RIT honors its outstanding adult students

Annual event celebrates ‘balancing act’ of adult learners

Trinity Barnosky, Matthew Callahan and Rebecca Clontz are this year’s Outstanding Adult Students.

RIT students Rebecca Clontz, Matthew Callahan and Trinity Barnosky have received the Outstanding Adult Student award. The award recognizes adult students and their achievements in successfully combining full-time college study with other adult responsibilities of family, career and community service.

Rebecca Clontz came to RIT from the U.S. Navy where she served as a nuclear engineer. Clontz has been on the Dean’s List for six terms since starting with RIT in 2012. As a student in the environmental science program, she has maintained a GPA of 3.72. She is the recipient of the Baldwin Memorial Scholarship and has had her research featured in RIT’s Athenaeum. Clontz is a single mother, balancing her time between home with her son and in the lab creating biofuel from used coffee grounds.

Matthew Callahan is studying in the electrical engineering technology program at RIT’s College of Applied Science and Technology. He is a member of the National Society of Leadership and Success at RIT. While holding a 3.77 GPA, Callahan has continued to work as a System Technician for the University of Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics. The education he received from RIT has been applied and recognized by his employers and has led to a career opportunity for Callahan to be promoted from a technician to an engineer. Callahan also works as a team member of Experimental Systems at the University of Rochester.

Trinity Barnosky is studying in the physician assistant program at RIT’s College of Health Sciences and Technology. She is a member of the Physician Assistant Student Association at RIT, Urban Choice Charter School PTA, the National Society of Collegiate Scholars and The National Society of Leadership and Success at RIT. Barnosky holds a 3.93 cumulative GPA and is the recipient of the Rochester Regional Physician Assistant Association Student Scholarship, Nathanial Rochester Society Merit Scholarship, RIT Outstanding Undergraduate Scholar as well as earning Dean’s List distinction. Barnosky is planning to pursue a career as a surgical physician assistant after graduating RIT in the spring of 2016.


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