Happy end of the semester! We all managed to make it to the end, just two weeks left until we can all head home for Winter Break. Since this is the last time I’ll be writing to you this semester, I would like to wish everyone happy holidays and good luck on their final exams and projects.
This year has been a busy one for the Executive Board and its committees. So far, the Board has approved several new clubs and has begun funding several more. We’ve added additional policies protecting groups of students who form organizations focusing on certain aspects of their identity. We hired new staff members and by the end of the semester we will have completed the Rensselaer Union’s budget in its entirety, two months earlier than our previous timelines.
The Executive Board’s committees have done even more work. The Business Operations Committee completed plans for a renovation of the Class of ’09 lounge in the Games Room. They also began preparations for renovations in Mother’s Wine Emporium, the Student Government Suite, and the Publications Suite. The Policies Committee has been working diligently with new clubs and newly funded clubs. They have been rewriting almost all of the Executive Board’s policies and procedures to improve their thoroughness and, amazingly, their simplicity. The Marketing, Advertising, and Publicity Committee has collected thousands of photos to cover the walls of the Union, and picked promotional materials for campus next year, more specifically the Class of 2021 orientation. UPAC has hosted dozens of movies in DCC 308, comedians and concerts in the Union, a successful Union After Dark program, and supported hundreds of other activities from clubs throughout the Union.
Most of these students will start all over again next semester and spend a good portion of their extracurricular time preparing events and creating environments for our clubs to flourish. So, I want to say thank you to the Executive Board members and committee members who helped us accomplish so much and will help us accomplish so much more.
Next semester we have a wide range of goals to follow through on. Mostly the continuation of projects I mentioned above, but there are a couple big items we continue to work on. One of the biggest has been the establishment of a Student Veterans Lounge on campus, and we are well on our way to meeting this goal! With the help of a few clubs and student organizations, we’ve been able to shift some rooms and start to make new space available. With luck, these plans will be cemented soon and we will have a new Student Veterans Lounge on campus. Big thanks to The Poly, Statler & Waldorf, and UPAC for their assistance in this project.