Dear RPI Alumni,

As the author of this letter, alumnus of the Class of 2017, and Graduate Class of 2018, some of you may remember me from my involvement in the Student Union as Treasurer, VP, then President of the Class Council, Grad Senator chairing the Community Relations Committee, the RPI Players, and member of the honor societies Upsilon Pi Epsilon (Computer Science) and Gamma Nu Eta (Internet Technology and Web Science). I was also, notably, one of many “co-conspirators” that hoisted the mantle of Save The Union, a student-led grassroots movement that highlighted issues surrounding RPI's seizure of the Rensselaer Student Union. I, among one thousand other students, was the guy with the bull-horn, publicly demonstrating our desire to avoid that outcome. I, with those driven by these ideals, was among those that RPI threatened with judicial inquiry over allegedly “Operating a Business” when merely informing the incoming Class of 2022 of the active supplanting of our student liberties for the base goal of using 127 years of student assets to prop-up a balance sheet with decades of faults by someone else's management without introspection.

Renew Rensselaer's living Founders, Bill Criss and Peter Vanderzee, have passed the captain's torch to me, to continue our quest to keep the remaining unresolved PLATFORM issues in front of the Board of Trustees, Dr. Schmidt, the RAA, and our Supporters. It's our belief that RPI continues to be diminished in the press and by the public at large as (wrongly so) a second-rate STEM school.

“What's an RPI?” continues to be an unfortunate question that Rensselaer graduates hear across our land. We can understand why: On January 28th, Time Magazine published this article: “The World's Top Universities of 2026.” There were 600 colleges and universities named. Not surprisingly, MIT was ranked #4; CalTech #13; Cornell #15; and Georgia Tech #62. Our “Dear Old” RPI was #227. Here is a link for that article if you want to read the entire piece: The World's Top Universities of 2026. Does that ranking seem right to you? Our nearly 2000 Supporters and Founders of RR, who have been quite concerned about RPI's ranking, will certainly disagree.

Think what you want about rankings and how those metrics are determined, RR and RPI cannot deny their importance to prospective HS students and their parents, to our faculty and alumni. Lower rankings suggest a “less than” educational opportunity vs. higher ranked universities. Furthermore, we believe rankings tend to be indicate fitness of job-market placement, e.g. how many RPI alumni have heard “Where is THAT school?” Or, “RPI is apparently not very competitive since they have to admit 60+% of applicants vs. MIT's 5%.” As a consequence, alumni grow increasingly frustrated, which leads to their diminished relationship with RPI and a lowered participation in RAA events like their Annual Meetings (less than 2% of the 100,000+ living alumni typically participate), to say nothing about ignoring calls to contribute to RPI's yearly fund drive.

The Ditch that our alma mater is in will not be easy to extricate from. Eight years ago, RR predicted that IF RPI were to continue along its current path, there WILL be financial constraints. For RPI to now focus blame on the 2026 economy for furloughing the School of Humanities, the expiration of Scholarships for Women, the derelict RPI Playhouse, and the coming “admissions cliff” is tantamount to RPI not admitting its culpability for its own prior and current management shortcomings. Blaming the world instead of acknowledging your own habitual problems is patently not “knowledge and thoroughness.”

To extend some fraternal benefit to help RPI climb out of the “Ditch,” RR strongly requests that you commit yourselves to supporting our alma mater in everything BUT funding, e.g. network, labors, and fellowship. RR's call for funding will return when the remaining Platform issues have been addressed and resolution underway. We all can support RPI through this trying time of economic uncertainty with our values, talents and labors because we believe our RPI education was outstanding. RR remains highly supportive of any action that would enhance RPI's world-wide visibility, its impact, its rankings, its prestige, its ability to attract substantially more high-potential HS applicants, its financial stability, and other metrics that will finally allow alumni to never hear “RP-WHO?” again. But we cannot do it alone.

If you feel the way we do, commit yourselves to this good work of getting the word out about RPI; by volunteering your talents to teach students, flexing your network to help fellow graduates find and seize key career opportunities, and recruiting outstanding HS students for the oldest—and one of the best—engineering schools in the world. Sadly, the Board of Trustees, Dr. Schmidt, and the RAA Leadership continue to hear our feedback, but for unknown reasons, are not willing to engage in genuine and immediate commitment to RR's continuing Mission—implementation of the remaining Platform issues. Together, our voices can be amplified for all the right reasons as we offer non-financial support as a demonstration of goodwill.

While the wheels of academia grind slowly, the time for ACTION at RPI is NOW!! We urge RPI's Board of Trustees, Dr. Schmidt, and the RAA to earnestly and truly commit to the work of making RPI great again, Today, Tomorrow, and Every Day thereafter, bringing RPI and its alumni back to the prominence they rightfully deserve.