News by Topic: Technology, The Arts, And Design

The crown jewel of RIT’s Center for Media, Arts, Games, Interaction & Creativity, MAGIC Spell Studios brings together the university’s academic strengths in game design and development, film and animation, and digital media, with a commercialization focus that provides Hollywood-scale virtual production experiences for students and clients.

A 750-seat music performance theater will be constructed on the RIT campus to offer a venue for musical theater productions. The new building will be the first of two theaters in a performing arts center. The first phase will be an iconic building with more than 40,000 square feet of space, with anticipated completion in 2025.

As students head to class each day, a new showpiece is rising at the center of RIT’s campus. The Student Hall for Exploration and Development (SHED)—which was first announced in 2017 and funded in part by a $50 million gift from alumnus Austin McChord ’09—is a multi-use complex that will showcase RIT’s technology, the arts, and design. The SHED is on track to open this fall.

The Vignelli Center for Design Studies has appointed RZLBD (Reza Aliabadi) as the inaugural Vignelli Center Designer in Residence. This position was created to assist with an upcoming campus project to design and build a series of outdoor interactive exhibits tentatively titled the RIT Museumscape.

WUSA-TV features Amanda Preske ’09 (chemistry), founder of Circuit Breaker Labs and Because Science.

RIT is offering a new master’s degree in artificial intelligence (AI). The program begins in fall 2023 and enrollment is now open. The Master of Science degree aims to prepare students from diverse educational backgrounds to become well-rounded AI professionals.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy features Austin McChord ’09 (bioinformatics), member of RIT's Board of Trustees.

The Student Hall for Exploration and Development (SHED) and the renovated Wallace Library will reopen in less than a year. Work has begun to schedule the fall semester classes that will be held for the first time in the SHED complex, and Joe Loffredo, RIT associate vice president for Academic Affairs and registrar, is leading the effort to assign the classrooms in Wallace Library.

Developed and taught by Assistant Professor Peter Pincus, the course Josiah Wedgewood’s Legacy is a unique meld of art history, philosophy, and ceramics education and encourages students of all majors to explore and learn freely through experimentation and trial and error.

Members of the RIT Board of Trustees and President Munson recently took a walking tour of the Student Hall for Exploration and Development (SHED). The $120 million complex stretches from Wallace Library to Monroe Hall and will include the Brooks H. Bower Maker Showcase, the Sklarsky Glass Box Theater, and music and dance studios. The SHED’s focus on hands-on learning extends to the 27 new classrooms—five extra-large learning spaces designed for active learning and 22 regular-sized flexible classrooms in the renovated Wallace Library. 

Fast Company features a cast iron match striker, designed by Josh Owen, Vignelli Distinguished Professor of Design.

RIT is vying to be the first university to develop and have a game character accepted into the wildly popular online game Dota 2. The character, or courier, in the form of a tiger, was developed in MAGIC Spell Studios by a team of former RIT students and a faculty adviser.