News by Topic: Community Outreach

RIT will confer honorary degrees to four outstanding individuals at its 2022 commencement ceremony on May 6: Kimberly Bryant, founder of the nonprofit organization Black Girls CODE; Josephine King Olsen, former director of the Peace Corps; G. Peter Jemison, a member of the Heron clan of the Seneca Nation of Indians; and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, president of Ukraine.

WHEC-TV features the Batman of San Jose, an RIT student who provides food and supplies to the homeless and who wishes to remain anonymous.

WHAM-TV features photographic and imaging arts student Sydney Lewandowski.

Preparing meals at a Rochester homeless shelter, a dance in the dark with glow sticks, and shopping in Niagara Falls are just some of the 17 events planned for this year’s SpringFest, which begins Thursday and continues through Sunday.

A quiet champion for Rochester’s youth facing homelessness, poverty, despair, and abandonment earned RIT’s annual award for faculty or staff who stand out for their community service. Matthew Reynell, assistant director of the Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships, will receive the 2022 Four Presidents Distinguished Public Service Award at the Alfred L. Davis Public Service Awards Ceremony on April 5.

For RIT biomedical sciences major Maduka Gunasinghe, compassion for others is a gift he shares freely and community service is the expression of his character. RIT has recognized his commitment to other people’s well-being with a Bruce R. James Distinguished Public Service Award. He will receive the award at a ceremony on April 5.

WHEC-TV features RIT's Relay for Life fundraiser for the American Cancer Society.

WXXI’s “Connections” program features the Batman of San Jose, an RIT student who provides food and supplies to the homeless and who wishes to remain anonymous. 

Jahaad Shairi, a School of Film and Animation sophomore, has been selected as a 2022 CIEE Frederick Douglass Global Fellow—an honor awarding him a full scholarship to represent RIT at a four-week leadership program for students of color that is set in Ireland and focused on peace, social justice, and conflict resolution.

An event showcasing more than 30 independent comic artists from across the Northeast and surveying Rochester’s independent video game scene will highlight the third annual Rochester Independent Comics Expo (RICE) this weekend.

A national manufacturing institute led by Nabil Nasr, associate provost and founding director of RIT’s Golisano Institute for Sustainability, is marking five years of accelerating the transition to a circular economy in the United States.

Cobblestone architecture, ancient shipwrecks, and space junk are just some of the nearly 50 classes offered this spring by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at RIT. In-person classes are resuming, however many are available via Zoom.