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A commemoration to rename an RIT residence hall after a granddaughter of abolitionist Frederick Douglass will be held Thursday evening in conjunction with RIT’s annual Lighting the Way ceremony to welcome women and non-binary students to campus.

Thousands of RIT’s first-year students participated in the seventh Hunger Project on Aug. 25 in Ritter Arena. Students packaged more than 115,000 meals for the Rochester community that will be distributed through FoodLink.

Turn big dreams into reality. That was just one piece of advice for the newest Rochester Institute of Technology students who attended the New Student Convocation on Aug. 24. The annual event included welcomes from administrators, the new Student Government president, and a lesson in adventure featuring RIT President David Munson.

Darcie Jones, a fifth-year mechanical engineering major from Reading, Pa., is this year’s Student Government president, representing more than 19,000 students on RIT’s Henrietta and overseas campuses. There were four sets of candidates this year, the most in recent history. This year’s Student Government vice president is J.T. Lapham, a fourth-year biochemistry major from Queensbury, N.Y.

A kosher deli, a food truck serving gourmet burgers, self-checkout micro-markets, and a buffet-style, all-you-care-to-eat Gracie’s are welcoming RIT students back to campus this academic year. Easier ordering and accessibility to know when an order is done will also be found throughout campus.

The new undergraduate students come from 48 states (all but Iowa and Wyoming); Washington, D.C.; Puerto Rico; Guam; U.S. Virgin Islands; and 47 countries, with the largest contingent coming from India, Canada, and China. In addition, there are 927 new graduate students.

WHEC-TV reports on RIT’s pledge to have 50 percent plant-based dining options by 2025. Interviews with Don LaFlam, executive director of RIT Dining, and Darcie Jones, RIT Student Government president.

RIT is renaming Nathaniel Rochester Hall after Fredericka Douglass Sprague Perry, granddaughter of Frederick Douglass and a former student of the Rochester Athenaeum and Mechanics Institute, which later became RIT.

Former Saturday Night Live cast member Melissa Villaseñor and Hank Green, an internet icon, are scheduled to appear at RIT’s Brick City Homecoming and Family Weekend in October. Villaseñor got her start as a semi-finalist on America’s Got Talent. Green began making YouTube videos about science in 2007 and now has a social media following of more than 20 million.

Taylor Jensen ’23 (marketing) earned a host of honors as a standout player on RIT men’s lacrosse team over the past three seasons. But if you were to ask him what brings him his most pride and joy? Fatherhood.

A former top NASA administrator told graduates of RIT that their futures may seem as ambiguous as outer space. But by daring to do mighty things with hope instead of fear, untold possibilities will come into focus. Thomas Zurbuchen, astrophysicist and the longest continually serving associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate in NASA’s history, addressed the crowd during today's Academic Convocation ceremony in the Gordon Field House. More than 4,800 RIT graduates, including those attending RIT’s global campuses in China, Croatia, Dubai, and Kosovo, were recognized.

WHEC-TV talks to student Matt Gonzalez-Rappe about Pi Kappa Phi’s charity, The Ability Experience, which supports people with disabilities.