The Executive Board opened its meeting last Wednesday with a request to approve a quiz bowl club at RPI.
College Bowl was a popular university organization for many years, but has been disbanded in the past year. Quiz bowl is the organization taking its place. While remnants of College Bowl teams are everywhere across the nation, at least one hundred institutions—including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Yale University, Carnegie Mellon University, Columbia University, and Princeton University—have taken advantage of this new national organization and are hosting college-level tournaments throughout the Northeast.
The first motion of the night to approve the quiz bowl team was passed with all in favor. Many members of the E-Board offered advice for the new team to tap into support from various organizations throughout campus.
The team hopes to hold an on-campus quiz bowl tournament in the near future on a wide variety of topics, mainly for fun and to increase interest and representation on campus.
Next up on the agenda was RPISEC, an unofficial group oriented toward increased computer security, represented at the E-Board by Rob Escriva ’10, Ryan Govostes ’11, and Alex Radocea ’11.
The group has already attended national and international tournaments to compete to break into systems to reveal any software flaws or weak points. The group has already competed in several tournaments including Computer Security Awareness Week Capture the Flag in September 2008, ranking second. They also came in second at a competition held by Rochester Institute of Technology in March 2008.
The first concern about this new club being associated with the Union was that members would use what they learn in the group illegally outside of competitions and practice. However, all of the tactics and information that would be taught in practice have already been published.
There would be nothing taught in the club that members could not learn elsewhere. In addition, the Rensselaer Policy on Electronic Citizenship automatically holds every student responsible for illegal actions involving technology, but the club will still compose a contract encompassing all of the most relevant responsibilities and expectations that each member will have to sign.
In addition, the club members feel that this is a healthy outlet for a university like RPI where students who have the talent to engage in these kinds of activities can educate themselves on productive and healthy ways to help society with these endeavors. Many members of the E-Board agreed that, for a school like RPI, having this club is more beneficial than not having it.
The club already has a professor that is willing to act as a faculty representative who will hold the club under tight accountability and up to very high ethical standards. RPISEC will also be making efforts to find liaisons in the computer science department as well as in the Department of the Chief Information Officer. The night’s second motion to approve the club passed in a 7-1-2 vote.
The last presentation of the night was from the Big Brothers/Big Sisters Club to request a proposal budget.
Big Brothers/Big Sisters is a nationally-recognized club that has had a base on campus at RPI for years but has never had a budget within the Union. The club received a lot of interest at the Activities Fair this year, and the schedule for this semester includes taking kids to Fall Fest and other activities that interact with the little brothers and sisters every two weeks throughout the semester.
While most clubs do not receive funding for outings that are not essential to the existence of the club, outings such as Fall Fest, bowling, and other bonding activities are core to the function to the group. The club currently has a president, treasurer, campus relations director, website coordinator, and 16 other members. However, more members are expected to be approved soon, once freshman interviews, background checks, and inductions have gone underway.
The group currently works with around 12 kids from the Troy area, but hopes to see it grow within the next couple of years.
The E-Board also discussed the then-upcoming freshman elections, and the confirmation of the Rules and Elections Committee’s last minute appointment of graduate student Dan Horvath ’08 to the committee.
Horvath had been an active member of the Senate and the Rules and Elections Committee for years, participating in 10 elections with RNE and on numerous Judicial Board cases about contested elections. His appointment was only for a week to help out with the freshman elections last Thursday and thus he will not be working on the elections during Grand Marshal Week in March. His appointment was passed by the E-Board in a 10-0-0 vote.
