Despite all of the reading that you may have for your classes this semester—and how little of it you will actually do—there is one thing that you should sit down and take a moment to read: The Rensselaer Handbook of Student Rights and Responsibilities. In it, there are certain expectations that Rensselaer has of us and many rights that have been granted to us. Many people fail to realize that Rensselaer operates under its own set of rules along with the laws. But, more importantly, I have seen far too many students who simply don’t know what their rights are when it comes to being residents on campus at Rensselaer.
When it comes to the Handbook, ignorance is no excuse for not being familiar with its policies or your own rights—it is each student’s own responsibility to learn them. I’d like to take this opportunity to showcase some of its contents to you, and hopefully you will be interested enough to read the rest for yourself.
For on-campus residents, your room is your castle—assuming you are following all of the rules of ResLife. Once a month, RAs perform Health and Safety Inspections on all the rooms in their area. RAs will post notices of these checks at least 24 hours prior to starting them. You are responsible for being there, but are not required to. Assuming you are there, your RA may look around, but he or she won’t move anything around or open any cabinets or doors. Instead, your RA may ask you to, but whether or not you choose to comply with their requests is your decision. You won’t be punished for not opening your refrigerator or closet door—it’s your right to say no. To go along with this, no one can just barge into your room at will, be it Public Safety, Residence Life, or any other Institute official. Of course, in certain situations, when someone’s safety is at stake, FIXX is performing maintenance, or, as above, your RA is doing Health and Safety Inspections, for example, that rule doesn’t apply. Furthermore, no one can take your property—it belongs to you. Don’t think that just because you have a dartboard in your room, your RA can suddenly have a new toy. It still belongs to you, but you have to get it out of your room before your follow-up check.
With the expiration of last year’s Handbook, and the Institute’s decision not to print copies of the new edition for distribution, the accessibility of this important document is on a downward slope. Although this is RPI, and opening a PDF file of the handbook isn’t generally a big deal, it is far more convenient to have a hard copy of something like this at your fingertips. Knowing your rights is important; otherwise people can step on them without you even being aware of it. Don’t let anyone take advantage of you not knowing your rights—so take my advice, and read the Handbook.
