Jay Chiat Endowed Scholarship

The Jay Chiat Endowed Scholarship was created in 1984 by Jay Chiat to support undergraduate students with demonstrated need and exceptional creative abilities in the Creative Direction program (formerly Advertising) and Graphic Design program, where an interest in web-based design is a preference. This fund was also created with the goal of supporting the educational benefits of diversity across both programs.

Jay Chiat was a trailblazer whose creative genius revolutionized his industry. The American Advertising Federation inducted him into its Hall of Fame in March 1999, and that same month, Advertising Age magazine named him one of the top 10 players who have shaped the course of advertising history. Chiat was chair of Screaming Media, Inc., a New York-based internet content distributor to such major clients as America Online, Sun Microsystems, and Microsoft. Before his retirement in May 2001, Chiat took Screaming Media public, listing its stock on the NASDAQ in August 2000. His metamorphosis from a print-advertising mogul to cyberspace guru came in the late 1990s, after he sold his legendary advertising agency, Chiat/Day, to the Omnicrom Group and walked away a multimillionaire. From the agency’s founding in 1962 to the height of its glory, billings skyrocketed to $1.1 billion annually, earning Chiat/Day the coveted title of Agency of the Decade from Advertising Age. The press described Chiat as “hipper than Mick Jagger.” Chiat died in April 2002.