Red Burns, founder of Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU, passed away in her Manhattan home last Friday, at the age of 88. True to her legacy in touching thousands of lives, the obituary on ITP's website includes a section for sharing stories about the celebrated educator.

I never had the pleasure of meeting the aptly-nicknamed "Godmother of Silicon Alley"—my secondhand experience of ITP comes mostly from meeting many students, faculty and alumni over the years—but the incredible response to news of her passing (through social media tools that ITPers may well have helped to develop, no less) paints a portrait of a brilliant pioneer in the fields of media, technology, education and where they intersect. John Maeda shared the video below and Burns' moving presentation [PDF] to incoming ITP students over the weekend; the NYTimes published a nice obit yesterday, as did Rhizome.

1977 photo from Shiffman via John Maeda

From the presentation [PDF]:

You are here, and I welcome you.

Look around you. You come from parts of the world that many of you have never visited.

As you come together, depend on each other, you will find yourself wearing the ill-fitting clothes of someone else's world and dine on what is the strange food of someone elses thought.

If you can resist the temptation to run back to the shelter of your own comfort zone—if you permit yourself the intellectual curiosity to explore your differences just as you would explore a new city, you might be pleasantly surprised.

Collaboration will jar you—provoke and confront you with different ways of looking at the world—allow this to happen, embrace it...

Each day is magic for me.

I hope it will be for you.