Alumni News

RIT celebrated its 137th academic convocation Friday morning in the Gordon Field House and Activities Center. Keynote speaker Kimberly Bryant, founder of the nonprofit organization Black Girls CODE, told the graduates to be proud of their achievement, be excited about what is next in their lives, and remember—with grace—what it took to get to this milestone.

Sudhakar G. “Bal” Dixit ’74 (MBA) and his wife, Anita ’91 (career and human resource development) have achieved so much side by side—both personally and professionally—that it’s only fitting the couple were recognized together at RIT’s 2022 commencement.

National and international collegiate Baja racecars will start arriving in the next few weeks at RIT for the Baja SAE Rochester event, June 2-5. RIT will host the international off-road event again, for the eighth time.

Three RIT/NTID alumni, Mia White, Ethan Ettienne, and Otto Kingstedt, and one current student-athlete, Krystyna Miller, will travel to Caxias do Sul, Brazil, to participate in the 24th Summer Deaflympics, May 1-15.

Kiki Johnson '22 (film and animation) had demonstrated a commitment to communicating real-world issues in her storytelling. The latest example is her capstone film, The Walk to School.

Say Cheese, a pioneering, heartfelt film directed and produced by two RIT students, took home the top prize in the Coca-Cola Refreshing Films program announced during the final night of CinemaCon in Las Vegas late Thursday. The project featured the combined creative efforts of students, faculty, and staff in RIT’s School of Film and Animation and NTID.

After a two-year pandemic hiatus, the spring break trip for honors students in the College of Liberal Arts has returned in 2022. Ten students, accompanied by administrators from the college and university, spent the better part of a week in Washington, DC during spring break, networking with alumni, seeing the sights and gaining tips on possible internships and careers related to their degrees in liberal arts. 

As the nation’s reshuffled economy rebounds from the pandemic, RIT students graduating from a university renowned for its academic rigor combined with successful internships and co-op experiences are leveraging multiple job offers into their top choices.

A trio of trailblazing students who came to RIT from the university’s partner charter school will fulfill a long-term promise when they receive their college degrees at commencement this May. Zaid Abdulsalam, Ismael Cortes Jr., and Justice Marbury were among the first students to enroll at Rochester Prep High School, and they were the three students from the first graduating class in 2018 who chose RIT as their destination.

After going virtual for 2021, thousands of people came to the RIT campus on Saturday for an in-person Imagine RIT: Creativity and Innovation Festival, which featured more than 250 exhibits throughout the campus from more than 1,800 students and faculty.

Aaron Gordon ’13, CEO of Optic Sky, an advertising and digital experience production company; Franklyn Athias ’85, CTO and senior vice president for Xfinity Mobile Retail Convergence; and Erin Sarofsky ’98, ’00 MFA, an award-winning creative visionary, discussed how the pandemic opened up the eyes of many industries to the future.

RIT’s annual day of giving is over but there is still time to participate.