s day job is not exactly a walk in the park—he’s the Assistant Vice President for Public Affairs here at Pace.

“I was in my mid-20s, and I was looking into graduate school,” recounts Jerry. “The two paths I was looking at were journalism and film. I’ve always loved film, but at the time journalism felt like the more practical approach. I chose journalism, it was a good decision that led to a fantastic career.”

After receiving an MS in Communication and Journalism from Iona College in 2001, Jerry went on to wear a number of different hats as a journalist—evolving from a local reporter, to a political correspondent, to an investigative reporter, and later to a television commentator on politics and government, working for outlets including The Journal News and Newsday. His breadth of experience then took him to political communications, campaign work, and public relations, which is what ultimately led Jerry to Pace in August of 2018.

Jerry—who stresses the importance of being a lifelong learner—picked up many unique, interrelated skills over the course of his career.

“I was a print journalist, a writer, but also in front of the camera,” notes McKinstry. But, as he recalls, he had always wanted to learn what was happening behind the camera.

His interest in film, if anything, had grown over the years with his appreciation of the technical expertise of camerawork and editing. And during the COVID-19 pandemic, while spending his increasingly long days ensuring University operations and messaging were running smoothly, the unique circumstances of 2020 enabled him to think more deeply about pursuing knowledge in film—knowledge that he had been thinking about pursuing for almost two decades.

“I thought, this master’s program is a great opportunity—learning the aspects of production, camerawork, lighting. All the technical stuff I never learned on the job in journalism.”

I thought, this master’s program is a great opportunity—learning the aspects of production, camerawork, lighting. All the technical stuff I never learned on the job in journalism.

A few short weeks later Jerry was officially enrolled in Dyson’s MA in Digital Communications and Media, with a concentration in digital media and film production. Soon, he was spending his evenings immersing himself in the world of film and documentary production. Soon after that, he was spending countless nights in the editing lab, losing track of time while taking in all of the information he could.

“It’s been one of my favorite experiences at Pace; one of my best experiences in an academic setting in my entire life. I just loved learning about film, production, documentary film-making.”

Through the program, Jerry was an integral crew-member of two documentaries. The first, From Tide to Table: The Remarkable Journey of Oysters, an in-depth look at the relationship between nature, oyster farmers, modern technology, and restaurants, has garnered considerable acclaim and awards at multiple film festivals, including Best Student Documentary at the Williamsburg International Film Festival and a winner at Nature Without Borders International Film Festival. The second, For the Love of Food: Pour L’amour de la Cuisine, enabled Jerry and the documentary crew to travel France for an in-depth look at the “slow food” movement and how it’s combatting the rising popularity of non-local sourced eating and fast food. The film will make its worldwide premiere at the Jacob Burns Film Center on May 8.

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For Jerry, the learning has been a complex symbiotic web—learning a ton from Program Director and Professor Maria Luskay and Professor Lou Guaneri, imparting wisdom from his own career in journalism to his fellow students, and learning himself from the students, who, as Jerry admits, have a little bit of advantage on him when it comes to natural tech savvy.

“The beauty is—yes, I could bring experience to the class, but these students are actually teaching me. I could teach them about interviewing, journalism, the story—but they were like come here, let me show you this camera. They took me under their wing to teach me.”

While Jerry’s professional life at Pace has grown steadily over the years with his quality of work, he believes this program has substantially strengthened his ties with the community, the University, and has given his role at Pace an even greater sense of purpose.

“It’s brought a depth of experience that really helps me understand and enjoy what we’re all about at Pace,” says Jerry.