Rochester Institute of Technology

Rochester Institute of Technology is a private research university located within the town of Henrietta in the Rochester, New York metropolitan area.Rochester Institute of Technology is composed of nine academic colleges, including National Technical Institute for the Deaf. The Institute is one of only a small number of engineering institutes in the State of New York, including New York Institute of Technology, SUNY Polytechnic Institute, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. It is most widely known for its fine arts, computing, engineering, and imaging science programs; several fine arts programs routinely rank in the national Top 10according to the US News & World Report.The Institute as it is known today began as a result of an 1891 merger between Rochester Athenæum, a literary society founded in 1829 by Colonel Nathaniel Rochester and associates, and Mechanics Institute, a Rochester institute of practical technical training for local residents founded in 1885 by a consortium of local businessmen including Captain Henry Lomb, the co-founder of Bausch & Lomb. The name of the merged institution at the time was called Rochester Athenæum and Mechanics Institute.In 1944, the university changed its name to Rochester Institute of Technology.The Institute originally resided within the city of Rochester, New York, proper, on a block bounded by the Erie Canal, South Plymouth Avenue, Spring Street, and South Washington Street.Its art department was originally located in the Bevier Memorial Building. By the middle of the twentieth century, RIT began to outgrow its facilities, and surrounding land was scarce and expensive; additionally, in 1959, the New York Department of Public Works announced a new freeway, the Inner Loop, was to be built through the city along a path that bisected the Institute's campus and required demolition of key Institute buildings. In 1961, an unanticipated donation of $3.27 million $25,894,176 today from local Grace Watson, for whom RIT's dining hall was later named, allowed the Institute to purchase land for a new 1,300 acre  campus several miles south along the east bank of the Genesee River in suburban Henrietta. Upon completion in 1968, the Institute moved to the new suburban campus, where it resides today
                            The current campus is housed on a 1,300 acres  property. This property is largely covered with woodland and fresh-water swamp making it a very diverse wetland which is home to a number of somewhat rare plant species. The campus comprises 237 buildings and 5.1 million square feet of building space. The nearly universal use of bricks in the campus's construction  estimated at 14,673,565 bricks in late 2006 prompted students to give it the semi affectionate nickname Brick City, reflected in the name of events such as the annual Brick City Homecoming. Though the buildings erected in the first few decades of the campus's existence reflected the architectural style known as brutalism, the warm color of the bricks softened the impact somewhat. More recent additions to the campus have diversified the architecture while still incorporating the traditional brick colors. In October 2013, Travel+Leisure named it as one of the ugliest college campuses in the United States, citing the monotone brick and the suburbanization, leaving almost no youth activities within walking distance of the campus.