Last Friday, students received a day off from school to attend the events celebrating the opening of the Biotech Center. We received e-mails encouraging us to attend the Presidential Colloquy and Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony. Expectations were set for faculty, staff, and students to see Trustee Sam Heffner, Senator Joseph Bruno, Representative Michael McNulty and others speak to the campus community.
After the colloquy, students and faculty gathered in front of the Biotech Center auditorium to witness the historic ribbon cutting. After 10 minutes, people from the President’s office informed the crowd that it could watch the telecast of speeches in the DCC. Faculty, staff, students, and even some administrators were moved to DCC 308 to watch the VIPs hold the ceremony inside the Biotech Center auditorium, away from the RPI community.
Finally, when the people with suits and ties came out of the auditorium for the ribbon cutting, only the press and attendees in the very front could see the ribbon being cut. The choice of the area by the auditorium for the ribbon cutting separated the campus community once again. The event could have included more people by taking place in an area visible by a few hundred people.
Large groups of students—many of whom were interested in supporting the Institute and seeing this important moment in RPI’s history—were pushed into the background. Perhaps they weren’t planning for the number of students who chose to attend these events. However, at a time when the administration is having trouble encouraging students to attend events such as keynote speeches, they inadvertently alienated those people whom they would like to attend future events. In the future, they should have more faith in the support of students and plan to accommodate a larger student population at these events.
Unfortunately, the grand scale of the events surrounding the Biotech Center are over, but the future promises festivities with the opening of eMPAC. The administration should be sure to consider what worked and did not work when planning events in the future.
