RIT student juggles more than academic work

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Ross Lancaster practices juggling rings in anticipation of the annual Spring Juggle-In April 13-15.

In addition to juggling schoolwork and social life, Ross Lancaster, a third-year computer science major, also spends his free time with the RIT Juggling Club where he is the co-president. Juggling has been a part of Lancaster’s life since high school, and he enjoys his involvement at RIT. Lancaster assisted in the planning of the 35^th annual Spring Juggle-In April 13-15, hosted by the RIT Juggling Club.

Question: Where are you from?
Answer: I am from Cleveland, Ohio.

Q: What brought you to RIT?
A: I came to RIT because I loved the atmosphere, the student life, the co-op program and the quarter system. I also enjoyed the computer science department—they had just what I was looking for.

Q: How did you become involved with the juggling club?
A: I started a juggling club at my high school with my best friends and learned to juggle there. I came to RIT knowing about its juggling club and joined at the Fall Club Fair in 2009. I have been a part of the club ever since.

Q: What is your favorite object to juggle and why?
A: I really like to juggle rings because it has a wide range of tricks you can do that you cannot do with other props. I also think rings are generally easier to juggle than clubs.

Q: What is the 35th annual Spring Juggle-In?
A: It is a three-day event where jugglers around the world come to Rochester to share their skills and collaborate with other jugglers.

Q: Which event during the Spring Juggle-In should the RIT community not miss?
A: RIT should not miss the Saturday night public show at Rush-Henrietta High School, April 14 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets go on sale the morning of the show in Clark Gym—where the Juggle-In takes place all day. This year we have an NTID graduate, Pinky Aiello, performing. We also have a deaf juggler, Nicolas Cheucle, from France performing as well as many other extremely talented jugglers—Brent McCoy, Erin Stephens, Yuta Asano, University of Rochester Strong Jugglers and Rochester Parkour.

Q: What is unique about the Spring Juggle-In?
A: The Spring Juggle-In is unique because it takes all talents. People do not just have to juggle. Year after year we get people that attend our event with new interests outside of juggling. Contact juggling, poi, kendama, unicycles, devil sticks, diabolo are all examples of things that people bring to our event. What keeps people coming back every year is the idea of seeing something they have never seen before.

Q: Are you involved in any other activities on campus?
A: The other club I’m mainly involved in is the RIT Geocaching Club. This club was just founded this year and I hope we can get some dedicated members in the club next year. Geocaching is a worldwide treasure hunting game that participants use GPS devices to direct them to small hidden containers.

Q: What is one thing people don't know about you?
A: People might not know that I collect keychains. Keychains have always fascinated me and I have loved collecting them. To date I have over 2,500 keychains.

Q: Any advice you would give to other RIT students?
A: Get involved outside of your major. It is so easy to be wrapped up in your field of study but there are a ton of interesting people and clubs on campus that you would never experience if you sat in the computer science lab all day.

Brittany Remington compiles “Student Spotlights” for University News. Contact her at bjr8272@rit.edu with suggestions.