This group is one of the most active student groups in SPAS. It is a club made up of all students enrolled in the Imaging and Photographic Technology program. It's members introduced the biennial PhotoPremiere, a mini-trade show hosted by TPSA. TPSA also regularly holds a Spring lecture that brought some pretty important speakers to SPAS at a time that only the Reedy Lecture was around. They brought Astronaut Marsha Ivins, Prof. Vern Miller of Brooks Institute who spoke on the Shroud of Turin to an overflow audience in Booth, Mr. Richard Underwood who also packed Webb speaking on the topic of NASA photography, Robert Doubillet, who is a National Geographic underwater photographer, Mr. William Hyzer, one of the world's most recognized experts on scientific and forensic photography, and many other leaders in the technical and professional photographic communites.

In 1998 the group finally got online and you can visit their homepage at HERE!

Anyway, the TPSA conducts field trips and they have taken Imaging and Photo Tech students to visit the High Speed laboratory of Dr. Harold Edgerton at MIT on two separate occasions, (they even MET him once!), they went to the FBI labs in Washington DC, they visited NASA Langley Research lab in Hampton VA, NASA Lewis Research Lab in Cleveland, ITEK Corporation in Lexington, MA (twice), Polaroid Corporation's Sesame Plant in Waltham where they toured the emulsion coating facility, and IRIS Graphics in Waltham. In 1997, in addition to returning to NASA Lewis Research Center they also toured American Greeting's Digital and Photographic Studios. TPSA also organized a field trip to the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC in Washington (three times now) and also visited the Defense mapping Agency and the FBI Photographic Laboratory. In several instances the companies that TPSA visited eventually ended up hiring either Tech or other SPAS students as Coops or as interns.

The TPSA sponsors, and is a major financial contributor to the production of the IPT's Graduate's Brochure, a publication distributed to employers nationwide and a publication that has directly or indirectly contributed to the employment of a significant number of seniors and has played a major role in acquainting several firms to the availability of our students. These firms eventually established coop employment opportunities for current students.

The TPSA meets most weeks on Tuesdays at 1pm during activities hour. During this time they fulfill not only their charter in terms of planning and bringing social activities to their constituents but also bring invited speakers from the local professional, technical and industrial photographic and imaging community to address them on items related to latest developments in the field of imaging to business practices, strategies for locating employment, etc.

In terms of local speakers, in years past they have brought more than 15 speakers per academic year on campus, including Mr. Jim Manka from Milton Roy Corp., Ms. Joy Steffensen of Eastman Kodak, Mr. Paul Gilbert of Light Impressions, Mr. Martin Scott a well known local scientific photographer, Mr. Terry Kessler of the University of Rochester Laser lab, and numerous others.

BTW, the TPSA has been considered worthy of financial support by the RIT Student Affairs Office and the SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering, in the past has awarded grants in excess of $ 1,000 for over three years to the TPSA based on the groups performance and contributions to the field. Hopefully TPSA will again benefit from SPIE's generosity.

In 1993 it was their turn to run the Holiday Auction and they raised over $1,100 for the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund even during an evening when many roads were made impassable by snow. Again, in 1996, they conducted an exceptional auction while a winter storm made travel and attendance to the event precarious at best. Their organizational skills, dedication and spirit of cooperation are greater, in my opinion, than that of any other group taking on this task.

In fact, even before there were auctions, TPSA introduced the very first auction activity in SPAS when they auctioned and sold photographic paraphernalia donated by a local phtogorapher who could not sell his stuff at a garage sale at his home. TPSA members seized on this opportunity, asked for a donation, went to pick up the property and in short order had a "garage sale" going on to benefit TPSA in its educational objectives. The income from this sale went to support the visit to SPAS by Vern Miller from the West coast.

In my opinion, the TPSA is the most active, most educationally oriented, and most selfless student group that it has been my privilege to work with. It has certainly been at the forefront of many activities and often spearheaded activities that had never been attempted before. In my opinion SPAS would not be where it is today in terms of activities if it were not for the example set by TPSA. Believe it or not.

The TPSA is a fully chartered member of the RIT Student Government and has an established constitution and associated by-laws and elected officers. The current (1998) executive board is made up of:

While any activity that TPSA organizes is open to the whole SPAS community there are no members of the club who are not students pursuing the IPT program. This is a club run by Tech students for the benefit of SPAS in general.