As a governing body, the Student Senate has passed from organizational matters in recent years to a well-designed and functioning committee structure. Our work can be categorized under seven themes: sustaining academics, protecting our students, improving campus life, amplifying the student voice, building school pride, connecting and informing, and leading with compassion.
Sustaining our prowess in academics has required us to move forward with a positive and thoughtful agenda of shared governance. As such, we have addressed curricular matters in collaboration with the Faculty Senate’s Curriculum Committee with consensus on most items. We endorsed and sent to the Faculty Senate proposals on Midterm Progress Reporting and Advising. Strong partnerships to consider and address the matters, respectively, have been forged and joint resolutions are expected on the issues by the semester’s end.
Protecting our students requires constant vigilance and improvements to infrastructure and policy. We have made recommendations on campus lighting, card access security protocols in the Mueller Center and across campus, and adderall dependence. We have also brought the administration and trustees a proposal that would allow students the option of tracking the shuttles from a web-map before waiting in the dark and bitter cold. The planning process has resumed for the shuttle tracking system with funding from both trustees and the Administration Division. Additionally, a subcommittee of the Judiciary and Student Rights Committee is compiling recommendations for the new Student Rights and Responsibilities Handbook.
To improve campus life we have pursued and initiated multiple concepts. By far the most visible of our efforts is Ruckus. The Senate sought and implemented a digital legal music service to enhance the quality of life beyond the classroom environment that over 2,850 students have registered for. Another includes considering Zipcars at RPI to provide the Rensselaer community with self-service access to cheap rental vehicles as other colleges have done in response to parking congestion, the cost of providing parking, and improving student life and community affairs. Similar bike rentals have also been considered along with our recommendations for the Redhawk shuttle route which resulted in a removal of the inconvenient south campus segment. We currently have funding for and a proposal in the works to establish a weekend bus to Jillian’s in Albany. Building a strong community requires invigorating interaction, so work is also being done to develop (after years of talk) Troy business incentives for our students. Our work will be expanded in January when we host student leaders from across the capital district to work jointly on student life initiatives and a possible capital district calendar of events.
Just this year, the Senate established the Student Advocacy Corps to amplify the student voice on a state and national level. Its first major campaign to connect students with their legislators was conducted following the passage of the Senate’s resolution condemning the largest cut to federal financial aid in history.
Building school pride has been a difficult task, but we’ve made headway with Go Be Red in its inaugural year. The goal was to create an initiative to foster greater school pride and boost attendance at athletic events. Go Be Red has done just that. We are now looking to evolve the program to make it much more successful for future years. Beyond the athletic purview, Project “Did You Know” is under development to invigorate a sense of pride for who we are, where we come from, and where we’re going as the oldest technological university in the western hemisphere.
I am not afraid to say that never before has your Senate tried harder to keep you informed. We’ve made connecting and informing a primary focus as you can see from our new website with a forum board and feedback system, our Monday Morning Mailing subscription, our Pizza with the President series, televised meetings courtesy of RPI TV, postering and press campaigns, a structural liaison network, and a Senate Town Hall Meeting currently planned for the spring semester.
For all we’ve accomplished, we’ve not forgotten about the big picture and our responsibility to lead with compassion. Following the tragic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Senate quickly passed a resolution establishing the Project Hope campaign that has already seen over $26,000 raised by the student body to aid victims of the hurricane. Our partnership with RPI Relief, FYE, and multiple student-led organizations has shown the true color of our students. This wasn’t a Senate initiative. This was a student initiative and if you were a part of it, I salute you.
In conclusion, my sense of the state of the Student Senate is that we are strong, vigorous, and enormously respected because of our positive agenda and dedication to achieving it. We have done in these eight months far more than our critics, and even our supporters, could ever have believed possible.
That, my friends, is something worthy of our time.
