Photo Spotlights

Applefest, held on Aug. 29, is NTID’s first social event of the year. Students connected with old friends, met new ones, learned about student resources on campus, and enjoyed free food, drinks and fun. Members from dozens of student and campus organizations–including sororities, counseling services, the NTID Center on Employment, NTID Performing Arts and multicultural clubs—distributed information about what they offer students.

RIT students took advantage of a beautiful day on the Global Village side of campus. The area offers housing, dining, shopping and other services.

RIT welcomed its fifth class of Rochester City Scholars at a reception on Friday, Aug. 22, at Liberty Hill. The 16 students represent some of the best and brightest from high schools in the Rochester City School District. They join the 82 students continuing their studies at RIT and the newest scholars are enrolled in degree programs such as advertising and public relations, biochemistry, civil engineering technology and new media marketing. The first class of Rochester City Scholars entered RIT in 2010 and graduated from the university this past May.

Susan Spencer, a doctoral student in RIT’s microsystems engineering program, is exploring organic solar cells’ capacity as a renewable energy source. Spencer is in the process of completing her doctoral dissertation. Here she works in the “glove box,” a clean-room facility with attached, arm-length gloves that researchers use to touch materials without contaminating them. Read more about Spencer and her work in Athenaeum.

Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity and Alpha Sigma Alpha sorority held a fundraiser this week for Special Olympics. The annual Teeter-Totter event continues through Aug. 29.

Eight chaplains from the Center for Religious Life handed out 650 treats in 35 minutes during their annual Popsicle giveaway Aug. 26. To learn more about the Center for Religious Life, go to www.rit.edu/studentaffairs/religion.

The 6th Rochester Biennial at the Memorial Art Gallery features six artists and two are RIT professors, Richard Hirsch and Juan Carlos Caballero-Perez. Jeff Kell’s ceramic sculptures are included and all three are RIT alumni from the School for American Crafts. The exhibit is on view through Sept. 21. http://mag.rochester.edu/exhibitions/6th-rochester-biennial/

President Bill Destler welcomed back the RIT community Friday by outlining a draft of the Strategic Plan 2025. He said the plan’s proposed vision will elevate RIT with a theme of “Greatness Through Difference.” The final plan will be “ambitious, audacious and very achievable,” he said. Destler is urging more feedback and input on the plan before it is brought to the Board of Trustees for approval in November. For more on the plan, go to www.rit.edu/president/plan2025.

RIT held its ninth annual Lighting the Way ceremony on Aug. 21 to welcome new female students to campus. The event is sponsored by the Center for Women and Gender. All women at RIT are invited to attend – new and returning students, alumnae, faculty and staff.

Third-year physician assistant students from the College of Health Sciences and Technology were taught to focus on detail in the Art of Observation program at the Memorial Art Gallery on Aug. 21.

New students connected with their Orientation Assistants and toured campus, had lunch and participated in other fun activities.

Student Convocation officially welcomed new students and their families Aug. 20. The program included remarks from RIT President Bill Destler; Sandy Johnson (shown here), senior vice president for student affairs; and Ashley Carrington, president of RIT’s Student Government. Sean Hansen, assistant professor of management information systems in Saunders College of Business and recipient of the 2013-2014 Richard and Virginia Eisenhart Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, served as keynote speaker.