The Independent Council has in the past brought the concerns and problems of the independent students to the attention of administrators. What issues do these students face today? It’s a question for which there are many correct answers. From the Meet the IC Event we received some feedback and are currently looking into two of the major issues concerning independents.
Why do we find so many independent and greek students living off campus? The answer in many cases is because of the price of living on-campus. We have heard from a variety of students that they were particularly surprised at the cost of living on-campus when compared to living anywhere else in Troy. Some gave figures saying that living on campus costs nearly twice as much as off-campus housing. Is this true? The IC plans on finding out. We have formed a sub-committee which will be looking into comparative costs and are always looking for more interested parties. The IC promises to release any and all findings on this matter.
Printing on campus is also an issue. RPI boasts about how every single student on this campus has access to public printers. This is very true; we have printers in all the freshman dorms, the Union, and in the VCC. Yet, even so, printing on campus can still be a major inconvenience for some. A majority of the upperclass residence halls do not have in-building printing. There are no in-building printers in the Quad, Sharp, or Davison. If one needs to print out a paper, they need to make the march over to the Union or the VCC, in many cases late into the evening. Is it fair that the freshmen have in-building printers in their dorms and the upperclassmen do not? No, and we intend to find out why this is occurring and hopefully try to remedy the situation.
If you are interested in learning more about what you can do to help, e-mail the IC at ic@union.rpi.edu or come to one of our meetings. We hold our meetings at 9 pm on Tuesdays and our meetings are always open to everyone.
