News by Topic: Diversity

After a year’s hiatus due to COVID-19, the popular Imagine RIT: Creativity and Innovation Festival returns virtually on Saturday, May 1, with more than 250 exhibits of projects, research and performing arts of students, faculty, and staff at RIT.

Experts from Australia, Hong Kong, Peru, and Vietnam will join faculty from RIT’s New York and international campuses for a conference on the future of international education in a post-COVID world.

Forbes lists RIT among its 2021 list of best employers for diversity. Forbes partnered with market research company Statista to survey 50,000 Americans working for businesses with at least 1,000 employees and pinpoint the companies they identified as being most dedicated to diversity, equity and inclusion.

Joshua Rashaad McFadden is an award-winning, inter­nationally recognized assistant professor of photography at RIT’s School of Photographic Arts and Sciences. A transformative artist, social justice advocate, and change agent, he possesses a unique vision of the Black American experience.

The goal of the Dyer Arts Center’s project, “Shaped by the American Dream: Deaf History through Deaf Art,” is for the public to develop a greater understanding of the Deaf community’s place in American history.

Inside Higher Ed interviews Miriam Lerner, interpreter; Keith Cagle, chair, Department of ASL and Interpreting Education; students Marshall Hurst and Zee Chuan; and Kristi Love, interpreter and director, Randleman Program, about technical and discipline-specific sign language and the important role of interpreters of color.

This year’s recognition of RIT’s Alfred L. Davis Distinguished Public Service Award winners will be a double celebration, as faculty and student recipients from 2020 and 2021 are honored April 13. Luane Davis Haggerty will receive the 2021 Four Presidents Distinguished Public Service Award, and Bhuvish Mehta will receive the 2021 Bruce R. James ’64 Distinguished Public Service Award. Thomas Warfield was awarded the 2020 Four Presidents Distinguished Public Service Award, and Çlirim Sheremeti was awarded the 2020 Bruce R. James ’64 Distinguished Public Service Award.

Fox Rochester talks to Tisa Zito '09 (film and animation) about her directorial debut with the documentary ForeverMoore; The Angelo Project.

Anika Griffiths, a fourth-year sociology and anthropology major and Student Government Women’s Senator, has been selected to give a spoken-word performance at RIT’s Moving Forward: Suffrage Past, Present and Future symposium on April 8.

President David Munson covered the state of the campus in regards to COVID-19, the Action Plan for Race & Ethnicity, Imagine RIT, commencement, and more during his most recent “Ask Munson” interview on WITR radio.

Intersections: The RIT Podcast, Ep. 45: As our society reckons with issues of racial disparity and mental health, RIT’s Counseling and Psychological Services is working to address some of the unique mental health challenges facing RIT’s students of color. Three mental health therapists who identify as people of color—Odessa Despot, Jaime Castillo, and Isabel Chandler—discuss issues related to mental health stigma, the impacts of racism and racial trauma, and ways to support those experiencing mental health issues.

Global librarian Susan “Sue” Mee plays an essential role supporting students on RIT’s international campuses in Croatia, Dubai, Kosovo, and China. Her position as library liaison for distance/online education took on a global focus 15 years ago when the university expanded its RIT Global presence.