Photo Spotlights

A memorial service for Professor Emeritus Robert F. Panara is scheduled for 4 p.m. Sept. 12 in the theater that bears his name, in Lyndon Baines Johnson Hall. Following the service, a reception will be held in the Dyer Arts Center at RIT/NTID. “Rustling of a Star,” a collection of items in tribute to Panara, will be on display in the center through Sept. 25.

Joe Sciandra, a member of Pi Kappa Phi fraternity, looks through a dunk tank on the Quarter Mile on Sept. 8. The fundraiser will benefit The Ability Experience, a nonprofit organization that serves people with disabilities.

More than 2,900 volunteers turned out for RIT’s 30th Big Shot photo project on Saturday night. The image captured RIT’s Golisano Institute for Sustainability, Louise M. Slaughter Hall and the surrounding quad.

Robert and Susan Pearson met at RIT in 1980 after Susan borrowed his calculator. Robert gave her a new calculator, pictured above, the following Christmas. Thirty-four years later, the Pearsons are still together and RIT continues to be a part of their lives.

Jessica Pardee, assistant professor of sociology/anthropology in the College of Liberal Arts, recently published a book that examines the experiences of low-income African American women during Hurricane Katrina. In her book, she uncovers the ways that race, class and gender shape the experiences of disasters. August 29 marked the ninth anniversary of Katrina.

The College of Health Sciences and Technology, RIT’s ninth college, is expanding. Construction continues on the 45,000-square-foot facility at the north end of Louise M. Slaughter Hall. The Clinical Health Sciences Center is scheduled to open in fall 2015.

The recently renovated first floor of The Wallace Center features a moving ambience, including fish, colorful tables, chairs and collaboration stations. Masouma Maqsudi, a second-year MBA student in the Saunders College of Business, found a comfortable spot to work.

Applefest, held on Aug. 29, is NTID’s first social event of the year. Students connected with old friends, met new ones, learned about student resources on campus, and enjoyed free food, drinks and fun. Members from dozens of student and campus organizations–including sororities, counseling services, the NTID Center on Employment, NTID Performing Arts and multicultural clubs—distributed information about what they offer students.

RIT students took advantage of a beautiful day on the Global Village side of campus. The area offers housing, dining, shopping and other services.

RIT welcomed its fifth class of Rochester City Scholars at a reception on Friday, Aug. 22, at Liberty Hill. The 16 students represent some of the best and brightest from high schools in the Rochester City School District. They join the 82 students continuing their studies at RIT and the newest scholars are enrolled in degree programs such as advertising and public relations, biochemistry, civil engineering technology and new media marketing. The first class of Rochester City Scholars entered RIT in 2010 and graduated from the university this past May.

Susan Spencer, a doctoral student in RIT’s microsystems engineering program, is exploring organic solar cells’ capacity as a renewable energy source. Spencer is in the process of completing her doctoral dissertation. Here she works in the “glove box,” a clean-room facility with attached, arm-length gloves that researchers use to touch materials without contaminating them. Read more about Spencer and her work in Athenaeum.

Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity and Alpha Sigma Alpha sorority held a fundraiser this week for Special Olympics. The annual Teeter-Totter event continues through Aug. 29.