Art students take Manhattan

Seasoned alum stays connected to Naz with gift of inspiring, big-city tour

By Jonathan Everitt

You're an art major. Just arrived in Manhattan. Maybe for the first time ever. You spend the weekend exploring renowned museums. Stop for lunch with classmates at a sidewalk café. Spend the evening bonding over art. Head home eager to take on the world.

Six Nazareth art students get to experience that each year, thanks to Ed Lent '79 and his husband, Scott Seitz. In 2021, the Connecticut couple established the Edward Alan Lent '79 & Scott Richard Seitz Emerging Artist Fund so undergraduate art majors could see New York City's art world up close.

Lent and Seitz, together for 30 years, had been thinking about the legacy they wanted to leave. How could they give back to the school that led to Lent's extraordinary career path? Something special. Something now.

"As far as estate planning, why are we waiting to die?" Seitz reasoned at the time.

The idea began when Lent was visiting the Nazareth campus and had an inspirational reconnection with his former professor, Ron Netsky, who teaches in the university's Art and Design Department. The two discussed the value of sending students to New York City to immerse them in its vast museums and galleries.

"Let's show students that they need to be in a museum in New York and have their minds blown," Lent proposed.

Lent and Seitz fund the entire trip: travel, meals, and a stipend. The funds are typically awarded to seniors: two each from studio art, art history, and visual communication design. To be awarded the grant, students must write a 500-word essay and have a high GPA. Lent and Seitz also have established the Artistic Advancement Scholarship, which provides generous annual funding for 15 students to purchase art supplies.

An inspiring itinerary

Students on the Manhattan trip depart on an early Friday morning, accompanied by Nazareth visual communication design professors Shelly Kuzniarek and Steve Wehner, and arrive in New York City that afternoon — time enough for a taste of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Saturday, students meet up with Lent and Seitz at another museum. The most recent trip found them at the Museum of Modern Art. After a lunch break, the group continues to visit other museums and galleries, such as the Whitney Museum of Art in Soho. The impact is profound.

"I see a change in students' confidence and how they talk about their careers. They're braver," Kuzniarek says.

Dan Shaw '23, who graduated last December with a studio art degree in painting, went on the October 2023 excursion. (In a full-circle twist, Ron Netsky was his advisor.)

Shaw had been to Manhattan before, but not like this.

"I was able to let go of my fear and intimidation with this experience," Shaw says. "It let me prove to myself that I could immerse myself in New York City's art culture."

Memorable conversation

Saturday night, the group typically reassembles with Lent and Seitz for lively conversations over dinner — and a chance to hear Lent and Seitz captivate the table with the inspiring story of their lives.

"Listening to Ed talk about his unconventional path encouraged me to have more faith in myself," Shaw says, who's now thinking about approaching galleries to exhibit his work someday.

Lent graduated from Nazareth with an art education degree — a departure from his original pursuit of biology. While still in college, he worked as a window display designer for local stores, which opened doors. Eventually pursuing that and being relocated to NYC, he went on to direct visual merchandising for Noritake — creating and overseeing showrooms worldwide — then for Lifetime Brands, and lastly, Simon Pearce in Vermont. Currently retired, he enjoys expressing his creativity as a poet and painter. Seitz founded SPI Marketing, specializing in product marketing for Fortune 500 companies to LGBTQ consumers.