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...

Friday evening held an exciting game for the Engineers. The puck dropped at 7 pm at Houston Field House between the Engineers’ senior Jimmy Devito and the Bears’ Sam Lafferty. The tensions were high and the competitors played evenly throughout the entire game. Brown outshot the Engineers for the first period but the game remained scoreless for the first 20 minutes. The first goal was not scored until junior Drew Melanson, assisted by sophomore Evan Tironese and junior Lou Nanne, had a breakaway goal in the latter half of the second period. The favorite cheer of the crowd for the evening could be heard ringing out on almost every power play and goal for the Engineers, “Brown is shit! Shit is Brown!” Read more...

The Rensselaer Union Executive Board opened their meeting Thursday, November 3 with the Rensselaer Global Medical Brigades budget review. GMB brought to the E-Board’s attention an anomalous situation regarding the Club Management System: during updates, GMB was never appointed an E-Board representative or SARP and their budget lines were automatically zeroed. Furthermore, their member count was not showing up on CMS. Read more...

It’s been kind of funny over the past few days, as I’ve been talking to some of my friends. With us being first semester seniors, it’s the last time a lot of us are making schedules for classes, and making the appropriately annoying Facebook post about that. So between that and all the leaves that are falling right now, change has been on my mind a fair amount recently. Read more...

They call her “the saddest girl in Sweden.” Her brand of unabashedly personal dark-alt-pop is both refreshing and recognizable. Her songwriting talent has garnered hits such as “Habits” and “Talking Body.” Her personality electrifies on stage and in studio, the fresh take on relationships injecting an honest and evocative sound into the world of pop music. Read more...

Three four-person curling teams from the RPI Curling Club went to Broomstone Curling Club in Wayland, Massachusetts, to compete in the annual Broomstone’s College Bonspiel hosted by Boston College. The team of freshman Evan Mullaney as skip, junior Anthony Naslas as vice, junior Garrison Johnston as second, and junior Kaitlin Fermano as lead captured second place at the two-day tournament beginning on Saturday. Read more...

Hi RPI! Since many clubs are beginning to construct their budgets for next school year, I thought I would provide some info on what the Rensselaer Union’s expenses are and how its income is spent. All of this information and more is available to you in the Fiscal Year 2017 Union Annual Report found at https://poly.rpi.edu/s/0czl9. Read more...

Rensselaer split 1–1 in 2 games over the weekend, losing against Yale University on Saturday 7–2, but defeating Brown University on Sunday 4–1. Read more...

Last Wednesday, November 2, men’s soccer travelled to Poughkeepsie, NY to face off against Vassar College in the Liberty League Semifinals. Going into the game, the Brewers were at 12–3–2, while the Engineers were at 8–6–4 for the season. Ultimately, RPI was upended 1–3, sending Vassar to the Liberty League Finals. Read more...

President Shirley Ann Jackson announced several key strategic initiatives during the Fall Town Meeting that will be culminated during the coming year while celebrating recent successes in institutional research and enrollment management. Read more...