RIT Hosts Creativity: Technology: Invention Symposium, May 11

A celebration of art and technology will take place at Rochester Institute of Technology Friday, May 11, during the “Creativity: Technology: Invention” symposium hosted by the RIT Creativity and Invention Working Group.

The daylong event will explore how creativity and invention span the arts, sciences, humanities and technology through performances, student exhibits, digital poetry, faculty workshops, and panels on the creative process. The symposium will coincide with the RIT Digital Arts Competition Exhibition and will take place in the B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences.

Other highlights will include:

Creativity and Leadership:

• Keynote speaker Gerard Puccio, chair and professor of the International Center for Studies in Creativity at Buffalo State College State University of New York, will present “Creative Thinking: An Imperative for Higher Education in America” at 9 a.m. in the Golisano auditorium
  
  Student Creativity and Invention:
  
• Cross-college student teams will design and build devices or transform classrooms in ways that teach college-level concepts, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. in Golisano classrooms
  
• “Tip the Can” demonstration by engineering students, 12:30-1:30 p.m.
  
  Performances and Demonstrations:
  
• Performances in the Golisano atrium by F’loom, an “avant cappella vocal trio,” at 4:30 p.m. and Al Biles and GenJam, an interactive, jazz-playing genetic algorithm, at 5:30 p.m.
  
  
• “StrokeDance” demonstration of software developed by Duane Palyka, an associate professor in the School of Film and Animation, that will be used in “Handamation: A Collage of Perspectives,” a performance featuring the RIT/National Technical Institute for the Deaf Dance Company in Panara Theater of NTID, May 10-13. The StrokeDance demonstration will take place from 1:30-2:15 p.m. in Golisano auditorium.

“We hope to spark a campuswide conversation on the role creativity can play in teaching, collaboration, leadership and research,” says Anne Coon, Creativity and Invention Working Group coordinator and College of Liberal Arts Senior Associate Dean. “The day will also be filled with sights and sounds, words and inventions, as we showcase creativity in action at RIT.\"

The Creativity and Invention Working Group is made up of faculty, staff and students from across RIT. The group began as a faculty initiative in the spring of 2006.

The event is sponsored by RIT’s College of Liberal Arts; Katherine Mayberry, vice-president for Academic Affairs; Lynn Wild, assistant provost for Teaching and Learning Services; and Mary Beth Cooper, vice president for Student Affairs.

The symposium is free and open to the Rochester community. For information about the event or the Creativity and Invention Working group, visit http://creativity.rit.edu.