Photo Spotlights

President Bill Destler reads to the children at RIT’s Margaret’s House on Oct 11. The kindergarten class is participating in a national program sponsored by Pizza Hut, called “Read Along for Hunger.” The class has a goal to read 300 books. Margaret’s House provides full day care and education for children ages 8 weeks through kindergarten and after-school care for first- through third-grade children.

WITR-FM (89.7), RIT’s student-run campus radio station, joined more than 300 radio stations nationwide on Oct. 11 for College Radio Day, which aimed to highlight the importance of college radio stations to their campuses and surrounding communities. WITR marked the occasion by giving away bumper stickers, CDs, T-shirts and a guitar autographed by bands that have performed on “Rochester Sessions,” a WITR show featuring live music that airs 7-9 p.m. Sundays. From left, WITR members Joe Makowski, an applied networking and system administration major; Kevin Cosgrove, a second-year biotechnology major; and Eli Clampett, a second-year computer engineering major.

RIT’s Caroline Werner Gannett Project “Visionaries in Motion V” lecture series continued Oct. 10 with a talk by Ryan Knighton, author, screenwriter and professor, who presented “It’s Like, for Real: A Life in Autopathography.” Knighton, who gradually lost his sight after being diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa at age 18, wrote his memoir about the experience and was shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Medal, Canada’s national award for the funniest book of the year. “Hilarious, unsentimental and feisty, Ryan Knighton engages both sighted and blind worlds with issues he has encountered at the crossroads of memory, storytelling, technology and the human body,” says Mary Lynn Broe, the Caroline Werner Gannett Professor of Humanities at RIT. The next speaker in the series is Fred Ritchin, author and professor of photography and imaging at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, who comes to RIT Nov. 3.

Unique hand-blown glass pumpkins, gourds and other glass items such as vases, paperweights and drinking glasses were on sale during the annual Women’s Council of RIT fundraiser Oct. 8. The items were made by students and faculty from the School for American Crafts. Proceeds from the sale will benefit the School for American Crafts’ Visiting Artists Series as well as the Women’s Council scholarships. Items left over will be for sale 10 a.m.–3 p.m. Oct. 12 in the SAU lobby.

RIT hosted the sixth annual Western New York Restorative Justice Conference Oct. 6-7. The conference consisted of breakout sessions and panel discussions featuring leaders from organizations using restorative justice practices within the courts, classrooms and other community venues. Sessions also provided training on how to use these processes in agreement with the criminal justice system with a focus on saving costs and providing restitution and closure that can ultimately promote healing and build healthy communities. This keynote address featured, from right, Monroe County Court Judge Vicki Argento, Derek Miodownik, a conflict resolution and community justice expert, and David Soares, Albany County District Attorney, presenting “Making Systemic Change With Restorative Practices.”

A remote-controlled wheelchair developed by RIT students David Olney and Luticha Doucette transformed into a telepresence robot in the Center for Student Innovation on Oct. 7. A laptop attached to the wheelchair provided an audience at MITRE Corp.’s headquarters in Bedford, Mass., with a virtual tour of the center. The center’s director, Jon Schull, spoke at MITRE’s Innovation Brown Bag Lunch Series about the facility and the innovative, collaborative work among RIT students and faculty. As Schull spoke, students at RIT guided the robot around the center to give MITRE researchers a chance to visit the center, the new Rapid Prototyping lab, and the students.

Students can take a tour through the wine regions of the world with Lorraine Hems, a lecturer in the School of International Hospitality and Service Innovation. She’s been recognized for her extensive educational and community service programming about wines and spirits from around the world, and much of that information fills the pages of her new textbook, Passport to the World of Wines. The book covers the history of winemaking through the ages, as well as the uniqueness of wines from different countries. It is a practical guide about pairing wine and foods, hosting a tasting event and providing information about service and storage.

David Pankow, curator of the Melbert B. Cary Jr. Graphic Arts Collection, retired after working at RIT for more than 30 years. Pankow grew the collection from 5,000 books to 40,000 books. He assembled antique printing presses and type that help tell the story of printing. He helped acquire the Bernard C. Middleton collection of books on bookbinding, the most important collection in the United States on the history and practice of bookbinding. And he started the Cary Graphic Arts Press, which opened in 2001.

Microalgae can make a difference in small communities in need of “green” wastewater treatment solutions, explained Jeff Lodge, associate professor of biology in the School of Life Sciences in the RIT College of Science, during a Sept. 30 talk. Techniques Lodge and his team developed soon could be adopted to convert wastewater to potable water for people in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, still recovering from the earthquake of 2010.

George Lois, best known for his controversial magazine covers he designed for Esquire in the 1960s, had an exhibit of his advertising work in the University Gallery. Lois, along with renowned designer Massimo Vignelli, hosted a master’s design workshop at RIT this summer. Lois has a longstanding relationship both with RIT and Vignelli and has been among the guest lecturers of RIT’s William Reedy Memorial Lecture Series in Photography. Many universities and other historical institutions have been vying for Lois’ archive, but he decided to donate it to RIT.

“I want my archive to be with Vignelli’s archive and other great modern designers whose archives are also at RIT, like Bill Golden from CBS,” says Lois. “Massimo and I changed the culture and the history of the graphic design world.”

Dennis Andrejko, chairman of the Master of Architecture program, says sustainability in architecture is not a fad, and he is hoping programs like the one at RIT will help mainstream it.

The second annual Social Media and Communication Symposium on Sept. 29 featured keynote speakers and panel discussions led by social-media insiders. The symposium, sponsored by RIT’s Department of Communication in the College of Liberal Arts, included presentations and panels on the business of social media, academic research into social media and the skills students must know in order to successfully navigate through social media. Clay Shirky is a writer, consultant and teacher on the social and economic effects of the Internet.