The Mueller Center was closed for a good portion of last week because of a sprinkler pipe burst in the entrance vestibule of the building on Monday, February 22. The incident is not believed to have been due to the abnormally cold weather over President’s Day Weekend, but rather an unfortunate coincidence. The upper floor classrooms and main floor cardio rooms reopened on Friday, February 19. As of press time, the lower weight room is still closed for repairs. Although the Armory is connected to the Mueller Center, it was unaffected by water damage. Read more...

With the passing of the Union Annual Report, The Poly feels that it is a good time to encourage students to take an active role in the things that directly affect us. Reading The Poly is already a great start! We do our best to keep students informed about what’s going on around campus and presenting that information in a clear, concise manner. This week features an article on what the UAR is and why it’s important for students, so we encourage you all to read it. In addition, we write weekly articles summarizing the events that occur during the Senate and Executive Board meetings; these articles are a great way to understand what your senators are doing to help you. Read more...

Groups of people occupied with setting up and carrying things around, six Alaskan Malamutes pulling a wheeled slide along the track, and wind moaning lowly in the chilly weather were all I saw when I got there. Because of the great contrast between two small lonely white tents and the capacious East Campus Athletic Village field, I wasn’t excited about Winter Carnival despite the inspiring and cheerful working atmosphere. I went straight into the tent and instantly plunged into my volunteering commitment with immense zeal, along with everybody else. People started to come earlier than I expected. Just one moment after my club booth settled down and everyone’s jobs were assigned, the first two guests came into the tent and played our game. Read more...

The Engineers placed second at the Upper New York State Collegiate Swimming Association Championship Meet. Ithaca College earned the first place trophy by accruing 35.5 more points than the RPI women. Stevens Institute of Technology bested the men by 278 points. Three school records were broken and three NCAA B-cut times were reached. Read more...

With the recent conclusion of the budgeting season, the Union Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2017 was completed. Dating back to 2009, the UAR was first created to describe in detail the budgeting processes taken by members of the Rensselaer Union and the Executive Board. “The UAR is a standing commitment to transparency in the budgeting process, and a right for students to know where their money goes,” according to President of the Union Nick Dvorak’s ’16 letter on page seven. This year’s document is no exception, containing thorough explanations of what the UAR is and where the funds of the student activity fee are going. Read more...

When I was in seventh grade, I wrote a story with all my classmates in it. First, let me tell you: there were only 23 other students at the time, so it wasn’t too crazy. Anyway, I drew this extremely detailed map based in this fictitious world I had made. There were towns, and rivers, and coves, and train tracks that ran across bays, and mountains—the whole shebang. I brought this extremely detailed map to school and I would ask my friends to choose a town or a place for them to originate from. Some people thought it was weird—quite a few—but a lot of people got really into it, and even chose names and background stories for themselves. I would sit down every day after school and write pages of poorly constructed plots where my friends and I went on silly adventures. This went on for awhile. I managed to write 23 pages of size-ten Time’s New Roman font, justified, single spaced. And one day, the computer crashed and it was all gone. Read more...

RPI students are proving to have talents that extend far past the disciplines they come here to study. Eghosa Aiyevbomwan ’18, better known by his stage name, Asoh Black., is a prominent example. A business and management major from Brooklyn, N.Y., Aiyevbomwan has been making waves with his hip-hop/rap tracks. Read more...

In his recurring role as champion thrower, senior Tyler Yeastedt shattered facility records in the weight throw and the shot put at the Hutton Sports & Recreation Center where Utica College hosted their Pioneer Invitational on Saturday. In the new facility, marking 17.75 meters in the weight throw, he surpassed the former record by over a meter. Meanwhile in the shot put, he increased the record distance by 1.5 meters. Read more...

Last Wednesday, the Student Senate met to discuss two of the most important motions of the year; the approval of the Student Activity Fee and the Union Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2017. Read more...

On the first week of school, I made a trip to downtown Troy to purchase the class notes for McLaughlin’s Calculus II course. At the time, it seemed like pure evil; a textbook that would be revised every year and become outdated, thus lowering its resell value? One that couldn’t be found on and downloaded off of the internet? And I had to walk through this ridiculous East Coast lack of temperature to go buy it at a small, local bookstore? As I dredged down The Approach, I grumbled to myself while my Californian soul slowly froze and broke off bit by bit, and my retired-for-a-year legs protested. You can imagine, then, my horror and dismay when I reached the front door and realized that I had another class on schedule before the store would be open. I tried to make myself as small as possible on the walk back, hoping that nobody would see the flashing neon sign above my head that said, “this idiot near froze himself to death for no reason.” But alas, I hadn’t obtained a textbook. And so I waited. Read more...

Everyone knows Minecraft. It’s probably the most revolutionary game to come out in the last 10 years. It took the definition of a sandbox game and completely blew it out of the water. It’s my all-time favorite game, no questions asked. Read more...

Manifesting their strength on the diamond from pre-season conditioning weight room sessions with RPI head strength and conditioning coach Joe Schoenleber, the RPI baseball team slugged Alvernia University in Ashland, Virginia, on Saturday, winning 6-4 in their first game of the season. With the close of the ninth inning, head coach Karl Steffen celebrated his 800th career win. Steffen, a player in his own right who was drafted by the New York Yankees in 1978, began coaching at RPI in 1985. He is one of seven coaches in Division III history to have achieved this status. Read more...

First on the agenda for the Executive Board meeting last Thursday was the Society of Biological Engineering, presented by Erin Arthur ’18. SBE plans to hold seminars and journal readings with the goal of expanding knowledge and awareness of biological engineering. Arthur explained that the society would be open to anyone who has an interest in the field and that there are currently chemical engineering, biomedical engineering, and biology majors participating. The group also has support from professors in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. In a unanimous vote, SBE became a Union-recognized organization, and their affiliation with the national society was approved. Read more...

Hola Amigos!

This past week was filled with events and celebration galore! Last Wednesday, the 46th Student Senate voted to pass both the Union Annual Report document and Activity Fee recommendation. In the fee recommendation, it was stated that the Activity Fee recommendation was $374 for undergraduate students and $320.50 for graduate students. This figure includes the class dues portion of the Activity Fee ($13.50 for undergraduates and $12 for graduates). This is roughly a 2.5 percent increase from last year’s fees. If you would like more details on the fee breakdown and where your money is going, please check out http://poly.news/s/q6dmk/. We will also be releasing a one page summary of this document with infographics in the next few weeks, and will have a brochure available for students next semester! If you are interested in the process or would like to get more involved with this fee, please feel free to reach out to me at any time. Read more...

As the lights dimmed, the audience grew quiet, and I got ready to take fastidious notes on my laptop. Now, considering that there were nine groups—10 if you count the guest performers—at the Northeast International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella, it would be thoroughly impossible for me to review all of them in detail without boring everyone; in any case, I’m not an a cappella connoisseur, so there’s no need for me to go into extreme detail. As such, I will be reviewing the sets that I found to have the most entertainment value and glossing over the others. Read more...

Coming off of a rough four losses in their last five games, the men’s hockey team entered Friday night’s game against number one ranked Quinnipiac University. But, regardless of their recent play, the Engineers played well, taking a 4-3 lead with 3:46 in the third period remaining when sophomore forward Viktor Liljegren collected the puck as it slid past him and flung it top shelf past Bobcats goalie Michael Garteig. Then disaster happened; Quinnipiac pulled their goalie soon after the RPI goal and tied the game up with a long shot past senior goalie Jason Kasdorf by forward Devon Toews. 15 seconds into overtime, Quinnipiac took advantage of a two-on-one breakaway with a game-winning goal by forward Soren Jonzzon. Read more...

Once upon a time, in the year of 1998, a man by the name of Shea Gunther founded what would become the only international network of students dedicated to ending the War on Drugs: Students for Sensible Drug Policy. Since then, SSDP has grown to roughly 200 chapters. Proud to join this network is RPI’s SSDP chapter, a club that recently received Union recognition. The RPI SSDP E-board consists of graduate student and President Matthew Getzin, Service Chairman Zoe Steinsnyder ’18, Social Media Chairman Jaad Coles ’16, Secretary Anton Nekhai ’16, Treasurer Nick Axline ’16, graduate student Dylan Rees, and myself as vice president. Read more...

The RPI women’s basketball team finished their season with one win and one loss over the weekend. After a huge victory over Bard College, the Engineers closed their season with a tough season-ending loss to Vassar College. Despite Liberty League’s Rookie of the Week freshman Sam Krumbhaar giving two outstanding performances on the court, Rensselaer was unable to capitalize in their second game of the weekend. Read more...

With the season coming to a close, men’s basketball concluded their season on a high note with a 71-63 win over Vassar College on February 21. The team closed out the weekend with two wins: one in overtime against Bard College and one in their final season game at home against Vassar. Read more...