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Resilient students make up class of 2024
Graduating from college is a major life accomplishment that is usually filled with joy, some uncertainty, and years of memories. But for many who started their college experience four years ago, those memories didn’t include traditional transitions from high school to college. Thanks to the global pandemic that began in the spring of 2020, many endured quarantine, isolation, COVID-19 testing, and remote learning when they started college. Sandra Johnson, Rochester Institute of Technology’s senior vice president for Student Affairs, said students who started college in 2020 managed to not only overcome the challenges brought on by the pandemic, but learned to thrive. “They persevered and are stronger for it,” Johnson said. More than 4,100 RIT students are graduating this weekend. Those in four-year programs started college in the fall of 2020, when being closer than 6 feet from anyone else was discouraged. At Friday’s commencement ceremony, the Gordon Field House will be filled with 8,000 students, faculty, staff, friends, and family members celebrating the students’ achievements. Provided Iain Roach, who is graduating from RIT this week with a degree in game design and development, is shown here at the Anchorage, Alaska, airport with his parents, Heather and Wade Roach, in 2020. He left home to start his college career during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Iain Roach, who is graduating with a degree in game design and development and a minor in Japanese, will be there with his older brother, Orion, and his parents, Wade and Heather, who are coming from their home in Anchorage, Alaska. Roach recalls that flight in 2020 when he came to Rochester alone to start college. In order to attend RIT, the New York State Health Department required students from designated states not bordering New York to quarantine for 14 days before coming to campus. Roach stayed with a friend’s grandmother in nearby Canandaigua, N.Y., mostly staying inside, taking classes remotely, and spending time at Canandaigua Lake. “While Iain’s freshman college experience may not look like what we envisioned or had experienced with our other child, it will be a journey on which he can leave his own unique mark,” Heather Roach said at the time. “I think it is going to allow our students to build essential character traits such as independence, problem solving, and resilience. And what a story to tell in the future.” Almost all of Roach’s classes were online during his first semester, which was an easy transition since his final months of high school were also online. “There were a lot less people on campus, and it was a lot more open,” he said. “There were very few people out and about. There were no crowds or anything. Now if you go out during the day, there’s a very stark difference.” He actually credits COVID for helping him transition to college. “If COVID didn’t happen, I would have just showed up and be thrown in the thick of things,” he said. “It would have been more chaotic perhaps. But mingling and interacting with everyone came later, so it may have benefited me, so I didn’t get overwhelmed.” Roach admits he wasn’t happy about the isolation required by the pandemic, but he knew it was not unique to RIT and something to keep people safe. “At some point I was annoyed because that first year is the most important for getting connections and making friends,” he said. “Because everything was online, it was hard to interact with people. But the orientation group that I was in, I met a couple of people who had similar majors and interests that I had, so that helped the first semester, and they remain my friends today.” Roach is applying for jobs back in Alaska and after graduation plans a long road trip home. But first, his family plans to have a graduation dinner in Rochester this weekend, which will include his friend’s grandmother from Canandaigua, who played a significant role in launching his college experience. For Seth Grottenthaler, a finance major from Corning, N.Y., this week’s graduation also gives him a chance to reflect on his four years at RIT, including the untraditional start in 2020. “Coming to RIT, it definitely was a new experience for me, but I wasn’t alone. Everyone was going through it,” he said. A member of RIT’s varsity lacrosse team, Grottenthaler says he felt lucky he had his fellow teammates to hang out with his first year in college. “I had 50 or 60 automatic friends,” he said. “It was good getting to know them, and there was always the team to hang out with each other. It was our only social group, because the coach didn’t want us to hang out with anyone else so we wouldn’t get sick.” Several of the team’s games got canceled because their opponents became sick. Meanwhile, weekly COVID testing was done for RIT students to monitor illness. “It became pretty routine, honestly,” Grottenthaler said. “And it definitely made me happy to know I wasn’t sick.” His team that academic year had a 14-0 record and won the NCAA Division III lacrosse national championship. Scoring a goal in that championship game was one of Grottenthaler’s best memories of college. “Looking back now, we made the most of the situation we had,” he said. “I feel the experience definitely made me stronger, and better socially, talking more to friends and my family on the phone more often.” Grottenthaler plans to return to RIT in the fall to play more lacrosse and attend graduate school to earn an MBA. Michelle Snow, a film production major from Stafford, Va., also plans to pursue her MBA at RIT after graduation. And she says she’s heading into her new chapter of life with more confidence. She remembers “a lot of uncertainty” in 2020, when she had to leave home two weeks earlier than she thought to be in isolation. Snow, her mother, and younger sister stayed at her grandmother’s house in Massachusetts for two weeks, where they did a lot of hiking in the Berkshires and ate a lot of take-out meals. While in isolation, Snow used some creativity to figure out how to make friends, mostly on Discord and through a Facebook group for newly admitted RIT students. “I made a vlog of myself, introducing myself just to meet people at RIT,” she said. “I was always posting random ways to meet people with plans to meet up when we got to Rochester. I was constantly on Discord.” Some of those friends she made then remain her friends today, she said. On campus, Snow even designed a custom mask with a snowflake on it to match her last name. “I made it a fashion statement. I had fun with it.” And she thrived as her time at RIT grew. She became an Honors student, president of the RIT Field Hockey Club Team, director of operations for Student Government, and was a four-year president of the Film, Video, Animation Student Association. Overall, she says she enjoyed her RIT experience. “It wasn’t fun in the beginning, but my college experience would have been different without COVID,” she said. “I’d rather look at the positives rather than what happened. I’m a little more flexible, and I’ve had a lot of growth.” Roach also believes he has become stronger in college, and certainly has his share of happy memories, such as playing intramural soccer and developing a video game, Ninjas on Trampolines. “I think I’ve improved as a person,” he said. “I used to be very bad at speaking with people, and now I’m better with that. I’ve learned a lot. A lot of the scare has definitely gone away with most people vaccinated. But I take illnesses more seriously now. If I get a cold, I’ll wear a mask.”
Tiger Love: Couple finds love and community far from home
Karuna Mukherjea and Deepak Sharma came from far away to attend RIT. The couple believes it was destiny that brought them together. Both from India, Mukherjea ’97 (finance) and Sharma ’97 (MBA) found a welcoming university and community on the Henrietta, N.Y., campus. “That is one of the best things that happened to us at RIT,” Sharma said. “It was destiny. Through a twist of events, we both landed at RIT and took many of the same classes, resulting in friendship to love and then partners for life.” After meeting in the fall of 1996, Sharma recalled picking up Mukherjea in his car many mornings to drive to college together. “That is where our friendship and love blossomed,” he said. Each found Saunders College of Business—and the university at large—friendly and exciting. “RIT was one of the most welcoming places for both of us,” Mukherjea recalled. “The faculty, the administration, and the students were all warm—even though this was the first time in our lives we experienced snow! We felt like we had arrived at our new home and the opportunities were boundless.” Sharma still vividly recalls his first Diwali (Hindu festival of lights) while away from home, when one of his classmates and her family members dressed up in traditional Indian clothes, decorated their house, and invited him over. “It was such a welcoming act and completely overwhelmed me,” he said. “This left an impression on both of us that we feel very connected to RIT, even today, and I will always find time to talk or help anyone from RIT,” Mukherjea added. Outside of classes, they both enjoyed exploring the city of Rochester. “Our friend circle was expansive, spanning 15 countries and included both grads and post-grads,” Sharma said. “To date, some of our closest friends are in Rochester, N.Y.” The couple married at the iconic Japanese Tea Garden in San Mateo, Calif. Residents of the Bay Area for the past 20 years, each has gone on to successful careers using the foundation built at RIT. Currently vice president of enterprise marketing at Workato, Mukherjea has become a champion of equity and diversity for the company’s workforce and a mentor to young women. Sharma is chief client strategy officer at Photon, while also volunteering at local nonprofit organizations in the San Francisco area. The couple recently joined RIT’s Sentinel Society to support the university that launched their lives together. In honor of Mukherjea’s father, they established the Joy Mukherjea Sentinel Scholarship to support students attending Saunders College. The parents of two daughters, they enjoy their conversations and visits with their older daughter in college, golfing with their youngest, and play time with their dog, Mocha. They also enjoy streaming movies. “So I see esoteric dramas with her and she watches action/comedy flicks with me,” Sharma quipped. And the occasional love story, like theirs.
Two graduates bring new meaning to legacy family
RIT and family go hand in hand for at least two graduates in the class of 2024. Zayneb Ghazle will graduate with a double major in diagnostic medical sonography (ultrasound) and the physician assistant BS/MS program—the first person ever to complete the two rigorous programs. She is following in the footsteps of her father, Hamad Ghazle ’88 (diagnostic medical sonography), and paving the way for her sister, Zahra’a, who is a third-year ultrasound major. (Her youngest sister, Batool, will begin her first year at RIT this fall in the criminal justice program.) Sarah Kleinberger is the fourth of her siblings to not only graduate from RIT but to graduate from the same program —industrial and systems engineering. They include her brother, Jacob ’14; sister, Paulina ’16; and brother, Joseph ’19. Ghazle grew up seeing how ultrasound inspired her father, who has been director of RIT’s program since 1994. She was familiar with the RIT community well before her first day on campus and knew it would support her interests and ambitions; she didn’t need to apply anywhere else. “Going to classes every day and seeing my dad’s face was amazing,” Ghazle said. “My family is everything to me. They are my backbone.” She decided to double major after learning about the physician assistant profession during her second year through a chance opportunity to shadow a PA at Strong Hospital. The experience broadened her understanding of what she could do for patients, and Ghazle scheduled a meeting with the program leaders at RIT. She made her case to the PA faculty and was admitted to the program as a second year PA student. “They were definitely shocked because nobody had tried this before,” she said. Along with two majors, Ghazle pursued a full college experience that included roles as president and vice president of the Ultrasound Student Association, and as a student government representative for the College of Health Sciences and Technology. She will graduate as a member of the RIT Honors Program, an Outstanding Scholar, and a scholar in RIT’s Center for Statesmanship, Law, and Liberty program. Provided Sarah Kleinberger, left, joins siblings Joseph ’19, Jacob ’14, and Paulina ‘16 as graduates of RIT and the industrial and systems engineering program. Kleinberg first heard about RIT at the age of 8 when her oldest brother, Jacob, was in the middle of his college search. Wanting to be just like him, she participated in a WE@RIT K-12 retreat and visited campus during Imagine RIT. When it came time to look for a college, that same brother took her on a tour, including serious information about the Kate Gleason College of Engineering, as well as excitement for the Latin Rhythm Dance Club. “We all got to see what RIT had to offer because of Jacob. I watched my parents send my siblings to college to do their thing, and 10 years later I got to do the same,” Kleinberger said. “I was able to get a sneak peek into the future—and make decisions that other kids coming here may not have been able to make.” Kleinberger immersed herself in the industrial and systems engineering (ISE) department, working with faculty on research projects and becoming active with the student chapters of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineering (IISE) Society and the Society of Professional Hispanic Engineers. Her co-ops as a process engineer were with Penske, LiDestri Foods, and Simplr. “Not many people know what industrial engineering really is. But when people ask me about what I do, I tell them we are people engineers. That’s my tagline,” said Kleinberger, who is also getting a master’s degree in engineering management. Kleinberger joined the Latin Rhythm Dance Team as a first-year student and worked her way up to the executive board. That’s where she learned the people skills that she will use when she begins work this summer with Johns Hopkins Hospital as a part of the Supply Chain Transformation initiatives. The group oversees the hospital’s change management and process improvement operations. After graduation, Ghazle plans to stay in Rochester and is interviewing at local hospitals. Her foresight to combine an ultrasound and physician assistant education gives her a special skillset at a time when the medical field is facing a sonography shortage and adopting “point of care ultrasound” to diagnose certain diseases at the bedside. “My main concern is improving the outcomes of my patients,” said Ghazle. “I treat every patient as my own family members, so being able to provide that extra service for their benefit is absolutely humbling.”
The Mark and Maureen Davitt Endowed Scholarship established at RIT
Rochester Institute of Technology has announced the establishment of the Mark and Maureen Davitt Endowed Scholarship, which will provide financial support to RIT students pursuing studies in STEM disciplines—particularly those who graduated from private elementary schools in the city of Rochester, N.Y. The $1 million scholarship underscores the Davitts’ commitment to facilitating access to higher education for students facing financial barriers as well as those with alternative learning needs. The couple has a long-standing dedication to supporting education in the Rochester community, including the Mark and Maureen Davitt Graduate Education Endowed Scholarship and through their contributions to Nativity Preparatory Academy and Hope Hall School in Rochester. “Education is a powerful tool for empowering individuals and transforming communities,” Mark Davitt said. “Through this scholarship, Maureen and I hope to provide opportunities for students from diverse backgrounds to pursue their academic and professional goals in STEM fields.” Phil Castleberry, vice president for University Advancement at RIT, said, “Mark and Maureen’s generous contribution will make a significant difference in the lives of RIT students.” “Their commitment to supporting education aligns with RIT’s mission of fostering innovation and academic excellence,” Castleberry said. “We are deeply grateful for their partnership and generosity.” The Mark and Maureen Davitt Endowed Scholarship reflects the Davitts’ belief in the transformative power of education and their dedication to providing opportunities for students to thrive in STEM fields. Mark Davitt, founder and former CEO of ConServe, was named the 2021 recipient of the Herbert W. Vanden Brul Entrepreneurial Award, presented by Saunders College of Business at RIT. The award, created in 1984, is annually given to a successful individual or individuals who developed a business that improved the Rochester economy or whose innovative management skills have changed the course of an existing business. For more information about the Mark and Maureen Davitt Endowed Scholarship, go to RIT’s University Advancement website.

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