Tiburon Benavides for Grand Marshal

The Polytechnic endorses Tiburon “T” Benavides ’21, ’27G for Grand Marshal. Benavides currently serves as Graduate Senator. His goals for the next year include increasing graduate student participation in the Student Union, improving communication between student government and the student body by lowering the barrier for student involvement, increasing the trust that students have in Public Safety and the Good Samaritan policy, and upgrading the student government IT infrastructure.

Benavides is currently a Graduate Senator, and has been actively involved in Student Senate proceedings for the past year. While he has abstained on several resolutions passed by the Senate, this is not wholly reflective of his contributions. During Senate discussions, Benavides has acted as a voice of reason while raising questions on the efficacy for proposed policies. His commitment to Rensselaer stems from the rigors of being an undergraduate through the previous administration, going through the first Arch program, and now being a PhD student. Benavides’ unique experience combined with a deep knowledge of the workings of student government and a well-articulated thought process could contribute to creating policies for a more stable Student Union.

Benavides is also running as the chair of the Party of Graduate Equity, or POGE, which aims to better address graduate issues within the Union and ensure equitable treatment by student government. The most pressing issue, according to Benavides, is that graduate students don’t use the resources that the Student Union provides as often as their undergraduate counterparts, yet they contribute a significant amount of the Union’s funding. Benavides has also been in contact with Union administration to figure out how to potentially lower the activity fee for graduate students to accurately represent their utilization of Union resources. He also wants to look into making more grad-centered spaces around campus, including more graduate chapters of clubs along the lines of GradSWE and the Outing Club.

In alignment with his commitment to students, apart from those who live on campus, Benavides also wants to instate laundry facilities within the Union. Due to the high cost of Troy laundromats, he hopes that subsidizing laundry for off-campus students will result in a significant decrease in the cost of living.

Benavides also recounted his time as an undergraduate when Public Safety did not have the threatening perception they have now, when they did not wear police uniforms around campus. One of his long term goals is to systematically change this perception of Public Safety by improving the transparency that students should have to the purpose and operational powers that they have around campus. This perception also applies to the Good Samaritan policy enforcement and clarity on what that entails, especially with Vice Provost Rob Hradsky’s recent comments on the less punitive punishment for first time offenders.

While Benavides’ eight years of experience as an RPI student speaks volumes for his dedication to and knowledge of our school, his age and graduate standing does separate him from a largely undergraduate student body. In tandem with the fact that his platform and party focuses mainly on graduate students, one may question his ability to properly represent our student body that consists of over 80 percent undergraduate students, with less than 20 percent of the student body being Master’s or PHD students.

Benavides has stated that he doesn’t have particularly lofty or ambitious goals, mostly for the sake of realism and practicality. While his publicly apolitical nature might make him a balanced Grand Marshal, it could also cause him to be less decisive. Despite taking a strong personal opposition to alcohol consumption on campus, Benavides also claims he does not support a more punitive approach to infringement of the dry campus. He also abstained from the vote on a resolution passed by the Student Senate urging for support for international and immigrant students, yet spoke in favor of it. Benavides is supportive of the movement itself, but he also stated that he doesn’t believe that there is a high probability of unlawful federal presence being an issue on campus. This contradiction between his thoughts and actions could become a cause for concern in the high-ranking role of Grand Marshal.

On possible forms of research funding other than the federal government, Benavides suggested Decentralized Science, or DeSci, which uses blockchain technology, tokens, and NFTs, as well as Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, to try and make scientific research more open. While a more controversial method, this suggestion was also simply an example and did not in any way seem to represent his concrete plans or hopes for research.

Tiburon Benavides has proposed a passionate and realistic approach to tackling students’ needs over the next year, holding a respect for the Institute and the student body that will serve him well as GM. The Polytechnic believes that Benavides’ perspective, experience, and ability to connect with members of the Institute will make him a great Grand Marshal.