Photo Spotlights

Exploration of the galaxy and the universal language of movement will be brought to the stage Jan. 24 as the RIT/NTID Dance Company brings its latest show to the Light in Winter Festival in Ithaca. Eleven dancers, a mix of deaf, hard-of-hearing and hearing students who attend Rochester Institute of Technology or the National Technical Institute for the Deaf based at RIT, make up the unique company, directed and choreographed by Thomas Warfield, assistant professor and director of the RIT/NTID Dance Company. Their performance was created in collaboration with Manuela Campanelli, director of the Center for Computational Relativity & Gravitation at RIT.

Edward Burtynsky, a prominent Canadian landscape photographer, met with RIT students in the Visionaries in Motion class on Jan. 21. Burtynsky gave a presentation that evening, sponsored by the Caroline Werner Gannett Project. His industrial landscape photographs convey the degradation of our environment and communicate the urgent need for sustainability.

A gathering of RIT faculty, staff and students viewed the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama on a large screen in Clark Gym on Jan. 20.

Twenty-one RIT decision makers participated in a three-day, two-night immersion experience in the RIT residence halls. Here, Associate Vice President for Student Affairs Heath Boice-Pardee shared dinner and conversation with students during day two of “The REAL RIT Dorm Challenge.”

RIT administrators are gaining a new perspective on the student residential experience. Twenty-one RIT decision makers are participating in Student Government’s “REAL RIT Dorm Challenge,” a three-day, two-night immersion experience in the RIT residence halls. Here, Vice President for Student Affairs Mary-Beth Cooper is escorted to her assigned room.

Amanda Phillips, a second-year mechanical engineering student, came to RIT by way of the San Antonio rodeo as a bull rider. She is a member of the Oneida Indian nation and a part of the RIT Future Scholars Program, one of the campus programs for American Indian students.

Students in Gary Skuse’s Advanced Applied Genomics class are annotating fruit fly DNA this quarter as part of the Genomics Education Partnership run by Washington University. The students’ painstaking work will help make sense of the species’ genetic blueprint. The study of fruit flies as model organisms has helped scientists understand human biology since the early 1900s.

John Ahearn, sculptor, painter and printmaker, spoke about his work and met with RIT painting students on Jan. 13. Ahearn’s work is included in major museums and collections around the world.

RIT hockey fans watched the men’s hockey vs. the University of Connecticut game on Jan. 9. The result was RIT’s sixth straight win, 5-3 over Connecticut.

Michael Polimeni, second-year mechanical engineering student and RIT Pep Band conductor, performed at the hockey game on Jan. 9. Playing at various times during the hockey game, the band of 60 students energized the crowd and added to school spirit.

Live music by Something Else will be featured at Lovin’ Cup at Park Point, 9 p.m.-2 a.m. Jan. 10, as part of RIT College Activities Board’s Senior Night Out.

Children are among the fans of an interactive landscape installation of flowers, trees and insects created by RIT professor Roberley Bell. Flower Blobs Bloom is one of the inaugural exhibits at the Burchfield Penney Art Center at Buffalo State College. Bell invites her audiences to rest on a flower petal made of astro turf or even create their own garden. Her exhibit is open to the public through March 15. Lorrie Frear, professor of graphic design, designed and painted a wall mural of flowers that accompanies Flower Blobs Bloom.