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EMPAC being a bit bashful and trying to hide behind a tree. That only works in cartoons!

Continuing our “Uncovered” series, we look into the people behind perhaps the most mysterious building perched on the side of campus: EMPAC. We interviewed the Director of EMPAC, Mr. Johannes Goebel, and EMPAC’s Curator for Music, Mr. Micah Silver. More info about them is available on EMPAC’s site.

Mr. Goebel tackles the hard questions and perhaps has stumbled upon EMPAC’s new slogan: “Now Here Jump”.

Our new favorite way to think about art comes from Mr. Silver:

It’s about falling in love with things that we’d never dreamed to exist.

Interviews after the jump!
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Share Uncategorized EMPAC, employees, interviews, media

I bet this photo isn't on his ID card

An African proverb says that “it takes a village to raise a child.” Well, we wanted to take a closer look at the little village that is our campus in Troy. We decided to peek into the lives of people who spend their working days at RPI, those that aren’t the ones assigning homework, or grading your papers. This interview series is called “Uncovered” and we hope to learn more about those that are creating our campus ecosystem. We’re still looking for more interviewees, so if you have any suggestions, please let us know!

In this Uncovered, we interview local personality Kevin Marshall, who also happens to work in the Union in the Campus Card Office.

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Our hearts are with those in Haiti

Post updated at 4:27pm to clarify donations.

In a commendable step to helping those affected by the recent earthquake in Haiti, RPI has announced that they will be matching donations from Faculty, Staff, and Students to the aid organizations AmeriCares, Oxfam America, and Save the Children. The ‘Tute will also donate $10,000 to each organization, for a total of $30,000, in addition to matching donations by community members. RPI has been accepting donations since the 14th and Bill Walker (Vice President for Strategic Communications and External Relations) has confirmed that the community has donated almost $12,000 already. This means that the people of Rensselaer will be sending almost $54,000 in aid to help with rescuing and rebuilding Haiti.  So much for pervasive apathy!

Yesterday, the deadline for RPI’s offer was extended to January 31st. This means there’s still time to take advantage of this opportunity to do twice as much good with your money! If you’d like to have RPI match your donations to one of the designated aid agencies, follow these instructions:

Donate direct to the organization electronically through their website:

1. Make payment to AmeriCares, Oxfam America, or Save The Children
2. Forward the electronic receipt to salval@rpi.edu

Donate electronically though RPI:

1. Go to RPI’s giving page
2. Select “Other Designation” and type “Haiti Relief Fund”
3. Enter your donation amount (no dollar sign)
4. Click “Submit Securely”

For more details, see the emails below. We are very proud to be members of the RPI community at times like this. A big sincere thanks to everyone at RPI who made this possible!

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Share Uncategorized employees, health, money, students, unity

Jeff Miner '78

About a week ago, we reported on SIS being down as part of a larger system upgrade of the Banner Production system that the school uses for many of its business-type functions (like billing, financial aid, and parking) as well as the side us students see of it (class scheduling, grades etc.) We were curious about the upgrade and set off to find out more. Jeff Miner ‘78, RPI’s Assistant Vice President for Information Services was kind enough to give us a little background on the situation, and then answer a few of our questions.

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Share Uncategorized employees, interviews, SIS, upgrades

Rensselaer Trustee, Myles Brand `64 has passed away Wednesday due to Pancreatic cancer. He was 67. Brand was best known for being the president of the NCAA, and was the first former university president to run the body. During his time there he “worked to change the perception that wins supersede academics and earned accolades for his efforts“.

More here and here.

Don’t know where Dr. Jackson was with this one, but I’d expect an email within the next few days. (Maybe she was getting ready for Obama to be in town?)

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I don’t think it would be unreasonable to say that most RPI students lack a general sense of school spirit.  This has been something that various administrators have said publicly they want to change. Why could this be? It’s not because we’re all too busy with our academics, or completely distracted by video games.  Looking at other universities who are very spirited, there are usually great sports teams (we have that too!) as well as great friends to go to games with (we have that too!) But there is obviously more than just an athletic aspect to school spirit. Looking elsewhere in life, spirit occurs when lots of people love a certain place. Well, looking at RPI, I would gander to say that this is why we don’t have as much spirit and unity as we can. Between layoffs (affecting the staff), and faculty governance issues (affecting the faculty), and new required sophomore housing (affecting students) the only stakeholder seemingly protected at the institute is the administration. They are the ones who are instituting all of these changes in the first place.  No wonder there isn’t spirit and unity! Everyone is disgruntled! Enthusiasm and good feelings for a place are contagious. It might help if the staff and faculty loved the place where they work. Well, I guess there is something that unites us all… Watch out administration, you might have some spirited unity coming your way, just not the kind you were thinking of.

Share Uncategorized employees, layoffs, spirit, unity

Well, I guess The Notorious B.I.G. was wrong. At least recently… As I’m sure you all know, the economy is officially in a recession. The federal government is bailing out American automakers, and even countries like Canada are getting in on the bailout action. Want to know something that is apparently recession proof? (Hint: it isn’t our endowment.) Alcohol. People will tend to buy cheaper alcohol instead of the pricier stuff during hard economic times. (Bros, can you go cheaper than natty light? Water?)

How does this economic situation affect RPI? Well, according to the email that Dr. Jackson sent out to the Rensselaer Community:

… we have determined that it will not be possible to reduce the budget sufficiently without reducing our recurring compensation expenses, which make up half of the Institute’s operating budget. Staffing reductions will be necessary. We would prefer to rely on attrition, but it will not be adequate to meet our financial objectives. Each vice president and portfolio owner has examined their respective operations for reductions in staff, in a way that will enable greater efficiency, improved performance, and elimination of redundancy.

We will manage the required staffing reductions as compassionately as possible…

At least they’re firing people compassionately?! The institute laid off 98 employees this past week.  No faculty positions are expected to be cut though, so that’s (relatively) good news for us students. But I can’t imagine being laid off right before the holidays. I would have hoped that RPI would have valued their employees a bit more to find the money in other places.

The biggest thing that I wish for in this situation is more information. I don’t know how many students know about this since most of us have headed home for winter break. The school has said very little publicly about the matter. This leaves us to look in the paper and read other blogs for information? The real way to combat any rumors is open communication. At least then we can all hopefully understand the reasoning behind the decisions.

Hopefully this will be the last that the economy hurts the RPI community. I’d like to not get forwarded another email in the coming months saying that some professors are being let go “compassionately.”

Our hearts go out to the those who have been affected by this situation during the holiday season.

EDIT 12/28: A number of facebook groups have spring up voicing concern with the issue.

Full email below.

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