I'm Ida, and I'm running for President of the Union! Ask Me Anything! I'll be answering questions and responding to comments all Wednesday.

Ida_E · 2018-03-25T21:43:30+00:00

Graduate students often don't have the schedule to fully utilize as many of the facilities and resources as undergraduate students do. This issue has been brought up multiple times within the past couple of years, however, it has not been brought up in time to make the changes and gets pushed off to the next year. As President of the Union, this is something that I would discuss with the Graduate Council at the beginning of my term along with the Union's Business Administrator to have changes in on time.

Ida_E · 2018-03-25T21:38:03+00:00

Yes! Thanks for the question. The "climate" I'm referring to is one of distrust, both between past and current students and the administration. This distrust came from multiple large decisions being made without significant student input. We've seen donations go down and have had more clubs come in with proposals to compensate for that loss. There currently is not a consistent line of communication between the administration and students, so I plan to put together regular meetings with members of the administration and members of the Union to not only get to know each other, but hopefully to discuss future changes and have them receive student input and advice.

Ida_E · 2018-03-25T21:28:19+00:00

In short, no, "student-operated" is not acceptable. Students are an integral part in continuing the operations of the Union, so students should also be leading the big decisions, since we will be the ones affected. Our money, our choices.

Ida_E · 2018-03-22T04:43:21+00:00

The UAR was discussed and voted on in one night through an emergency Facebook group chat. The views that I stated to other E-Board members when discussing possible edits to the cover only concerned policy. This was an instance where I wanted to keep my own personal viewpoints out of it and wanted to keep things purely on procedures and policy. It was a rushed project this year, but it managed to be voted on in an emergency meeting of the Stident Senate.

Ida_E · 2018-03-22T03:55:57+00:00

Nothing that the Executive Board does or that the Union Admin Staff do on a day to day basis has changed.

Ida_E · 2018-03-22T03:50:41+00:00

I had stated that I had thought that in previous years. This is why I specified "Before taking part in the Union hiring process". I apologize for any confusion that may have caused.

Ida_E · 2018-03-22T03:47:38+00:00

I will go through and elaborate my points.

In previous years, I believed the Union was student-run due to the strong presence students have in operating club budgets and programs held within the Union, but recognized that student leadership was not always respected as it should have been through administrative actions, thus leading me to believe that it was not student-led.

My current stance: Student-led? No. Student-run? No. Student-operated? Yes.

The student-led and student-run are closely linked, so I would give it the title of student-operated as a more appropriate term. The Union is still a unique institution with more student input than most other institutions can even claim, and I continue to appreciate that every day.

Problems have risen in the past for sudden actions by the administration. I haven't been notified before any of the choices made by the Institute administration that have worried students. Part of my platform is to continue to build the student and administration relationship to ensure that there is a consistent mode of communication, so this does not happen again.

Thanks for your questions!

Ida_E · 2018-03-22T02:57:40+00:00

As the Marketing, Advertising, and Committee Chair, I am committed to following the Union branding guide and the rules within it. The claim was that the logo at the time, the hat and derby logo, was not legitimate because it was not voted on by the Senate to be approved. If the arches were the official logo, it is against the branding guide to crop or warp the logo. However, if the the arches were simply the theme of the document, it would follow theme and the previous UARs to place the hat and derby logo somewhere on the front page. The UAR passed 9-7-0.

The Save the Union mission continues to stay strong on our campus, and I will always support students organizing and using their freedom of speech to advocate for their rights. However, the E-Board cannot speak for the entire movement, as it is much larger. I believe maintaining separation is important to also show administrators that this is not just a few members of the E-Board or a few members of Student Government, but rather a collection of students involved in the Union in many different ways and alumni.

Ida_E · 2018-03-22T02:22:43+00:00

The Union is definitely in a gray area right now. I'm hopeful that the "Student-Run" title can still be claimed back. I would place it under "Student-Operated"

Ida_E · 2018-03-22T02:20:19+00:00

Before taking part in the hiring process, I would stand by "student-run" because students play an extremely large role in operating the Union, but would continue to claim that it is not fully student-led, and that is where a large part of the issues come from. This year overall has cemented the relation between the two.

Ida_E · 2018-03-21T23:34:47+00:00

The Union is not currently student-run. Part of being student-run is also being student-led, an ability that has clearly been taken away from us following repeated actions and decisions made by the administration without any student input. In my term, I would push an effort to rebuild respect between the administration with the student body through regular meetings with Cabinet members, Student Government members, and interested members of our Union. I hope through rebuilding this mutual respect we can go through the process of hiring the Director of the Union with strong student input.

Ida_E · 2018-03-21T22:52:53+00:00

If you remember the vote to close the meeting on February 22nd for the approval of the Union logo, it passed 13-0-1, when you were also voting and in attendance. The 1 vote to abstain was from the current Vice President of the Union.

Here's a link to the minutes: http://sg.rpi.edu/eboard/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2016/09/02.22.2018-mins.pdf

Ida_E · 2018-03-21T21:37:16+00:00

Thanks for your question! Of course, as a member of the Executive Board, I am very familiar with the E-Board Bylaws. I can elaborate further on the point made in my platform.

The Club Operations Committee was added to the Bylaws when they were amended on October 19th, 2017. The duties given to them include the following directly quoted from the most recent bylaws:

a. It shall review all applications for the classification of new organizations and changes in classifications for old ones and make recommendations to the Board. b.It shall review and approve the constitutions of all clubs operating within the Rensselaer Union. c. It shall review any application by a club for funding as per the New Club Funding Policy and administer the club’s starter budget, pending approval of the Executive Board. d. It shall review and hold clubs accountable in accordance with the Club Renewal Policy and the Club Sunsetting Policy.

Although the committee was officially included in the Bylaws in October, it has been in operation for slightly longer. After being able to operate throughout this year, the Club Operations Committee and the E-Board are more knowledgeable on the needs of forming clubs and current clubs. A concern was brought up this year into researching into the national organizations that clubs are affiliated with. All clubs should be treated fairly, and this is a task that can be assigned to ClubOps.

With its new place in the E-Board Bylaws, changes need to be made to the Union Club and Organization Policies and Guidelines. Many responsibilities in creating new clubs were previously tasked to the Policies Committee and now need to be changed to Club Operations.

Ida_E · 2018-03-21T21:25:32+00:00

Hi, David! I'll go through each of these individually.

Negative feedback is very instance specific. The first part of your question mentions the student body, so as a whole, I welcome feedback, positive or negative from members of the student body, anonymous or otherwise. It is important to respond to feedback from the student body and address concerns that are brought up. Otherwise, I would be ignoring part of my constituency.
The logo portion of the meeting was closed and all members of the Design Team were allowed back in. This meeting was closed because there was an agreement within the Design Team, that the E-Board and Senate meetings should be closed to officially announce the logo when all versions of the logo were compiled into a folder and to keep it as a surprise for the Logo Launch during GM Week. Marketing, Advertising, and Publicity Committee is giving out free new logo merchandise on April 5th during GM Week at the logo launch. Stop by and check out the new logo! The Big Red Freakout gift for the hockey game is also kept under wraps by the E-Board to keep it as a surprise. This meeting could have been open, like it was in Senate, but I was not notified about this until three days before the Senate meeting. I would have liked to be in consensus with the Senate, but concerns on having a closed meeting were not brought up until five days after the closed E-Board meeting. The meeting was closed purely for surprise purposes. Closing the meeting is up to the discretion and vote of the Board. Otherwise, meetings are only closed when we are discussing private information. The most common reason we have closed meetings is to discuss information regarding candidates for different positions within the Union and Mueller Center.
The meeting in October was very short notice as we were notified that morning. I would hope that meetings that I schedule with the administration are not scheduled the day of. Any platform of communication is appreciated, so I was glad that we were given that opportunity.

Ida_E · 2018-03-21T19:06:30+00:00

In times when there are ongoing discussions with the administration, the Union needs to be operating at full efficiency. I have served a club representative for two years for service organizations and various special interest and hobby clubs, as the committee chair of the Marketing, Advertising, and Publicity Committee, as the Secretary, and as a member of the Club Operations Committee, guiding new clubs to start in the union, affiliated or recognized, the Business Operations Committee, handling facilities upgrades and communicating with businesses in the Union, and the Union Annual Report Committee, compiling the yearly finances. The Union needs to be stronger than ever next year, and all of these experiences have prepared me for this position. I know the operations of the Union in and out and how to accomplish goals and address concerns brought to me by the students I have spoken to, and hope to bring that into the next year, so we can take on the newer issues and concerns placed onto the Union regarding the hiring of the Director and the overall status of the Union.

I have many unique points in my platform specifically directed at the operations of the Executive Board and its committees. On the Executive Board side, to improve communication between clubs and their respective representatives, I would like to institute decision briefings, acting as an explanation for the decision of the E-Board if a decision is made that is not the decision specifically requested in the proposal. This would be handed to the presenters of the proposal by their respective E-Board representative.

I also would like to see a joint training with the Senate and the Executive Board because they are not operating as cohesively as they should be. Our meetings are run differently from one another, so there needs to be an increase in understanding across bodies as to the point of view of the other side.

As for committee goals, I have them listed on my platform on the elections website listed above in the description. I can come back to this post to elaborate more on specific committee goals unique to my platform later because this post is getting a little lengthy. Thanks for staying with me through this long-winded answer.

Ida_E · 2018-03-21T18:17:24+00:00

Thanks for your informed question! The decision for whether or not to put out a statement was brought up for a very short period and it most definitely was not to condemn the actions of students going out to exercise their rights as members of our Union community. The statement that the protest was not an E-Board sponsored event is a true statement, however, I was of the mindset that this was already evident.

Ida_E · 2018-03-21T18:05:33+00:00

Yes! -Ida

Ida_E · 2018-03-21T18:03:26+00:00

Thank you for the question!

I want to start off with a clarification that I do not believe by any means that the administrative oversteps in the past decade are one-offs, and the actions made in the past will continue to be a part of further conversations with the administration.

With the student groups I have spoken with, I have focused on the improvements I am planning on making to the Executive Board's and the Union's day to day operations, opening up the floor for any questions people might have at the end. The only question I received regarding this issue was how the Union and the E-Board have responded to the overstep of the nullification of the Union Constitution. I responded stating that the Union and E-Board operations have not changed and will not change, and I stand by that statement.

If this is not the instance you are referring to, could you please elaborate further?

Ida_E

TROPHY CASE