The Poly would like to welcome everyone back from a much-needed Spring Break. Its end marks the midpoint of the semester and is accompanied by a lull in the amount of schoolwork. But, don’t be fooled; there’s still a whole six weeks before the spring semester ends. Read more...

Recently, many others and I saw the end of one of our favorite shows to ever grace our television screens, Breaking Bad. And with this, I not only see the end of a great era of television, but the end of AMC. Now this is a bold claim; everyone reading this is probably screaming about their love for The Walking Dead, but that’s not the point I’m trying to make. AMC has lost all their good original content and I’m afraid that their reputation has peaked, and we might see a decline in quality quite soon. Read more...

This past week, four members of the RPI men’s hockey team signed professional contracts. On Wednesday, March 9, the New York Rangers signed standout junior forward Ryan Haggerty to join the “Broadway Blueshirts” roster this past weekend. Most of the time, when a free agent gets signed out of college, they are sent to the American Hockey League for some time before moving to the big league roster. But for Haggerty, there will be no AHL stint this season. Instead, Rangers General Manager Glen Sather signed Haggerty to get immediate action with New York. Despite being undrafted for three straight NHL drafts, Assistant General Manager Jeff Gorton explained, “He got better every year we saw him ... he’s a free agent we had at the top of our list, and this is what we felt we had to do in order to get him.” Read more...

On Monday, the Student Senate met to discuss and pass a car-sharing proposal prepared by the Facilities and Services Committee. Updated bylaws for the Graduate Council were also passed 20-0. The other Senate committees have continued making progress on their projects; excuse policy changes will be presented and discussed at the Senate meeting next Monday. Read more...

Would you pick Amtrak as your first choice in transportation? Yeah, I didn’t think so. The general opinion of our country’s government funded national rail transportation agency has soured over the years as air travel has become more efficient and cheaper combined with massively expanded national highway systems. Generally, Americans seem to prefer flying or driving when traveling long distances, and although I had heard many thoughts from others as to why this is, I had never experienced it firsthand. That changed over this year’s Spring Break, and now I can definitely say that following my first, (and possibly last) experience using Amtrak to get somewhere that I will be joining the general public opinion in that the system is heavily flawed. Read more...

Liam Neeson is staring in yet another action film where he is forced to save the day. From director Jaume Collet-Serra, comes an action thriller that takes place 40,000 feet above the ground on a plane going from New York to London. For anyone who is a fan of Taken or The Grey, this movie will not to fail to please. Although Neeson seems to play the same kick-butt character in every movie he plays, it’s hard to find anyone who would argue that he doesn’t play the part perfectly. Read more...

From March 9–15, the RPI Ski Team competed in the United States Collegiate Ski and Snowboard Association national championships. The championships took place at Whiteface Mountain in Lake Placid, New York. Overall, the team finished in a tie for 10th with St. Olaf College and Babson College out of 19 teams. For the individual combined, top performers for RPI were senior Jared Foster, junior Ryan Kresser, and senior Paul Koetke, who placed 28th, 29th, and 44th, respectively. Read more...

On Wednesday, February 26, Troy City Councilman Robert Doherty held a neighborhood association meeting for the Tibbets and Highland Avenues area in the Chapel + Cultural Center. RPI students were invited to attend; Associate Dean of Off-Campus Commons Cary Dresher sent out an email to off-campus and Greek students prior to the meeting. According to Doherty, 25-30 people were at the meeting, five of them RPI students. The discussion focused around crime and safety as well as connections between members of that neighborhood. Read more...

Over the following three weeks, 68 teams will battle for the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament, now simply referenced as “March Madness.” Millions of people have filled out their brackets on various sports websites, ESPN being the most popular, and are now waiting to see which teams are pretenders and contenders. To make the situation even more interesting, two of the wealthiest men in the world: Warren Buffett and Dan Gilbert are both tossing 500 million dollars into the pot for anybody that completes a perfect bracket in the Quicken Loans tournament challenge. The odds are extremely small for anyone to achieve this feat (about one in 12 billion at best), but to sweeten the deal they are also offering 100,000 dollars to the top 20 brackets (the odds here are much better … about one in 750,000, assuming Buffett’s 15 million entry cap is reached). Read more...

The sepulcher erected from the studios of Obsidian and past creator THQ has finally surfaced and taken a gasp of air. South Park: The Stick of Truth, a video game created by Matt Stone and Trey Parker is the coagulation of all things South Park created within the 16 year framework since the show’s creation. Read more...

On Tuesday, March 18, No. 20 RPI women’s lacrosse hosted No.3 Middlebury College at Renwyck field. RPI was hoping to upset Middlebury and improve their ranking, and bring their record to two wins and two losses. They had started the season dropping their first two games to Oneonta University and Gettysburg College. They were, however, able to pull out a heroic victory against Haverford College in overtime. Read more...

Hello, RPI! The Student Senate voted on a very important proposal this week prepared by the Senate’s Facilities and Services Committee chaired by Senator Christina Gilliland ’15. This year, the committee’s main project has been working on a campus car-sharing initiative. For those that don’t know car sharing is a type of car rental program where members can quickly and easily rent cars for short or long periods of time. Read more...

On Wednesday, March 5, entrepreneurs from across the Capital Region flocked to Troy and congregated within the Revolution Hall of Brown’s Brewing Co., enjoying tasteful hor d’oeuvres and a complimentary brew from Brown’s famous selection. The doors opened at 5:30 pm, and by 6 pm, the setting had culminated into an entrepreneur’s dream: no matter where one stood, at least three business pitches could be heard, as ambitious students and experienced veterans traded stories, ideas, and business cards. Read more...

This week’s Athlete of the Week is senior midfielder Marissa Page (No. 17) of the women’s lacrosse team. Page led the Engineers with three goals in their home opener against Middlebury College on Tuesday, March 18. The midfielder picked up her first goal of the game, her fourth of the season, with an assist from Jamie Wakefield at 1:24 to give the Engineers an early lead. With the Engineers down 2-4, Page scored her second goal, assisted by senior captain Rachel Scofield, at 7:05. Her third shot on goal was saved by Middlebury goalie Alyssa Palomba. Read more...

Hello, RPI! I hope that everyone had a wonderful and restful Spring Break. Over this past week our hockey team began the playoffs against Dartmouth. They handily won the first game but unfortunately lost the second. On Sunday night they fought a valiant fight, but sadly it was their last game. Congratulations to our entire hockey team on a wonderful and entertaining season; I will certainly miss attending games. Read more...

The second annual RPI Earth Week Festival will be held April 21 through April 26. The theme of this year’s festivities will be Interconnections. Events will highlight connections between groups of people across space and time: between people, animals, plants and ecosystems and between seemingly distinct political, social, cultural issues, ranging from public education, environmental governance, shale gas, and intergenerational ethics. Read more...

Hello, RPI! With this week’s article, I’d like to talk about the history of the Undergraduate Council, the role it has played in the Rennselaer Union and Student Government, and the direction the UC, the class presidents, and I have chosen to take for the organization in the future. Read more...

This season has been a great one for television. Breaking Bad’s conclusion, How I Met Your Mother’s end, and the return of one of my favorite shows, Community. For any fan of the show, they will be aware that last season was not up to the same level as the first three seasons. The end of the third season saw a huge change in the programming. Many of the top talent were forced out or quit, including the show runner and creator, Dan Harmon. As many predicted, this led to a universally agreed drop in quality. This change caused problems on the show as well. Read more...

Hello, everyone. My name is Frank Abissi, and I’m chair of the Senate’s Constitution Committee. Last semester, the Senate formed the Constitution Committee and tasked it with reviewing the Union Constitution and making recommendations for its revision. Although the Constitution was amended during GM Week last year, the changes were made under strict time constraints. By starting the process earlier this year, we were able examine the Constitution more thoroughly. Read more...