News
Donna Burnette

RIT is working with the U.S. Department of Defense to get high school students interested in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

The RIT-Rochester Prep High School Partnership gives high school seniors college-level research experience with faculty mentors.

In his role for NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, Clayton Turner oversees executive leadership, strategic planning, and overall management of all technology maturation and demonstration programs for critical space-focused technologies.

RIT’s summer day camp—Camp Tiger—offers four weeks of hands-on-learning in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics. New this year is a partnership with Rochester City Ballet that brings dance programs to RIT’s new creative center, the SHED.

AEOP replaces "apprenticeships" with "internships" in new title and messaging efforts with a rebranding that aims to provide more clarity to the community within the Army Educational Outreach Program.

Dr. Naomi Lee is passionate about involving youth in science, technology, engineering and math; and to highlight the STEM identity and need among communities she works with. Lee, a Rochester Institute of Technology grad, hosts a program at Northern Arizona University that helps expose STEM innovation and research experiences to high school students. It's sponsored in part by Army Educational Outreach Program Apprenticeships and Fellowships, which is administered through RIT’s K-12 University Center.

WHEC-TV talks to Donna Burnette, executive director of RIT K-12 University Center, about the center's move to downtown Rochester.

On Wednesday morning, RIT President David Munson, K-12 University Center Executive Director Donna Burnette, and Rochester Mayor Malik Evans cut the ribbon in front of the K-12 University Center’s new home at 40 Franklin St., in the heart of downtown Rochester. This move from RIT’s Henrietta campus to the city will allow the center to greatly expand the connections it has already forged with the Rochester community.

The K-12 University Center's move off campus and into downtown Rochester was made to expand room for more work within the facility as the department develops additional partnerships and programs. It was previously housed at a modular unit adjacent to Brown Hall that has since been demolished to make space for a new science research center.

Thanks to a grant awarded before the pandemic to RIT’s K-12 University Center by the Army Educational Outreach Program, it allowed funds to go toward free, hands-on STEM experiences for middle and high school students this summer through Camp Tiger. Inspired by AEOP’s eCybermission, and Junior Science and Humanities Symposium, the camp offerings focused on various opportunities through the U.S. Army-based program, in addition to learning skills needed to prepare students to conduct their own research.

South Dakota Mines, a university in Rapid City, South Dakota, is 1,506 miles from Rochester Institute of Technology. Where the two are connected, however, is with its partnership through Army Educational Outreach Program Apprenticeships and Fellowships.

Rochester Prep High School's graduating class includes 91 students who will either continue their education or join the workforce. Eighty-five students from RIT's partner charter school will attend college in the fall, and eight of them will enroll at RIT.