Alpha Phi Omega, RPI’s service fraternity, ran the biannual Meanest Man on Campus race during GM Week. The MMOC campaign pits voluntary candidates—15 total this year—against each other in an attempt to raise money for Joseph’s House. Joseph’s House, a Troy homeless shelter and kitchen, is the beneficiary of many charitable crusades on campus. Traditionally, the MMOC candidates are an eclectic assortment of faculty, staff, students, and other RPI-related symbols. Some of this year’s candidates were the RPI bullet, the albino squirrel, students Will Bobrowski and Andrea Barreiro, men’s hockey Head Coach Dan Fridgen, director of student services for the School of Humanities and Social Sciences Elizabeth Large, Public Safety Officer Wayne Snow (parking guy), Professor Krishnamoorthy, director of the Symphonic Orchestra David Gibson, James McClain from the management department, Arthur Galpin of IOP fame, and—the winner of the competition—Daria Robbins from the VCC Help Desk.
James McClain came in third place in the campaign. McClain asserts that "three-fourths of the campus is a waste" and that "management people do less work and get paid more for it." As part of the management department and, formerly, of the computer science department, McClain claims to know how hard engineers work on calculations, theorems, and other wastes of time and RPI money. He says management people are out making "connections" and "socializing," useful activities, while the engineers and others on campus are just dead weight.
Arthur Galpin, who came in second, did not submit a platform to Alpha Phi Omega, although he is well known as the inflatable whale of the Inanimate Objects Party. A former GM candidate while still an activity fee paying student, Galpin is no longer a registered student, despite maintaining a presence in the politics on campus.
This year’s champion, Robbins, garnered the most spare-change donations from the RPI community. Robbins, the self-proclaimed "queen of RCS accounts, ruler of freshman laptops, and goddess of printer refunds," promised "the lowly computer users of this campus" that if we did not vote for her as MMOC that our "days of easy computer usage" would be over. Robbins also avowed to charge $150 fines for broken laptops (throwing some in the Hudson River), not give printer refunds when the blotter ink ran on final projects, and cancel RCS accounts if not voted Meanest Man on Campus. The RPI community, being what it is, should be grateful that Robbins’ demand was met and we shall not incur her wrath upon our computer-reliant lives.
Other notable platforms were Gibson’s using the symphony as a breach-of-the-peace vehicle, the RPI bullet defying the "gray bar" and "Rensselaer," Krishnamoorthy’s making Operating Systems a universally required course, and Snow’s promise to name the parking garage after the student who gets the most parking tickets.
By the end of the week, the RPI community had donated approximately $1000 to Joseph’s House through the Meanest Man on Campus competition. While we can rest assured that our RCS accounts will remain safe (for at least the next two years), the RPI community should be on guard for new major requirements and stricter parking regulations.
