RIT Administrators Get ‘Real’ Taste of Campus Life

‌

Twenty RIT decision-makers, including President Bill Destler and Provost Jeremy Haefner, will spend three days and two nights at the RIT Inn & Conference Center, Global Village, and Perkins Green apartments.

Administrators at Rochester Institute of Technology are about to live the “student experience”—if only for three days—when they take up residence in campus housing for Student Government’s “The REAL RIT Challenge,” Jan. 19-21.

Twenty RIT decision-makers, including President Bill Destler and Provost Jeremy Haefner, will spend three days and two nights at the RIT Inn & Conference Center, Global Village, and Perkins Green apartments. RIT’s newest “students” will need to master campus transportation—learning how to read shuttle bus schedules to arrive at campus on time, as well as to off-campus excursions to Wegmans, Park Point, and Dinosaur Bar-B-Que.

Participants will still attend work, but all free time must be spent interacting with students. Check-in begins at 4:30 p.m. Jan. 19, when participants will receive room keys and meal debit cards. Move-in begins at 7 p.m. The experience ends with an open forum at 4:15 p.m. Jan. 21, when participants will share what they have learned from the experience and will answer questions from students. Participants will also post blogs throughout the three-day challenge.

This is the second time that RIT Student Government has offered the program. Two years ago, the program focused on living in the residence halls with roommates. This year, the program draws attention to the experience of students living in on-campus apartments or at the RIT Inn & Conference Center, with an emphasis on using campus and public transportation.

Associate Vice President for Student Affairs Heath Boice-Pardee is excited to participate in the program again.

“Last time, I lived in the residence halls with two roommates and had the unusual opportunity to experience life as an RIT student. This time will be a different experience that will show us another side of student life.”