A group of seven Rochester Institute of Technology alumni who have won a combined 11 Pulitzer Prizes are this year’s recipients of the RIT Isaiah Thomas Award in Publishing.

The Isaiah Thomas Award in Publishing, named for one of America’s great patriot printers, recognizes outstanding contributions made to the publishing industry. The honor is presented annually by RIT’s School of Print Media. This year’s recipients are all graduates from RIT’s College of Imaging Arts and Sciences.- Kelly Downs, RIT News

Two weeks ago the School of Print Media students had an opportunity to go to Washington, DC to see this award ceremony take place and meet the 7 Pulitzer Prize winning photographers. It was amazing! Each student was given a table with a photographer to sit with. I had the chance, along with my roommate Alex, to sit with Stan Grossfeld who won ” two Pulitzer Prizes in 1984 and 1985 while working for The Boston Globe. Grossfeld won in 1984 in the Spot News category for his series of photographs revealing the effects of war on the people of Lebanon. In 1985, he earned a Pulitzer in the Feature Photography category for a portfolio of images of the famine in Ethiopia and of illegal aliens on the Mexican border. Grossfeld was also among the finalists for Pulitzers in 1984, 1994 and 1996″ (Downs, par 3). It was really neat to hear his stories about what he witnessed in lifetime and meet his family. His daughter by far was our entertainment for the day! She was so sweet and is adopted from China, she serenaded us all over lunch and Alex even got to color with her!

It is always amazing to see people from RIT who really have made an impression with their work and have created something that will last within time.