Photo Spotlights

Attendees of PR Now!, a full-day symposium on Dec. 8, heard from public relations industry experts on topics such as branding, crisis management, social networking, corporate citizenship and social responsibility. Presenters included Bill McKee, of Xerox Corp., who discussed “The Problem with Being a Household Name.” The event was sponsored by RIT’s Department of Communication and School of Hospitality and Service Management and was hosted by the RIT chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America.

Rachel DiNunzio, a second-year illustration major and Buffalo Bills fan, designed a logo for a grassroots marketing campaign to keep the NFL team in Buffalo long-term. DiNunzio’s brother and uncle are the marketing masterminds behind the initiative and recruited the Williamsville native to come up with a logo. Their goal is to raise awareness about the team’s future through the creation of a Web site, billsinbuffalo4ever.com, an online petition and selling T-shirts and bumper stickers.

RIT’s Gallery r participated in the annual Park Avenue Winter Festival on Dec. 4. Several RIT students from the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences put on a display of their ice sculpting skills in front of the Park Avenue gallery. Here, ice chips fly as Erin Zellefrow, a second-year MFA student, attacks a block of ice.

Fred Smith, RIT’s institute secretary, will retire Dec. 31 after 37 years of service. Here, Smith shares memories with guests during his official send-off in the Student Alumni Union Davis Room, Dec. 2. Note an earlier photo, in the background, of Smith in one of his previous offices.

Joseph Fornieri, RIT associate professor of political science, has received a 2009 Teaching Fulbright Award from the William J. Fulbright Program. Fornieri will spend this winter at Charles University in Prague teaching courses in constitutional rights and liberties and American political thought. He will also serve as a Fulbright cultural ambassador, conducting research that compares Czech democratic ideas and institutions with those of the United States. Fornieri is a noted scholar on the political philosophy of Abraham Lincoln. He is a member of the Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and his fifth book, Lincoln’s America: 1809-1865, has just been published by Southern Illinois University Press.

Alan Singer, College of Imaging Arts and Sciences, has a new exhibit of prints and paintings in the Arts & Cultural Council Gallery, 277 N. Goodman St., through Dec. 24. Wheel on Fire is one example of his mix media prints.

Through the assistance of U.S. Congressman Randy Kuhl, RIT’s Golisano Institute for Sustainability was awarded $5 million from the Office of Naval Research to develop new transportation technologies that will increase energy efficiency and reduce the costs of military vehicles.

Bill Hampel, chief economist at Credit Union National Association in Washington, D.C., was one of several guest speakers at Filene Research Institute’s Consumer Financial Services Colloquium, sponsored by RIT’s E. Philip Saunders College of Business, Nov. 21. The daylong event was hosted by Credit Card Nation author Robert Manning, Saunders’ research professor and director of the Center for Consumer Financial Services.

Kevin Kemp, director of external research programs for Freescale Semiconductor, opened the third annual Freescale Symposium Nov. 19. The event, hosted by RIT’s Department of Computer Engineering, was attended by participants from across the United States and Canada for workshops on micro-controller architecture, wireless sensor development and embedded systems design.

Javier Rodriguez-Borlado, a graduate student in RIT’s School of Print Media, presented “An Examination of Newspaper Business and Workflow Models for U.S. Newspapers” on Nov. 18. This was part of the seventh annual Printing Industry Center Symposium and Planning Meeting. Industry partners, RIT faculty and staff and other participants discussed the research conducted at the center over the past year to plan for the coming year.

RIT administrators offered some “basic training” for nearly 40 of the university’s newer principal investigators at the annual Grant Writers’ Boot Camp on Nov. 17-18. The event provided insights on the fundamentals of securing research funding. Jeremy Haefner, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs (shown here); Lynn Wild, assistant provost for faculty success; and Donald Boyd, vice president for research, led off the event by discussing the vision and direction of RIT’s research initiatives.

Researchers from RIT’s Golisano Institute for Sustainability test equipment they have developed as part of a partnership with the U.S. military and Lockheed Martin Corp. The project has already transfered vehicle health monitoring technology developed at the institute for use in more than 12,000 military vehicles.