News

The College of Art and Design offered three courses as part of RIT's First Class Academy, a tuition-free, credit-bearing online experience that introduced incoming freshmen to the RIT and Rochester communities this summer.

COVID-19 has challenged the university to consider an even more creative academic portfolio with blended, online, split A/B, and flex class options. To prepare for in-person instruction, RIT has upgraded academic buildings and classrooms. And physical distancing and face coverings, required of faculty and students in classrooms, together provide some of the greatest protection against the spread of COVID-19.

Film and Animation (Production option) student Sophie Walter further hones her video editing skills by working for RIT SportsZone, an on-campus production organization covering RIT athletics.

Editors and reporters from Rochester news outlets will discuss how they are fulfilling their duties of a free press during the COVID-19 pandemic during a panel discussion organized by RIT’s School of Communication. “The Future of News in ROC” will be held via Zoom on Sept. 8 and is free and open to the public.

An RIT student is on a mission to help build detectors that could identify individual photons from distant, inhabitable planets. Justin Gallagher, a fifth-year student from Rochester, N.Y., pursuing his BS in physics and MS in astrophysical sciences and technology, is serving as project manager for a nearly $1 million grant funded by NASA to create a single photon sensing and number resolving detector for NASA missions.

Meet Shine DeHarder, this year’s Student Government president. DeHarder, who served on RIT’s Community Readiness committee this summer to help the university reopen for students, has three main goals as Student Government president: reducing food insecurity on campus; improving diversity, inclusion, and accessibility on campus; and improving transparency between Student Government and the student body.

Essay by Amit Batabyal, the Arthur J. Gosnell Professor of Economics, published by The Conversation.

The unexpected transition to remote learning during the spring semester challenged faculty across RIT to experiment, create, and deploy new methods of instruction to ensure student success. As the university gears up for in-person and online classes—or a combination of both—faculty members are applying a wide range of lessons learned from the spring to keep academic momentum moving forward in the fall.

Essay by Amit Batabyal, the Arthur J. Gosnell Professor of Economics, published by The Globe Post.

Snopes.com talks to Ted Kinsman, associate professor of photographic sciences, about how images are made with the scanning electron microscope.

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.

Brian Chontosh ’00 (mechanical engineering technology) has been nominated for the prestigious Congressional Medal of Honor, one of the oldest and continuously issued awards given to U.S. Armed Forces personnel for courage, valor, and leadership.