Once again, our campus is recharged with immense energy generated by the arrival of the new members of the Rensselaer community and the return of undergraduate and graduate students.
I welcome each of you most enthusiastically.
This promises to be a landmark year in Rensselaer history as we begin to fulfill the first-year priorities of The Rensselaer Plan.
Our newest undergraduate and graduate students are already benefiting from the Institute’s increased commitment to strengthening the first-year experience. The primacy of that Rensselaer Plan initiative has been demonstrated by my establishing an Office of the First Year Experience and appointing a full-time dean. The many activities and services of that program absolutely electrified this campus last week and will continue through the year.
To fulfill other Rensselaer Plan priorities, the Institute is significantly increasing the number of faculty and creating six constellations in biotechnology and information technology. We hope to fill at least two of those constellations this academic year.
To advance these priorities, the Institute is beginning a project of major construction. We will erect a center for biotechnology and interdisciplinary studies along Fifteenth Street, between Academy Hall and the George M. Low ’48 Center for Industrial Innovation. Here Rensselaer research will encompass such fields as functional tissue engineering, integrative systems biology, biocatalysis, metabolic engineering, computational biology, and bioinformatics.
We will also construct a center for electronic media and performing arts on the hill above Eighth Street, just south of Folsom Library. It will hold a 1,200-seat auditorium, a 400-seat recital hall, black-box theaters, studios, exhibition galleries, rehearsal rooms, and accommodations for artists in residence. Performance spaces will provide world-class facilities for concerts, dramatic productions, and other university events. This remarkable facility will celebrate, support, and extend Rensselaer’s distinctive position in electronic media and the electronic arts, and elevate the quality of intellectual and creative life on campus.
Other changes slated for the south side of campus include an entrance on College Avenue, a 500-car parking garage, and a pedestrian pathway from Fifteenth Street to the new arts center. To meet increased demands on energy systems, Rensselaer will build an electrical substation and a chiller facility alongside the parking garage and an additional boiler plant near the J Building.
These plans for a growing Rensselaer are available in Folsom Library and the Visitors’ Information Center. They are before the Rensselaer community and the public for review and comment. A public hearing, which is part of the State Environmental Quality Review, has been scheduled for September 11 at 7 pm in Troy City Hall.
In conjunction with the revitalization of the south campus, the offices of the dean of students and first-year experience will relocate from the fourth floor of the Troy Building to Academy Hall. That move will include Disabled Student Services, First-Year Experience, Greek Programs, International Student Services, and Minority Student Affairs. This will create a corridor of student services along Fifteenth Street that includes the Rensselaer Union, Rensselaer Health Services, Public Safety, and the Mueller Center.
The Office of the Vice President for Institute Advancement, with which I must be in continual contact as we prepare for a major fund-raising campaign, will relocate from Academy Hall to the Troy Building.
I will discuss these plans, review the state of the Institute, and respond to your questions and suggestions at a special town meeting Thursday, September 13, from 4 to 6 pm in Room 308 of the Darrin Communications Center. Please come to learn more and to share your ideas.
I give you my sincere best wishes for a rewarding new academic year.
