State of the University
President Bill Destler
Brick City Homecoming 2015
Thank you for that wonderful introduction Nick … Good
morning everyone and welcome to RIT’s Brick City Homecoming
and Family Weekend. It is wonderful to have so many parents,
alumni and friends joining us for this magnificent weekend. As you
tour the campus, you will discover a thriving and growing
university full of innovation, entrepreneurship and creativity. I’ve
been telling the students, faculty, staff and alumni that we are on
the cusp of greatness. Here are some examples of what I mean by
that:
The fall 2015 semester welcomed a record-breaking freshman
class of 2,940 students and 600 transfers bringing total enrollment
to an all-time record high of more than 18,600 students globally.
This makes us the 10th largest private university in the nation in
terms of undergraduate enrollment. The academic quality of this
incoming freshman class is higher than ever and the diversity is far
greater. Forty-one (41) percent of our freshman class is made up of
African American, Latino American and Native American students;
deaf and hard of hearing students, and international students. Talk
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about diversity! Growth also continues with our graduate student
population, now at 3,100. Sixty (60) percent of these students are
from outside the U.S. with students from India, China, Saudi
Arabia and the Dominican Republic leading global enrollment.
Many of you may not realize we have overseas campuses in
Croatia, Dubai and Kosovo. Our enrollments grew there as well:
42 percent in RIT Dubai, 19 percent in RIT Croatia!
This unexpected enrollment growth has already challenged us
in areas from housing to advising to additional course offerings.
We have allocated additional resources to meet these demands and
we’ll do more if future conditions warrant. While this is certainly a
challenge that we have been working diligently to solve, it is a
problem that many of our peer universities wish they had. We’re
lucky enough to have a collection of world-class faculty and staff
who can successfully meet these challenges head on.
Let me continue with a few more concrete examples and
evidence of RIT’s ascent to greatness:
 RIT is second largest producer of bachelor’s degrees in the
disciplines of science, technology, engineering and math commonly referred to as STEM - among private universities
in the U.S.
 RIT faculty increasingly receive funding awards for their
research work in a very competitive environment. Our
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sponsored research portfolio grew by 18 percent this past
year, reaching a record $62 million in funding. We received
356 new awards from a variety of state, federal, corporate
and foundation sponsors. Half the funding came from federal
sources, including $13 million from the National Science
Foundation, and we also received 18 new awards totaling $3
million from the National Institutes of Health. Our research
ranges from a new battery prototyping center to … exploring
new types of telescopes for NASA to … launching a global
network for 3D printed prostheses.
 The total of new funds raised from government, corporate
and philanthropic sources exceeded $100 million last year for
the first time in RIT’s history.
 Employers from small start-ups to multi-national
corporations actively seek out our talented students. A few
weeks ago, a record 250 companies attended our Fall Career
Day. We actually had to turn some companies away!
We are receiving an abundance of outside validation. A few
examples:
 In a new U.S. News & World Report survey of college
leaders in the north, RIT was rated No. 2 among the “Most
Innovative Schools.”
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 We were just listed No. 3 in the online outlet Mic as the
school where the “next Steve Jobs is going to come from.”
 We were cited No. 10 among the “best colleges for getting a
job in tech.”
 U.S. News and World Report continues to single out RIT as
one of the nation’s elite internship/co-op schools. Each year,
more than 4,100 students complete more than 6,100 work
assignments with more than 2,100 companies and
organizations from small start-up firms to Fortune 500
corporations. Let me add that 96 percent of our students are
employed in their fields of study within six months of
graduation, or are enrolled in graduate school.
The campus continues to thrive and we have more in store.
 This summer saw two significant announcements that serve
notice that our best days lie ahead. First, Governor Cuomo
came to campus to announce that New York State will
provide $13.5 million in support of a new facility on our
campus for Magic Spell Studios, our visionary initiative to
exploit the increasing synergies within our nationally ranked
computer gaming and film and animation programs. $17
million in corporate gifts by Cisco and Dell, as well as the
Wegman Family Charitable Foundation will also ensure the
commitment by the state. This tremendous support will allow
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for the construction of a state-of-the-art facility that will
result in increased enrollment in these programs, effective
commercialization of the products that are developed, and the
positioning of RIT as the leader in the emerging field of
digital media.
 Second, Vice President Joe Biden came to Rochester to
announce that a coalition led by SUNY-Poly, the University
of Rochester, and RIT is the winner of a nationwide
competition to lead an advanced manufacturing institute in
the area of photonics. AIM Photonics, the national project,
will be supported by $110 million in federal funds and $240
million in state funding over the next five years. RIT’s
contributions will be in the areas of device prototyping and
packaging, and the funding we are to receive will allow for a
significant modernization of our microelectronics clean room
facility. There is a very real possibility that this Institute
could lead to a second industrial revolution in Rochester
based on photonics, optics, and imaging science, and RIT is
well positioned to help lead this effort.
 Two weeks ago, we officially opened the new Clinical Health
Sciences Center, which will be home to:
o Our College of Health Sciences and Technology.
o The new Wegmans School of Health and Nutrition.
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o A primary care family medicine practice —to be run by
our partner Rochester Regional Health. You can stop in
for an interactive tour today between 11 to 1:30.
 We are continuing our successful academic exchange in
China through an international partnership with Beijing
Jiaotong University. This fall, two new degree programs
began in a joint collaboration between RIT’s Saunders
College of Business and BJTU’s School of Economics and
Management. An MS degree in entrepreneurship and
innovative ventures will be offered in the capital city of
Beijing, and a BS degree in management information systems
at BJTU’s campus in the city of Weihai.
 We now have seven Ph.D. programs. This past spring, 33
graduates earned their doctorates— the most in our history.
Several interdisciplinary doctoral programs are currently in
the planning stages.
Let’s now turn to my favorite topic ~ student life.
One area in which RIT has seen the greatest progress in
recent years is in the quality of student life outside the
classroom. With more than 300 student clubs and organizations,
a robust intramural and club sports program, and an active
Student Government, RIT students have no trouble being
engaged in and out of the classroom.
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Our intercollegiate athletics program has contributed to a
marked increase in school spirit. After winning the NCAA
Division III National Championship in 2012, our women’s hockey
team moved up to Division I and quickly captured the College
Hockey America conference championship the past two seasons.
They advanced to the NCAA Elite 8 last season. The women’s
program is already celebrating a new milestone. We recently
announced the Bruce B. Bates Women’s Hockey Coach, the
university’s first endowed coaching position for Tiger athletic
programs. Trustee Emeritus Bruce B. Bates, who joined the board
in 1970, is providing the gift where endowed earnings will support
the salary of the women’s head hockey coach and provide budget
relief to athletics.
Our Division I men’s hockey team continues to compete and
beat the nation’s elite, winning the Atlantic Hockey championship
and also advancing to the NCAA Elite 8 last season, after knocking
off the No. 1 team in the nation.
Our men’s lacrosse team is a perennial Division III national
contender and finished last season 21-1, a team record. The
women’s cross-country team was recently ranked nationally for the
first time, and the women’s soccer team was ranked 15th nationally
this fall, the highest ranking in their history.
We’ve become an athletic powerhouse! Oh, and by the way, our
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600 student-athletes are true student athletes who study in the full
spectrum of majors and routinely earn GPAs above the campus
average.
We have some amazing students at RIT, and here are just a
few recent examples of their great work:
 This year, RIT was one of only eight universities in the
country with four (the maximum number) undergraduate
students earning the prestigious Barry M. Goldwater
Scholarships; bringing the total awards to 27 since 2005.
 Three RIT students won Fulbright fellowships for the 20152016 academic year. We had 40 international students from
25 countries attend the university this past year through the
Fulbright Foreign Student Program.
 Two RIT students took a top prize in Microsoft’s U.S.
Imagine Cup National Finals.
 RIT’s cyber defense team is a perennial powerhouse at the
National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition. In the past
three years, they’ve taken home the gold, silver and bronze.
 And congratulations to my friend Nick Giordano and his
team for putting together the “Good Bye, Good Buy”
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program, in which discarded furniture, food, sundries, and
other items left behind by departing students in the spring
were purchased at a fraction of the original price by incoming
students this fall. This effort supports our campus-wide
sustainability efforts and saved more than 60,000 pounds of
material from going to a landfill.
 Each spring, hundreds of students show off their talents at
“Imagine RIT: Innovation and Creativity Festival.” Since
2008, Imagine RIT has drawn more than 230,000 visitors. It
has jump-started new ideas, products, services and studentled ventures. Save the date for our next festival - May 7!!
To our distinguished alumni: The true measure of RIT
success is not just the graduation of students, but also the
continued success of our alumni! Our alumni association is
118,000 strong and these Tigers blaze innovation, creativity and
entrepreneurial paths around the world in all 50 states and 123
countries.
 Our alumni are a relatively young and up-and-coming pool of
talented innovators, entrepreneurs, leaders and creative
artists. More than 50 percent of the university’s alumni have
graduated since 1990; about a third of alumni have graduated
since 2000.
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 According to a new database of start-up talent, RIT alumni
are working in 438 start-up companies comprising of 1,300
graduates and growing.
 Notable alumni range from CEOs to Academy Award
winners in film animation. They are politicians and leaders in
government. They are inventors of gaming platforms and
mobile payment options that keep small businesses running.
They are entrepreneurs in the world of disaster and data
recovery. Eight RIT alumni have won 12 Pulitzer Prizes in
photojournalism.
 Our alumni are leaders, globally and coast-to-coast, who
blaze new trails on the frontlines as well as behind the scenes
at companies and non-profit organizations both large and
small:
o In California, more than 2,000 alumni call the San
Francisco Bay area home in this region that is the
worldwide epicenter for innovation and technology.
o In Brooklyn, tech companies are turning to RIT talent
first. A columnist in the Huffington Post analyzed the
flourishing start-up movement in Brooklyn and when
surveying business leaders, he discovered and I quote:
“When I asked where they were finding their new
talent, the nearly unanimous answer I received:
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Rochester Institute of Technology.”
 Alumni are the true representation of the RIT “brand.” We do
not prepare students just for graduation and their first job. We
prepare them for a complete life that includes personal and
professional growth and success, and positive impact on their
industries and communities. The accomplishments of our
alumni are our “proof” that we are accomplishing our
mission as a leader in higher education.
 The Alumni Association Board of Directors serves as the
advisory body of the RIT Alumni Association and provides
leadership in developing and executing stimulating and
engaging alumni programs and activities around the globe. In
fact, members of Alumni Association Board of Directors are
here on campus this weekend representing the larger alumni
body and guiding our alumni engagement work.
 To further demonstrate RIT’s commitment to you, our
alumni, we are establishing permanent alumni home. RIT has
purchased a private estate house and surrounding grounds
adjacent to the campus, just past the Red Barn, with an
alumni-centric facility in mind. A new RIT Alumni House at
this location will illustrate how significant our alumni are to
RIT, and will celebrate the mutually beneficial relationship
that can be built between alumni and the university. We have
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more fundraising to do and a lot of construction to undergo
before this house actually becomes a home but we know we
can count on our alumni for your continued support.
 RIT alumni are a part of RIT for Life and we value our strong
connection with you and we couldn’t do what we do without
you. You make us proud!
So if RIT is on the cusp of greatness, what’s our next move?
We are implementing our 2025 Strategic Plan, “Greatness Through
Difference,” which we adopted last year. Throughout its 186-year
history, RIT has always been a different kind of institution. RIT
continues to redefine higher education. We have several distinctive
programs, our “crown jewels”, which include our co-op program,
the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, imaging science, the
School for American Crafts, industrial design, photography, film
and animation, sustainable manufacturing and computational
astrophysics.
RIT will become an internationally distinguished university by
exploiting its differences and better meeting the needs of a rapidly
changing world. Or, more succinctly: RIT will achieve greatness
through difference. We belong in the category of the world’s
great universities, not because we seek to replicate the great
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universities of the past century, but because we are already
practicing what future universities must provide.
We have elected to concentrate on five dimensions in our plan:
 Career Education and Student Success
 The Student-centered Research University
 Leveraging Difference
 Value, Affordability & Return on Investment
 Organizational Agility
I would be happy to discuss our Strategic Plan in more depth and
entertain any other questions in a moment.
Finally, we have a busy weekend planned for you. We
encourage you to mingle with faculty, administrators and staff.
Enjoy yourselves at some of the signature events, including a
presentation in the Gordon Field House by Jamie Hyneman, who is
executive producer and co-host of the Discovery Channel’s
MythBusters show. His resume includes tackling over 750 myths
and performing nearly 2,500 experiments. And tonight, our men’s
hockey team faces off downtown against Bowling Green State
University. You will see a sell-out crowd of more than 10,000 loyal
Tiger fans. Let’s fill the arena with a sea of Orange!
Thank you for being a part of our family and sharing this
special weekend with us. We hope that you will leave here feeling
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a stronger connection to RIT and to each other.
Thanks again and have a great weekend!
I would be happy to take your questions and comments now.
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