Welcome back to the second semester of the academic year at Rensselaer. I hope that your holiday break left you refreshed and ready to tackle your studies with renewed energy and sense of purpose.
By now you probably know of the significant victory for the Rensselaer men’s ice hockey program that was achieved at the NCAA convention in Nashville on January 12. The Institute united with seven other institutions in a vigorous campaign to pass an amendment (Proposal 65-1) to the Division III reform package to allow us to continue offering grants-in-aid to D-I athletes—in the case of Rensselaer, the men’s ice hockey players. This success with Proposal 65-1 also has enabled Rensselaer to launch our plan to raise our women’s ice hockey team to D-I status. It is time for the women’s team to take its place at the highest level of intercollegiate athletic competition. The team’s success in recent years has earned the program this opportunity to play the best college teams in the sport.
The vote in Nashville reaffirmed our commitment to our century-old men’s ice hockey program. Through the years, the team has been an important part of the Rensselaer tradition and our identity as an institution. Rensselaer alumni around the world follow the team, listen to games broadcast over the Internet, check on the team’s progress via the Rensselaer website, and attend the annual satellite hockey night at locations around the country. On game night, the Houston Field House is full of students, faculty, staff, and fans from throughout the Capital Region cheering on the team. The men’s hockey team unites the Rensselaer community in a unique and positive way. That is why fighting for the program’s survival was of paramount importance to the Institute.
I believe that the campaign to preserve our hockey program—coupled with the tremendous success of the Engineers football team this fall—has raised school spirit at Rensselaer significantly. Perhaps the prospect of losing the tradition of D-I ice hockey brought home, in a very strong way, its importance to the people of Rensselaer. The outpouring of help from fans and supporters in the months leading to the NCAA vote was key to our prevailing in Nashville. The support took the form of letters, postcards, e-mails, and phone calls, as well as the hundreds of signatures on the 25-foot-long banner in the Houston Field House and the “Support Puckman” buttons seen all over the campus. While the eight schools involved ran a coordinated, national campaign in favor of Proposal 65-1, on the Rensselaer campus, the divisions of Student Life and Institute Advancement, among others, rallied supporters and gave them ways to make their voices heard. The Rensselaer community can take pride in the way it responded to this challenge.
The campaign for Proposal 65-1 also has given us an opportunity to reflect on the role of the student-athlete at Rensselaer. We are fortunate to have high-caliber students who excel in the classroom and in their sports. In fact, a cornerstone of our argument in favor of 65-1 is that Rensselaer has upheld the highest academic standards for its D-I athletes—and the players meet them on a regular basis. For example, 19 members of the men’s ice hockey team were named to the dean’s list last spring, and the average GPA for the team was higher than the average for the student body. I expect that the women’s ice hockey team will continue to achieve at high academic levels as D-I players. Rensselaer sets the bar high for student athletes—as it does for all students—but they meet the demands every day. Athletics, whether at the varsity level or not, form an important part of the overall development of the individual, and, as such, represent a core element of the university experience.
