RAA Fellow Awards
The Lally School of Management and the School of Architecture have designated the recipients of this year’s Rensselaer Alumni Association Fellows Award. The Fellows Award was created in 1987 to honor members of the Rensselaer community who, by their achievements in a chosen profession or endeavor or by their service to the Institute, have set an example for Rensselaer men and women to emulate.
The Lally School selected William Pomeroy, who received a bachelor’s degree in management engineering in 1966, and who has participated in a number of alumni activities including the Annual Fund and the planning committee for the 35th reunion of the Class of ’66 in addition to founding CABLExpress Technologies, which sells and supports networking equipment, cabling tools, and test equipment.
The School of Architecture honored James Collins, who received a bachelor’s in building science in 1977, a bachelor’s of architecture in 1978, and a master’s in management in 1978, all from RPI. Collins is currently president and CEO of Payette Associates, a 71-year-old firm that does a great deal of work for universities and medical schools. He is a member of the Rensselaer School of Architecture Advisory Board and a member of the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center External Advisors Committee.
Digital freedom rally
RPI students are organizing a rally for this Saturday in response to recent lawsuits brought against four college students, two of them at RPI, by the Recording Industry Association of America. The rally will be held in the gazebo area of Freshman Hill from 1:30 to 3:30 pm.
Craig Pratka, who was recently asked by the Dean of Students Office to aid them in reviewing the Institute’s rules on file sharing and piracy, is planning on distributing anti-RIAA buttons and stickers, and hopes to have some people speaking and playing music.
Schenectady tax hike
Schenectady County legislators have raised the sales tax in that area .5 precent to 8 percent, a move that is predicted to bring $9 million more per year to the county. The sales tax in neighboring Albany and Rensselaer counties is already at 8 percent, while in Saratoga it is 7.
County officials predict a multimillion-dollar deficit next year, and are also weighing the effects of nearly $100 million for the construction of county buildings on an already strained budget. The tax increase is designed to offset the predicted $8 million deficit in addition to increases in the costs of Medicaid in the county.
The sales tax was last raised in July 1998, moving from 7 percent to 7.5 percent to offset a $7 million addition to the budget that accompanied the formation of the Schenectady Metroplex Development Authority, which was created to oversee construction in the city.
Grads face deportation
A glitch in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, set up by the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to monitor foreign nationals studying in the United States, has changed the status of 30 recent RPI graduates from active to terminated.
Their student visas had not yet expired, and provisions in the visa allow them to stay in the country for one year following their graduation to work. As a result of the glitch, the students face deportation at any moment by officials unaware of the background of the students.
This is by no means the first glitch SEVIS has encountered. Colleges around the country report a myriad of problems including difficulty in printing records, with documents intended to be printed at one college showing up on the printer of a college thousands of miles away.
In one of the most prominent failures of the system, a Thai citizen studying at Southeastern University in Washington, D.C., was arrested by federal agents in March after the system mistakenly reported that she had dropped out of school but remained in the country.
Colonie loses evidence
An internal audit of the Colonie Police Department conducted over the past three years has revealed that some of the evidence collected in cases over the past 14 years has been lost, including drugs, money, and guns.
Illegal drugs that were seized in 25 different cases and cash from 11 have been listed as missing. At least five guns are gone, including four shotguns that were locked up in 1995, according to records. Medical evidence from a 1992 rape, a machete from 1998, and a lawn mower from 1995 are also missing.
Police officials attribute the losses to problems with documentation. In 1999, the department purged its evidence room of old items after reaching its maximum capacity. The documentation for that is currently missing, but the audit did not find that any materials from 2001 were missing.
