Operation Imaging Connection

My blog has been a little bit quiet lately because most of the items at the top of my to-do list are somewhat long-term and/or require multiple meetings and discussions on the path to completion. One such thing that has made notable progress however is a recent effort to get more alumni, particularly those who graduated from RIT pre-"Imaging Science", more strongly connected with CIS. For those who are not familiar with our history, I'll attempt to give a brief synopsis (from the best of my knowledge and with a bit of help from this website and its appendices):

• 1930's - Photographic Technology is established as a program at RAMI (Rochester Athenaeum and Mechanics Institute, later to be renamed RIT in 1944) to respond to local industry demand for trained workers. This program differentiated science-based photography studies from fine art and studio-based studies, which also existed at RAMI. These programs would evolve over the next few decades to address changing trends.
• 1956 - BS in Photographic Science is established.
• 1962 - MS in Photographic Science is established at the urging of the US Air Force.
• 1966-67 - Names of both the BS and MS programs are changed to Photographic Science and Instrumentation.
• ???? - Now stuff gets confusing. Photo Science becomes Imaging Science at some point, and in 1986 CIS is established. Then at some other point, CIS breaks off from the College of Graphic Arts and Photography and becomes its own entity, although degrees continue to be granted out of CGAP (later CIAS) until 1996.
• 1989 - The Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science building is dedicated.
• 1990 - RIT's first PhD program, in Imaging Science, is established.
• 1994 - RIT's College of Graphic Arts and Photography becomes the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences.
• 1996 - CIS joins the College of Science, and Imaging Science degrees are granted now by COS.

...And then I think things are pretty steady from here on to the present day. In case you couldn't tell, finding reliable information on the details of Imaging Science's history is pretty difficult. I think things become especially complicated in the late 80's/early 90's because of the whole - wait, is the coast clear? - CIA scandal (shhh, we won't talk about that here). Anyways...

So, you can probably tell that things are pretty complicated. We have alumni who don't associate with COS. We have alumni who don't even associate with "Imaging Science". And yet, they are all intended to be included as a part of the CIS community. Adding to the complexity is the lack of affinity felt by many alumni; for many decades, RIT just didn't have much spiRIT or connection with its students (for example, I know my in-laws, who are both RIT Alumni, really don't feel connected nor have any desire to be). The RIT Alumni Association as a whole continues to struggle with this, though they have made significant advancements over the past decade or so.

So, what's a poor outreach specialist to do? I have a modest alumni list that I maintain, and they receive the Imaging Connection newsletter seasonally. That list has about 440 alumni on it, whereas CIS has more like 1,500 alumni total. (Actually, my % isn't that bad...) Many e-mail addresses get deactivated, and alumni don't update their contact information with us (despite our simple online form created to do just that). To make matters worse, there are apparently alumni out there who have never been contacted by CIS. Well, obviously, it's time to change that. Enter: Operation Imaging Connection.

Although it is not efficient and not really in RIT's policy to maintain a separate alumni list, CIS does so because we have many alumni that are incredibly sensitive to having their private information shared (not even just for personal reasons, but also considering how many alumni we have in defense and security careers). We have always made it a point to keep our mailing list opt-in, to avoid any possible invasions of privacy. So to keep this going but reach out to a broader alumni base, we've decided to team up with Alumni Relations on a two-prong, try-to-reach-every-CIS-alumnus-ever endeavor. First, we will send an e-mail to every CIS alumnus with an active e-mail address on record; after that, we'll snail mail a physical post card to alumni with mailing addresses who would not have received the e-mail. And then hopefully, we'll be able to more effectively connect with our many alumni from over the decades!

Towards this end, I have created a graphic outlining the benefits of connecting with us. This is planned to be used for both the eblast and the postcard. The eblast should be going out within the next couple of weeks. Enjoy...

Speaking of late... Spring Imaging Connection Newsletter now available!

The latest CIS Imaging Connection Newsletter is hot off the press CPU!

Since the last one was a bit late, this one ended up being late too.... Oops! But I will definitely get things back on track for our next issue, the last one before semesters (dun dun dun). And then... well, I'm not even sure what schedule I'll follow anymore. But there has definitely been more than enough content (especially with these late editions), so I will probably stick to a quarterly schedule even though RIT's terms won't be quarters anymore.

Anyways! Highlights in this issue include: ImagineRIT, Commencement, a feature on the Alumni Admissions Officer volunteer program as I promised after the Boston alumni reception, and... an Imaging Science degree name change?! Check it out!

It may feel late, but it's still a faster turnaround than the Annual Report

So it's been a little over a year this time since I updated the site, but I finally got the Innovative Freshmen Experience webpage all current to showcase 2012-2013's project. After migrating the 2011-2012 project to its own new page, I updated pictures, names, majors, descriptions, videos, and even the list of news headlines. Doing the updating was more difficult this time than last year... This group wasn't as organized or thorough on their wiki, so I had to do a lot of extra digging and investigating. Thankfully there are a few freshmen now-2nd years around this summer that could help me get the details straight (and for the record, they readily admit that the wiki has insufficient content, I'm not just being cruel). They even captured some new images to use to help describe how the array works, so they were super helpful. Thanks, guys!!

I also finally uploaded some new banner images from the past two years - there are 25 of them in all (including the old ones), so you'll have to sit there hitting F5* for a while to see them all!

Anyways... check out all the updates!

*PCs only. I have no idea what the keystroke is on a mac.

Meet the 2013 Interns!

Today marks the end of week 1 for the interns, and things have been great so far! We have a really fantastic group this year, all of which seem incredibly bright and motivated. Timekeeping has been rather smooth so far, with only a couple small exceptions which have been addressed and hopefully won't happen again. The interns in this year's group overall seem very responsible and accountable, some of which may be attributable to the handbook we handed out on the first day. Which, by the way, seemed to go over really well - the interns actually got excited over the fact that they received folders, and they were quite impressed with the CIS highlighter pens. They listened attentively to "orientation" as we went over the handbooks on Monday, and so far have been very conscientious. I think this is going to be a really great year.

Anyways, don't let me tell you about their first week - hear it straight from them! Introducing.... The CIS High School Summer Intern Class of 2013! <- Click the link to see their pictures, names, schools, and labs, and click on their names to read their blogs. Which, by the way, they all had set up in record time, AND, they have all been doing a great job updating. I have been keeping up with all of them and I can tell you, there is some really good stuff in there.

Most of this year's interns during today's cookout, which was yet another resounding success. Except for the typical non-intern moochers.... But we've got a plan for that.
Hey, wait a second... what happened to Robert?!? (He's hiding directly behind Elizabeth, apparently.)

CIS interwebs - Baby Steps...

Some discussions have finally been taking place with regard to updating the look and feel of the CIS website. This is a big deal to me, because I see the website as our #1 marketing and recruitment tool. In this day and age, the appearance and content of your website is as crucial to your reputation as anything; and although our website does a VERY good job on the content side, its appearance is looking pretty dated and cluttered. It is going to take time and effort to make any big changes, but in the meantime I have been able to implement a few small updates to improve upon what we've got. Just because we are hoping to make some major changes doesn't mean we can neglect what's currently out there!

To kick off this whole update, I was charged with assembling a document that outlines our requirements, specifications, etc. As a part of this document, I started laying out a proposed menu and website structure that takes into account all of our current pages but reorganizes and simplifies them a bit. As anyone who has ever tried to navigate the menus knows, they can be quite confusing and overwhelming, especially with the ones that have 3 or 4(!) submenus. So, you can probably imagine that this has been a large undertaking that has consumed quite a bit of time. Aaaand, no one will even see the effects of it anytime soon - that is, except for the Undergraduate pages!

I have basically been given carte blanche to do whatever I see fit with the undergrad pages, so I was able to implement some (but unfortunately not all, yet) of the changes that I proposed in the document. If you go to the Undergraduate menu now, you will see that much has been cut back, and there is only one item with a sub-menu - and the menus go no further than that (no more 3 or 4 levels, huzzah!). I also cleaned up and updated a bunch of the pages in there, and removed pages that were either redundant or outdated with the move to semesters. Where you will see the biggest difference is when you click on "Prospective Students":

While the layout of this page is similar to how it was before, I updated the text in the boxes to use the same font as the newer CIS logo, and also added boxes for IFE (the page for which I need to update...), student stories, and a link to Monica's video. I more or less kept the same color scheme, though, which is bright and happy and still coordinates with our informational postcards and folders. Meanwhile, if you click on "What is Imaging Science?"...

you will be taken to the existing "about" page for the undergraduate program, which has been around forever but didn't appear to have been updated in a while - and, worst of all, was just big blocks of looooooong text. In an attempt to spruce things up a little, I added the "What is Imaging Science?" animation, as well as some graphic banners to help break up the text that was there. I also updated the text to reflect some lab changes and the switch to semesters, added some information on IFE, and used different typography on some parts of the text to help make it more visually appealing. Other than that I more or less kept the existing text the same, though, because even though there is a lot there, there is a lot of good content... and there are some people out there who would want to read all that. (But nobody's forcing you.) Personally, I would prefer to have less information there and instead encourage an in-person visit that would cover all of that, but since all of it was already there... and it was all pretty good stuff.... it was hard for me to just throw it all away. So there it stays. (What do you think of all that text - should it stay or should it go? Suggestions welcome in the comments!)

Other than all of that, one of the most obvious changes you may have noticed is an update to our top banner:

I put together a quick n' dirty banner using official RIT colors and the newer CIS logo. This is more consistent both with RIT but also with the newer logo we've been struggling to adopt more widely. It's a small change, but it's a great one - I've already gotten a few positive reactions (without even having to ask).

Hopefully there will be even more changes coming soon!

Signed 1st ed. Copies Now Available

So remember that top secret Interns Mini Retreat that I mentioned? During that retreat we brainstormed some ideas to legitimize the intern program and formalize some ground rules. Although we had some great plans, we weren't totally sure how to implement them. Enter: The CIS High School Summer Intern Program Intern Handbook.

Da da-DA!

This whole thing started yesterday when Bob brought by a handy information sheet he normally hands out to the interns on the first day. After reading it over, I thought back to an idea I once had to establish some sort of "handbook" with information about CIS, policies, procedures, guidelines, and expectations. I mentioned the idea to Bob, and we thought it would be worth a try.

Oddly enough, I still have my employee handbook from Pictometry tucked away in an office drawer (why?), and we used that as a model to build from. We listed relevant sections and divided up the work, later recombining our drafts into a single document. We also worked out how we want to carry out some new procedures for this summer, such as a more formalized calendar system and establishing milestones that must be met throughout the summer. These then all got included in the handbook as if they've been established parts of the program all along, muahaha.

Anyways, you can check out the handbook for yourself HERE! For the interns, we got nice copies made by the Hub which we then bound ourselves with a clear plastic cover and a heavy cardboard back - which ended up making a pretty snazzy booklet, if I do say so myself:

2legit2quit

We then stuffed these into some Imaging Science folders along with a calendar (pre-printed with important dates including milestone deadlines), a small pad of paper, and a CIS pen. And with that, we've got some nice little welcome folders for each of the interns! (Which was another action item from the mini-retreat, so, CHECK.)