Today at 1 pm, President Shirley Ann Jackson will be speaking at the Fall Town Meeting at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center Concert Hall. Aside from updating the campus about what has been happening at RPI, the event will allow members of the Rensselaer community to ask any questions on their mind. The Poly encourages everyone who can go the forum to attend so they can be both informed about what is going on and can voice their concerns, accordingly. Read more...
Monthly Archives: November 2009
The Trans-Siberian Orchestra has gained world-renowned fame for their Christmas albums. As their name implies, they are an orchestra with a twist: they are a rock orchestra incorporating styles of progressive rock, symphonic rock, and classical music. Read more...
Fans got a glimpse of two types of Engineers this weekend: the kind that work for their wins and the kind that can barely put a game together. The only problem is they are all the same players donning the same jerseys. After putting on one of its best performances in several years in a non-conference match against Union College on Friday, the men’s hockey team in turn put on one of its worst games in recent memory on Saturday against the United States Military Academy at West Point. Friday’s overtime match against the Dutchmen ended in a 4-3 decision in favor of RPI, while on Saturday, the Engineers gave up a two-period lead to ultimately fall to the Army Black Knights by a score of 2-1. Rensselaer is now 4-3-1 overall on the year, while Union fell to 3-3-1, and Army earned its first win of the season to rise to 1-4-2. Read more...
The campus has been abuzz with Monday’s release of The Chronicle of Higher Education article on university presidents’ salaries. President Shirley Ann Jackson was named top of the list for the 2007–2008 year (the lists published are two years old), and the students have dusted off their torches and pitchforks just in time for the Fall Town Meeting. Read more...
With class registration for the Spring 2010 semester looming on the horizon, I know I can’t be the only student loathing the entire process. I can’t imagine there are many things more stressful than the hours spent computing different combinations of courses on RPI Scheduler, only to find out minutes before your designated registration period that not only are your top pick of times are full, but so are many of the required classes for your major. Already looking at the two or three sets of schedules I could possibly have and the several conflicting classes, I dread this upcoming week. I know somewhere along the line, I’m going to get screwed. Read more...
This Monday, The Chronicle of Higher Education released an article on compensation for Private University Presidents. In discussion with media outlets and the Institute, I released the following statement: Read more...
The Union’s breadth is much greater than many realize. Most people encounter the building that we call the Union on their first visit to campus and do not realize that there is more to it than that. Of course, to us the Rensselaer Union is not just a building, but an entire structure of student-supported and student-run facilities, activities, and organizations. Read more...
One of today’s most heated political debates is that over the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution, the individual right to keep and bear arms. There are those that argue that guns are too dangerous to enjoy the legal protections they currently have. Debates are raging over whether or not Americans deserve the right to own a firearm. But why do our representatives argue over this issue? The positions of our representatives on gun-control can be more easily derived from how much trust they place in their fellow citizens than whether or not they can be stereotyped as “redneck” or “elitist.” Read more...
It’s that time of year again ... the green report cards have been released and are available at http://www.greenreportcard.org/. Don’t worry; the world is not looking at your individual grades, but instead at the progress of our entire institution “as we move toward even greater sustainability.” Joining us across the United States and Canada, a total of 332 colleges participated in the profiles. Schools were graded by researching publicly available information and by surveying school officials to assess performance on the following nine categories: Administration, Climate Change & Energy, Food & Recycling, Green Buildings, Transportation, Student Involvement, Endowment Transparency, Shareholder Engagement, and Investment Priorities. I encourage you to check out information on RPI and other schools after this brief review. Read more...
You know that teacher in high school that you absolutely loved and wanted to impress all the time? For me, this was my AP literature teacher, Dr. Hartnett. When he suggested books to read, I would always jump to read them. Not only because I wanted to impress him, but also because he usually gave the best suggestions. I think One Hundred Years of Solitude sticks in my mind most out of the at least 40 novels I read in my senior year of high school. I recently gave it another read and it still impresses—even after my fifth read. Read more...
In honor of my friend Mr. Scheffles, this bro-dition of the Poly food review will be available in bro-vision wherever available. Read more...
The Rensselaer men’s soccer team continued on its conquest of the Liberty League this past weekend after taking down the Vassar College Brewers in the team’s final regular season game of the year by a score of 4-0. The win gave RPI, ranked sixth in the nation for Division-III soccer, the top seed in the upcoming Liberty League Tournament. The Engineers improved to 13-1-2 overall and 6-1-0 in the league, while the Brewers fell to 9-6-1 overall and 3-3-1 within the conference. Vassar will not be making the trip to the conference tournament this year, as the Brewers needed the win to crack the four-team tournament. A win from Hobart College earlier in the day over Hamilton College aided Rensselaer in its bid for the No. 1 seed. For the Engineers, the win simply means home field advantage today for the start of the playoffs. Read more...
The RPI Engineers suffered a heartbreaking and disappointing loss to rival Union Dutchmen on Saturday by a final score of 20–15 at Schenectady. The loss dropped the Engineers to a 4-3 record (2-3 in the Liberty League) and took them out of the running for the Liberty League title. Read more...
Just when it looked like the women’s hockey team had caught a break, something came along to snag its progress. After a strong start to the season, the Engineers have remained winless in their last six matches. Despite holding the Princeton University Tigers to a 2-2 tie on Friday, Rensselaer dropped the weekend’s second game by a score of 6-1 to the Quinnipiac University Bobcats. With the tie and the loss, RPI now sits 2-5-3 overall on the year and 0-1-1 in the ECAC, while Princeton is now 1-1-1 and the Bobcats improved to 4-3-1 with a perfect 2-0-0 in conference play. Read more...
The women’s soccer team hoped to end on a brighter page going into its last week. With its conference campaign completed, the Engineers had two games left, in which they were able to turn around their streak of five losses. Read more...