News by Topic: Technology, The Arts, And Design

While the SHED takes shape at the heart of the RIT campus, working groups are filling in the details of what will go inside the building.

Drawn to RIT for its unique focus on technology, art, and design, Lindsay ’09 and Andy Mindler ’09 saw new media design as the perfect blend of 3D, motion, and code to fuel their diverse design interests. The couple started dating at RIT in 2007 and married in 2011. Since moving to the West Coast, they have carved out successful design careers, joining an ever-growing throng of new media and other RIT design alumni living and working in the Bay Area.

The Hammer Family Packaging and Graphic Media Center will consist of several laboratories focused on materials testing, distribution, digital processing, and workflow analysis for packaging and commercial printing. 

Cecilia Alm, an associate professor in RIT’s College of Liberal Arts, was awarded nearly $2 million by the National Science Foundation to lead a team of RIT faculty addressing a lack of diversity in the artificial intelligence research community and gaps in AI curricula.

While students have engaged in virtual inter­national experiences throughout the pandemic, they once again began crisscrossing the globe last fall for in-person international education experiences.

The largest construction project on the RIT campus in more than 50 years remains on track to open in fall 2023. When complete, the Student Hall for Exploration and Development (SHED) will cover more than 120,000 square feet of new construction as well as more than 83,000 square feet of renovations in two existing buildings.

Gap Year Entrepreneurship Fellowships allow students to take time off from classes to focus on their growing business, new product, or compelling social innovation opportunity. In addition to the finances, RIT supports the students with mentoring and progress toward a degree.

When we drafted a new vision statement for RIT’s Strategic Plan in 2018, the realities of a global pandemic were only a hypothetical part of our crisis training and preparation. While the university continues to carefully navigate the challenge of COVID-19, we have simultaneously never taken our eye off the plan’s goals and objectives as we envision our future.

New chairs for the 27 classrooms in the Student Hall for Exploration and Development and in Wallace Library will be on display in the Fireside Lounge this week. Students are invited to sample the different furniture until Feb. 4.

Wallace Library’s first floor is undergoing extensive demolition and renovation this winter, and the makeover will be stunning. The library building will reopen to the RIT community in fall 2023, along with completion of the Student Hall for Exploration and Development (SHED) and the Monroe Hall renovation.

The new makerspace under construction at the center of campus is a piece of RIT history in the making, and the RIT community is invited to sign a steel beam that will be installed in the Student Hall for Exploration and Development (the SHED).

RIT students have never had as many ways to pursue their love of performing arts than they do now. From scholarships, new clubs and classes, private music lessons, community partnerships, and exciting new venues being built on campus, performing arts for RIT students is literally becoming a show stopper.