RIT’s upcoming president, William “Bill” Sanders, visited the Rochester campus on March 3 and 4. Reporter was given the opportunity to speak with him about his perspective on student news, RIT and other matters regarding the community.
Transcription edited for conciseness and clarification purposes.
Q: Do you foresee student journalism having any impact or being important when it comes to potentially making changes to the campus as a student voice?
A: Of course, of course. I mean, look, I think students are very important in general. You are both the voice of the students and the informers of the students. I think you have a role in both directions. Students are important, and you’re an important part of the student body.
Q: If Reporter publishes something critical of upper administration, would you be willing to help stand by student journalists?
A: Well, I think whether it’s student news, or any news, it’s my goal to always get the truth across, right? To always understand. I don’t know whether I’d stand by it or not until I see what it is, but I obviously would work with the student news in order to help them understand what’s really going on. I think that’s the best — that when we have a relationship, we’re very open, communicate with one another and try to get to the truth.
Q: What are you most interested in learning more about the RIT community before your tenure?
A: Oh, wow. So much … this is just the beginning. I’m also spending time with … all the deans and the provost and the vice provost — because I really need to understand the colleges and I need to understand all the international campuses as well. All exciting for me. Llikewise, I’m spending time with the vice presidents and the various people in the president’s cabinet. So for me right now, it’s just learning everything I can about every topic, so come July 1, I’ll be ready to get going.
Q: Do you plan to visit all the international campuses?
A: I definitely will visit all of them eventually, not before I start, but I’m looking forward to visiting them. The College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon runs two other campuses, one in Silicon Valley with about 350 students, and another campus in Africa with about 350, tending towards 400 students there. So, I’m very passionate about a global presence. By presence, I mean we’re in interesting places in the world where we can really do good, and that mindset means no matter what campus you’re on, whether it’s Rochester, Dubai or one of our other campuses, you have a global mindset and ultimately can become a citizen of the world. So, global campuses are really exciting.
Q: Is there anything that worries you about taking on RIT’s future plans, with all the different moving parts of RIT?
A: No, there’s nothing I worry about, but there are lots of opportunities. There are definitely things we need to be very strategic about. We believe there’s real opportunity in health, so we’re looking at how we might grow there. We believe there are opportunities in AI. We want to move RIT while still remaining very student-centered and student-focused, and with this unique brand we have for undergraduate education. We want to also grow our graduate education and research. So, lots of opportunities. No time for worry.
Q: Piggybacking off of the mention of AI, with the developing AI Hub on campus and increasing conversation about AI being used in classrooms, what are your thoughts on balancing the use of AI with ethical concerns, like copyright with art or environmental concerns?
A: OK, so that’s a very good question and a question that, you know, there’s lots of aspects to. I don’t know too much yet about the AI Hub. I haven’t met with the leader of the AI Hub yet, but we have a lot of work in artificial intelligence, so it gives me a lot to think about. Maybe the first thing I’ll say, and you spoke specifically about the classroom, is that I believe we should embrace the use of AI in educational programs at RIT, not be scared of it or try to avoid the use of AI. Just like when calculators first came into use in the early 1970s when I was in high school, people were saying, “Oh, will this ruin math education?” Of course, it didn’t; it just enabled us to do work. We should embrace AI, but we need to learn how to best use AI in the classroom. So, you know, the way you use AI in a CS coding class might be very different than the way you use AI in a liberal arts or humanities class. So, we need to empower our faculty to think deeply about some of those issues you brought up and think about how to augment the curriculum to effectively make use of AI. Back at Carnegie Mellon, we offer grants to faculty members to think strategically about how to use AI. I don’t know if that’s done here, or if it should be done, but we need to figure out how to do that. And obviously, we need to be transparent and set guidelines for ethical use in the classroom setting. So, yeah, great question.
Q: When the first freshman class of students graduates, how do you want to be remembered?
A: Oh, that’s a great question. I guess I want to be remembered as somebody who was very accessible to the students, somebody who engaged with the students, somebody that encountered them in formal settings, or large settings, but also just encountered them walking down the Quarter Mile, meeting them at RITZ, this kind of thing. You know, I want to be remembered both as a president who was very approachable, but also as a president who really made strides to improve education. We’re going to work on that.
Q: You already mentioned you getting involved with the students, but I think the students, even whether you like it or not, are going to talk about you. They’re usually pretty silly, I would say. They’re not going to like everything you do, but they’re not going to hate everything you do. You might turn into a meme for them.
A: I think that’s great, I can tell you that. Since my announcement, I’ve received about 400 to 500 new connection requests on LinkedIn and the majority of them are from students, and I thought, “This is great!” I post a fair amount of related posts. I find things I think I want to spread out to my followers. I repost them. It was super nice of RIT students to be interested in me.
