Max Patino: A Life Dedicated to Newhouse

A Life dedicated to Newhouse from Newhouse School J-Camp on Vimeo.

By Katya Waters

He’ll never forget the brilliant colors, the beauty and the grace of that day.

For Patino, the day he got married in the main lobby of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications is one he’ll always remember. Looking out from his office, adjacent to the lobby, brings back memories of dazzling lights, beautiful flowers and his connection with the school.

Patino’s love for SU drove him to marry on campus. Patino asked then-Dean David Rubin if he could get married in the lobby and the dean approved, not even charging him for using the facility.

Patino was married on July 4, 2004.

He has been Newhouse’s director of admissions and diversity for nearly a decade now, sharing strong feelings for Newhouse with visitors. He gives wall-to-wall tours of Newhouse, citing history from memory along the way. He loves his job and loves to share his experiences, just like those he experienced on his first tour of SU, he says.

“I’ve got to meet great people here, and students who are doing great things,” he says.

Patino listens to prospective students and their parents, answers their questions and encourages them to come to Newhouse.

Patino graduated from Newhouse in 1997. While in college, Patino worked with the Latin music industry and got to meet many artists of the time.

“While I was a student here, I always had a passion for the school, but also for the school to move forward,” he said.

While working in the Latin music Industry, Patino met actor Robert DeNiro and musician Marc Anthony.

“It was a great experience and a fantastic chance that I got,” he said.

A few years after graduation, he was offered a job to address the issues of diversity at Newhouse. He felt so passionate about the school, he says, that he didn’t hesitate to accept the job. He enjoyed that his work involved helping those of different ethnic backgrounds, races and religion.

“Diversity to me is helping to create a freshman class that’s unique. Yes, people from different ethnicities, different social economic backgrounds, religions, sexes and orientations and mixing them all together where they can learn from each other. I think that encompasses true diversity,” he says. “I’ve been doing it ever since.”

He would like to see high school students turn into media leaders.

“And that’s where it’s at,” he says.

If he’s not giving tours or talking to families, he’s almost always at his desk. He stays busy, but loves the feeling of helping someone or doing something that will help someone.

Patino says his future will always involve teaching and learning about Newhouse.

“All in all, at the end of the day, it’s really about my students and teaching them so they can become media leaders,” he says, “and I think that is what’s important at heart.”