New Office of Pre-Health Professions is a campuswide resource
Undergraduates can easily get lost on the winding road to health professional school—be it medical, nursing, dentistry, physical therapy, or vet school, among others—but now, RIT’s new Office of Pre-Health Professions gives them both a roadmap and road-side assistance.
Students from any major can prepare for health professional school as long as they fulfill the prerequisite courses and application requirements, said Amber Charlebois (“Dr. C”), director of the Office of Pre-Health Professions. Planning ahead is essential for students to become competitive candidates, and the pre-health advising office helps them navigate the application process, whether they are studying for their entrance exams and writing their personal statement during their third year or waiting until after they graduate.
Amber Charlebois is the director of RIT’s Office of Pre-Health Professions
Charlebois provided committee letters for 30 students applying to medical and dental school during the admission cycle this past June. Five of the applicants were third-year students, six were graduating seniors, and the rest were alumni. This reflects a national trend where gap years are becoming the norm and students are entering medical school later. Twenty-four is now the national average age of students accepted to medical school, she said.
Students can use the additional time to gain more experience, take entrance exams, and complete the nearly yearlong application process to health professional schools.
“We’re trying to change the culture to recognize and embrace the idea that any additional time spent getting ready for medical school is going to make you more competitive,” Charlebois said. “A gap year or two, used strategically, could make you a much better candidate and give you the maturity that can highly increase your chances of getting in. I think we need to start calling it a growth year instead of a gap year.”
The new advisory office helps students plan their course load to ensure they are taking the right sequence of science and math prerequisites and maintaining a high grade point average. An adviser helps students stay on track and learn to balance academics, research, and professional experience. Depending on the health field, students will need to complete between 60 to more than 1,000 patient-care hours. Different ways to gain clinical experience include volunteering, shadowing, working as EMTs, patient-care and pharmacy technicians, and medical scribes, or animal care assistants for students pursuing veterinary school.
The office encourages students to volunteer for community service, conduct research, and explore leadership opportunities. Charlebois works with the Health Professions Advisory Committee, comprised of faculty and staff from across campus, to conduct mock interviews for students. Alumni participate in these practice interviews and lend their insight through panel discussions and “White Coat Wednesday” events. Charlebois’ office helps students prepare personal statements, collect reference letters, study for entrance exams, and apply for scholarships.
Charlebois encourages new students to visit her office “early and often to begin their journey together.” She shows them how to plan their four or five years at RIT and take advantage of opportunities to build their resumes while keeping academic excellence a priority.
“I ask first-year students to focus solely on doing amazing in their courses,” Charlebois said. “The minute they feel that they are struggling is when they need to ask for help. They need to be proactive and to keep their GPA strong and competitive. Then, they can start thinking about adding patient-care hours to their schedule.”
The pre-health professions office also helps educate students about all the possible health professional careers. For instance, a doctor of osteopathic medicine (DO) education takes a holistic approach to becoming a doctor and admission requirements to these programs—while still rigorous—are not as steep as for traditional allopathic medicine (MD). Interested students can take advantage of RIT’s affiliation with the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine and apply early for a seat in osteopathic medicine school upon graduation. This option, which does not require the MCAT exam, is available for prospective students and RIT students enrolled in their first or second year of study.
Provided
RIT student Morgan Long is president of the Pre-Health Society student club.
Charlebois, who joined RIT last year, created a centralized office for pre-health advising that would be easily accessible to students from any major. So far, most students interested in health professional school are enrolled in the College of Health Sciences and Technology, College of Science, Kate Gleason College of Engineering, College of Liberal Arts, and the School of Individualized Study. Charlebois is also advising two students from the medical illustration BFA program in the College of Art and Design.
When Charlebois arrived at RIT, she formed a student advisory board consisting of nearly a dozen pre-health students from multiple colleges to help develop the program and provide insights about resources and events to offer.
“Their feedback helped me modify the existing Premedical Studies Seminar upper-level course (which students take as they are getting ready to apply to professional school) into a more inclusive experience by decreasing the number of credit hours to zero and delivering it as both a synchronous and asynchronous class,” she said.
The student advisory board spun off into the Pre-Health Society, an academic club that will launch this fall to continue its efforts.
Morgan Long, a third-year biomedical sciences major from Victor, N.Y., is the president of the Pre-Health Society.
“We hope to be a resource-based club,” Long said. “We wanted to make a community for the pre-health population to have a place for everyone to get their questions answered.”
Pre-health advising services originated in the College of Science, then moved to the College of Health Sciences and Technology, and last year, moved to a central location in the University Studies division within the School of Individualized Studies. Charlebois also supports pre-veterinary advising in collaboration with Larry Buckley, senior associate dean of the College of Science.
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- Two faculty members installed as Kevin O’Sullivan Endowed Professors in CybersecurityThe inaugural Kevin O’Sullivan Endowed Professorships in Cybersecurity were announced Sept. 17 at an installation ceremony at RIT’s University Gallery. Billy Brumley and Matthew Wright were appointed for their work in building RIT’s cybersecurity education and research legacy. As one of the highest honors in academia, endowed professorships recognize and support outstanding researchers and educators who profoundly impact the lives of their students. Endowments create a source of funding in perpetuity that help support and retain cutting-edge, award-winning teaching and research faculty. These endowed professorships ensure that RIT students will continue to work alongside and learn from best-in-class researchers and educators. The endowed professorships were made possible by a $50 million gift from alumnus Austin McChord ’09. In naming the awards, McChord chose to honor a teacher who inspired him to achieve great things. Kevin O’Sullivan is a retired mathematics teacher who taught McChord calculus at Newtown High School located in Sandy Hook, Conn. “I consider myself fortunate to have had a career spanning 40 years where each day was an opportunity to help young people feel confident that they would ultimately be successful with mathematics,” said O’Sullivan. “I am truly thankful and humbled by Austin’s recognition and wish to offer my sincere hope that RIT will succeed in its quest to make the cyber world a safer place.” Key functions of endowed positions are to showcase the ongoing contributions of faculty, while providing funding and support to move research and scholarship forward. A strong, engaged base of faculty talent helps to enrich the entire academic experience for students, from providing comprehensive support to graduate researchers to building a framework that attracts the best undergraduate students. Brumley is a professor in the Department of Cybersecurity and director of research in RIT’s ESL Global Cybersecurity Institute. Before joining RIT, Brumley spent a decade as a professor at Tampere University in Finland and was recognized as a 2018 European Research Council Starting Grant Laureate. Brumley is a specialist in system security, cryptography engineering, and side-channel analysis, who also brings industry experience as a staff engineer for Qualcomm’s Product Security Initiative in San Diego. With the endowment, Brumley has been able to build and ramp up his platform security research laboratory, PLATSEC. He said the biggest influence is the ability to hire early career researchers, like postdocs. “Staffing at this level is atypical for an academic start-up package,” said Brumley. “It’s like a turbo button on a video game controller, except for research excellence.” Wright is a professor and chair of RIT’s Department of Cybersecurity, whose research focuses on adversarial machine learning, distributed systems, and usable security. He has been the lead investigator on more than $5.8 million in externally funded projects and has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers. “I’m deeply honored to receive this endowment and I’ve been blessed to be able to collaborate with many terrific colleagues, mentors, and students over the years,” said Wright. “I look forward to continue working in strong teams to tackle challenges in cybersecurity, such as our work on building usable deepfake detection tools and on detecting and analyzing malware.”
- Golisano awards RIT $10 millionB. Thomas Golisano announced Tuesday that he plans to award Rochester Institute of Technology $10 million. The gift is part of $360 million that the Paychex founder is distributing to nonprofit organizations across upstate New York. “This award is unrestricted and given with the confidence and understanding that it will be used to strengthen your organization and our community through the outstanding work you do every day,” Golisano said in a letter to RIT. “I’m extremely pleased to provide this financial support to your organization and look forward to receiving yearly updates on the planned use of this award.”A. Sue Weisler In 2001, Paychex founder Tom Golisano gave a $14 million gift to the university to create Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences. RIT will receive $2 million a year for five years from the Golisano Foundation. Eighty-two organizations in Rochester, Buffalo, and Syracuse are receiving funding. The unrestricted, multiyear awards range from $250,000 to $20 million each, paid over four to five years, spanning healthcare, education, animal welfare, disability services, and other community needs. “Tom Golisano has been a magnificent supporter of the Rochester community and today’s announcement strongly reinforces his love for the nonprofit sector that benefits the people in our region so greatly,” said RIT President David Munson. “We are truly appreciative of this wonderful and unexpected gift to RIT. We cannot thank Tom enough.” Golisano has been a longtime supporter of RIT. The gift Tuesday brings his total giving to RIT to $36.2 million. In 2001, RIT President Albert Simone presented Golisano with the opportunity of investing in a new computing college at RIT. It didn’t take Golisano long to consider what that might mean for Paychex and people around the world. With a $14 million gift from the philanthropist, RIT’s Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences was launched. The college now enrolls more than a quarter of RIT’s students. In 2007, he donated $10 million to RIT to create the Golisano Institute for Sustainability, one of the first of its kind in the nation, focusing on research and education in sustainable design, pollution prevention, remanufacturing, and alternative energy development. In 2011, Golisano joined forces with the Polisseni Foundation to give a $4.5 million gift to name the Gene Polisseni Center. The center is home to RIT men’s and women’s hockey. In 2015, the Golisano family selected RIT as the home for the leader’s archives. The collection is housed in RIT Archives, with a multimedia display available for the public to see in the atrium of Golisano Hall. Golisano is an emeritus trustee on RIT’s Board of Trustees. According to the Golisano Foundation, the $360 million announced Tuesday nearly doubles Golisano’s lifetime giving, bringing the total to $775 million, with more to be expected. “The only wealth that you get to keep is the wealth that you give away,” said Golisano.
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- Sady Alvarado-Fischer named Minett ProfessorAward-winning Queer Latina changemaker Sady Alvarado-Fischer has been announced as RIT’s Frederick H. Minett Professor for the 2024-2025 academic year. Alvarado-Fischer serves as the vice president, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion officer at Excellus BlueCross BlueShield and volunteers for numerous community organizations. As a result of her own intersecting identities, she has a strong passion for social justice with a special interest in women, Latinx, and LGBTQ+ issues. “I am honored to be named the next Minett Professor, joining a list of dedicated leaders in our community whose shoulders I stand on.,” said Alvarado-Fischer. “RIT has a robust diversity and inclusion division and I’m excited about the partnership and the ability to both share my expertise and learn from what the campus community is doing in the DEI space. I truly believe that inclusion, diversity, equity, and access is everyone’s responsibility and look forward to advancing positive change together!” The Minett Professorship brings distinguished Rochester-area multicultural professionals to the RIT campus to share professional knowledge and experience, emphasizing the connections between education and industry while highlighting the value of diversity. The position is an annual appointment with the honoree selected by the Minett Professors Emeriti and appointed by RIT President David Munson and Vice President and Associate Provost for Diversity and Inclusion Keith Jenkins. “Sady is a proven changemaker,” said Jenkins. “Her experience and accomplishments will be an asset to students, faculty, and staff across campus. We are thrilled to name her this year’s Minett Professor.” In her current professional role, Alvarado-Fischer leads the company’s DEI strategy, including developing a framework that became one of the company’s core values. Her leadership has led Excellus BCBS to receive numerous workplace inclusion awards. Alvarado-Fischer is also involved with the Rochester Latinx Roundtable, the United Way’s Leadership Development programs, the Rochester Chamber of Commerce Women’s Council, YMCA of Greater Rochester, Greater Rochester Health Foundation, and Causewave Community Partners. Her list of awards includes the Power List of LGBTQ+ Business Leaders by the Rochester Business Journal, the Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce Colors of Success DEI Leadership Award winner, and one of 200 women featured in the Changemakers exhibit at the Rochester Museum and Science Center. Alvarado-Fischer takes over the professorship from Distinguished Professor Sherry Perry Tshibangu, who served the previous academic year. Others who have held the role include many prominent business, academic, medical, and law enforcement professionals working in Rochester. The professorship is named after one of RIT’s early benefactors, Frederick Minett, who started a tool and die company on Water Street in downtown Rochester in the early 1920s. He was familiar with RIT, formerly called the Mechanics Institute, and employed some students. Minett died in 1971, leaving a more than $5 million endowment to RIT. Originally divided between RIT’s College of Continuing Education and the general endowment, the bequest was intended to support Minett’s and RIT’s vision of career education.
- RIT President says it’s ‘an extraordinary time at RIT’New doctoral programs. Huge opportunities in artificial intelligence and entrepreneurship. Enhanced relationships with Rochester Regional Health. Expansion at RIT Dubai … and RIT student victories over the likes of MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Cal Tech, and other globally respected universities. Rochester Institute of Technology President David Munson delivered his annual Welcome and State of the University address Sept. 12, where he also highlighted a strong enrollment, research milestones, the initial stages of a new strategic plan, and achievements by students, faculty, and staff. Despite challenging headwinds faced by all institutions in higher education, the president announced that RIT welcomed more than 3,100 new undergraduates this fall from 47 states and 44 countries. The incoming class boasts an average high school GPA of 93.8 and increased diversity, with 22 percent of new undergraduates identifying as African American, Latin American, or Native American. “Our enrollment situation should be the envy of most universities across the nation,” Munson said. The president also emphasized RIT’s growing research initiatives, noting that the university surpassed its strategic plan goal of $100 million in annual sponsored research a year early, reaching $102 million. Munson also praised student achievements, including a record six Fulbright U.S. Student awardees and victories in various academic competitions. He also noted athletic successes, with 19 Tigers named All-American and strong performances in multiple sports. Looking ahead, Munson outlined several initiatives:Launch of new Ph.D. programs in cognitive science and physics. Creation of an Artificial Intelligence Hub and plans to hire more than two dozen AI faculty members. Establishment of an Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Expansion of RIT’s marketing efforts to elevate the university's reputation nationally and globally. A presence in Los Angeles that capitalizes on RIT’s strengths in entertainment science and technology. Ongoing campus infrastructure improvements, including new facilities for performing arts, athletics, and research. Munson also announced the beginning of a new strategic planning process for the next decade, inviting community involvement through concept papers, town halls, and surveys. The goal is to have a comprehensive plan ready for Board of Trustee approval by October 2025. This was Munson’s last annual state of the university address, as he has announced he will be retiring in June 2025 after serving 40-plus years in higher education. “This is a perfect time to recruit a new president to help shape RIT's future,” he said, emphasizing his commitment to remain focused on his duties over the next year. The address concluded with Munson expressing gratitude for the RIT community's contributions. “Together, we can continue to chart a path to an extraordinary future,” he said. “This remains an extraordinary time for RIT. Thank you all for moving this great university forward. I am honored and humbled to be your colleague.” Read the full text of President Munson’s address.