News
Keith Jenkins

RIT’s commitment to diversity has been recognized with INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine's Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award and Diversity Champion designation.

Alvarado-Fischer serves as the vice president, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion officer at Excellus BlueCross BlueShield and volunteers for numerous community organizations. As a result of her own intersecting identities, she has a strong passion for social justice with a special interest in women, Latinx, and LGBTQ+ issues.

Hosted by the Black Awareness Coordinating Committee (BACC), the event featured Minett Professor Sherry Tshibangu addressing the graduates during the ceremony, sharing that the graduates’ journeys were taken with exceptional courage, and that their legacy is one to be continued.

RIT will host its first Latinx graduation ceremony on Sunday, May 5, at 1 p.m. in the SHED. The event is a chance to honor and celebrate graduating Latinx students and is organized by RIT’s Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE).

Author and historian Ibram X. Kendi will be the keynote speaker at RIT’s Expressions of King’s Legacy, an annual program dedicated to celebrating the life and impact of Martin Luther King Jr. The 2024 event will be held from noon to 2 p.m. on Jan. 30 at RIT’s Gordon Field House.

RIT’s seventh annual Let Freedom Ring event will feature alumna Krystle Ellis ’09, ’15 MS as its keynote speaker on Jan. 15. The event honors the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by hosting speakers who challenge the RIT community to think deeper, to broaden horizons, and to express individuality.

RIT continues to be a leader in diversity in higher education, as recognized by INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine. The publication announced RIT as a 2023 Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award winner and a 2023 Diversity Champion. This is the 10th consecutive HEED Award and ninth consecutive Diversity Champion designation for RIT.

In his welcome to the community for the start of a new academic year, RIT President David Munson asserted the university is well positioned to thrive while laying out “challenges, opportunities, and vision” for RIT’s future.

The 14th cohort of the Destler/Johnson Rochester City Scholars were welcomed at a ceremony on Aug. 28 held at Liberty Hill. The scholars program provides scholarships and academic support to graduates from the Rochester City School District and approved charter schools.

A commemoration to rename an RIT residence hall after a granddaughter of abolitionist Frederick Douglass will be held Thursday evening in conjunction with RIT’s annual Lighting the Way ceremony to welcome women and non-binary students to campus.

RIT is renaming Nathaniel Rochester Hall after Fredericka Douglass Sprague Perry, granddaughter of Frederick Douglass and a former student of the Rochester Athenaeum and Mechanics Institute, which later became RIT.

RIT’s scholarship program that provides City of Rochester graduates full-tuition scholarships and academic support is expanding its eligibility. The Destler/Johnson Rochester City Scholars program will now be open to students participating in the Urban-Suburban Interdistrict Transfer Program.