Newsmakers

July 17, 2024

Juilee Decker, professor of history and museum studies program director, and Hinda Mandell professor in the School of Communication, co-curated an exhibit, Co-Crafting Democracy: Fiber Arts and Activism, on view through Sept. 2 at the National Women’s Hall of Fame and Museum in Seneca Falls, N.Y. The curatorial team also included Tamar Carroll, department chair of history, and Samaya Nasr, lecturer, Department of History. The installation was supported by RIT colleagues, including Liz Call and Landyn Hatch from RIT Archives, Marnie Soom from RIT Press, and museum studies students Lucia Bazdresch, Claire Gallucci, Renee Guerin, and Bella Herendeen, and alumni Scott Nost ’22 and Jan Adil ’22.

July 8, 2024

Ben Willmott, director of operations and administration for the School of Performing Arts, presented "Developing a Performing Arts Ecosystem at a STEM-based Institution" during the Arts Administrators in Higher Education annual meeting on June 10 in Boston. He also presented "Upholding a Commitment to Service Excellence through the Development of a Performing Arts Ecosystem" at the Association for Service Excellence in Higher Education annual conference on June 26 in Winter Park, Fla. Willmott's talks focused on RIT's continued development of the Performing Arts Scholarship program, the opening of the Student Hall for Exploration and Development, and the school's efforts to integrate arts and STEM at the curricular and extracurricular levels.

June 12, 2024

RIT marked the 20th anniversary of its experiential learning programs in Genoa, Italy, with a celebration highlighting the success of the university’s study abroad and work abroad initiatives that have enriched students’ academic and professional experiences.

May 28, 2024

Afnaan Qureshi, a fourth-year philosophy and political science double major, contributed to a humanitarian mission to aid victims of a massive earthquake in Turkey in March.

May 20, 2024

Richard Newman, professor of history, was a featured panelist at a preview screening of the PBS documentary Poisoned Ground on April 16 in New York City. Newman served as an historical commentator on the documentary, which re-examined the Love Canal chemical disaster in Niagara Falls in 1978. The documentary, which debuted on PBS stations nationally on April 22, is now streaming at the American Experience website.

May 17, 2024

James Rankine, visiting lecturer in the Department of History, contributed the chapter “Henry Glasby: Atypical Pirate or a Typical Pirate?” to the new edited volume The Problem of Piracy in the Early Modern World.

May 15, 2024

Jonathan Schroeder, the William A. Kern Professor of Communications, published the third book in a trilogy on the cultural history of vinyl records. Designed for Success: Better Living and Self-Improvement with Midcentury Instructional Records, published with co-author Janet Borgerson, shows how instructional records tap into a distinctly U.S. belief in self-transformation, touted through transcendentalist notions of aspirational striving and human development. The book marks the first comprehensive analysis of instructional records with 125 full-color images of album covers and photography from the 1950s and 1960s.

May 6, 2024

Kaitlin Stack Whitney, assistant professor in the Department of Science, Technology and Society, was awarded the 2024-2025 Ronald D. Dodge Memorial Faculty Grant for the project “Assessing ableism in campus biology textbooks and teaching materials.” Dodge grants support research and development efforts aimed at improving the effectiveness of faculty engaged in educating deaf and hard-of-hearing students at RIT.

April 29, 2024

Myren Bobryk-Ozaki, a fourth-year communication major, was named to the 2024 ALL IN Student Voting Honor Roll. Bobryk-Ozaki is one of only 137 students nationwide to receive this distinction, recognized as a Voter Engagement Leadership Scholar with RIT’s Center for Leadership and Civic Engagement. This ALL IN distinction highlights college student leaders for committing to nonpartisan democratic engagement and contributions to their local communities.

April 29, 2024

Jeffrey Wagner, professor of economics, presented “The Economics of Sustainable Space Waste Management” at The Business of Space 2024 Conference: Economics, Commerce, and Sustainability of New Space, at The University of Alabama in Huntsville on April 23. Wagner’s talk was based on the chapter he contributed to the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of the ‘New’ Space Economy.