News

A kosher deli, a food truck serving gourmet burgers, self-checkout micro-markets, and a buffet-style, all-you-care-to-eat Gracie’s are welcoming RIT students back to campus this academic year. Easier ordering and accessibility to know when an order is done will also be found throughout campus.

The new undergraduate students come from 48 states (all but Iowa and Wyoming); Washington, D.C.; Puerto Rico; Guam; U.S. Virgin Islands; and 47 countries, with the largest contingent coming from India, Canada, and China. In addition, there are 927 new graduate students.

WHEC-TV reports on RIT’s pledge to have 50 percent plant-based dining options by 2025. Interviews with Don LaFlam, executive director of RIT Dining, and Darcie Jones, RIT Student Government president.

RIT is renaming Nathaniel Rochester Hall after Fredericka Douglass Sprague Perry, granddaughter of Frederick Douglass and a former student of the Rochester Athenaeum and Mechanics Institute, which later became RIT.

Former Saturday Night Live cast member Melissa Villaseñor and Hank Green, an internet icon, are scheduled to appear at RIT’s Brick City Homecoming and Family Weekend in October. Villaseñor got her start as a semi-finalist on America’s Got Talent. Green began making YouTube videos about science in 2007 and now has a social media following of more than 20 million.

Taylor Jensen ’23 (marketing) earned a host of honors as a standout player on RIT men’s lacrosse team over the past three seasons. But if you were to ask him what brings him his most pride and joy? Fatherhood.

A former top NASA administrator told graduates of RIT that their futures may seem as ambiguous as outer space. But by daring to do mighty things with hope instead of fear, untold possibilities will come into focus. Thomas Zurbuchen, astrophysicist and the longest continually serving associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate in NASA’s history, addressed the crowd during today's Academic Convocation ceremony in the Gordon Field House. More than 4,800 RIT graduates, including those attending RIT’s global campuses in China, Croatia, Dubai, and Kosovo, were recognized.

WHEC-TV talks to student Matt Gonzalez-Rappe about Pi Kappa Phi’s charity, The Ability Experience, which supports people with disabilities.

Tiffany Brodner was named RIT’s inaugural executive director of the Student Hall for Exploration and Development (SHED), following a national search. She assumed her new position in April. She will work closely with Michael Buffalin IV, who was appointed director of RIT’s makerspace within the SHED.

WRTV-TV talks to student Matthew Bussell of the CS:GO RIT Esports team. 

Thousands of visitors at the 2023 Imagine RIT: Creativity and Innovation Festival got to see what’s on the horizon in the areas of technology, the arts, and design. Festivalgoers traversed RIT’s campus on Saturday, exploring more than 350 exhibits.

WHAM-TV previews Imagine RIT as part of the Good Day Rochester segment. Reporter Sam Carter talks to Ann Ielapi, director of Imagine RIT, and highlights several exhibits: Theme Park Enthusiasts, NASA balance gamification, space radiation shield, the RIT Drumline, interpreting dreams from brainwaves, Couchbot, AI car chase, RC cars from RIT Dubai, belt sander racing, That Damn Goat, digital weaving from RIT Kosovo, robotic dog, and the human hamster wheel.