Extra, Extra! Read all about it!

The newest CIS Imaging Connection newsletter is now available! 

The Spring issue brings you Commencement, an Imagine RIT recap, a celebration of our many recently honored alumni, a look into the newest perks of being RIT alumni, some funny old pictures from almost 25 years ago, and more.

I'm definitely signing up for mini golf next year.

Today was RIT's annual Staff Appreciation Picnic! As I am now a part of Staff Council, I signed up to help out at the event. I signed up for mini golf, hoping for a nice day... And I got it!

Getting my staff appreciation mini golf on

I signed up for 11AM-12PM, which as it turns out is not a very popular time for mini golf... Most folks wanted to eat first. But I didn't mind - in fact that meant I got to try out the course myself and perfect my "technique". I got a hole in 1 first try on THREE of the holes, yeah! But I made up for my good luck - I mean, skills - on some other holes that took me more like 6 strokes, like the curlicue ramp (which as it turns out, you don't want to actually roll your ball around - the "3 bounce" method is key). It was great fun to interact with the players who did come around, and to get to know some fellow RIT staffers better. So much fun, in fact, that I came back out after eating the (delicious!!!) Brick City Catering lunch and volunteered some extra time outside of what I had signed up for. And it's a good thing, too, because otherwise I would have missed Ritchie - apparently the "Ritchie photo booth" ended at 1PM but luckily I caught him on his way back to his den:

At least this time it's not MY hair upsetting the photo's color balance...

I had a great time at this year's picnic! Many thank yous to Staff Council!

SCHOOL'S. OUT. FOR. SUMMER! (...Not for me, though...)

CONGRATULATIONS, GRADUATES!!!!!!!!!

Another year, another Commencement - What an exciting time for RIT! The rain is clearing, the sun is coming out, and the campus is abuzz with students and families getting ready to graduate. It reminds me of my own graduation 5(!) years ago, and how proud I was to become an RIT alumnus. It is so much fun, I must admit I am a little jealous watching the Class of '11. Hopefully, my own graduation for my Masters won't be too far off...

Meanwhile, working at RIT during the end of the academic year provides an interesting perspective. While campus is so busy getting ready for its big day, unrelated activities slow down significantly. And once today is over, *POOF* campus will practically be a ghost town (which is great news for parking!). Not only that, but high school classrooms are taking AP exams and preparing for finals that are coming up before too long. So what does that all mean for me? FINALLY being able to knock off a few things from the To Do list!

Summer is a great time to concentrate on the longer-term projects I don't have time to devote to during the academic year: designing and building focused webpages; putting together some simple yet detailed outreach programs our alumni can do; developing a new promotional campaign centered around our students; storyboarding videos; etc. Without the usual grind of the academic year, and without so many big events to have to plan and prepare for, there is a lot more flexibility to get creative and spread myself out more.

Not to say I won't still be busy with other things: the Imaging Bash is fast approaching; high school interns arrive in July; RIT will again have College & Careers for 2 weekends; Staff Council continues to meet; AND I will be taking on a new adventure for 2 weeks this summer participating in a program at RIT for Urban League of Rochester students. All that and I will also be taking a class (the first summer class for me EVER)... So maybe I won't hardly get a chance to relax, after all....

Meet your NEW Staff Council Representative!

Well this post was supposed to go up last Thursday but Blogger wasn't working! So you've waited long and hard, and now it is finally revealed: you are looking at the NEW RIT Staff Council Block 6 representative! A special election was held this spring to fill an empty Block 6 seat, for a 1 year term ending in May, 2012. Lo and behold, I won! (Well, I think I'm the only one who ran.)

Check out my fancy nametag.

My experience in Staff Council thus far has really only consisted of an orientation lunch and one meeting (which I technically attended as an "Apprentice Member" - i.e., I couldn't vote yet). But, I am very excited for this opportunity! I am looking forward to meeting people from other departments across campus who represent a variety of careers. And (as is always in the back of my mind) I am hoping to increase awareness of Imaging Science and serve as an ambassador for the Center. We "Apprentice Members" haven't outlined our list of constituents yet, but even so I've already had some people come to me with concerns that they would like voiced - which is awesome!

I'm really looking forward to hearing more about the inner workings of campus and getting involved. Stay tuned and watch out for more posts with the Staff Council label!

Did you know there are peeps in Rochester who are NOT happy about our warm, sunny days??

Today was Greece Apollo Career Exploration Day here at RIT! Last year set the bar really high for this event, as it ended up being my favorite event to participate in. Well, the kids this year did not disappoint!

For the event, about eighty 8th grade Apollo students who are advanced in science and/or math visit the RIT campus to see two presentations: 1 in imaging science, and 1 in hospitality/nutrition. They then get to take a campus tour and then eat at Gracie's. This year we were privileged to have Admissions' support with the tour - they actually offered up their Brick City Ambassadors, who are really top-notch!

As for the presentations themselves, they are such a blast with these kids. They actually listen intently to all the background and descriptions of imaging science, and interact a lot when I ask questions of them. And then of course there's the FLIR thermal camera, which never fails. The girls have even seen it before, as this was the same school that did the Non-Traditional Occupations Day that I participated in - and knowing what it was seemed to make them even MORE excited. I had a couple kids really go to town spreading ice on themselves in front of the camera, too - it was a riot!

The kids were so into it that I didn't have enough time to go into the About Me part of my presentation - which, although it's too bad to have missed out on, I am perfectly glad about because of the reason why. The kids were so interactive, asking and answering so many questions, I can't possibly be disappointed by running out of time. Though, a number of them were - in the evaluations they filled out at the end of the day, a number of write-in responses said they wanted more time in the imaging science workshop - which I think is great!!!

Some other highlights from the evaluation write-ins:
Q: If you were to make a change to this workshop, what would it be? (36 total write-ins)
"I would make no change because it was excellent !"
"Nothing. I plan on taking Imaging Science in College at RIT!!!!"
"Nothing" x 15, with even 1: "absolutely nothing!!!!!!!!!!!!1" (which I think counts for more than 1, don't you?)

Q: With regards to the tour: Did you have a favorite part? Least favorite part? Share your thoughts. (36 total write-ins)"My favorite part was Gracy's, because the area was really cool. I didn't like how it was so hot when we were walking."
"Favorite Was Art, Least Was Walking"
"food"
"Favorite: Talking about fun activities. Least Favorite: Walking in the sun."
"i didnt like walking outside and all the stairs"
"buffet, the sun."
"my favoorite part was seeing cool stuff. my least favorite part was the walking"
"i wasn't paying attention cuz im stupid :/"
"My Favorite part of the tour was the activity center with the track field and basketball courts. My least favorite was the burning sun beating on us during the tour."
"i liked the cafeteria but not the walking."
And last but not least, my personal favorite: "I really enjoyed the imaging program."

Q: How would you rate your lunch at Gracey's? (24 total write-ins)
"i ate 4 plates of food you tell me how i thought it was."
"FOOD WAS ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!!! And no im not just saying this because i am fat. i devoured everything so you tell me how it is"

Q: What was your favorite part of your visit to RIT, other than lunch? (49 total write-ins)
"My favorite part if my visit was the imaging science workshop, it was very interesting to know that it is one of the better jobs in that area to have."
"lunch"
"imaging workshop" x 10

Q: Did you see any potential career connections from your experiences at RIT? Any in particular that you can think of? (34 total write-ins)
"imaging science" x 5
+ 1 "yes, instead of going for a medical career in strong, i hope to go for imaging science if my parents agree."
"If I had to be one of the careers it would be obserd scary and awful."


So overall...

How would you rate the Imaging Science Workshop?
	answered question		52
		Response Percent	Response Count
Excellent		71.2%	37
Good		21.2%	11
Fair		5.8%	3
Poor		1.9%	1

(For the record, there was 1 outlier who rated every single part of the day as "Poor".)

I'm going to go ahead and put this day in the "Win" column.

You may not know this about me... but I am a shoveling MACHINE

Today I volunteered with the RIT Young Professionals group for the United Way Day of Caring. We teamed up with some U of R Young Leaders to help out the Westside YMCA on Elmgrove Rd. We weeded, planted flowers, spread mulch in all the gardens and around all the trees, and also added new wood chips to the playground. It may not sound like a lot (and I'll admit, we totally thought we would get done early), but it took us ALL DAY! Granted, U of R had a few volunteers drop out so we had about 4 or 5 fewer people than expected. But we got a LOT done. In retrospect, we should have taken before and after pictures...

Even though it was a ton of work, today was so much fun. (It certainly helped that we had picture perfect weather!) It felt very rewarding in many ways to help out as part of the Day of Caring. So many of the Y's members were gracious and very appreciative of all our work. (Some of the older male members were apparently especially appreciative of my unintentional "show" of putting sun tan lotion on myself... Come on!) At one point all of the young kids came out to thank us for updating their playground, and they handed us hand drawn construction paper Thank You cards (so cute!).

A Young Professionals group is a really great way to get involved in community service - having a team working together can accomplish so much, and it was definitely fun to interact with my peers in a new way. I came away with a lot today, which definitely makes all the hard work worth it. (And I'm sure I'll still feel that way in 2 days when all the shoveling comes back to hurt me.) I hope that we organize more activities like this in the future!

Some pictures from the day...

A few of us RIT gals, getting our hands dirty!

RIT Young Professionals - with a much depleted mulch pile (I swear!)

RIT YP with some very appreciative kids :-)
PS: That giant umbrella behind us sprays down water - And they turned it on so we could cool off under it! Yeah!

It's ALIVE!

Today I presented to a group of Midlakes Middle School 8th graders. Since so many of them already saw me back in January, I decided I would need to switch things up a bit. As it turns out, the Freshmen were supposed to be performing their first live demonstration of their PTM dome for the IS&T (Imaging Science and Technology) student chapter meeting today. BUT, there was a scheduling issue - a luncheon was scheduled until right up until IS&T time in the usual meeting spot, and the freshmen were going to need a good amount of time to get everything set up and test it to make sure it was all working properly. Well, since I already had the Carlson Auditorium booked for my presentation, all we had to do was add some extra time on both ends of my reservation and we could present the dome twice - once for Midlakes, and once for IS&T! Genius.

So here's the thing about the dome: It literally was not operational until last night. So this was kind of a huge deal to get this thing working this morning in front of an audience! It was also no small feat to get the entire device down into the auditorium - it barely fits through doors, is too large to fit on a cart, and is pretty delicate. But, everything went pretty smoothly, save for a few small hiccups. Luckily, everything was operational by the time the students started filling in to the auditorium - aaaaand we're off!

I started off the presentation by telling my usual "about me" story, this time interspersed with a few videos, including: What is Imaging Science?; The Freshmen Imaging Project; History of PTMs; and What are PTMs. From there was a natural segue over to Joe & the Freshmen to briefly discuss what they were about to do, and get the dome fired up. It was awesome!!! There was a webcam showing what was going on inside the dome while lights flashed and the camera shutter opened and closed. After all 23 lights and images fired (yeah!) the data was all assembled. This step was not without some minor setbacks, but they were all easily overcome. Luckily, Joe has really good entertainment skills with the kids - asking questions, poking fun, and encouraging applause. And, what do you know - the whole thing worked!!!! Once the finished PTM was displayed and animated, the crowd rose to their feet and gave a standing ovation. (Okay, Joe told them to - but still!) It was a major accomplishment and very thrilling to see the dome actually operating. The 8th graders may not have quite realized the magnitude of this accomplishment, but nonetheless I think they enjoyed the presentation (and probably also appreciated the fact that we really were doing it on the fly).

I'll have some pictures from today's event posted next week! GO FRESHMEN!