Photo Spotlights

Evan Coyne combined a rich mix of hospitality and tourism courses with work and study abroad experiences to land a position with the Ritz-Carlton resort on Amelia Island, Florida. While an undergraduate in RIT’s School of International Hospitality and Service Innovation, she was the recipient of the prestigious Statler Scholarship, led the department’s Hospitality Student Association and helped to coordinate the school’s annual Puttin’ on the RITz Black Tie Dinner and Fundraiser—only a few of the many experiences she will be able to use in her new career.

RIT hosted the 2013 SAE Baja Rochester World Challenge, a major international collegiate design challenge and race, this past weekend. This was the fifth time RIT hosted the event, and 90 collegiate racing teams participated in the three-days of off-road racing held at RIT on June 7, and at Hogback Hill in Palmyra, N.Y., on June 8 and 9. Colleges from seven countries were represented—the U.S., Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, India and the United Arab Emirates—and more than 790 engineering and engineering technology students participated. In individual events, RIT Racing placed second in acceleration and maneuverability and in the top 10 of the four-hour endurance race. Those placements were enough to put the team in third place overall in performance at the competition. The team was also awarded the Toyota Teamwork Award, given to the group that goes above and beyond helping other teams throughout the competition.

Sean Sercu, from Rochester, N.Y., graduated this year with a degree in criminal justice and feels fortunate to have already secured full-time employment as a youth care professional with Hillside Children’s Center.

Dalton Allen graduated from NTID and has a job lined up as a CNC operator with Tiffany & Co. jewelers in Rhode Island.

John Schott won RIT’s first major research grant from NASA in 1981 to calibrate the thermal band of Landsat 4, the Earth-observing satellite. His research laid the cornerstone for the university’s imaging science program and first doctoral program. The Frederick and Anna B. Wiedman Professor in RIT’s Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science will retire from teaching this year.

Jamie Post and Ryan Harriman are students from the first graduating class of RIT’s University Studies Program. They graduated on time with respective degrees in business and bio-medical communications. To read more about the University Studies program, go to www.rit.edu/news/athenaeum_story.php?id=50041.

Genesee Valley Quilt Club presents more than 600 quilts on display, as well as lectures, demos and exhibits at its biennial show May 31 through June 2 at RIT’s Gordon Field House. To learn more, go to www.geneseequiltfest.com.

RIT Staff Council hosted the Bob Howie Memorial Classic Car Display on May 22, in conjunction with RIT’s 17th annual Staff Appreciation Day & Community Picnic. The show is named for Bob Howie, who first organized the classic car display as an RIT retiree of Campus Connections bookstore. Howie died in 2008.

The men’s lacrosse team heads to Philadelphia for the NCAA Division III National Championship at 4 p.m. Sunday. The Tigers face Stevenson University in the finals after a thrilling 10-9 overtime win over top-seeded and previously undefeated SUNY Cortland in the semifinals on May 19. This is the first time in the 46-year history of RIT men’s lacrosse that the Tigers will play for a national title.

RIT celebrated its new crop of graduates with the university’s 128th commencement. The two-day observance kicked off during Academic Convocation on May 17 in Gordon Field House and Activities Center. Here, dt ogilvie, dean of Saunders College of Business, congratulates Nikesh Hajari, the Saunders College delegate, at convocation. To read more about commencement activities, including a copy of keynote speaker Alex Kipman’s speech, go to www.rit.edu/news/story.php?id=50059.

Alex Kipman ’01, now a Microsoft executive credited with inventing the Kinect system for Xbox 360 video game and Windows PCs, delivered the keynote address at convocation May 17.

“Lines” is a film about an experimental work of art created by almost 3,000 people. Ryan Meadows, who just completed his second year as a film production major at RIT, traveled to various locations around Rochester and Syracuse, N.Y. to collect lines on canvases. Each line was painted by a different person, and Meadows says that the project connects everyone involved. The film was screened at the RIT School of Film and Animation’s end-of-quarter screenings and Meadows plans to enter it into several film festivals.