In writing this editorial, I am breaking one of my own personal policies—to avoid using this space to respond to opinion pieces within the same edition of the newspaper. In a “My View” submitted this week, however, Grand Marshal Julia Leusner ’08 makes several interesting points. A few of them warrant correction or clarification. Typically, these issues would be covered in an editor’s note, but in this case, space constraints make it impossible for me to address them in the traditional fashion. Thus, I will go over the major inconsistencies here, but I encourage our readers to first read her piece on page eight.
Leusner begins by implying that Cara Riverso ’10, the Poly news editor, has no right to criticize the Senate because she “rarely shows up to meetings.” It is true that Riverso frequently does not attend Senate meetings because they are held on Tuesday evenings and therefore conflict with her role in the production of this paper. With that said, there is almost always a Poly reporter present at the meetings who reports directly back to Riverso. To imply that she is ignorant of what the Senate has and hasn’t done is a gross misstatement.
Leusner alludes to the idea that The Poly is partly responsible for the lack of publicity leading up to the Senate’s Winterfest of February 23. One possible reason this may be is that her “Top Hat” was cut that week, and she had planned to use that space to mention the event. That the column was cut, however, was entirely her own fault; like most “Top Hat” submissions of the past year, we received the material well after the established deadline, and in this case, time and layout constraints simply made it impossible for us to accommodate the tardiness.
Leusner then indicates that the Senate’s website is entirely up-to-date, contrary to what Riverso had stated. I assume that she is referring only to the official Senate meeting minutes, in which case she would now be correct; according to the timestamps, all the minutes from September 11 to the present were posted last Thursday, February 28—the day after Riverso’s editorial notebook was published. Aside from that, as of this week’s press time, either the website remains woefully out of date, or most of the committees and projects have indeed seen little to no progress since the academic year began.
Furthermore, Leusner says that myRPI has not yet launched. Unfortunately, this contradicts statements made at the February 22 meeting of the Senate, on the Senate’s home page, and in an e-mail to the Senate mailing list.
I also feel compelled to address allusions that Leusner made about the roles of The Poly and the Grand Marshal on campus. We are a media organization, and we do our best to accurately and thoroughly report the important news and events that happen at RPI and in its environs. We aren’t perfect by any means, but I think several of Leusner’s barbs are, at the least, unwarranted. Her implication, however, that we are somehow responsible for resolving problems with the Senate or campus is entirely incorrect. While we may occasionally offer suggestions for improvement, it is in no way our job to do so.
On the other hand, this is precisely the domain of the Senate and its chair, the Grand Marshal. Senators are elected specifically to address, resolve, and take action on issues confronting the student body. Thus I find it intriguing that Leusner claims the 13 minutes she spent reading and responding to Riverso’s concerns as a student and constituent were wasted. At any event, I do appreciate her newfound speed-writing skills and look forward to timely submissions of the “Top Hat” for the rest of her term as Grand Marshal.
