Newsmakers | College of Liberal Arts

Highlighting the professional and academic accomplishments of College of Liberal Arts students, faculty, and staff.

Newsmakers are a quick and easy way to acknowledge the professional and academic accomplishments of RIT students, faculty, and staff, such as publishing an article in a scholarly journal, presenting research at a conference, serving on a panel discussion, earning a scholarship, or winning an award. Newsmakers appear in News and Events as well as the "In the News" section on faculty/staff directory profile pages.

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May 2023

May 25, 2023

<a href="https://www.rit.edu/directory/baagll-bruce-austin">Bruce A. Austin</a>, professor in the School of Communication, reported and wrote <a href="https://www.maineantiquedigest.com/stories/quest-for-the-chest-madeline…;“Quest for the Chest: Madeline Yale Wynne's Masterpiece,”</a> the cover story for the June 2023 issue of Maine Antique Digest. The story is about a curator’s inadvertent encounter with a photograph of a <a href="https://www.historic-deerfield.org/events/gardenof%20hearts">1903 bride’s chest</a> that prompted a two-decade long search to bring the chest home. The hunt led to a fundraising campaign for the chest’s acquisition and resulted in its repatriation to the place where it was crafted.
May 25, 2023

<a href="https://www.rit.edu/directory/cmkgsh-christine-keiner">Christine Keiner</a>, chair of the Department of Science, Technology, and Society, is one of 25 national college-level educators who has been selected to participate in the <a href="https://www.neh.gov/">National Endowment for the Humanities</a>-funded summer seminar on “Reading, Writing, and Teaching the Rust Belt.” The two-week seminar aims to help participants “equip their students to shape the future of the Rust Belt, identify and contribute to social solutions, and reimagine the role of the humanities within this sphere.” Keiner plans to enhance her syllabus for her environmental studies course on the Great Lakes, and to continue researching historical and contemporary Rust Belt bioinvasions.
May 18, 2023

Bruce A. Austin, professor in the School of Communication, authored Tourists and Trade: Roadside Craftsmen and the Highway Transforming Craft, published by SUNY Press. The book examines two small Western New York craft shops located on Routes 5 and 20, initiated at the height of the Depression, and their role elevating handcrafts from pantry shelves to museum vitrines and craftworkers from hobbyists to artist-professionals by innovating a business model adopted 70 years later on a very different “super highway” — the Internet.
May 11, 2023

Silvia Benso and Brian Schroeder, professors in the Department of Philosophy, hosted a virtual seminar with philosopher Caterina Resta (Università di Messina, Italy) on “Geophilosophy, Environmental Crisis, and the End of the World.” The seminar, which also featured responses by professors Elvira Roncalli (Carroll College, Montana) and Damiano Benvegnù (Darmouth College, New Hampshire), was organized in collaboration with Tim Campbell (Cornell University), Stefano Giannini (Syracuse University), and Donatella Stocchi-Perucchio (University of Rochester), and was funded by a grant from the Central New York Humanities Corridor through an award from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
May 4, 2023

Christine Keiner, chair of the Department of Science, Technology, and Society, was recently interviewed by veteran environmental journalist Tom Horton for his forthcoming documentary on Chesapeake oysters, as he describes in his recent column for the Bay Journal.
May 4, 2023

Michaël Amy, professor of the history of art, delivered the keynote address on “Cimabue’s Altarpiece of the Crucifixion in the Upper Church of San Francesco at Assisi,” at the annual Art History Symposium on April 28 at SUNY Geneseo.

April 2023

April 28, 2023

Christopher Ferrari, a marketing and political science student, was selected to the 2023 ALL IN Student Voting Honor Roll representing RIT. The ALL IN Student Voting Honor Roll awards college students doing outstanding work to advance nonpartisan democratic engagement at participating campuses. Ferrari joins a group of 175 students recognized for their voter registration, education, and turnout efforts ahead of last year’s historic midterm elections. RIT was recognized as one of ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge’s Most Engaged Campuses for College Student Voting in November 2022.
April 28, 2023

Kaitlin Stack Whitney, assistant professor in the College of Liberal Arts, published an article in the Transportation Research Board's TR News magazine. The article, featured on page 13 of the magazine, focuses on doing highway and environmental research during COVID-19 lockdowns.
April 28, 2023

Jeffrey Burnette, assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, was a panelist at the “Data and Children: gaps, opportunities and responsibilities” session of the United Nations World Data Forum. During this session, he spoke about how these issues relate to the representation of Indigenous children and nations.
April 28, 2023

Caroline DeLong, professor of psychology; psychology students Logan Brownell, Kaitlin Gunther, and Kera Hampton; sociology and anthropology student Izzy Deglans; experimental psychology graduate students Moet Aita and Matt Altobelli '22 (psychology); and alumni Katie Becker '22 (psychology), Jessica Wegman '20 (psychology), '22 MS (experimental psychology), and Kelsey Beers '22 (ASL-English interpretation) had two presentations at the 30th Annual International Conference on Comparative Cognition on April 13 in Melbourne, Fla. The presentations involved individual recognition in fish using visual cues and hand preferences for cognitive tasks in baboons.