I’m going to support President Shirley Ann Jackson.

It is the hobby of every student at RPI (and the members of this paper are no exception), to blame our fine President for the troubles this university endures.

And rightfully so; she is after all the queen who rules with an iron fist, striking down this school’s historic programs of engineering and science for the betterment of some small worthless minority of management, IT, and humanities students only rumored to exist at Rensselaer.

But allow me, if for just a moment, to show another side of President Jackson: Try to see the caring and conscientious President who would often take into account student opinion if only more were offered to her from an apathetic student body. See the President who has brought, and continues to bring, new and exciting features and opportunities to campus. The Biotechnology Center is the latest of her endeavors, but new athletic facilities and eMPAC are just a few of the other projects that will affect every student on this campus.

eMPAC is the most controversial—and most important—of the President’s undertakings. In our President’s vision, she has chosen to diversify a stark site. Rensselaer is a place where too many people fail to see the whole picture, where future engineers and scientists fail to acknowledge the importance of the arts. Jackson vows to change this by bringing a spectacular structure meant to bring Rensselaer out of its Dark Ages and into a renaissance.

The eMPAC will be vital to further RPI students’ general education so they can see the brilliance of graphic design, painting, drawing, literature, poetry, music, and theater.

eMPAC will aid in diversifying the university along demographic lines, too. The female population at RPI is minute if not all together non-existent. President Jackson knows this and also knows eMPAC has the ability to revolutionize campus demographics. Liberal arts schools across the country are overflowing with estrogen while at Rensselaer, we are severely lacking.

Women outnumber men, especially at schools such as Amherst, Williams, Marist, Skidmore, and Hamilton, because—I hate to stereotype—women have more interests in the arts than men.

While this may seem like a shallow reason by a sexually frustrated communications major to support the construction of a worthless building, allow me to display another example. Females’ presence truly strengthens the educational experience as they provide unique and varied analysis that prevent the groupthink caused by a room full of testosterone.