Join me in congratulating our colleagues on their accomplishments.

• Congratulations to the following recipients of the NTID Faculty and Teaching Awards:
  • Scholarship Award winners:
    • Tenured Scholarship Award – Peter Hauser
    • Pre-tenure Scholarship Award – Rachel Mazique
  • Teaching/Tutoring Award winners are:
    • Tenured Teaching/Tutoring Award – Cynthia Sanders
    • Pre-Tenure Teaching/Tutoring Award – Rachel Mazique
    • Non-Tenure Track Teaching/Tutoring Award – Erin Finton

Special thanks to James Fugate, chair of the Scholarship Award committee, and Adrianna Smart, chair of the Teaching/Tutoring Award committee. 

• Janeva Mosher will receive the 2026 Davis Award in April. She is a senior in NTID’s community development and inclusive leadership program from Danville, California, and the NSC director of student affairs. She has been a social impact fellow at the Rochester Deaf Kitchen since June 2025.
• Cultural Humility Certificates were awarded to the following RIT/NTID faculty and staff:
  • Bakar Ali, lecturer, Business Studies
  • Jill Burress, senior lecturer, ASL and Interpreting Education
  • Marguerite Carrillo, senior lecturer, ASL and Interpreting Education
  • Farah Espinosa, associate interpreter
  • Lisa Johnston, principal lecturer, ASL and Interpreting Education
  • Theresa Kolkebeck, interpreter
  • Lizzie Odom, counselor/academic advisor, Counseling and Academic Advising Services
  • Brooke Williams, senior staff assistant, Professional Development Office
  • Nick Winchell, associate interpreter
  • Katie Zuris, senior staff specialist, Student Services Office 
• Congratulations to Josh Bloodworth, Don Feigel, Blake Nitko, Kashif Bin Arif, and Suzi Murad for concepting and producing the wonderful NTID holiday/end of year video, and thank you to all who were involved as on-camera talent, especially NTID President Carrie Solomon! 
• Hands waving for Blake Nitko and the great 2025 recap video he produced! 
• Many thanks to Suzi Murad, Ilene Avallone, Don Feigel, Josh Bloodworth, Matthew Sluka, and Jamaal Brown for planning, organizing, and helping staff the CMMS table at the Spring Resource Fair where we recruited student volunteers to serve as photo models, on-camera video talent, and interview subjects for success stories and profiles for a variety of communications materials.  
• Department of Deaf Education faculty and students attended the Associate of College Educators – Deaf and Hard of Hearing (ACEDHH) conference along with our NRSC partners from Alabama Institute for Deaf Blind and engaged with college-level educators on research and instructional strategies for Deaf education.
• Erin Clegg is now Director of the NTID Outreach Consortium.
• Lisa Prinzi’s paper “Critical mass and positioning in mainstream deaf education” was published in Journal of Deaf Studies and Education Jan 10, 2026.
• Mike Kane completed his third book focusing on deaf CPAs. Publication is slated for April 27, 2026. The book’s title will be “Deaf, Hard of Hearing, and Child of Deaf Adults (CODA) Identities: The Accounting Profession.” 
• RIT/NTID alum Dr. Kyle Murbach has joined NTID as an assistant professor in the Information and Computing Studies Department. Please join us in welcoming him to NTID!
• Erin Finton’s collaboration with alum Sam Sepah and Google.org is featured on BBC StoryWorks. 
• Katie Zuris deserves major recognition for managing, organizing, and leading the annual Winter Resource Fair for students. This event plays a critical role in reminding students—especially incoming transfer students—of available resources and support systems. The turnout was significant, with multiple colleagues (including Vicki Liggera and others) personally sharing positive feedback about Katie’s leadership and execution. SLT staff also provided strong support with food coordination, table setup, and SDC setup and cleanup.
• NTID President Caroline Solomon presented her research “Chesapeake Bay’s ‘forgotten’ Anacostia River: Eutrophication and nutrient reduction measures” as part of RIT’s Gosnell School of Life Sciences’ Georgia Gosnell Seminar Series on Monday, February 16.