Communications and Digital Media News

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.

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.

David Borkholder, Linwei Wang, Caroline Easton, and Adam Smith, part of RIT's Personalized Healthcare Technology signature research initiative, recently won a Catalyst Award from the National Academy of Medicine for their project, “Improving Health for the Aging through Daily Vital Signs Monitoring.”

The Democrat and Chronicle partners with Associate Professor Hinda Mandell's News Editing class on a project to talk to first-time voters.

Hinda Mandell, associate professor in the School of Communication, contributes to a piece published in Politico.

The Vignelli Center for Design Studies joined Google Arts & Culture as a partner, making hundreds of high-resolution artifacts from its archives available to an online audience.

Spectrum News talks to Mike Johansson, principal lecturer in the School of Communication, about being a  good steward of social media.

The Democrat and Chronicle reports on an online panel of Black journalists hosted by the Division of Diversity and Inclusion and journalism program in the School of Communication.

While many college athletics are on a timeout during the pandemic, esports at RIT are plugged in and fully operational. This semester, RIT Esports has student groups playing 15 different competitive games, along with four teams to support esports operations. As teams begin their fall leagues, students are finding different ways to practice and scrimmage in a socially distanced manner.

Through a partnership with the popular online magazine, Vignelli Center lectures are being rebroadcast by Design Milk. The semester's first event featured an inspiring talk by creativity strategist Natalie Nixon.

RIT will host a virtual panel discussion focused on the unique challenges and opportunities facing Black journalists and why representation in the media matters. The event, titled Reporting While Black, will feature six Rochester-based Black journalists from TV, radio, and print media at both the local and national level.

Despite restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, students at RIT are still finding ways to participate in hundreds of clubs and organizations this semester, including dancing, designing games, and even skydiving.