At its February 12 meeting the Senate appointed Diana Thomas and approved to the position of vice chairman of the Judicial Board, with a vote of 17-0-1. The position was recently created in the revised judicial board guidelines.
Grand Marshal Gil Valadez met with the Diversity Advisory Board, a group under the auspices of the Office of Institute Diversity that makes recommendations directly to the president. A third party will be sought to come to RPI and conduct a campus climate survey regarding sexual assault.
The Graduate Council has met with Provost Bud Peterson, Tom Apple, dean of the graduate school, and Dean of Students Mark Smith regarding the changes being made to graduate tuition. From the meeting, it was confirmed that a proposal is being made to charge graduate students a flat rate for tuition, instead of the per-credit-hour rate that is currently being charged. The new policy is being explored because the graduate school feels that students are taking too long to complete their degrees. The proposed change probably will not affect current graduate students and should not affect new graduate students who receive funding from their departments. The graduate council also has a petition being distributed by graduate students, asking that the new commencement policy be reviewed.
The Campus Communication Committee set up a feedback box in the library. Locations for other boxes are being explored. A student life forum is being planned for the end of February or sometime in March.
Changes were made to the Rules and Elections Handbook. Highlights of the changes include the number of signatures required to receive a graduate senator nomination which has been reduced to 30 and the number of graduate council recommendations was reduced to 20. Meanwhile, the number of nominations for class council was increased to 50. A motion was made by Chris Gill to remove party names from the ballot in the spring elections. The motion was voted down 6-8-5. The GM Week Handbook for 2002 was approved 12-2-5.
It is likely that the Faculty Senate Curriculum Committee will make a recommendation to add a biology requirement to the core curriculum. “The reasoning behind making this recommendation is that the focus of much of emerging technology is in biology, and it would be nice if RPI students actually understood on a general level what is going on in these fields,” said David Siebecker, senate member and a student representative to the committee. The plan is still in the formative stages and will not be ready for at least a year.
A recommendation to amend the bylaws was made by Chris Gill. The proposed amendment would make the present ad-hoc judiciary committee a permanent committee of the Senate. The amendment was approved 19-0-0.
