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The president of Rochester Institute of Technology had been promising a historic announcement for weeks.
Amid musical and theatrical performances at the ice rink-tumed-nightclub Thursday, July 12, David C. Munson was scheduled to make the announcement before 2,000 guests: RIT has launched a $1 billion fundraising campaign to take the university to another level.
The $1 billion campaign is the largest in RIT's history. The money would take the college from its old image of rapidly growing technical university answering the needs of industry, to a place where creativity and innovation is the norm in all disciplines, and areas such as performing arts and liberal arts are newly highlighted.
"This place is going to be much more well-rounded several years down the road," Munson said in a recent interview. "A lot of folks think that we're educating the vast majority of our students for specific careers," he said.
Rather than preparing students to fit within pre-existing systems, the vision Munson articulated is for RIT students to become the makers of new systems, not just in business and computing, but in medicine, law and politics, too.
RIT's current strengths will continue to be part of the picture-just more creatively and innovatively.
"RIT has a very strong...