Campus & Community

The University’s Phi Beta Kappa chapter sponsors the award, recognizing students who excel in leadership roles during their first year in the College.

They major in optical engineering and minor in Italian. Or work toward dual degrees in music and computer science. Or pursue two minors while majoring in audio and music engineering. Meet the graduating seniors from the Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences honored for pursuing dual degrees or minors in the humanities.

Rochester is currently ranked 13th by US News and World Report in its list of best colleges for veterans. As Veterans Day approaches, six University students from each of the branches of the armed services share their stories of moving from the military to the classroom.

Cherish Blackman ’18, a Rochester native, and Jacqueline Tran ’18, of Brooklyn, will study Chinese language and culture after receiving full scholarships from the Chinese government.

Nik Chatzikonstanti is among the nearly 1,400 master’s and doctoral students in Arts, Sciences & Engineering, whose studies range from philosophy to physics and who come from more than 67 counties. Meet some of graduate students who have found a home at the University.

Now in its third year, the Community Engagement Challenge encourages student organizations to propose a charitable outreach program that benefits the greater Rochester community.

After graduating from high school, Olivia Alger ’22 decided college could wait. She worked in a hotel, taught refugee children in France, and wrote for a literary magazine. Now she joins the Class of 2022.

Lucy Farnham ’22 took her first Spanish class in seventh grade, and it was love at first syllable. The Rochester native joins the Class of 2022 as a Spanish major, is thinking of adding Japanese, and is considering a career in the US Foreign Service.

They set up school classrooms, played with children, cleaned senior living centers, served meals, and performed yardwork at more than 80 organizations around Rochester as part of the annual day of service for first-year students.

More than 1,300 incoming students will fan out to about 90 Rochester schools, libraries, senior centers, neighborhood associations, and more to paint, stack bookshelves, rake, pull weeds, and begin to get involved in their new community.

Befikadu Mekonnen ’22 is 7,000 miles from home and hasn’t seen his family in two years. But the Ethiopia native and cancer survivor feels at peace at the University of Rochester, where he’ll begin classes next week as a biomedical engineering major.

At 11 weeks premature, Matthew, Nicole, and Robert Gelb weighed a combined 6.3 pounds and spent three months at Strong’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. This month, 19 years later, they will enroll at the University of Rochester as part of the Class of 2022—literally across the street from where they were born.