The Student Senate focused mainly on updates and committee reports at its most recent meeting. As Grand Marshal Kara Chesal ’09 was out of town, Michael Zwack ’11 chaired the meeting on Monday. Zwack began by reminding the Senate that there are only six weeks left in the semester, and committees should be working on summarizing their progress for the GM.
After the problems the Senate had in its meeting last week during the confirmation of Jonathan Rosenberg ’11 as chair of the Judicial Board, Senator Andrew Neidhardt ’11 updated the Senate on parliamentary procedures, focusing mainly on terminology and various procedures.
Following Neidhardt’s update, Graduate Senator Dan Horvath ’08 gave a report on the Trustees Committee on Finance. In the past, the trustees allowed two student representatives sit on the committee in addition to faculty representatives; however, this was the first year that the committee was composed entirely of trustees. Horvath noted that the information in the presentation was, therefore, not directly obtained during the committee meetings as it had been in past years.
Horvath reported that RPI had a balanced budget for the ninth year in a row in fiscal year 2008, and that there had been a small positive return on investments as of June 30. Effects of the recent economic turmoil the U.S. has been suffering from will not be compiled until the next fiscal year.
Due to the high retention rate and the increased number of students transferring in, RPI has had a large undergraduate revenue. The ongoing construction on campus is also being done by borrowing money through capital financing rather than pull money from the Institute’s endowment. This is done so that RPI can provide aid to students. Assets went up by 12 percent and there was a slight growth in the endowment.
After the finance presentation, committees gave updates on the status of their projects.
The Senate finished the meeting by approving the minutes from last week in a unanimous vote.
