Special Meeting and Challenge of the Rensselaer Alumni Association (RAA) Election
Dear RPI Alumni,
You may recall from our email update last month, the Rensselaer Alumni Association’s (RAA) election was mired in issues. Most notably, the RAA president admitted via email that he altered the vote count after polling and the meeting had ended. The slate of candidates “passed” solely as a result of his improper actions. RPI alumni took action and circulated a Petition for a Special Meeting of the Members of the RAA aimed at addressing the RAA Board’s “failure to represent the interests of the Members” and “to contest the results of the 2018 election of RAA Trustees,” among other important topics. Within a few days, this Petition secured the necessary signatures of 100 alumni and was submitted to the RAA secretary. A mere four days later, the RAA Board met and voted to change the Association’s Bylaws, increasing the number of signatures required to call a Special Meeting from 100 members to over 10,000 members! This change effectively renders it impossible for the rank and file alumni to ever call for another Special Meeting. Ironically, the RAA Board admits that they failed to elicit even 2,000 alumni responses on their alumni attitude survey–and they have access to a database of over 40,000 alumni email addresses and contact information.
Register for the Special Meeting of the RAA
Fortunately, because the aforementioned Petition was submitted prior to the Bylaws changes, New York State law mandates it must be held as scheduled by the petitioning members. The Special Meeting will be on Saturday, March 23, 2019 at 12:00 pm EST in the Heffner Alumni House, 1301 Peoples Avenue, Troy, NY 12180. Please mark your calendars now, and if you are able to attend in person, we strongly urge you to do so. We also ask that you share this information far and wide with fellow alumni, as it is of the utmost importance that the “election” results be challenged in order to ensure a truly representative alumni association. As many alumni as possible will need to be present in order to restore democracy to the RAA.
The RAA recently noticed the upcoming Special Meeting via email, yet it is unclear whether online participation and voting will be allowed, as was the case during the Annual Meeting. If you are unable to attend the meeting in person, we encourage you to contact the RAA Board and demand that you be able to participate through absentee voting.
Thank you for your continued support as we fight not only for RPI’s future, but for alumni voices to be heard. We will provide additional information and a reminder email as the meeting date approaches. Please reach out to us anytime at info@renewrensselaer.org, and follow us for more frequent updates on social media via the links below.
Sincerely,
Renew Rensselaer
