It's finally here; the end of classes and the start of finals. Even the sunshine has come to Troy for our last few weeks of the semester. Although we all a heavy workload in studying, remember to get outside, have some fun, and be with friends; it's the best way to relieve some of the stress and anxiety before finals. So enjoy the weather, make the most of it, and good luck for finals.
As the school year approaches its end-as does my column for the semester- I would like to congratulate the graduating students. I have had an amazing opportunity working with many graduate students and members of the Class of 2009; I thank them for all the support and advice that they have given me and I wish them luck in their future. Success is only limited by the bounds we define; if you are courageous and daring, great things can be achieved. The students that will be walking across that stage has changed so much of campus, I am sure that this graduating class will forever leave an imprint on the world as the innovators and thinkers of today.
A perk of holding the office of Grand Marshal is that you are invited to attend the graduation ceremony each year. This year's ceremony will bring some exciting events, especially the combination of distinguished alumni and innovative leaders in their fields. RPI will be welcoming a few of their own back, Peter Schwartz '68 and Samuel Josefowitz '42, as well as the CEO of American Express Ken Chenault and Nobel Physicist Robert Richardson; these individuals are certain to be a combination that will provide great insight and thought through the colloquium and commencement ceremony. I am honored that I will be attending this year's 203rd Commencement on Harkness Field and I look forward to the events surrounding the ceremony and am excited to congratulating the graduating students. I encourage anyone who has the opportunity to attend to do so, there's sure to be something to take away from such an event.
Although the summer is approaching, that does mean the Grand Marshal and the Student Senate stop doing our jobs. We will be working very hard during the summer, setting the framework and determining the goals we wish to achieve for the next year. My aim is that when we return in August, we will be creating an effective path to improving communication, creating more student input, and building community relations. We have some ideas, but we would be excited to hear yours. Hop onto the Student Senate website, http://www.studentsenate.rpi.edu/, where we'll be updating Senate projects and posting ideas for next year. Leave some comments, or e-mail your Senators on your ideas, just visit their profile page. Or as always, you can always contact me; I have a profile page on the Student Senate website, a Twitter page at http://twitter.com/rpigm, or e-mail me at gm@rpi.edu.
School's out for summer, but the work never ends. Stay sharp but have fun, enjoy yourself but be safe and I'll see you back here at RPI in August.
Far too often, we forget that RPI is part of a larger community. It is part of an area steeped in history and reminiscent of an era that truly shaped the course of prosperity for the United States. But it also has an eye for the world of tomorrow: we're part of an area dubbed the "Tech Valley" and to put it simply by the novelist William Gibson, "the future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet." We first arrived here as RPI students, but as we are nearing the close of our freshman year or [enter year here], is should be evident that we are much more. We should strive to fill the commitment of being a member of a community that works together to bring that future beyond the doorstep of our campus and out to the world.
I suppose such a goal starts with building the relationships with the people around us. It is about being an active individual in the greater Troy, a city that is undergoing a historical rebirth. Ignore the false stigma that you may have, make the trip to downtown. Visit the parks, shops, and sights that make Troy a historical treasure. Eat at the numerous restaurants, cafes, and bakeries that are one of the best in the area. Volunteer in schools, libraries, and community service organizations to better the lives of Troy citizens. Attend City Council meetings, be a part of the city in which we live. It's all about building bonds that benefit all of us. Citizens of Troy notice and are pleased when we make the effort downtown, and it helps create a positive relationship with the community that we can take away as building both the success of our city and our school.
This Friday will be Troy Night Out, an exciting monthly event that gives a taste of the expansive cultural atmosphere of the city. I encourage all students and members of the RPI community to venture down and experience all that TNO offers. RPI has been a generous sponsor, and through collaboration with your Student Senate's Student Life Committee, there are free shuttles that leave from the Student Union on the hour, from 5-9pm. and return from Monument Square downtown on the quarter of the hour. While in Monument Square, check out the RPI student exhibit at the Arts Center of the Capital Region. You'll also find many RPI students, me included along with many members of the Senate, venturing through the shops, restaurants, and streets of Troy. For more information on Troy Night Out, visit its website at http://www.troynightout.org/.
These first few weeks of my tenure as the 143rd Grand Marshal, I've talked about student input, communication, and community relations; ideas that I truly feel strong about. But my major endeavor is to find the ideas and input that all the students and members of the RPI community have. So please, make a shout out, stop by the GM/PU office in the Student Government Suite, or e-mail me at gm@rpi.edu.
In a community where the exchange of ideas has brought about the ideas and innovations that RPI is known for, there is no more important goal we should be striving for than communication. It must be a bridge between us students, faculty, and administrators to bring positive change to campus.
Last week’s Pizza with the Cabinet is a step in that direction of consistent and open communication with all the members of the RPI community. I would like to thank the members of the president’s cabinet for their attendance as well as the numerous students that spent over two hours conversing and listening to the questions and responses made over many topics, including January Term, the CLASS initiative, ResLife compensation, and student attendance at EMPAC. The 40th Student Senate will be sure to sponsor more of these discussions through the next year.
How do all of us stay connected, stay aware, and continue discussions? It is a challenge to keep the motivation and the interest of students in the process of addressing changes to campus life and the student experience. Student government is a tool for the students, but it becomes useless when the voice of students is no longer heard. How do we continually hear the input of students as well as effectively disperse the information that we members of the Student Senate receive? We have some ideas to communicate, and we’re interested to hear yours.
I hope that I can be an easily accessible point of contact for questions, comments, and concerns that you would like to bring. The Grand Marshal/President of the Union Office is in the Student Government Suite in the Rensselaer Union; if you see the door open, come on in! I’m looking for your input and your ideas for the path that we in the Student Senate and student government should take; e-mail me at gm@rpi.edu and let’s get going!
Let me debut into this column by first thanking those who listened, encouraged, and elected me into the office of Grand Marshal. The campaign will never stop; I promise to continue to reach out and ask students for their input and support of the many actions that the 40th Student Senate will be undertaking for the next year. I would also like to thank the outgoing 142 Grand Marshal, Kara Chesal, for her determination and leadership; I wish her well in her path beyond RPI. Let me also congratulate Alex Franz on his election to President of the Union, I look forward to working with him and the Executive Board. I hope this year will allow the Student Senate, Executive Board, and Judicial Board to work together to effectively serve its student body.
The 40th Student Senate comprises of a very diverse and knowledgeable group of students that are here to best represent the student body. The Senate is already on its way through appointments to my cabinet and committees; our first meeting has already come and passed and I encourage any member of the RPI community to attend our meetings at 8pm on Mondays in room 3202 of the Student Union.
The Student Senate is much more than those elected; we invite all students to join the numerous committees and agencies of the Senate that are here to improve the student life experience. Are you interested in student rights? Join the Student Life Committee. The Community Relations Committee is here for improving the relationship between RPI and the surrounding community. The Academic Affairs Committee fights for improvements to education and learning on campus. Finance Facilities & Advancement Committee serves as a source of information on everything; from parking to buildings, institute finances to furniture, they're the comment box for you. The Web Technologies Group is on the cusp of technological innovation with recent projects such as Concerto (the digital signage system on campus) and the recently updated Union website. If you are interested in any of these Senate groups, or have questions, e-mail me at gm@rpi.edu.
Our first event, in coordination with the former Grand Marshal, is Pizza with the Cabinet. Members of the President's Cabinet will be available to listen and answer your questions this Thursday from 6-8pm in the Banquet Hall in Russell Sage Dining Hall. This new event will allow students to have a variety of topics about RPI be discussed in an environment that is very relaxed; pizza has a way of doing that.
I look forward to the remaining weeks of the semester to build a strong foundation for the Student Senate as it looks to tackle many issues facing us at RPI. My platform was communication, student input, and community relations; these are paths that I hope the Student Senate will take this next year and address to bring some positive change to campus.
I'm here for you; my mind, e-mail, and door is open for all of you and I await your ideas and input for the coming year.
With the upcoming student government elections I have been thinking about what student platforms mean and platforms in the greater sense of government and politics.
For example, when someone runs for president of the United States they are elected based on what they stand for. Once they get into office the expectation is that they will represent the entire country. Thus, somewhere along the line between campaigning and elections, politicians must change who they base their policy on in order to best democratically represent their constituents.
This is where I see an inherent flaw — If you must change to represent an entire community and not just those who you were trying to represent from the beginning, you perhaps betray some segment of your original supporters. If your agenda solely consists of what you ran on, you are not being truly democratic. Its a catch 22: you cannot run for office without having a stance on issues, and yet when you get into office you are expected to have no bias and act in a way that represents the majority of the population.
Thus I see little point in creating platforms before people are democratically elected to office. If you cannot guarantee you will be able to carry out your goals democratically or create policy that best represents your entire constituency, you might as well wait and run based on your abilities to listen and react to the majority's opinion and thought.
I have personally received some criticisms for expressing my opinions in meetings. To be a leader is it more important to not speak and purely run the meetings or is it more important to act on what the platform you ran on stressed? I have yet to figure it out myself. While I have taken psych courses and have a basic understanding or anarchism and democracy, it is hard to realize what works best and what is ethically sound.
I would be interested in what students outside of student government think is important for elected student officials to uphold; is it more important to stick to your campaign platform, reach out to the campus regularly to gauge student opinion in every process, or to allow those other students elected to act as representatives of the community?
Post your thoughts, I'm interested in hearing other opinions.
The Student Sustainability Task Force (SSTF) at RPI has released a comprehensive report entitled 'Sustainability at Rensselaer.' Click the link to read the report that is also now on President Jackson's desk!
This report is the result of months of work by a team of students on the SSTF. It covers past sustainability programs at RPI, such as the residence hall-based EcoHall Challenge, as well as loads of data regarding power consumption, waste recycling, and programs here and elsewhere. Most important are the objectives outlined at the end of the report, which make clear the SSTF's vision for what sustainability at RPI could be.
It's Monday, January 19 at the second Spring meeting of the Student Senate. I want to give people an update on what is being discussed at the Senate meetings regarding, among other issues, the 98 staff layoffs that occurred late last semester.
I'll be posting updates as we hear them at today's meeting. But before the meeting gets started, let me talk about what was said last week about the layoff situation:
Jan 19 Financial Situation Updates From the Senate:
Updates from the Facebook Group:
Other Updates:
Now that I've had a chance to relax a little over Thanksgiving Break, I thought I'd reflect on some of the stuff that has happened in student government over this past semester. This being my third year on the Student Senate, I've been involved with all sorts of forward-looking projects. But this year I'm happier than ever with what we've delivered thus far and where we're headed.
When we first opened up the new year, we already had a couple things done and in-process. Over the summer, August Fietkau and I prepped this website for the Senate, a new vision of what we had been working on for some months prior. We put up this blog (not sure how many people actually see it, but whatever), built a really robust project management system, and implemented some other tools for the Senate. The Senate's space on the web isn't frequented by too many students, which can be a little discouraging sometimes, but at least we've got a space to tell people about what our organization does. We also launched the Union Pulse, a newsletter focused on Union activities.
Another thing we started to do in the summer is preparation for GoCrossCampus, an online game created and run by fellow nerds at Yale and Columbia. We created an RPI version of a Risk-type game map, named all the territories, and launched a promotional campaign and website to get people started with the game. It launched in October and has, by all accounts, been pretty damn successful. Sure the game has its kinks, but we're happy to see a lot of RPI students keeping up with it every day.
We've launched a free web hosting service that gives tech-savvy students and organizations a lot more power under the hood for experimenting and hosting web sites--much more than what RPI provides. Our membership numbers have been phenomenal so far and we're excited to see what people build using the myRPI-space service.
The "myRPI" moniker points to a much bigger work-in-progress. You might have noticed this site on the web. It's a prototype of a student web portal that we're building--the single, central site for student life at RPI. We're not ready yet to lift the pot cover on what we've got cooking on the stove, but I have a feeling you'll like it. Just give us a little more time!
With Thanksgiving over, I've got one final thing for which I'll give thanks: the ability to work with great people on projects that really spur positive changes at the Institute. Student government doesn't always get it right. But I can tell you that this semester we've started to bring some great stuff to the table, and we've got a hell of a lot more coming.
I remember learning about the business of the Student Senate by listening to senators discuss business in the Student Government Suite while I was doing homework. At the time this disturbed me from my work, but as a relatively new student I didn't know any better. When I decided to run for Senate, I chose to focus my campaign on improving communication of Senate business to the rest of campus. Communication with the rest of campus is about providing information to people about what we do in the Senate, and also about gathering input from constituents to bring before the Senate. Senate Hours is an effort intended to increase the communication of feedback from students to the Student Senate.
It's an idea I came up with to encourage students who are not senators to become involved in influencing their senators. This pilot program consists of student senators volunteering an hour or two during the week to be available for other students to meet with them. Senate Hours follow an open door policy, meaning that you can visit senators during the times they are available without making an appointment. You can give feedback to senators on issues that have already been brought to the Student Senate, propose new business to bring before the Senate, or talk about projects that you feel the Senate should undertake. I believe that in order for senators to represent their constituents best, they should get feedback. Open government is important to maintaining a democratic process and part of the process is to transfer information from constituents to the Senate.
Senate Hours will only be effective if you, the constituents the senate represents, use them. We have posted a sheet on the door to the Student Government Suite (Suite 3120 on the third floor of the Student Union) that lists all of the meeting times of every committee and student government body on campus, as well as contact information for each senator (including their Senate Hours). Hours are being held on each day of the week and in several different locations around campus. I highly encourage all students on campus to use Senate Hours to ensure that we remain a responsive form of government. Feel free to drop by the Student Government Suite on the third floor of the Union with any questions, comments, concerns, or project ideas you might have!
Between September 4th and September 30th, there were eight incidents involving students being accosted within just a few blocks of campus. Our campus may be relatively safe, but the streets around it - even in broad daylight - are not safe any longer. These incidents have occurred at a variety of times, but primarily late in the afternoon. RPI Public Safety and the Troy Police Department have taken measures to put a stop to this crime wave, making several arrests in the process, but more is needed - from students. While students may just be "passing through" the Troy community during their college years, everyone has a responsibility to help make their community a pleasant and safe place to be.
To that end, the Senate is working to organize a workshop to be attended by a number of prominent community members, representatives from Troy PD and Public Safety, RPI administrators, and, of course students. The focus of the workshop will involve identifying the nature and causes of the problems students and residents have had off-campus and identifying some steps to be taken by everyone to help alleviate some of the type of crime we've experienced. Once a date has been ironed out, we'll be spreading the word so that any interested students can attend (pending available space).
So we just got back from this year's Union Activities Fair, and it was pretty cool. For those of you who may have stopped by the Senate's area at the front of the Field House, we had a great time talking with you and hope that you check out all the cool stuff we've got brewing for you and the rest of the student body. Actually, if you're interested in getting involved with a fun activity, it's a great time to hook up with a group of Senate members and crank out some sweet projects that help improve the student experience. It really doesn't take much to become part of the Senate--just show up to one of our committee meetings and see what's happening. It's all what you make of it.
Regardless of whether or not you're interested in working as a part of the Senate, you might want to check out a new editable guide we threw up at myRPI, the brand new student portal. It might provide you with some extra insight about what goes on in student government. Oh, and keep your feet up and stay for a while at myRPI--let us know what you think of it and what you'd like to see added. Maybe you might want to design the homepage banner for the site or submit a funny quote. I'm sure I'm not the only one who would love to read it. And do be sure to hit up the problem-reporting links in the left column if you run into any problems with classes or the like.
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