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RIT’s Class of 2020 is getting a bonus opportunity after last week’s virtual conferral of degrees — a ceremony in the video game Minecraft that will allow them to virtually walk across the graduation stage, receive a diploma from “Minecraft Munson” and take a photo with the Tiger statue.

RIT honored its 2020 class of Distinguished Faculty—Manuela Campanelli, Satish Kandlikar and James Perkins. The Distinguished Professor designation is given to tenured faculty who have shown continued excellence over their careers in teaching, scholarly contributions, lasting contributions in creative and professional work and service to both the university and community.

Friday’s celebration of the Class of 2020 certainly cannot replace the atmosphere of a traditional commencement, which RIT plans to host on campus when it’s deemed safe. But many of graduates say they won’t let the pandemic, or the circumstances surrounding the virtual celebration, define them or their feelings about their time at RIT. (Pictured: Bradley Speck, who will finish his classes online this summer, has a job waiting for him at GE Aviation in Cincinnati, where he completed four co-ops.)

The Rochester Beacon talks to Thérèse Hannigan, director of RIT Online, and Mike Strobert, lecturer in the School of Design, about the transition to remote learning.

BuzzFeed talks to Michael Peres, professor and associate chair, School of Photographic Arts and Sciences, about capturing images of microscopic viruses and bacteria.

Nabil Nasr, RIT’s associate provost and founding director of the Golisano Institute for Sustainability, has been appointed a Trustee by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, formed in 2010 to inspire a generation to rethink, redesign and build a positive future through the vision of a circular economy. 

A multidisciplinary team of first-year students has been working to develop an imaging system that can reveal information hidden in historical documents for their Innovative Freshmen Experience project-based course. But with the shift to remote classes, the students left campus with the device nearly complete. Although disappointed, they shifted focus to the opportunities the new situation would create.

Jeanne Christman thinks classrooms should be noisy. The more conversations between students and faculty, the more success she believes students will have in understanding and applying engineering and computing concepts. That approach to helping students understand and use today’s engineering concepts was one of the reasons Christman was honored with the 2019-20 Eisenhart Award for Outstanding Teaching.

RIT’s utilization of nearly 71 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of green power annually represents more than 92 percent of its total power needs, placing it No. 21 on the EPA’s Top 30 College & University List of the largest green power users among higher-education institutions in the agency’s Green Power Partnership.

Jonathan Witmer ’91 (computer science) sits at the helm of WestPoint Home, one of the world’s most successful luxury linen and textile companies. But Witmer’s company has shifted its focus and its workforce is now using its textiles to produce reusable facemasks for the nation’s frontline workers.

Austin Gehret, an associate professor in NTID's Department of Science and Mathematics, was honored for his research project exploring the development of an e-learning model for deaf and hard-of-hearing students. Gehret’s research is especially vital during the COVID-19 pandemic as remote learning for all students has become the “new normal.”

As students at RIT have successfully transitioned to temporary online learning as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, they’ve also found ways of connecting with their peers to continue their interests with clubs, organizations and performing arts.