RPInsider.com ACB

Re: Forget RIBS

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 12:28:59 -0400

Most likely. To say nothing, of course, of the whole pop-culture "college as party central" thing... which, for an engineering school, is at best a sick joke.

Re: Forget RIBS

Anonymous — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 22:00:47 -0400

I think the real issue is just that people at our school don't know how to get along with other human beings.

Re: My rant against evil that is STUGOV

Anonymous — Mon, 17 May 2010 23:36:21 -0400

it doesn't sound like you quite understand the concept behind a union (and neither does anyone else in this thread, apparently); its existence as a political structure makes hell of a lot of sense, even if the folks running it don't understand shit about what it's supposed to be

thanks for showing off that you took your first polysci class though, let us know when you hear about this cool band called rage against the machine that changed your life

Re: My rant against evil that is STUGOV

Anonymous — Sun, 16 May 2010 17:09:39 -0400

Time to have some fun.

Guest wrote:

Afterall, the GM is a useless ceremonial position that probably does more to stifle the student voice then speak for it.

How so? What might the GM do to stifle student voice? Is there a point here?

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And the rest of the positions are just as lame and useless.

I get the impression that you only know of one position in student government. Again, you fail to make any point at all; you could have mentioned positions, and described how their powers and responsibilities amount to nothing, the only problem with that being that you would certainly fail.

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The same arguments that anarchists and hard-core libertarians have been giving for years apply to "StuGov"

Libertarian theory is generally regarded as weak political theory, and anarchism doesn't apply here, as student government does not try to instill any genuine moral obligation in students.

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"StuGov" (= Stupid Government).

StuGov is a pretty stupid term, but that failed attempt at mocking was rather sad and desperate, sir. Show some degree of respect

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Even though it really doesn't have any powers, stuGov is a mock power structure created to train the next generation of politicians and those who will use the political system to exercise unjust power, rape the populace with taxes, redistribute wealth at a whim and do nation building overseas. Who ever said we wanted such a system here at RPI?

I don't know where you got these ideas. I don't know many RPI students who go into politics. And your view on politics seems rather pessimistic. But the key point is that student government is really nothing like local, state, or national government.

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The last thing this world needs is more politicians and the last thing we need is people being trained as sheep to go to the polls and exercise their "freedom of choice".

I'm sorry, which is more last? Also, why do you have "freedom of choice" in quotes? Are you implying that RNE guides peoples' pencils and decides who they vote for? I felt no duress or pressure of any kind when voting.

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What a load of bullcrap. People think elections are great, but fact is, its a crude system to keep the populace sedated.

Do you have a better system in mind than democracy?

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This entire election was likely rigged,

Clearly, you weren't following it. If it was rigged, Michael Zwack would have been declared the victor.

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unfair,

Yeah, a lot of people were saying it was unfair... But you wouldn't know that, now, would you?

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and even if it wasn't, the canidates are nearly identical so it boils down to a useless non-choice.

Actually, I've found that Mike and Ben are very dissimilar. Mike is a quiet person, but very professional, and very smart. He has a knack for bureaucratic bullshit, and works well with people. He's a management major, and he spent half of last week's Web Tech Group meeting talking about his six sigma plan to improve efficiency (he was joking around here, acting as though studying for some statistics class had driven him bat-shit insane). Zwack also has very good relationships with administrators, which is important for getting stuff done. Ben, meanwhile, while occasionally less than professional, is incredibly enthusiastic about the good he can do in student government. He will more actively seek student opinions, and generally try to make a bigger deal of everything.

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And on top of that you have the problem of the tyranny of the majority over the minority.

This is compensated for by the fact that there are class senators, a greek senator, an independent senator, and a few other seats on senate here and there. They try to represent as broad a base of the student body as possible. Do you feel underrepresented?

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You can argue any political system is going to be intrinsically immoral since they are based on forced, violence-based control of the populace..

No, you can't. Very few of them do. This might be a valid response to Hobbes... But that's about it. Seriously; try saying that to Rawls. No, better yet: I challenge you to try it for our political system. Go ahead; say that Student Government is based on violence. I'll wait.

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now Stu-gov dosn't have guns and an army, but if we ever tried to take it down, someone from the administration would step in, and their would be hell to pay.

What? You think that the Administration is behind student government,

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The great thing about RPI is we have the IOP here as a mock-up anarchist organization fighting the mock-up StuGov, which I whole-heartidly support.

Is that the best thing about RPI? Really? I ask, because you clearly have a problem saying things you don't mean. Furthermore, I don't feel that you have a very good idea of what the iop. stands for.

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And even though its all mock-up, and bells and whistles, at the very least, they are wasting our union activity fee dollars with their silly projects, like renovating the student gov't suite,

It's not something that happens often, paint is cheap, and labor is free if you're doing it yourself.

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hosting student govt formals,

A lot of people in student government were actually against the formal. But it was never regarded as a pat-yourself-on-the-back thing. And people had to pay for their tickets, so it wasn't a free food thing. Rather, it was an issue of, "hey, let's learn some more, and get to know one another as student leaders, and hopefully make student government work better."

"buying pizza at committee meetings,"
This doesn't happen. Every once in a while, a class council gets the great idea to start buying food for their meetings, because being on class council sucks. And then they are advised to stop, and then they stop. No committee meetings have food regularly. The chairs might occasionally bring in cookies or chips or something, and certain clubs get a very small food budget--but Student Government wouldn't get any more than other clubs, and doesn't just use it for the hell of it. On top of this, the meetings are all open to everybody. If you're afraid that these bodies might be enjoying a bit too much of your activity fee, go to the meetings, and get some yourself.

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running elections

They pay a tiny bit per ballot. Oh, heavens no! You want us to get into online voting, instead? I think we would, if this wasn't RPI, and students weren't almost guaranteed to hack into it.

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and whatever else they do.

You have no idea. If I were you, I'd either bother to find out, or shut the fuck up.

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In the end, its a bunch of people with silly hats who think they are high and mighty because the system dictates they, and they alone, have the authority to "speak for the students". Bullshit!!

It does not, and they don't think it does. Nobody has implied that student government has any kind of exclusive power as far as speaking for the students. Nobody has ever attempted to take that right from you. Although, for your sake, they probably should have.

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Tuition Paying Guest wrote:

I have to agree with the original post. I know that those involved with student government think of themselves as the great saviors of the student body.

I know of no such people.

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All I know is that my activity fee is too high and the clubs I'm involved with don't get enough financial support from the union.

Your activity fee is too high? Something tells me that, if it was $200, you would say the same thing. And if it was $50, you would say the same thing. And if it was $40,000, you would say the same thing. People in student government fight to keep your activity fee low, because you seem to want it--even though these people often believe that the union would be better off with higher club budgets, and a bigger activity fee. They keep it low because they are good representatives of the student body. But, well, you're free to join the Fiscal Policy Subcommittee, which sets the activity fee.
And your clubs don't get enough financial support? Which clubs are those? Based on your criticisms, I would hope that all of those clubs are clubs that everybody in the student body is a part of, and not just some small subgroup.

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If there is a way to make an official motion for a vote of no confidence to replace the student government entirely (rules and all) please let me know.

Yup. See the union constitution on http://docs.studentsenate.rpi.edu/ for details about referendum.

Re: My rant against evil that is STUGOV

Anonymous — Sat, 15 May 2010 00:34:26 -0400

If you have questions about issues like these, talk to your elected officials.
For Union-budget related things, talk to the 121st President of the Union, Mike Spitz.
For student life/administration-related issues, talk to the Grand Marshal, Ben Hunt.

I've spoken to both Mike Spitz and Ben Hunt, and they are very resourceful people. As a result, I'm moderately involved in student government.

You can't do anything about these problems by bitching and moaning on the Internet. You have to take action, and speaking to whoever is elected to serve you is the first step.

Budget Cuts

Anonymous — Thu, 13 May 2010 18:40:40 -0400

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The distribution of the General Overhead Budget of $231,355 to the ICA sports is based on a total of 615 travel team athletes across all sports, making the cost per ICA athlete $336.03.

I would bring the varsity athletes down from their $336.03 per athlete to equal the subsidy received by club athletes. The mean subsidy for sports clubs per member 2389.77/18 = $132.77. The varsity athletes should pay for 60% of their travel expenses out of pocket just like club athletes do.

I tried to pick out all of the sports clubs that travel to compete.

Wrestling $446.06
Water Polo $264.69
Volleyball $132.38
Ultimate Frisbee $84.42
Tennis Club $7.94
Table Tennis $2.44
Ski Team $199.71
Sailing $77.78
Rugby $116.91
Racquetball $192.72
Paintball $119.87
Fencing $45.61
Cycling $20.22
Curling Club $116.96
Crew $121.56
Club Ice Hockey $148.52
Cheerleading $261.14
Ballroom Dance $31.44

As for the Archer Center...I have never used their services and I don't know how many students use their services. If many students use their services then it is worth spending money on. If few students use the Archer Center then it needs to be cut.

Re: My rant against evil that is STUGOV

Anonymous — Wed, 12 May 2010 17:31:31 -0400

Get rid of the athletics department, or at least move them out of the union. Although i agree that the archer center is useless, they represent a small portion of the budget in comparison to the sports teams. Why is it that I have to pay for the Men's Ice Hockey team through the union fee but i still have to pay admission to the games. In my opinion you should only have to pay for the clubs that you belong to and the union fee would cover basic expenses and services (including the NECESSARY services clubs).

Re: My rant against evil that is STUGOV

Anonymous — Wed, 12 May 2010 13:16:52 -0400

The Archer Center of course. For starters, as an Architecture major, they're thoroughly useless. Secondly, I've heard about things that go on in certain of their ethics classes which are alarming and essentially training 'the leaders of tomorrow' to become barracudas ('This product will get you $13,000,000; it will also kill seven people. What do you do?' (they take the money of course))... at best, it's a waste of money; at worst it's disturbing.

Re: My rant against evil that is STUGOV

Anonymous — Wed, 12 May 2010 12:53:41 -0400

Quote:

All i know is that my activity fee is too high and the clubs I'm involved with don't get enough financial support from the union.

From the above quote I find that you want to pay a smaller activity fee while transferring more of the remaining activity fee to your clubs. This would create budget cuts for some other organizations funded by the Union. Where (organization/line item) would you make these budget cuts? I already have some ideas and I would like to hear your ideas.

Re: My rant against evil that is STUGOV

Anonymous — Wed, 12 May 2010 09:41:16 -0400

Tuition Paying Guest wrote:

I have to agree with the original post. I know that those involved with student government think of themselves as the great saviors of the student body. All i know is that my activity fee is too high and the clubs I'm involved with don't get enough financial support from the union.

If there is a way to make an official motion for a vote of no confidence to replace the student government entirely (rules and all) please let me know.

Then you're terribly misinformed then. Student government covers an entire spectrum of areas on campus, and by throwing out the baby with the bathwater with that statement, you're not helping. If you have problems with the Union's budget (Which is something I hear about.), read the Union Annual Report (http://docs.studentsenate.rpi.edu/documents/556/revisions/current/download) and talk to the club officers of those clubs that you're involved in and to that club's Executive Board representatives.

I tell a lot of people this, but no one actually cares enough to do this.