Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone! I hope Cupid has been nice to all of you on this Valentine’s Day.
I wanted to take some time this week to tell you about one of the Graduate Council’s ongoing projects. About two years ago, the Graduate Council donated the Graduate Student Lounge as a gift from the graduate students to the Institute. It is located in the foyer between the main entrance and the Help Desk in the Voorhees Computing Center (VCC). The lounge was created through the generous donations of the Graduate Council and the contributions for the display case were from the combined efforts of the Graduate Council and the VCC. The lounge is composed of two L-shaped seating arrangements with connecting coffee tables, and they are separated by a walkway, which leads to the Help Desk. The aforementioned display case is against the wall to the left of the entrance as you walk towards the Help Desk. The case will display significant achievements made by RPI graduate students. We are currently working on assembling the displays for the case and hope to have them in place soon. We are continually looking for contributions for the display case. If you have made a significant contribution in your field of study while attending RPI as a graduate student, please contact us at grad-council@rpi.edu.
I also wanted to thank the people who responded to my request for input on student life, which appeared in the last e-mail newsletter from the Grad Council. As the GC president, I am often asked by the administration for my input on matters pertaining to graduate students. Since I can’t possibly know of all the problems that grad students face, I rely on the members of the Grad Council and the student body for opinions and ideas that I can pass along. Some of the responses generated from my request included improving parking conditions, dial-up connections, laptop security, health center services, and equitable privileges for domestic partners. Some of these issues are campus-wide problems, such as the parking issue, which the Grad Council may not have a direct effect on, but I will definitely pass these recurring concerns on to the appropriate people. Thanks for the suggestions and keep them coming. As always, if you are interested in getting involved with the Grad Council and working on these and other issues stop by our meeting, or send us a quick e-mail at grad-council@rpi.edu or to me personally at dutkuk@rpi.edu.
