President Jackson began her presentation to the Senate by discussing physical changes on campus. Among the facilities and construction she discussed were EMPAC, the renovation of the freshman dorms and classrooms, the landscaping done on campus, the recent fountain dedication, and the renovation of the upperclassman dorms. She also discussed the new East Campus Athletic Village. The plans for that project include field hockey fields, another pool, basketball courts, weight rooms, and a football stadium.

Physical improvements, however, only affect the façade of the campus. Jackson re-emphasized the Institute’s commitment to academics, and in particular, The Undergraduate Plan. The goal is to create a living and learning environment with academic support, opportunities for all undergraduates. She also noted the various infrastructure changes on campus.

Jackson emphasized undergraduate research as a part of the plan in both presentations. At the town meeting, she explained the academic and research side of the undergraduate plan saying, “the 30 percent of undergraduate students in research programs must increase to 80 percent,” and that the continued growth of the academic aptitude of the Institute’s students “depends on the continuation of faculty growth.” She pointed out that there are 150 new faculty members in 75 new positions and the ratio of professors to students has been reduced.

During the Senate meeting, Jackson also talked about retention and admission. She talked about FYE and some of its programs and discussed the “Quiet Crisis,” in both presentations. She said that more women and minorities need to be excited, attracted, and nurtured to come to RPI.

President Jackson ended her Senate presentation on a confident note that Rensselaer has become the place its founder, Stephen Van Rensselaer, dreamed it would become, truly living his vision, “For the purpose of instructing persons, who may choose to apply themselves, in the application of science to the common purposes of life.”

The president’s presentations at both the town meeting and the Senate meeting were followed by question and answer sessions.

At the Town Meeting, Jackson was asked if any budget cuts were in store for RPI—specifically pertaining to layoffs. Jackson responded that the hurricanes have caused a shortfall and that we could face an energy bill that is 40 percent higher. She explained that contingency plans are being made and spending cuts looked at, but that they do not involve layoffs.

One of the first issues brought up at the Senate meeting was how President Jackson manages her time with all her commitments both inside and outside of RPI. She responded that the work she does outside of Rensselaer is linked to the Institute. She said she wants to project the university to the outside world and create friends, partnerships, and reputations. She used her position on the board of directors with IBM as an example, saying that she knows the Chairmen and CEOs of well known companies and organizations like Mitsubishi, Emerson Electric, UPS, and AMX. She believes relationships like this will help RPI achieve a global impact and help make pathways for students. In addition to that, she stated that she has a cabinet that knows what her expectations are so that she does not need to be on campus everyday.

In light of the recent RIAA suits filed against RPI students, there was a question on privacy policy for the school. According to the president and her cabinet, a privacy policy is being drafted. Secretary of the Institute and General Counsel Charles Carletta, however, vehemently expressed that what you do on the Internet is not private and the sooner we learn that, the better.

Jackson also talked about Ruckus, saying that after the trial year is up, students would have to pay for the service, and that it would be a privilege and not a right to have. She said the process for approving and setting up Ruckus is taking so long because the administration does not want to set up a de facto platform for illegal file sharing.

The issue of our engineering school’s drop in its graduate ranking, as assessed by U.S. News and World Report, from seventeenth in 1999 to thirty-fourth in 2005 was also questioned. Provost G.P. “Bud” Peterson attributed the drop to the increased competition, the loss of over 60 tenured faculty members in the 1990s and a lack of research. New faculty have been hired, however, and a part of school plans is to increase research, so he predicts that the ranking will be increasing significantly over time.

Another key issue was last year’s tuition increase. President Jackson responded that it takes a lot of money to be aggressive in hiring new faculty to keep the student-to-faculty ratio down, to recruit and maintain good faculty, and to improve infrastructure and facilities. In addition, the Institute has energy and medical expenses that are not under its price control. The President also reminded the Senate that a huge fraction of students are on a discount rate and over 85 percent are on financial aid or scholarship. Jackson promised to keep the increases to a minimum, however, but reminded the Senate that the school is trying to offer a “world class education.”

The co-chair of the Finance, Facilities, and Advancement committee, Senator Bob Fishel, demanded to know why tuition was going up and why he could not show the student body hard facts about where their money was going. Before he could even finish making his statement and posing his question, however, Jackson cut him off and emphatically said that the Senate has representatives on the Trustee Committee on Finance. She continued to say that he should ask those representatives for the information and not attack the administration. One of those representatives, Nick Wood ’07, said that some of Fishel’s questions were directly answered in his presentation the prior week.

Another highly-debated issue has been midterm progress reporting, which has been headed up by Senator Julia Leusner ’08. The provost, in turn, commented on how Leusner had won over many in the faculty senate.

Greek life was not a huge discussion, but President Jackson, who was very impressed with the recently signed Relationship Statement, challenged all greeks to be model leaders within the community. She also challenged the greeks to translate their approach to life to the whole student body.

After the question and answer period queue was cut off, GM Max Yates ’06 asked Jackson if she had any questions for the Senators and she asked the Senate members what they liked about RPI. The answers varied from campus aesthetics and how the school looks at the big global picture to the overall friendliness of the campus.