News by Topic: Student Experience

For Metaproject 11, senior industrial design students will spend the semester designing products for Staach, which focuses on functional sustainable design. Founded by Seth Eshelman '06 (industrial design/graphic design), the company designs and domestically manufactures sustainable products including furniture, interiors, and built structures.

RIT physician assistant students from the Class of 2020 met in front of the Clinical Health Sciences Center one evening last month for a special tradition and rite of passage—the White Coat ceremony.

Keith Jenkins, vice president and associate provost for diversity and inclusion, provided an update to the community on Tuesday about the university’s efforts on antiracism and social justice. Jenkins said that he and university leaders spent the summer engaging with students, faculty, staff, and alumni groups to generate a list of roughly 100 ideas of ways RIT can do more on these fronts.

RIT welcomes a record number of first-year students today as classes begin in a semester that will look like no other due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The new students were welcomed Tuesday afternoon during an online convocation that featured several speakers, livestreamed without an audience from Ingle Auditorium.

Outdoor movies, fireworks, outdoor fitness pods, community engagement, and volunteer opportunities are just a few of the experiences awaiting RIT students on campus this semester.

Michael Guglielmo never envisioned that he would spend a summer co-op helping his university prepare to fight off a pandemic. But the fifth-year student from Henrietta, N.Y., pursuing his BS in industrial engineering and ME in industrial and systems engineering helped put measures in place that will make everyone who sets foot on campus this fall safer.

With move-in complete for most students and campus activities well underway, students, faculty, and staff are now anticipating the start of fall semester classes, which begin this Wednesday, Aug. 19.

A team of RIT researchers has been working to blast-clean some 360 door handles from buildings across campus to restore the surface copper. Copper has been found to have antibacterial properties that can kill the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19.

More than 80 first-year RIT students from underrepresented populations began their college careers early and from home this summer. The students participated in the Division of Diversity and Inclusion (DDI) Summer Experience, a five-week program held virtually for the first time this year to help students successfully transition to college.

New and returning students will move into the residence halls over the next week, in a carefully staged process aimed at ensuring a safe reopening of the campus amid the COVID-19 pandemic. New students will move in today through Aug. 15; returning students will move in Aug. 16-18.

Changes are in place at 21 locations on the RIT campus that will serve thousands of breakfasts, lunches, snacks, and dinners to students, faculty, and staff members returning to campus. Online ordering, cashless checkouts, reduced occupancies, outdoor and spaced-out seating, and increased cleaning protocols are all new features offered by RIT Dining in response to COVID-19 precautions.

Students from the states on New York’s travel advisory list can self-quarantine through independent housing, hotel arrangements, or through a friend or relative. Another option is participating in RIT’s university-sponsored quarantine at area hotels, which begins Aug. 12. First-year student Iain Roach traveled from Alaska to Canandaigua, N.Y., before he can move onto campus on Aug. 15.