The Student Senate under Grand Marshal Max Yates has had a long and impressive year with many of their committee initiatives coming to fruition or close to completion. Among the most notable of their accomplishments have been Ruckus, Go Be Red, and Project Hope. However, the Senate moved beyond those accomplishments and will be extending them further, in addition to other smaller initiatives that have also impacted this campus.
The Senate began strongly this past fall by directly reacting to the devastation that Hurricane Katrina had caused by starting Project Hope to match the administration’s donation of $35,000. The campaign had amazing results with donations and fundraising campaigns from all the clubs and organizations on campus. As of right now they have raised over $28,000 dollars for the cause.
This initiative has been ongoing since early September by the Community Relations Committee, and still looks to attain the originally proposed goal of $35,000.
Most notable of the initiatives brought to campus by the Student Senate in conjunction with the administration was Ruckus. In late fall, the first 3,000 students to register were given free, unlimited access to the Ruckus service, allowing them to legally download an unlimited amount from over 1.5 million licensed tracks. The response from the campus was overwhelming with 3,200 currently users signed up.
Furthermore, this initiative has gone further than expected with the recent deal proposed to Rensselaer by Ruckus, stating that if 3,000 users subscribe in the fall, Ruckus will offer its services for free, allowing the $10,000 originally planned for the service by the E-Board to be spent another way.
Go Be Red, which was a school spirit initiative, truly transformed sporting events at RPI. There were more hockey fans at games, sports that didn’t always have large audiences now had peers cheering them on, and a lot of students got very involved in all the activities the Go Be Red committee put forth.
In total, over 40 teams signed up and battled it out by going to various sporting events and taking part in Go Be Red contests like the lip-sync or the Puckman dip to get points toward winning a free spring break. In the end there was only a 40-point difference between the firstplace spring break winners, the Banana Slug Muffins, and the secondplace Red Hawk Ram Rods. Go Be Red met its goal of increasing school spirit; however, there are bigger and better plans for next year. A new school spirit initiative is in the works and is being tentatively called the Red Army, which looks to take Go Be Red to the next level.
These were not Yates’ Senate’s only achievements. The Student Advocacy Corps, petitioned students earlier this year to call and lobby their congressmen about the fact that tuition is increasing and scholarships and federal funding for technical institutes are decreasing. They took their petitioning further when they visited Albany and met with legislators and are planning how to branch out to the federal level next year.
In conjunction with the future plans for SAC, the intercampus network being handled by Senator Brain Zaik ’09 has already built a partnership with Union College and looks to become closer with other institutions in the area to build an intercampus coalition.
The Academic Affairs Committee this year under Senator Julia Leusner ’08 tackled the issue of midterm assessments and advising. A peer advising program is in the works, and a pilot program may be in place by next fall. Surveys to get qualitative feedback reviews from classes are being worked on and are being planned to be distributed in the fall.
Midterm assessments have been heavily discussed by both the Student Senate and the Faculty Senate. According to the policy statement, mid-term assessments would be mandatory to ensure that all professors are providing timely feedback. By the midpoint in a semester, students should know how well they are performing in relation to the rest of the class.
The Finance, Facilities, and Advancement committee took up the issues of campus safety and lighted walkways by leading campus walks back in the fall. In addition to that, Senator Dan Horvath ’08 and E-board Liaison Nick Wood ’07 met with Virgina Gregg, vice president for finance, a few times during the course of the year to update the Student Senate about where the Institute stands financially, where funds are originating, and where money is being spent.
Another major issue dealt with in this committee was energy conservation policies, which are still an ongoing initiative in the face of the price increases we had this year from the amount of energy used to maintain the buildings on campus.
The Committee on the Judiciary and Student Rights worked on revising the handbook. The committee also worked on getting a speaker to come to the school to talk about what students’ rights are in relation to downloading music, both legally and illegally, from the internet, as well as internet usage in general.
The Yates Senate increased its visibility to the general student population by wearing red student senate shirts and by having their weekly meetings taped and aired by RPI-TV.
In addition to that, the Midweek Mailing started by the Campus Community Committee under Senators Mark Andrews ’06 and Kevin Ly ’06 helped keep students informed of what the Student Senate is doing and how students could get involved in Student Senate initiatives and programs. There was also an increase in participation with Pizza with the President and Pizza with the Mayor this year.
Other plans for next year from the senate include shuttle tracking, and externships. The goal of externships is to provide a link between current students and alumni out in industry, through the Career Development Center. The purpose would be to show students what they could be doing one day and to forge better relationships with alumni.
