Hello RPI. This past Thursday, the Student Senate had the public safety forum in the Shelnutt Gallery. The purpose of this event is to provide students an opportunity to have an open discussion and raise concerns related to their safety on and off campus. To help address any concerns at the forum we had several staff come in. Among those that attended were Chief of Public Safety Roger Johnson, Associate Dean of the Greek Life Commons Matt Hunt, Associate Dean of Off-Campus Commons Cary Dresher, Assistant Dean of Residence Life Randi Mogul and Director of Auxiliary Services Alex da Silva.

Some of the topics discussed during the meeting included parking on campus and the certain restrictions that students face, the potential of having a shuttle stop by the J-Building, the Guardian program, the results of the Senate Light Walk, and several other incidences with robberies and landlord apartment-searching. Thankfully, there have not been too many issues so far this semester with safety and a lot of the focus looked at renting an apartment from a trustworthy landlord. Dean Dresher stressed the point of utilizing the free lawyer service provided by the Union to look over leases before signing anything. He also encouraged students to look at the Off-Campus Housing website to see what landlords had been rated well and not so well. Chief Johnson also passed around crime statistic reports at the meeting including the 2013 Annual Safety Report which can be found in the public safety building.

This Saturday, RPI faced off against Colgate in an ECAC men’s hockey game and thoroughly defeated them with a final score of 6-2. Make sure to go to the game this Saturday against our biggest rival, Union College. Union has had an excellent team in the past two years, but RPI’s squad is more than ready to take them on. For the upcoming week, make sure to also catch RPI Players new show, The Importance of Being Earnest. This is one of Oscar Wilde’s most famous plays and it focuses on the protagonists maintaining a fictitious persona in order to get away from their difficult social obligations. If you are interested in attending, the showings are November 15, 16, 17, 22, and the 23 in the RPI Playhouse. In addition to this, the RPI Dance Team has their upcoming annual fall show, Diva Nation. The event is November 16 in the West Hall Auditorium at 2 pm. The show features performances by the RPI Dance Team and various other on-campus performing arts groups. Both of these events are great opportunities to see what students do in their extracurriculars around campus. It’s also a fun opportunity to get out of your residence hall or apartment to see a great show that doesn’t cost a lot of money. I hope everyone has a great rest-of-the-week, and remember to study hard as the semester get closer to the end.