News by Topic: Deaf Community

Chris ’94 (social work) and Staci ’92 (social work) Wagner have been named the recipients of RIT’s 2019 Volunteer of the Year award in recognition of their efforts. They will be honored at the Presidents’ Alumni Ball during Brick City Homecoming and Family Weekend on Oct. 18.

The Distinguished Alumni Awards are presented annually by each of RIT’s nine colleges and the School of Individualized Study and are the highest awards an RIT college can bestow upon its alumni.

Brigadier General Stacy Babcock ’91 (criminal justice) ’96 (educational interpreting) ’98 MS (instructional technology) assumed duties earlier this year as the Deputy Commanding General at the 63rd Readiness Division in Mountain View, Calif.

Meet Michael Rizzolo ’76 (basic interpreter training program), ’78 (social work), ’86 MS (human services management), the National Technical Institute for the Deaf 2019 Distinguished Alumnus.

Three deaf and hard-of-hearing students in business-related majors at NTID received a new scholarship funded by the Frank B. Sullivan Memorial Foundation.

Gerard Buckley, president of NTID, received the George W. Nevil Award of Merit at the graduation ceremony for students of the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf in Philadelphia. The award honored Buckley’s work as an educator and administrator. He also delivered the commencement address to the graduating class.

Larwan Berke, a computing and information sciences Ph.D. student at RIT, was one of only 11 outstanding doctoral students selected to receive the 2019 Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant.

RIT students, faculty, staff and Osher members are part of a 12-day lineup of more than 500 eclectic performances in this year’s KeyBank Rochester Fringe Festival, Sept. 10-21 in Rochester. RIT also is a major educational sponsor of the community collaborative event, now in its eighth year.

Inside Higher Ed features RIT's Spectrum Support Program.

To commemorate a beloved Black History Month tradition, NTID announced the establishment of the Johnnie “JB” Brown Black History Month Celebration Endowment Fund at a ceremony in May. The fund, named after a longtime RIT employee, will help preserve the popular Black History Month potluck luncheon held each February.

The Explore Your Future program at NTID offers deaf and hard-of-hearing college-bound high school students who will begin their junior or senior year in fall 2019 a unique opportunity to experience life on a college campus, explore their interests and sample various careers.

Jennifer Lynn Swartzenberg, a faculty member in NTID’s science and mathematics department, is the 2019-2020 recipient of the Ronald D. Dodge Memorial Faculty Grant and will receive $1,000 for her project to produce videos of established and new American Sign Language (ASL) signs for organic chemistry.