As my term as Grand Marshal nears its end, I find myself sitting on committees and experiencing opportunities I will never have again. Last weekend’s spring meeting for the Rensselaer Alumni Association Board of Trustees was one such experience. As GM, I am part of this board, which represents the greater Alumni Association to the Institute. This dedicated group comes to Troy three times a year and works to improve such things as alumni networking, opportunities for alumni to participate in academics, and the admissions process. These meetings also include campus updates and tours to keep this group well informed of student life and current events on campus.
With the recent reductions in force and the creation of new Residence Life and Class Dean models, I am proud to report that the RAA asked every question you would hope they would. They requested for improved communication from the president’s Cabinet, and the Institute as a whole, to ensure we’re “ahead of the curve” in spreading accurate accounts of major administrative decisions as well as improved means of communicating positive campus and academic improvements. Thoughtful discussion was had on professor versus administrative compensation in light of the national attention being given to the current fiscal decisions of corporate executives. Overall, students would be impressed and very satisfied with the level of understanding the RAA Board has of current Institute policies and the way they advocate for the things we do (many read The Poly religiously, even if they graduated 10 or even 50 years ago). Through this experience, I realized that the 90,000 alumni who preceded us were fighting for very similar things to those we fight for today. With their help and historic insight, we will continue to move forward as an institute with a knowledgeable, dedicated, and watchful second pair of eyes.
Over the past few weeks, other issues have come to a head in student life. One that concerns the Senate has been about the topic of Resident Assistants’ compensation. While information has not been released to the general student population, details have come out to those who have received positions for the coming year. At Vice President for Student Life Eddie Ade Knowles’ open forum, he neither refuted nor confirmed the exact amount that the compensation will now include, but he explained that the decision was made because students who currently held the position were being “overcompensated” in terms of financial aid. After hearing this, a group of Residence Life staff members began benchmarking the schools that outrank RPI to see how they dealt with RA compensation. From this work, they found that over 92 percent of them compensate their student staff with free rooms. Over 58 percent offer a free meal plan, and an additional 15 percent offer a half-price meal plan. If RPI’s new compensation plan does not include free room, we fall to the bottom 8 percent of top schools in terms of how we reward our RAs. This notion does not seem to fit the Student Life Performance Plan, which places much greater value on this cornerstone position in the student experience. Details surrounding RA compensation should be released in the coming week, but in the meantime, members of Residence Life student staff are collecting letters of support that detail the vital role RAs have played in students’ lives. If you have a story about how important your RA has been to you (it could be a few words or a few pages), please e-mail it to Andrew Neidhardt ’11 at neidha@rpi.edu. As details are rolled out, we will do our best to keep you informed. Please feel free to contact me with any questions, comments, or concerns at gm@rpi.edu.
