EnvE essential

To the Editor:

This is an open letter to The Rensselaer Polytechnic.

A university’s caliber can, in part, be measured by its commitment to its students. This benchmark reveals the willingness of an institution to nourish a stable learning environment and sustain a stable intellectual image. If a university encourages its current students to forge a path to change the world, as this one does, it must carve out an environment in which students can taste the challenges they may face that are essential to understanding the reality we live in.

As the Rensselaer Catalog outlines the Institute’s commitment to “transferring technology from the laboratory to the workplace,” I am confident we all understand why knowledge of the “real world” is important to the quality of education at our Institution. Unfortunately, this vital information is not always understood to be essential by students upon first inspection.

Particularly, there is the recent case of the removal of Wafaa Bilal’s “Virtual Jihadi” from campus. The work’s message may have greatly contributed to the ongoing national discussion of domestic security, but its presentation was overtly controversial. If any work was to qualify for free speech protection as part of the Rensselaer community, it was that of Bilal. Instead, Bilal’s project was removed from campus due to its controversial political content. However, this was not a blatant act of censorship aimed at crippling Rensselaer’s educational mission, but an administrative decision that should be perceived with some understanding.

It should not be assumed that the students on Rensselaer’s campus are blind to alleged free speech violations; several examples exist where censorship has been exercised by administrators regarding sensitive issues, such as with Bilal’s work as well as with faculty-related incidents. Various administrative decisions may appear to shed light on supposed grand schemes to limit both the individuality and freedom, yes, the very freedom, of Rensselaer students, no matter what form of righteous dissent they partake in. Is this a suspected plot by the highest administrative offices and their respective officers to eliminate voices of disagreement entirely from the campus, for reasons as petty and base as those officers, “not being partial,” to them? Let us truly ask ourselves this question.

As president, Shirley Ann Jackson’s goal has been to transform Rensselaer into a world-class institution. Her advances to add to the educational ingredients at Rensselaer, not just merely garnish the academic meal we all feast on, is evident in the construction of such facilities as Experimental Media and Preforming Arts Center and East Campus Athletic Village. To assume that such advances in the institution’s offerings were merely done to make it seem more pleasing to the world would be to truly insult every student and faculty member who would ever make educational or recreational use of them.

To suggest that this campus has suffered a great human tragedy in its “loss” of free speech protection, one which calls for an urgency on the level of a catastrophic, life-taking disaster, is to invite accusations of arrogance. Not only are institutes on a level of Rensselaer coherent in their educational commitments, they are cognizant of the reality of the marketplace. The concept of free speech and a vehement anger over its suppression do not belong in board meetings, job interviews, or the common workplace. One’s ability to exercise control and sensitivity are often seen as extremely important marketable skills, and, indeed, life skills, despite ideological dispositions we may have as teenage college students.

The above paragraphs may seem, to the frequent Poly reader, to take on a format and style similar to an open letter that appeared in last week’s issue. It is true that I have used this past letter as a template with the sincerest respect for its author in order to dissent from his opinion, and to bring forth some of the assumptions he made as statements that detract from the work administrators do for this institution. There are two sides to every story, and only so many parallels can be made within the realm of respect. We must all keep this in mind as we will all one day enter the world.

Sean Collins

PHYS ’11

Lally’s ranking improves

To the Editor:

Yes we can! The Lally School has catapulted into the upper ranks of top business schools—we are No. 26.

Completing a comparison of some 127 schools, surveying some 80,000 students and 600 recruiters, Business Week has published the 2008 rankings of the top undergraduate programs. Using metrics that include teaching quality, student services, starting salary, and more, the Lally School ranked 26th nationally and fifth in the Northeast. Using a ratio of starting salary per tuition dollar, a Lally education ranked 19th. (Please see the full story at: http://bwnt.businessweek.com/interactive_reports/undergrad_bschool/ )

This accomplishment is the product of the good efforts of many contributors. From admissions to alumni relations, from Lally faculty and staff to career development, from student life to safety and facilities—we all contributed to this achievement.

Rensselaer students can benefit tangibly from this accomplishment by enrolling in the program. All Rensselaer students benefit intangibly through the rising national reputation of another Rensselaer degree.

The enhanced ranking lends momentum to new and existing programs of the Lally School including tracks in technological commercialization and entrepreneurship and in financial modeling and analytics, as well as the nationally recognized Lally MBA program.

The entire Rensselaer community shares in the pride of this accomplishment.

Congratulations to all of you. I am grateful for this clear indication that the Lally School is contributing in its distinctive way to making Rensselaer a preeminent institution.

David Gautschi

Dean, Lally School of Management & Technology

An open letter to Poly readers

To the Editor:

Thank you for recognizing the current administrative discussion regarding the possibility of phasing out the environmental engineering undergraduate program at Rensselaer. The discussion between students, alumni, industry and administration over the last two weeks has shown the passionate interest in keeping this program, and the intense confusion at the prospect of getting rid of it.

The majority of alumni from the undergraduate program enter directly into industry because of the depth and breadth of their undergraduate education. Many of our top-level companies have shown support for keeping the program. The Rensselaer alumni on our Boards of Directors have questioned the Institute’s path with this possible decision, and our CEOs have written letters expressing their support.

Although the article “Future of Degree Program Unclear” pointed out what’s currently going on, it insinuated that the program has always been solely connected with the civil engineering department, when in fact the history of the department includes involvement with the civil, chemical and mechanical engineering departments, and the biology and environmental science departments, among others. The connections between these departments and the environmental engineering department exist because of the importance of all these fields in the ultimate goal of the discipline—to preserve, protect and repair natural resources and protect human health.

Although the Institute is, in effect, a business and must be run as such, I ask that the administration evaluate the reasons for reviewing the environmental engineering program. As cited by the aforementioned article, Dean Alan Cramb noted that the department had “lost” three faculty members in recent years. Ted Shuster ’81, who was taken from us in an unfortunate accident in 2004, was a member of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, not of environmental engineering. Many of us were fortunate enough to participate in Shuster’s classes as technical electives, further showing the coordination between various departments. As a professor and person, Shuster cannot be replaced. Shuster’s father, William Shuster ’39, was a founding member of the environmental engineering department. The Shusters and their peers were invaluable assets to both Rensselaer and the pioneering of the environmental field.

President Shirley Ann Jackson attempted to speak to the many ways Rensselaer is addressing environmental issues in her “President’s Corner” in the March 19 issue of The Polytechnic. The paper, in the same breath, released information about the Institute reviewing the environmental engineering program.

My question is this: How can a technical institution, prided by its rich history and unsurpassed education of knowledge-thirsty adults, even consider ridding itself of the best technical asset it has for addressing those same environmental issues? I hope the Institute finds from its review that the reasons for eliminating the program are easily fixed, and fixing them has the potential to lead to the continuation of the best and most cutting-edge program in the country.

Carrie DePetris

ENVE ’05