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Rochester Business Journal features the expansion and upgrades coming to Lowenthal Hall, home of Saunders College of Business.

Students, faculty, and staff are starting a new year during a continuing global pandemic. But that’s not stopping the momentum of student success, research, fundraising, and building projects designed to make RIT even better. That was just part of the message RIT President David Munson told the university community this morning at his annual President’s Address.

Monroe County Post references a $1.25 million gift to Saunders College of Business from RIT alumna Susan Riedman Holliday, vice chair of RIT’s board of trustees, that will help fund a planned building expansion.

Saunders College of Business has been awarded a grant of up to $500,000 to establish an online life sciences Executive MBA entrepreneurship program. The new degree will be formed in partnership with RIT’s Kate Gleason College of Engineering, College of Science, and Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences. 

A global pandemic didn’t stop RIT from looking ahead and building the future. Here’s a look at construction projects that are transforming the campus.

Construction on RIT’s maker space and performing arts complex at the center of campus enters a new phase this summer, with finished architectural drawings, projects out to bid, and work beginning on the steel frame.

The project is part of a five-year masterplan that has already begun to renovate, rejuvenate, and transform spaces to meet the growing demands for a college that serves as the RIT’s creative hub at the intersection of technology, art, and design.

The first phase of the project is the relocation of the outdoor track and an upgraded synthetic running surface. The baseball and softball fields are also under construction with upgrades to all-weather artificial turf fields.

Designed by LaBella Associates, the renovations will almost double the size of Saunders College of Business's Max Lowenthal Hall. Existing spaces will also be renovated.

With thousands of RIT students involved in performing arts expected in the next few years, plans are moving forward for a performing arts complex that will feature a 750-seat theater and eventually a 1,500-seat orchestra hall for larger audiences.

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is funding a team of RIT imaging scientists to study the limits of spectral remote sensing imaging systems. The team received a grant of up to $1 million to conduct fundamental research on imaging systems over the next two to five years.

The National Science Foundation renewed its support of the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) with a $17 million grant over five years to operate the NANOGrav Physics Frontiers Center (PFC). RIT will receive $703,000 over the next five years to contribute research to the NANOGrav PFC.