It’s been a very busy week for your new Grand Marshal. Several things are going on right now, and I wanted to use this week’s Top Hat to help inform the student body.
The first big piece of news is that the faculty is currently voting on whether or not to implement a plus-minus grading system here at RPI. The students have come out against this system again and again through the years. Last Monday, the Senate resolved that the students are against grade modifiers, and publicly highlighted the two decades of student opposition to this measure.
I want to urge students to talk to their professors this week, and to urge the faculty to listen to what their students have to say. I wish student input had been given from the beginning of this proposal, but unfortunately that was not the case. We are speaking now and we are against this proposal.
The proposal has been modified since the original discussions, but these changes simply delay the implementation. Students have come out in favor of grandfathering, which I consider the greediest thing the student body could want. You shouldn’t be content to foist it off on the next generation of students if you won’t accept something for yourself. If the students in 1981 had accepted this proposal, but with a delayed implementation, we would all be using plus-minus grading today.
I applaud the Faculty Senate for listening to the students’ concerns, and modifying the proposal. It is now more in tune with the wishes of the student body, but the student body is still overwhelmingly against the proposal in any form.
The other big piece of news is the search for a new Vice President of the Hartford campus. Former VP Alan Eckbreth stepped down Monday afternoon, leaving our sister campus without its leader. We all realize that this is a difficult time for the Hartford campus, and I want to let the students of Rensselaer at Hartford know that your student leaders at the Troy campus are watching the situation. I am confident that the administration will find an exceptional candidate to run Rensselaer at Hartford through these tough times. We are one Rensselaer, and we are one student body.
