Dr. Neil Hair

I was stunned by the turnout today for the 1st RIT Creativity Festival - held on campus. It was somewhat risky for the man at the top - the new president essentially staked his reputation on being able to draw crowds to explore our 'unfair advantage' as a great institute. By 2pm I knew that we had met if not exceeded the 30k visitor promise and as far as I was concerned the new president's concept was thoroughly vindicated! I was shocked by some of the innovation on display. Online learning did a fantastic job showing off the technology we use in this area - Golisano also a great job showing off the gaming program to excellent effect. It was the smaller stalls that also impressed me and the energy with which people enthusiastically talked about their projects. 

I manned a stall showing off our Second Life class with Susan Barnes of the Department of Communication. We had well over a thousand visitors stop by - thankfully we talked to about 5 at a time - still my voice and my will to live severely challenged after 6 hours of being on the go (im not sure I was still making much sense towards the end of the program but there you go - the will was there!). As I walked around over a few well earned breaks I was really pleased to see not just prospective students walking around but high-school students - parents - and plenty of alumni with big smiles on their faces for having made the right choice in the past. I want to thank my former students who came to support the event. There's something inherently good about seeing students with (lets face it) better things to be doing with their time on a Saturday - holding clipboards and enthusiastically acting as personal branding image consultants for passers by (a key feature of our online advertising course last quarter). They went down a storm! Much more effective than me walking around in Second Life pointing out teaching techniques on RIT's new island.

Im really pleased and rightly proud of the event. It was nothing other than a raging success. Our stall also won the Alumni office award for best in show - icing on the cake of a great day. Thanks especially to Matthew Anthony who manned the Saunders Second Life exhibit in the college of business - Donna Slavin who organized just about EVERYTHING - students Luz Ramirez, Matthew Frank (infamous transformer), Minsoo Lee, Alah Shah, Abha Trivedi, Ryland Bacorn, Lorraine Gibson, and of course Susan Barnes - my co-tutor for the course.