News

Facebook reignites debate

Ed/Op

Staff Editorial
Hurricane coverage excessive, distracting

Editorial Notebook
Changes cause difficulty

Editorial Notebook
Hadron Collider to end world

Top Hat
Participate, bring change

Derby
PU cheers hockey

Letter to the Editor
Hybrid clubs should not be confused

Letter to the Editor
Freedom of expression essential

Letter to the Editor
Can we tie performance to privileges?

Features

Jesus, Hamlet rock stage in summer comedy

Troy holds monthly “Night Out”

Sports

Red Hawks sweep opening weekend

Field hockey opens season with shutout win

Red Hawks earn pair of road victories

Cross country, golf ready for 2008 season

One-Timers
Brewers positioned for postseason play

Rensselaer in Brief
RPI rises in rankings
RPI has risen in the rankings among all national universities in the annual U.S. News & World Report list of “America’s Best Colleges,” weighing in at 41, up from 44 last year. This is the ninth year in a row the Institute has been counted among the top 50 universities in the nation.

Rensselaer’s undergraduate engineering program continues to be rated among the top 25 in the country. Three of the Institute’s engineering specialty programs—biomedical engineering, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering—were also ranked in the top 25.

The Lally School of Management and Technology also rose in its rankings this year, climbing 16 spots from 59 to 43.

In this year’s listing, the Institute’s faculty resource rank reached an all-time high, jumping 13 points from the previous year. The faculty resource rank is meant to gauge a school’s commitment to instruction by analyzing factors such as class size, student-faculty ratio, and faculty salaries and benefits.

As a new feature this year, U.S. News asked guidance counselors from around the country to rate which national universities offer the best education to their students. Rensselaer received a score of 4.2 out of 5.0, placing it in a tie for 34th with several other institutions.

In addition to the academic rankings, Rensselaer was once again featured in the publication’s “Great Schools, Great Prices” category, and the Institute was highlighted in two categories of “Programs to Look For”: the First-Year Experience program and the Undergraduate Research and Creative Projects.

NRC awards grants
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission awarded two grants totaling $850,000 to boost nuclear engineering education, research, and workforce development at RPI.

The competitive grants, awarded in early August, will support two new nuclear engineering professors as well as graduate student research.

One of the awards, for $450,000, is a three-year grant for faculty development that will support the nuclear engineering research of assistant professors in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Nuclear engineering Wei Ji and Li (Emily) Liu.

The second NRC grant, totaling $400,000 over the next four years, is designated for scholarships and fellowships that will help RPI continue to attract the nation’s best and brightest nuclear engineering graduate students.

The Institute will award these competitive fellowships to top-performing graduate students.