News

RIT has an emerging new hotspot for interdisciplinary research about 25 minutes from the main campus. The Tait Preserve includes a 60-acre lake and a private mile of Irondequoit Creek adjacent to Ellison Park, offering endless opportunities for research, education, and conservation activities.

RIT’s summer day camp programs offer young learners a foray into astrophysics, cybersecurity, energy and the environment, and college readiness. While RIT’s regular in-person Camp Tiger is on hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic, RIT’s K-12 University Center is providing select programs via a secure virtual platform through RIT’s Innovative Learning Institute.

RIT had its best year ever for sponsored research funding. For fiscal year 2020, which ended June 30, RIT received 382 new awards totaling $82 million. The record funding follows almost $58 million in research expenditures in fiscal year 2019, also a record.

RIT’s Upward Bound summer program is providing area high school students a preview of life as a college student. This year, 24 students from the Leadership Academy for Young Men and Greece Olympia High School participated in the six-week enrichment program, held virtually for the first time due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Douglas Merrill, who inspired countless students during his 40-year tenure in the College of Science and the College of Health Sciences and Technology, has retired. He developed the Premedical Advisory Program and created the Center for Bioscience Education and Technology. And he retires with numerous honors recognizing his outstanding teaching and commitment to diversity and inclusion.

The K-12 University Center at RIT is offering virtual summer camp programming this year centered around the popular roleplaying game Dungeons and Dragons. A series of weeklong workshops for students in fifth to 12th grades will run July 6 through Aug. 14.

Students interested in learning more about building, programming and developing robots and robotics apps will be able to participate in RIT’s annual RoboCamp during online sessions this summer. Camps will be offered starting June 29 through Aug. 14 with several sections to accommodate age and skill level of participants.

RIT’s K-12 University Center is leveraging the university’s strength in experiential learning and career readiness in a new partnership with the Army Educational Outreach Program. RIT will receive $14 million to expand the Army’s apprenticeship programs and cultivate a STEM-literate workforce that reflects the nation’s demographics.

RIT is one of hundreds of universities and organizations across the country involved in National Engineers Week, taking place Feb. 16-22. Events include talks with engineering alumni and open house sessions for K-12 students and families.

Saunders College of Business will welcome more than 600 local high school students to the RIT campus for the New York State Region 10 DECA competition on Dec. 19. Students will present business plans to local business leaders who will serve as the competition’s judges.

RIT will use a substantial gift of real estate in Penfield to expand the university’s research and educational offerings in ecology, agriculture, sustainability and other fields. Amy Leenhouts Tait and Robert C. Tait have gifted to the university their 177-acre property, which will be dedicated as the Tait Preserve of RIT.

A special partnership between RIT and the Rochester City School District and charter schools has primed the Class of 2020 for success through a college and career readiness program that began six years ago, when the cohort was in middle school, and has now reached its culminating year.