The Academic Affairs Committee is working on several key projects this semester affecting your education at RPI. Senator Anna Batorsky and Senate Academic Affairs Committee Chair, Vishnu Tekumalla, will be leading the effort to work with the Ad-ministration to rearchitect the advising system. Senators Kris-ten Powers and Leslie Granger will be working with the Faculty Senate to develop a TA grading policy to eliminate random grading of assignments across a class. Graduate Senator Grant Deffenbaugh will be working to evaluate RPI’s cheating policies and to develop a new student written honor code.

The Student Life Committee is working on several projects related to Public Safety, Physical Facilities, and other student life issues. Student Life Committee Chair Jonathan Cone is leading an effort to create a customer service plan for Public Safety and Physical Facilities. The committee will be iden-tifying student voiced areas for improvement as well as new ways to relay important safety information to students. Jon-athan and I met with Berni Drobnicki, director of Public Safety, and several of his staff members last week. They were very enthusiastic about working with us. I expect this to be a great working relationship as we progress through the semester. Physical Facilities under the direction of Vice-President for Ad-ministration, Claude Rounds, will be cre-ating a “Customer Ser-vice Center.” We will be working hand in hand with Claude Rounds and his staff to develop a plan that ensures great per-formance for students. In addition, we will be working on new ways to relay to students what the Institute is working on. In my last column, I gave you a glimpse into some of the projects. We want you to be informed of everything that RPI is doing. Finally, we are working with Vice-President for Student Life, Eddie Knowles, to host Student Life Forums in the Union where students will have an opportunity to ask questions and relay concerns about the quality of life at RPI.

The Judiciary & Student Rights Committee, led by Peter Naccarato, is working on pro-jects concerning student rights. They will be working on analyzing the dean inquiry process and making sure that students are treated fairly in the event that they get in trouble.

In future articles I will let the individuals working on these projects use my column to relay information to you. Also, information regarding the projects will be posted on our web site at http://senate.u-nion.rpi.edu. There are plenty of ways to get involved in one or all of the projects! If you are interested, contact me at gm@rpi.edu or come to one of our Senate meetings held on Mondays at 8:00 pm in Student Union Room 3202.