News by Topic: Deaf Community

RIT is hosting an interactive virtual town hall at 7 p.m. today, June 11, to discuss the Black Lives Matter movement and ways to address issues of social justice on a local and national level. The event will begin with brief remarks from RIT President David Munson and then the floor will be yielded to participants who wish to ask questions and make comments.

Alesia Allen, an alumna and NTID faculty member, has been named NTID Director of Diversity and Inclusion. She begins her new duties July 1.

Several students at NTID were honored with academic achievement awards ahead of RIT’s virtual commencement ceremony on May 8.

Friday’s celebration of the Class of 2020 certainly cannot replace the atmosphere of a traditional commencement, which RIT plans to host on campus when it’s deemed safe. But many of graduates say they won’t let the pandemic, or the circumstances surrounding the virtual celebration, define them or their feelings about their time at RIT. (Pictured: Bradley Speck, who will finish his classes online this summer, has a job waiting for him at GE Aviation in Cincinnati, where he completed four co-ops.)

Eight years ago, as a high school junior, Peter Yeung participated in NTID's Explore Your Future, a program that introduces deaf and hard-of-hearing high schoolers to career opportunities. Today, Yeung is an RIT/NTID graduate who has completed three degrees and has started his career as a user experience architect with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in Springfield, Va.

WHEC-TV talks to Gary Behm, associate vice president of Academic Affairs at NTID, about the barriers to producing see-through masks.

Austin Gehret, an associate professor in NTID's Department of Science and Mathematics, was honored for his research project exploring the development of an e-learning model for deaf and hard-of-hearing students. Gehret’s research is especially vital during the COVID-19 pandemic as remote learning for all students has become the “new normal.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a group of RIT students with a unique opportunity to express themselves. Missing the expanse of his dance studio at RIT, Thomas Warfield challenged his 43 dance students to stretch their bodies—and minds—using small spaces in their homes. The resulting submissions included routines performed inside closets, on treadmills, and in bathtubs.

NTID is one of four international innovators selected to create cost-effective packages of high-quality accessible children’s books in languages children use and understand to serve regions of the world where children have few or no books for preschool or kindergarten.
 

Six teams of deaf and hard-of-hearing students from NTID adapted to a virtual presentation format for the annual Next Big Idea business competition. Student presenters from as far away as Dubai shared their ideas for new businesses that positively impact deaf and hard-of-hearing communities.

Entrepreneur Reuben Zielinski ’85 (electrical engineering) ’96 (EMBA) believes that generating a great idea is actually the easiest part of the product development process. The hardest part? Convincing other people that what you have is a great idea and getting them to buy what you have developed.

Time magazine features RIT/NTID professor emeritus Harry Lang.