On Monday and Tuesday, I attended two of the most heavily-advertised and sparsely-student-attended events thus far this semester: the presidential lecture by Syracuse University Presdient and Chancellor Nancy Cantor, and Rensselaer President Shirley Ann Jackson’s Town Meeting. Dr. Cantor spoke about Syracuse’s efforts to establish ties with the surrounding city’s culture and resources, while addressing many of the same sorts of challenges faced by RPI in its relationship with greater Troy. Many of her initiatives are reminiscent of Jackson’s own attempts to build Communiversity, which has not always been her most popular work among the student body.

In my view, establishing such ties is essential to Rensselaer’s future development, and it provides the only possible avenue for addressing one of the greatest gripes students seem to have with this school: a lack of interesting things to do in the immediate surrounding area. Syracuse has had some success in this arena; students here should encourage similar success.

Despite how deeply RPI students hold their negative opinions of the area, I was only able to count nine current students in the audience, and at least one appeared to be otherwise mentally occupied despite the dynamic speaker and discussion. Those who paid attention were treated to a series of ideas for revitalizing upstate New York by moving public and private universities closer to the center of action. If people have too much work to do this week, I suppose I understand; I encourage you to contact me at ezovsg@rpi.edu, however, so that we can discuss the amount of work this graduating senior in electrical and computer engineering has had to complete in the past several days alongside attending these events.

It is time for us to start caring about the world around us, both on the micro and macro levels. However much you may think you are insulated from politics and society as an engineer, scientist, or artist, I implore you to consider the possible levels of interaction. Tuesday was your chance to find out from the key decision maker herself why you will pay 5.2 percent more to attend the Institute next year. Now is your chance to write to your state or Congressional representative to support state and federal financial aid programs. These same officials will also decide whether or not President Bush’s planned increases in funding to the National Science Foundation will occur and what areas of research will receive the most funding; this decision may eventually determine whether you get the opportunity to attend graduate school.