News

For the second consecutive year, RIT officials anticipate that the university will welcome a record number of first-year undergraduate students. More than 3,350 first-year students have submitted deposits for fall enrollment as of June 1, up from more than 3,130 this time last year.

A venue for Deaf playwrights; an interpretation of a Tony Award-winning musical; performance by talented student dancers; and New Yorkers struggling with relationships and identity during the AIDS crisis are all part of a new collaborative season by NTID’s Performing Arts Department and the College of Liberal Arts.

Almost everyone looks up to RIT’s Head Women’s Basketball Coach Amy Reed, not just because she is 6’ 3’’, but because of her work promoting greater awareness about gender diversity and inclusion. As a result, Reed has been named recipient of the 2021 Edwina Award, which is given to a faculty or staff member for significant contributions to enhance gender diversity and inclusiveness at RIT.

Essay by Kristen Shinohara and Garreth Tigwell, assistant professors of computing and information sciences, published by The Conversation and republished in The News & Advance, Communications of the ACM, and NextGov.

Intersections: The RIT Podcast, Ep. 49: New restrictive voting laws in states across the country present obstacles to the polls via voter ID laws, voter role purges, and poll closures. The collective impact on American citizens’ right to vote follows the centennial celebration of the 19th Amendment and women’s suffrage. Nickesia Gordon, School of Communication, and Trinity McFadden '21 (criminal justice), talk with historian Carol Anderson, Emory University.

Efforts are in motion to commission a permanent bronze statue of Frederick Douglass sculpted by Olivia Kim, an adjunct professor in RIT’s College of Art and Design, for the Frederick Douglass Greater Rochester International Airport.

Commencement ceremonies for more than 4,100 RIT students begin today and continue through Sunday, enabling graduating students to don their regalia, walk across a stage, and be acknowledged by administrators for their milestone achievements despite a global pandemic.

RIT students Emily Wilson and Teresa Symons are co-recipients of the Outstanding Graduate Woman Achievement Award for their dedication and leadership on RIT’s Graduate Student Advisory Council. Wilson and Symons are Ph.D. students in the astrophysical sciences and technology program in the School of Physics and Astronomy and co-chairs of the Graduate Student Advisory Council.

More than 50 students are expected to earn their Ph.D. degrees by the end of June. The hooding ceremony, which will also include Ph.D. recipients in the class of 2020, is May 15.

Unique Fair-Smith and Tymoni Correa-Buntley are the first two recipients of the Mark and Maureen Davitt Graduate Education Endowed Scholarship and are both set to graduate with their master’s degrees this weekend.

While she’ll look back on the pandemic as a most challenging time, graduating new media design student Stephanie Liu also takes pride in knowing how well she rose to the occasion. At the culmination of her internship with Amazon Web Services, the Chicago native was offered a full-time position as a user experience (UX) designer, starting in July.

If you couldn’t tune in to this year’s Imagine RIT: Creativity and Innovation Festival which was held virtually on Saturday, not to worry. The more than 250 exhibits of projects, research, and performing arts of more than 800 students, faculty, and staff will remain online for the foreseeable future and are free to access.