The dynamic folk-rock duo of Lewis Del Mar is based just three hours south of Troy, New York, their humble beginnings originating in a Queens basement. Danny Miller and Max Harwood dropped their sonically strong debut album last month, and its compelling indie rock aesthetics prove to be worth a closer look. Read more...

Rensselaer lost 4–1 against Saint Lawrence University on Friday, November 11. After travelling to Potsdam, NY on Saturday, November 12, Rensselaer also lost to Clarkson University 8–3. The two losses dropped the Engineers to 4–9–1 overall for the season. Read more...

The Student Senate’s main discussion of their Monday night meeting was on the changes to the core curriculum. The Academic Affairs Committee aimed to receive feedback which could be brought to Professor Lee Ligon, who is leading the committee proposing the changes. Read more...

Hi RPI! Some exciting things are happening all around campus but I’ll do my best to inform you on some of the bigger ones from the Executive Board and the Rensselaer Union. This weekend, members of the E-Board and the Student Senate will be traveling to Lowell, MA to participate in the Association of College Unions International (ACUI) Region VIII conference. This is a great tradition for RPI, students, and the Union for a number of reasons. Read more...

The hit TV show Black Mirror is like none other. Drawing themes from old Twilight Zone episodes and mashing them with this generation’s general distrust for technology, Charlie Booker created a disjointed yet extremely interconnected TV series. Each episode is stand-alone, yet ties in with others, even those not necessarily in the same season. Constantly changing, yet retaining similar elements of sinister, almost realistic parodies of human culture, Black Mirror aims to create sleepless nights and terrifying views of the future alike. Read more...

On November 11, Policies Committee Chairperson Matt Rand ’19 opened the Rensselaer Union Executive Board meeting with a review of the E-Board budgeting policies in its entirety. This detailed presentation touched on all aspects of a club’s budget, from travel to food. Rand’s presentation not only specified the items that are Union policy to subsidize, such as 40 percent of travel costs, but also described the items that are strictly not. These items include personal items that would become the property of an individual member, rather than a club. These are not to be confused with uniforms. A uniform, such as a swim suit, may have the life-span of only a year or few years, and may only be used by a single member, but the uniform is still the property of the club. A customized shirt or jersey that will belong to the individual member will not be subsidized by the E-Board. Read more...

I recently read Curtis Powell’s “Post-Election Message” of 11/10/16 to the RPI community, and I felt compelled to write to you. His message was, simply put, repugnant. I’ve always found RPI to be a relatively freethinking and normal home for education, research, and camaraderie. Different points of view could be shared and students could handle the world around them without the need for intervention or counseling. RPI has never struck me as a school like Vassar, where “special snowflakes” are kept in “safe spaces” from opinions and news that might damage their delicate sensibilities. Read more...

As a gay American, I had everything at stake in this election. Muslim Americans, Hispanic Americans, women, and essentially every other minority group in this great country had everything at stake in this election. For a presidential candidate who stated that he wanted to register Muslims, end marriage equality, deport Mexicans, and “grab women by the pussy,” it seemed like every group that wasn’t straight, white, and male had something to lose over the course of a Trump presidency. At this point, I’m dumbfounded that so many Americans voted in a way that condones bigotry at worst and passively accepts it at best. I’m dumbfounded that so many Americans voted in a way that would signify that my civil liberties are less important than their tax breaks. Read more...

On Friday, November 4, the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center was filled with Rensselaer community members eager to listen to CIA Director John O. Brennan speak. Read more...

For the last year and a half, we have watched Donald Trump redirect the Republican Party through the frame of fear-mongering. He established a routine of consistent bigotry; whether it be lewd comments about women, racist comments about Hispanic Americans, or dismissive comments about sexual and gender minorities, Donald Trump has made it clear that he is not only socially conservative, but socially regressive. Any ounce of progress that has been made in the last eight years has been wiped clean by the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, and this serves to fundamentally redefine the course of America. Read more...

Ground Zero is a performing arts center nestled in the basement of Nugent Residence Hall. Like most basements, it is dimly lit and humid yet cozy and comfortable. Armchairs and couches face the small stage that is less than a foot off of the ground. In the corner is a bar that serves soda and water out of coffee mugs. Decorating the walls are paintings, posters, vinyl records, and other paraphernalia. Read more...

Rensselaer’s men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams had a dual-meet against Worcester Polytechnic Institute at home on Saturday, November 5. The men had a close win at 151–148 while the women won comfortably at 188–113. Read more...

Last year, the petition Allow the Use of Preferred Names quickly reached the required 250 signatures. The Student Senate unanimously agreed to work on the petition, and tasked the Student Life Committee with investigating possible avenues. After more than a year of work, preferred names are nearing deployment at Rensselaer. Read more...

Sometimes, it still shocks me that I’m already in my second year of college; my freshman year just flew by. At first, I thought it was just fulfilling the old saying: “Time flies when you’re having fun!” But no, that wasn’t it. It was something else. And for the longest time, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I kept shrugging off the fact that life was getting too repetitive because I was genuinely having some fun in college, and I didn’t feel bored too often… but that’s exactly what it was, and I knew it needed to change. Read more...

On Monday, November 8, I was offered the privilege of viewing the RPI Players rendition of Agatha Christie’s play The Mousetrap before its opening night. It is a PBS Masterpiece Mystery special brought to life. Directed by local professional Norman Eick, the Players have executed well what I consider the trifecta of theater: environment, character reproduction, and stage choreography. Before I go on to review the show, I will disclaim that no important plot points shall be revealed, and neither will much detail of the plot in general. With that said, I will begin by offering some of the play’s exposition. Read more...

Women’s soccer’s history-making season came to an end on Saturday, when RPI lost to William Smith College 4–0 in the Liberty League Championship Game, finishing the season. Read more...

The Student Senate began their weekly meeting as usual by starting with committee reports. Chairperson of the Academic Affairs Committee Varun Rao ’18 announced that the committee started to look into the Make Career Fair Day a Student Holiday petition. In their initial benchmarking, AAC found that most schools do not get a day off for the career fair, but that there are major-specific career fairs. Rao said more benchmarking is needed. Read more...

Admissions season is now in full gear. Students have begun applying to and visiting colleges across the country. We all were at this stage of our lives, unsure where we will end up and anxiously seeking out help wherever we could. I know it seems like a blur at this point, but I would like to ask, for a second, that you think about where you came from and how you got to where you are today. Read more...

As a folk-rock artist, Sufjan Stevens has impressed fans for the last two decades with his careful sound and well-constructed lyrics. Released in 2004, Seven Swans serves as Stevens’ fourth Studio album, and features Stevens’ careful introduction of Christian themes amidst a somber instrumental backdrop. The online music review website Pitchfork states that “Seven Swans is so topically concerned with Christianity that a few wrong steps could easily have been a disaster.” However, the album manages to approach the subject of biblical morality without alienating listeners of other faiths; the album holds Stevens’ faith at its center, but is as much about exploring the ethos of humanity as it is retelling biblical stories. Read more...