UPDATED DETAILS PROVIDED: RIT and Citigroup Sponsor Professional Etiquette Dinner, April 17

Rochester Institute of Technology students will take time from their studies to dine with local Rochester business leaders as they enhance their professional networking capabilities and practice proper etiquette.

The Professional Etiquette Dinner, sponsored by RIT and Citigroup, will be held Monday, April 17, at 7p.m. in the Skalny Room at RIT’s Student Alumni Union. The dinner is one of eight workshops presented as part of the Professional Development Series. This year-long series is designed to educate RIT students in subject matters relevant to the development of the holistic person.

Manny Contomanolis, director of RIT co-op and career services, will guide students and leaders from RIT, surrounding business, government and community-based organizations, through the proper etiquette for formal dining interviews, as well as networking engagements.

“There will be 10 attendees per table, with two professional leaders assigned to eight students,” says Wanda Dansler-Hill, program coordinator for the North Star Center. “The role of each leader is to demonstrate the techniques being presented while dining with the students; the role of the student is to utilize the opportunity and seize the networking moment.”

Dansler-Hill adds, “In today’s society, the time for interviews being conducted behind a desk have virtually become obsolete.” The dinner will touch on topics surrounding the keys to professional etiquette during a dinner interview and offer steps to providing solid networking techniques.

The entire staff of the North Star Center will put on their “waiter and waitress” hats for the night. This is an entertaining style of learning that students enjoy, and many of them leave with referrals for future job opportunities.

“These are skills that are not taught in the classroom, but they really compliment a first-class education,” says Rohan Palma, coordinator of the Professional Development Series. “RIT strives to produce opportunities for student success and this event is a reflection of RIT as a whole.”

For more information about the etiquette dinner, or the North Star Center, contact Susan Fuentes at sxfavp@rit.edu.

The North Star Center provides services and develops initiatives to enhance the student experience of African, Latin and Native American RIT students.