Welcome to an historic year at RIT

On August 26, students attended the first day of classes for the first-ever RIT fall semester. Preparation for this day was rigorous—sometimes grueling. Concerns have been expressed—and heard. Calendars have been adjusted, systems built and bolstered, classes restructured, and assurances made that our students will make this transition with no negative repercussions. It’s time to watch RIT thrive under a new semester calendar as it has for decades with the quarter system. While I know that many still hold concerns about this monumental change, I am confident that RIT will be stronger after this transition. With a stronger, better RIT as the goal, I hope we can all support each other through this change.

As always, there is much, much more going on at RIT, and I appreciate this annual letter as an opportunity to share some of the latest news with you.

The university’s leadership will soon begin a new strategic planning process this fall. RIT’s current plan will end in 2015, and it is vital to our continued success that we smoothly transition to a solid plan for the next decade. I am excited to be part of charting the course for RIT’s next decade and look forward to active participation from the campus community, our alumni, and our many donors and friends.

Part of our planning efforts will focus on the continued need to maintain a balanced budget. Many of you know that the university undertook a cost-containment and revenue-generating planning process in fall 2011, and recommendations from that process have been implemented. Among these are:

A supplier consolidation for items purchased in large quantities across campus;

Benefits restructuring for new hires;

IT administration changes such as centralized software procurement and server consolidation

Our intention in these efforts and future budgetary plans is to manage student tuition increases and offset the more than $135 million in RIT-sponsored financial aid that is given to current students to make an RIT education affordable for them and their families.

Let me offer one more thought on costs and their impact on the RIT family. RIT is fortunate to have enjoyed a simultaneous increase in applications, diversity in our accepted student body, and “quality” of our students in terms of academic achievement. Our enrollment has grown from 15,557 in fall 2006 to 17,950 in fall 2012 (and is expected to surpass the 18,000 figure this fall). This is due in large part to RIT’s student-focused philosophy, a philosophy that is connected directly to our desire to manage tuition increases and their impact on families. That philosophy is also inextricably linked to the excellence and dedication of our faculty and staff. During the last several years, many of them have sacrificed personally to ensure that RIT students come first, including no or very modest salary increases despite substantial increases in hours, project assignments, and responsibilities. I want to personally express my appreciation for RIT’s faculty and staff members, whose commitment to our students and to building RIT’s national stature is, in my opinion, unparalleled by any other university. Thank you all.

RIT continues to extend its impact beyond our Rochester campus and levels of education. The university is making positive strides in efforts to encourage Rochester city school children to work their hardest and achieve their best throughout their K-12 years. The RIT/Rochester City Scholars program will welcome its fourth class this fall. Rebecca and I are proud to support this important scholarship program, along with several companies and RIT alumni who are committed to providing a brighter future for young people from our home city. In addition to the scholarship program, RIT is committed to supporting Rochester K-12 school students in other ways. I look forward to sharing an exciting announcement in this area with you early this fall.

In addition to our work in K-12 education and the impact beyond the campus, RIT students are enjoying more and more opportunities for global education. Our study abroad programs continue to grow, and we’ve added many international co-op positions to our offerings. Both study abroad and international co-op incur costs beyond regular RIT tuition, and we are grateful to many supporters and corporate partners who have provided assistance to make these programs possible for our students. We welcome others who are able to establish co-op positions in off-shore locations for our talented students. We are also actively seeking support for students wishing to study abroad, which requires an additional $1,500 per year, per student beyond annual tuition. Finally, our RIT alumni who are currently working in global locations can be a tremendous help by connecting with our Study Abroad office to speak with students about their experiences. We welcome all alumni with international work experience to contact us about mentoring students.

I shared with nearly 1,000 alumni and friends in attendance at the Presidents’ Alumni Ball last fall that RIT has achieved a new level of pride and satisfaction among our students and alumni. Last summer, RIT received an overall student satisfaction rating in the annual Noel-Levitz survey that was “significantly higher” than the average of private colleges and universities in the U.S.  Not only are our current students pleased, but our bi-annual attitudinal survey of our graduates told us that alumni satisfaction has increased 10 percent since 2001. While these surveys show the results in data, the response of our alumni and students at campus and regional events shows us loud, proud Tiger pride. Anyone who was present in Philadelphia when the RIT Men’s Lacrosse team played for that national championship in May knows what I’m talking about!

Progress on the physical campus continues – the foundation is laid for the new 4,500-seat Gene Polisseni Center hockey ice arena; our newest research-focused facility, Institute Hall, is a hub of activity; Sustainability Hall, home of the Golisano Institute for Sustainability, has become a signature structure; and this fall we will proudly dedicate the newest innovation and research center for deaf and hard of hearing students and faculty, Sebastian and Lenore Rosica Hall at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. Growth and progress at RIT never seems to stop!

After six years as your president, I am pleased to say that RIT has made real progress in countless areas across campus, and as a result we are beginning to successfully compete for the best students, faculty, and staff.  In fact, I believe there are big changes for RIT on the near horizon, including an anticipated move in our Carnegie Classification, the standard framework for classifying universities. As RIT will soon begin to graduate 20 or more Ph.D. candidates each year, I anticipate our classification will soon change from “Regional” to “National.”  That will put RIT in an elite peer category with the best colleges and universities in the world! And, RIT will be ranked by print and online outlets among those institutions, so we should be prepared for how to make those rankings work as a way to truly communicate RIT’s value.

Personally, if we continue on our present path, I believe a ranking in the top 100 universities and colleges in the U.S. is a realistic goal. What will it take to get there? We need to continue on our path to extend our geographic reach in our recruitment of the most talented students, staff, and faculty. We must continue to grow our reputation as a place where innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship flourish. We must continue our efforts to diversify our student, faculty, and staff populations and exploit NTID’s presence on our campus. We must continue to get RIT’s name out there across the country and around the world.  We must continue to be seen as a place where students and parents get a real return on their investment. And, we must continue to develop as a place where the best and brightest come to find their futures.

Each year at RIT is more exciting than the last, but this excitement requires support from many people. While this is an extraordinary time for RIT, it is also a time that requires more of our family and friends to engage in the life of the university. In order to maintain our important career focus, we need to develop many more co-op partnerships with our corporate partners and alumni-owned businesses. To provide meaningful innovation and creativity opportunities, we need support of student projects and the Simone Center for Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship. In order to increase our national rankings, we need more alumni to support the university through a gift to The Fund for RIT each and every year. And to address the pressing and increasing need for scholarships and new academic programs in new fields, we need support from all of our alumni, friends, and partners across the globe. We need all of you, through your never-ending generous spirit, to help us make it happen for RIT and for our students.

There is no better time to be part of the RIT family. I am grateful that you chose me to lead your university, and I look forward to this new academic year and the opportunity to join with you to take RIT to new heights. As always, I welcome your thoughts and questions at Destler@rit.edu.

Go tigers!

Bill Destler
President