Notes from the Innovation Festival

I hope you all left your dorm rooms this past weekend. The Innovation Festival (see “Institute Hosts Imagine RIT”) was actually really cool.

If, by chance, you happened to miss the festival, here are some of the less publicized highlights of the weekend:

1. Roving, advice-dispensing alumni. I ran into one of the former Editor in Chiefs of Reporter from the 1960’s, and was surprised to learn that there had once been a bar in the basement of the men’s dorm on campus… and that it went out of business due to lack of interest. Can you imagine? (Also, I learned that Reporter used to have an unlimited budget. Any chance we could bring that back, RIT?)

2. President Destler’s face. I had kind of assumed that he’d be shuttled from event to event to give introductions and that sort of thing, but that didn’t appear to be the case at all. Instead, he wandered around campus like a child in a candy store, telling people how cool he thought their exhibits were. And I feel like he was being totally sincere, every single time. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve seen anyone over the age of five look that excited in a long, long time. It was neat.

3. On-demand tours of just about everything on campus. Mistakenly going into in the wrong part of Building 78, my family and I found ourselves caught up in a tour of the CIMS building and all the projects there. It was a happy accident, however. Did you know they do military research there? They’ve got giant, full size aircraft hanging from the ceilings and stuff. Crazy!

4. Pleasant-smelling flowered trees. The ones with the little pink buds. I realize that they’ll probably die off in a week, and all we’ll have are the gross white ones along the Quarter Mile… but still. The good ones were in full bloom last weekend. You should have seen them.

5. Free food. All over the place.

6. Cheap food. All over the place.

7. Other students. Campus is absolutely deserted most weekends (even when there’s nice weather), but there were actually other people around last Saturday. This probably won’t happen again until the Innovation Festival rolls around again next year.