NTID’s DeCaro Receives Honorary Doctorate From Russian University

Dr. James J. DeCaro, director of the Postsecondary Education Network-International (PEN-International), a grant program housed at Rochester Institute of Technology’s (RIT) National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID), received an honorary doctoral degree from Bauman Moscow State Technical University (BMSTU) Nov. 17.

DeCaro was honored for his contributions to the education of people who are deaf in Russia through the efforts of PEN-International, which established a multimedia lab at Bauman last year and trained faculty members there in 2002 and 2003. The multimedia lab at Bauman is being used to enhance the education of the university’s 250 deaf students. Bauman, known as the “MIT of Russia,” is an engineering and scientific university founded in 1830.

“The Academic Council of Bauman is pleased to honor Dr. DeCaro for his outstanding contributions to improving education for deaf people in our country and in other countries around the world,” said Dr. Igor Fedorov, rector of Bauman and member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

DeCaro is an honorary professor at Tianjin University of Technology in China and this September received the HaiHe Award of Honor from Tianjin for contributions to the betterment of the people of the city. In 1998, DeCaro received the Civic Medal for Education from the Greater Rochester Metro Area Chamber of Commerce for his contributions to education in the Rochester, N.Y., metropolitan area.

PEN-International, a multinational partnership of colleges and universities worldwide, was founded in 2001. Its goal is to improve and expand postsecondary education around the world by sharing educational technology and conducting faculty development and training, particularly in developing countries. For more information, visit www.pen.ntid.rit.edu.

NTID is the first and largest technological college in the world for deaf and hard-of-hearing students. NTID, one of eight colleges of RIT, offers educational programs and access and support services to its 1,100 students from around the world who study, live, and socialize with 14,400 hearing students on RIT’s Rochester, N.Y., campus.

Web site: www.rit.edu/NTID