Myrna Rosen Retires after 40 Years at the School of Design
On November 10, 2025, family, friends, and both current and former students of the incomparable Myrna Rosen gathered to celebrate her incredible career as she retires after 40 years at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Design. Myrna's contributions to the craft of calligraphy cannot be overstated and we can't thank her enough for her decades of experience, lessons, and her presence within the school.
At Myrna's celebration, Professor Kristin Hughes and Administrative Coordinator (and student of Myrna!) Stephanie Lange read a tribute to Myrna that was crafted from the thoughts, memories and sentiments of not only Myrna's friends and family, but from the hundreds of students and alumni Myrna has taught through the years.
So as we sit here today, missing our dear Myrna, the School of Design is proud to share our message to Myrna with you.
To our dearest Myrna,
For longer than most of us have been here, you’ve been the steady hand and the beating heart of our School of Design. Through the fine art of calligraphy, you taught us a timeless way of seeing, how to find a place of stillness from which to create, and how craft is, at its best, a practice of care. You modeled what it means to keep learning, refining, and showing up with generosity. It’s hard to imagine this place without you.
There’s a Yiddish word we keep coming back to—mensch. A mensch is patient, forgiving, loving, compassionate, joyful, wise beyond expectation, kind, and gentle. You have been all of these things, and more. Your presence has blessed our students for decades; we, your colleagues, have been lifted by your grace, warmed by your smile, and steadied by your example.
Those who enrolled in your class to deepen a love of typography quickly discovered how much there was to learn about the letter’s living, handmade form. Your patient yet strict instruction nudged us forward; we took your class again and again because each semester revealed new subtleties. Many of us still have those early pieces hanging in our homes—reminders not of perfection, but of progress earned through practice. Many of us walk past your classroom to witness you captivating a new generation with your deep knowledge and love for letters.
Your Wednesday night studio became a refuge—three quiet, focused hours where the world slowed down and hands learned what eyes could not yet name. It was cozy, like home. We recall the “escape the winter blues” project, which helped us notice details we might have otherwise overlooked. We remember how you taught us to think three steps ahead, where to push and when to release; how you insisted on patience and practice; how simply watching your pen move across the page was mesmerizing, a master at work.
The lessons followed us out of the classroom. We still pull out our pens to make cards for people, and without fail, we think of you. Some of us discovered, years after graduating, that the foundation you laid had quietly become a vocation—we pursued type design, returned to calligraphy, and built careers around letters. In studios, churches, and community spaces, your students paint large signs and delicate scripts, and when they tell other calligraphers they learned with Myrna Rosen, people nod knowingly. Your name carries a legacy.
Your kindness lives in our small, vivid memories. The way Jack dropped you off and picked you up—an image of enduring love that brightened our weeks. The time you urged a student headed to Rhode Island to visit the John Stevens Shop, slipping them a Letter Arts Review profile of the Bensons; that detour became the most memorable part of the trip. The matzah ball soup and popcorn at your kitchen table as you told the story of becoming a calligrapher. A winter breakfast shared, a visit to see a student’s large-scale lettering, a spontaneous flourish of a name on a blackboard at the Three Rivers Arts Festival. The extra nibs, lining gauges, paper, and examples you pressed into our hands—because you knew that tools, like courage, are easier to carry when given with love.
You honored your teacher, Arnold Bank, with deep respect; then you passed that lineage forward with equal devotion. You showed us what it looks like to pursue mastery while being a devoted partner and mother. You taught technique, yes—but also attention, presence, humility, and joy. You reminded us that craft is a way of being human together.
Today, many apartments, studios, and offices from Pittsburgh to New York are decorated with words written by your students’ hands. Every pen stroke, every sketch carries a bit of your teaching. We feel it in our day-to-day penmanship, in our Chinese New Year cards, in the slow, careful letters meant for those we love. Your class was always among the most sought after by design students and non-design students alike because it offered something rare: a chance to slow down, to focus, to be fully present with the beauty of letterforms and with one another.
We send you off with boundless gratitude and love. Thank you for the decades of Wednesdays. Thank you for the rigor and the warmth, the sass and the softness, the high standards and the open arms. Thank you for seeing each of us as capable of more than we thought, and for giving us the habits to achieve it.
May this next chapter be spacious and sweet. May your days be filled with the same curiosity and delight you gave to us. And may you and Jack drop by often, so we can say hello, share a story, and watch your pen dance across the page one more time.
With love,
The Family, Friends, Students and Alumni of Myrna Rosen
The School of Design wants to extend our heartfelt congratulations to Myrna for her years of expertise here. We wish her nothing but the best as she goes off and enjoys her retirement!