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School of Performing Arts

WXXI talks to Jessica Lieberman, associate professor in the Department of Performing Arts, about a mural of Susan B. Anthony that she and her daughter created.

WHAM-TV talks to Thomas Warfield, director of dance; Andy Head, assistant professor in the Department of Performing Arts; and Jonathan Kruger, chair of the Department of Performing Arts, about changes to the dance, theater, and music programs.

The show must go on – even if it means virtually. While performing arts offerings at RIT may look and feel differently from how they normally operate, RIT is committed to making sure they are available in a healthy and safe manner.

I and You, a collaborative production between NTID's Department of Performing Arts and the College of Liberal Arts Theatre Arts Program, has won a 2020 Outstanding Production Ensemble award from the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival.

Scientists from RIT are developing affordable imaging systems to help libraries and museums preserve and expand access to their historical collections. The project, funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, aims to create a low-cost spectral imaging system and software that can be used to recover obscured and illegible text on historical documents.

It doesn’t take long for art to imitate life, as evidenced with virtual live productions of life amid COVID-19 scheduled this week on Twitch TV. The Canadian Wiggler, written, directed and produced by RIT's David Munnell, uses virtual reality and actors in a live webcast. It is set in May 2020, when the coronavirus lockdown is taking its toll.

LaVerne McQuiller Williams, senior associate dean of RIT’s College of Liberal Arts, has been named interim COLA dean effective June 1. McQuiller Williams succeeds Dean James Winebrake, who is leaving RIT on June 30 to become provost and vice chancellor of Academic Affairs at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. 

Intersections: The RIT Podcast, Ep. 36: The right academic major can be a pathway to a dream career. Professor Tina Lent, director of RIT’s museum studies program, talks with 2019 alumna Katherine Hensel about how her degree in museum studies led to her dream job as a U.S. national park ranger.

Dean James Winebrake will be leaving RIT’s College of Liberal Arts to become provost and vice chancellor of Academic Affairs at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Winebrake, who came to RIT in 2002 as chair of the Department of Public Policy and became dean in 2011, will leave RIT effective June 30.

RIT students and faculty have found a way to still connect for private music lessons, with video conferencing offering a unique, and some say helpful, way to teach.

Intersections: The RIT Podcast, Ep. 33: Community partnerships are one way RIT provides its students with experiential learning opportunities. James Winebrake, dean of the College of Liberal Arts, and Juilee Decker, associate professor of museum studies, talk about a unique partnership between the college and one of the Finger Lakes Region’s cultural gems, the Genesee Country Village & Museum.

RIT's endowed partnership with Genesee Country Village & Museum—which was established in September by a gift from RIT alumnus Philip Wehrheim ’66 (business) and his wife, Anne—is one of the ways students connect with the Rochester community.