Has the decades-long march to college-for-everyone-at-18 actually closed off options for teenagers and 20-somethings, rather than opened up opportunities? We all know teen-aged kids with potential that seem to “underperform” when pursuing a four-year degree.  We also know college grads saddled with debt, who can’t find jobs in their chosen fields. Maybe a technical certificate that...Continue Reading

ROCHESTER, NY, June 2, 2016 – New York Photonics has awarded two $6,000 grants to schools in the Rochester region. The schools, Gates-Chili High School and Greece Olympia High School, both teach a dual-credit optics course with Monroe Community College’s Optical Systems Technologies program. The grants will be used to support optics labs at the...Continue Reading

A shout out (acknowledgement) to primary school teacher Diane Eagles, at Rochester City School District School  #46, whose passion for geology and photonics is igniting interest in science in her students and their parents! Thank you, Diane!Continue Reading

Paul Conrow has been teaching science at East High School for 15 years. On Wednesday, March 9th, he won the Rochester Museum & Science Center’s STEM Award for Secondary Level educators. But the icing on the cake happened as Conrow and his family were leaving the Strathallan Hotel, walking out the door to go home....Continue Reading

Rochester City School District Science Teacher Diane Eagles (RCSD School #46) was inspired by the International Year of Light posters at the Rochester Airport and decided to do a photonics project with her Optics class. Eagles gave her students a working definition  of Photonics: “Photonics is the science of light: the technology of generating, controlling and detecting light waves...Continue Reading

Webster resident Joseph Serio worked as a gas station attendant in the 1990s, and had no ties to NASA or Mars Rovers. Now he’s a Monroe Community College optics technology student with 20 years of experience manufacturing optics parts for NASA Mars Rovers with Ontario company Optimax. He’s headed to Texas next week to compete...Continue Reading

June 1 – June 12, 2015 The Institute of Optics will offer its 54th annual Summer School short-course series next month. This year’s offering will be a mix of a one-week course and two-and-a-half-day courses. RRPA Grants Available Full scholarships for our Summer School courses are available through a grant from the US Employee and...Continue Reading

As the economy continues to recover, economists are seeing stark differences between people with high school and college degrees. Four-year college graduates are nearly twice as likely to have a job compared to Americans who just graduated high school and stopped there. But economists say that doesn’t mean everybody needs a four-year degree. In fact,...Continue Reading

It’s tough to get higher tech than the OptiPro Pro 80 GTS. About the size of a phone booth, with a separate arm holding a control panel covered in buttons, dials and a touchscreen, the machine turns discs of glass into specialized, very precise, very expensive optics. One of those computer-controlled grinders — along with...Continue Reading

Martin Dvorin is Professor emeritus of the Optical Systems Technology Program at a Community College.  He began teaching optics at Monroe Community College, on Alexander Street, in Rochester, NY in 1966. We reprint here a recollection written for us by Marty in 2009, and edited just two months ago. Happy Birthday Marty! In the early 1960’s, the...Continue Reading