RIT was born of an unlikely institutional marriage of an influential cultural association, the Rochester Athenaeum, founded in 1829, and a technical training school, the Mechanics Institute, founded in 1885. The institute adopted the name Rochester Institute of Technology in 1944 and awarded its first bachelor of science degree in 1955. A 1961 decision to leave downtown Rochester for farmland in the suburban town of Henrietta put RIT on its path to pre-eminence as a global university. Today, the university’s reputation and reach go well beyond Rochester, with partnerships on nearly every continent and overseas campuses located in China, Croatia, Dubai, and Kosovo.

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