News

RIT’s annual celebration of graduate research begins this week with an online platform that reflects the new normal during COVID-19. The virtual symposium also expands the content to an audience of international graduate students who started their programs from their home countries.

RIT will celebrate graduate research during the 13th annual Graduate Education Week and Showcase: A Vision into the Future. The virtual event—Nov. 16 to 20—creates a platform for sharing and exchanging ideas during the COVID-19 pandemic, with pre-recorded and live presentations, demonstrations, visual exhibitions, and an alumni panel discussion.

This past weekend we continued to experience a rise of COVID-19. Rates of infection have increased to the point where we must elevate our COVID Alert Level to Orange. This will prompt changes in the way we operate for the remainder of the semester.

RIT students will have the opportunity to enroll in more than 1,000 in-person courses for spring semester when registration opens today. While course modalities for spring will still include a mix of in-person, blended, and online courses, the number of in-person offerings from fall to spring is increasing by nearly 12 percent.

International travel restrictions due to the coronavirus have been an obstacle to study abroad opportunities this fall, but RIT has found creative ways to provide students virtual intercultural experiences instead.

Women in the United States and in the United Kingdom fought for voting rights on either side of the Atlantic Ocean in the early 20th century, protesting for suffrage by picketing, going on hunger strikes, and using a savvy poster campaign. RIT students this semester dug into the suffrage movement’s use of graphic arts to design and create a digital exhibit of historical posters from Harvard University’s Schlesinger Library.

Since the earliest days of the pandemic, a dedicated group of RIT faculty, staff, and alumni has come together to provide critical career guidance and insights to scores of recent College of Art and Design graduates beginning their careers at a most challenging time.

Many of RIT’s international students who were accepted at the Rochester campus but were unable to get to the U.S. because of travel and visa restrictions have found enrollment alternatives and connections to classmates at all the university’s campuses.

RIT will offer students an alternate grading option for the fall and spring semesters of the 2020-2021 academic year. Undergraduate students will be able to select a satisfactory/pass/no pass option and graduate students can select a satisfactory/unsatisfactory/no pass option, for up to two courses.

People looking to become data literate in their professional and personal lives can now do it online with RIT's Data Analysis for Decision-Making Professional Certificate Program on edX. Registration is now open for the online data analysis program. 

RIT classes for spring semester will begin Jan. 25. The semester will also include three “recharge” days and one reading day prior to final exams. The last day of classes for spring semester will be Wednesday, May 5, with final exams running May 7-13. Commencement is scheduled for May 14-15.

Mona Harrington ’08 MS (professional studies) was appointed executive director of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) in June 2020. As leader of the EAC, Harrington has revamped the agency and spearheaded a series of initiatives to ensure COVID-19 and cybersecurity challenges don’t harm the election process.