The Student Life Forums have a history here at RPI. They are meant to open lines of communication between the student body and the administration. Our school’s leaders should be applauded for taking the time to hold these forums.
Unfortunately, these forums have not always lived up to the intentions that spawned them. Forums have found the administration giving long presentations during which they can feed the student body their agendas. Students’ concerns aren’t addressed until the last few moments of the forum.
The next Student Life Forum is scheduled for tonight at 7 pm in the McNeil Room. According to the schedule listed in last week’s edition of The Poly, the presentations made by the Senate’s Student Life Committee and Public Safety should only account for the first 20 minutes of the forum.
The schedule set forward leaves lots of time for students to bring up their concerns. Hopefully, everyone will stick to the schedule as closely as possible. It’s only necessary to disseminate a brief outline of the current state of, and future plans for student life—leaving the majority of the time for students to discuss what really matters to them.
It is not just enough for the administration to keep to the schedule; students also have to show up to the forum so that the time given to them is not wasted. Theoretically this forum is held for the students—if no one shows up to make their issues known, there’s no reason for the administration to afford us this time.
