News by Topic: Deaf Community

Ammina Kothari, an associate professor and program director in RIT’s School of Communication in the College of Liberal Arts, is receiving an Eisenhart Award for Outstanding Teaching this year, RIT’s highest honor for tenured faculty.

This year’s recognition of RIT’s Alfred L. Davis Distinguished Public Service Award winners will be a double celebration, as faculty and student recipients from 2020 and 2021 are honored April 13. Luane Davis Haggerty will receive the 2021 Four Presidents Distinguished Public Service Award, and Bhuvish Mehta will receive the 2021 Bruce R. James ’64 Distinguished Public Service Award. Thomas Warfield was awarded the 2020 Four Presidents Distinguished Public Service Award, and Çlirim Sheremeti was awarded the 2020 Bruce R. James ’64 Distinguished Public Service Award.

The founding director of RIT’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf, D. Robert Frisina, died in Florida on Monday, March 29. He was 96. An international author and lecturer, Frisina was a visionary and a pioneer in the field of deaf education.

While it isn’t surprising that infants and children love to look at people’s movements and faces, recent research from NTID studies exactly where they look when they see someone using sign language. The research uses eye-tracking technology that offers a non-invasive and powerful tool to study cognition and language learning in pre-verbal infants.

The New York Times interviews and features artwork by Christine Sun Kim ’02 (applied arts and sciences).

JayShaud Potter has taken advantage of studying at two university campuses, earning multiple degrees. His next adventure is the world of entrepreneurship, where he is developing a smart pillow to help the deaf community. 

Essay by Joan Naturale, reference librarian, NTID, published by The Conversation.

NTID has received approval from the New York State Education Department for a bachelor’s degree program in community development and inclusive leadership. The new program will admit its first students in fall 2022

An endowment dedicated to a beloved Black History Month tradition at NTID has been fully funded. Thanks to the generosity of the William G. McGowan Charitable Fund, the Johnnie “JB” Brown Black History Month Celebration Endowment Fund will ensure the popular Black History Month Potluck Luncheon will continue.

WGRZ-TV interviews Joseph Hill, associate professor in NTID’s Department of American Sign Language and Interpreting Education, about Black American Sign Language.

Scientific American interviews Michael Skyer, senior lecturer at NTID, about the challenges with using sign language during video conferences.

RIT and NTID have announced a partnership with Garth Fagan Dance for a “cooperative-creative-connection” to begin Aug. 1.