Communications and Digital Media News

RIT is extending a special graduate tuition scholarship program to recent alumni as the COVID-19 pandemic enters its third year. The program helps alumni who graduated during the pandemic enhance their skill set for the new economy through master’s degrees that build upon collaboration, analytical thinking, complex problem solving, and flexibility. 

Animation Career Review has again named RIT one of the top game design universities in the country. RIT ranked No. 5 on the list of Top 50 Game Design Schools and Colleges in the U.S. and No. 2 in New York state.

The National Press Photographers Association, the leading voice advocating for the work of visual journalists today, has recognized the School of Photographic Arts and Sciences in the College of Art and Design with its two top student photography honors.

Film and Animation students Anna McClanahan (BFA) and Gabriel Ponte-Fleary (MFA) are finalists in Coca-Cola's Refreshing Films program. They are producing what is thought to be the program's first finalist film dealing with deaf and hard-of-hearing themes.

NTID and The Strong have partnered to celebrate Deaf Awareness Month. On Sunday, March 20, students from NTID’s Department of American Sign Language and Interpreting Education will provide ASL assistance at the museum’s admissions desk and its Skyline Climb high adventure course. And ASL tours of the Dancing Wings Butterfly Garden will take place every hour from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
 

An image of a 3D, futuristic, jack-in-the-box is the winning entry in this year’s Imagine RIT: Creativity and Innovation Festival poster contest. The artist, Sarah Neff, a second-year new media design major from Waterbury, Vt., wins $500 in Tiger Bucks. More than 50 entries were submitted.

RIT Media Arts and Technology MS students launched a fundraising campaign as a class assignment, providing a platform for real-world application of marketing, media and communication practices.

Joshua Rashaad McFadden, an internationally recognized assistant professor of photography in RIT’s School of Photographic Arts and Sciences, was chosen to visually capture the story of the first decade of Black Lives Matter in New York Magazine’s February issue.

"The Heart, Not The Eye" is a collection of photographic and video storytelling with common themes of community, family, healing, preservation, racial inequalities and love.

After the contested 2020 presidential election, the tumult of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, and the national protests following the killing of George Floyd, RIT looked inward to see how to address the political climate with the student body. The result is an increased effort to create a campus culture of free speech and to give students the skills to participate in civil discourse respectfully and productively long after they graduate.

Drawn to RIT for its unique focus on technology, art, and design, Lindsay ’09 and Andy Mindler ’09 saw new media design as the perfect blend of 3D, motion, and code to fuel their diverse design interests. The couple started dating at RIT in 2007 and married in 2011. Since moving to the West Coast, they have carved out successful design careers, joining an ever-growing throng of new media and other RIT design alumni living and working in the Bay Area.

The Washington Post features RIT/NTID alumni Youmee Lee ’13 (professional technical communications) and Laural Hartman ’05 (illustration), ’07 MS (secondary education of students who are deaf or hard of hearing), ’20 MFA (fine arts studio) and former Dyer Arts Center Director Tabitha Jacques.