Photo Spotlights

RIT China celebrated its first commencement ceremony on June 23, honoring 103 graduates. Courses are jointly offered by Saunders College of Business and the Beijing Jiaotong University (BJTU) School of Economics and Management, allowing students to earn a dual degree from RIT and BJTU. 

Yosef Zlochower, associate professor in the School of Mathematical Sciences, demonstrates code during one of the tutorial sessions at the 2019 North American Einstein Toolkit Workshop June 17. The Einstein Toolkit is a community-driven software platform of core computational tools to advance and support research in relativistic astrophysics and gravitational physics. The toolkit has a community of several hundred scientists working together to develop these tools, a set of codes to solve Einstein’s equations for binary black hole collisions, neutron star collisions and other astrophysical systems.

The Friends of Mount Hope are offering ASL walking tours July 7 and Sept. 29 at 2:00 p.m. The tours, lasting 90 minutes, include several sites that are important to Rochester's deaf history and culture. Mount Hope Cemetery is America's oldest Victorian cemetery and the resting place for Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass. 

First-time participants in the James Papero Enrichment Program paint with watercolors during the two-week line-up of classes. 45 adult clients from East House, an organization supporting mental health or substance abuse disorders, take classes and use RIT facilities to get a taste of college life. The finale is a graduation ceremony and speaker in Ingle Auditorium on June 13 at 2 p.m.

The 21st Annual RITirees picnic was held June 5 in the Gordon Field House. The entire committee was acknowledged as the Award Recipient for 2019. Executive Assistant to the President Barry Culhane was gifted a shadowbox full of RIT memorabilia and a softball signed by each member of the committee.

Several international teams arrived last week in preparation for the upcoming Baja SAE Rochester World Challenge. One of Brazil's teams worked in the RIT Baja team machine shop on their racecar. They will be among the 100 collegiate race teams competing this weekend June 6-9 with race events taking place at RIT's Gordon Field House and at Hogback Hill Motor Cross site in Palmyra. 

Officials from RIT, the City of Rochester Sister Cities Committee and Waterford Institute of Technology in Ireland met on May 30 to discuss global engagement opportunities and to sign an international memorandum of understanding. Waterford and Rochester are sister cities.  From left, Waterford-Rochester Sister Cities Committee Chair Thomas O'Connell; Vice President for Strategic Institutional Transformation at Waterford Institute of Technology Richard Hayes; RIT President David Munson; International Programs Liaison for City of Rochester Michael Leach; RIT Associate Provost for International Education and Global Programs Jim Myers.

Genesee Valley QuiltFest is on view through June 2 in the Gordon Field House. The biennial show displays quilts from the Rochester area and beyond. There are workshops, lectures, vendors and demos during the three-day event.

Wallace Library is making room for the construction of temporary faculty offices on the fourth floor. The project has required a library-wide effort to develop new systems to track the storage and circulation of relocated materials. Select bound periodicals have been moved from the second floor to Offsite Collections in Building 99, shown here. Books will be relocated from the fourth floor starting this summer. Fourth-floor study rooms will remain available for use.

Gracie's, RIT's largest dining area, is undergoing a renovation of the kitchen and serving areas this summer. An open layout is being created and a new stone pizza oven and a pasta action station will be added to the upgraded food bars.

RIT Dining participated in its first all-vegan baking class this week, presented by Forward Food from the Humane Society. RIT chefs are looking for menu alternatives due to increased interest and demand from students, faculty and staff. Gracie’s will have a dedicated station with plant-based and gluten-free items in the fall.

The Black Awareness Coordinating Committee organized RIT's first student-driven Black Graduation ceremony on May 9. Malik Johnson, a fourth-year photographic and imaging arts student from Bronx, N.Y. and president, said it's important to recognize black graduating students because they continue to be underrepresented in higher education. "We believe that it is very important to shed light on the accomplishment of graduating from a prestigious institution such as RIT," he said. "This event should undoubtedly serve to unify not only the black community, but the the entire RIT community as well."