Platform

The mission of Renew Rensselaer is to improve the governance policies, financial condition, and overall transparency of RPI while aligning its core constituencies–alumni, trustees, administration, faculty, staff, and students–toward the singular purpose of affirming its excellence in technological education. Fundamental to the achievement of this mission is the adoption of policies to stimulate increased alumni financial support and grow alumni involvement with the Institute. Therefore, we seek adoption and implementation by the RPI Board of Trustees (the Board) of the following platform statements:

1. Embrace and implement policies for governance, financial transparency, and campus climate, as espoused by the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB).
2. Encourage and facilitate regularly scheduled, open, unfiltered dialogue by the Board with faculty, staff, students, and alumni.
3. Enable periodic nominations for, and elections of, at least two Board members by means of an open process conducted by the Rensselaer Alumni Association (RAA).
4. Provide ample space within Rensselaer Magazine for content solely developed by the RAA and its president; for example, an editorial column.
5. Affirm the tradition and unique independence of the Rensselaer Union, as managed and run by students, within broad guidelines that can only be overturned by a majority of the Board.
6. Focus on debt reduction to boost RPI’s credit ratings.
7. Grow RPI’s endowment to $2 billion by its 200th anniversary.
8. Renew RPI’s traditional focus on undergraduate academic programs and emphasize improvements to its physical facilities, such as the lecture halls, classrooms, and laboratories.
9. Develop and implement periodic, unique marketing and promotional campaigns to reposition RPI as a world-class technological institution based on its own trademarked brand of “Why Not Change the World?^®”
10. Initiate a search, at the appropriate time, for a new president whose term would commence upon the completion of the current president’s existing contract term.

If the Board approves this platform, the alumni members of Renew Rensselaer will commit to offering significant time and financial resources to assist the president and staff of the Institute with its implementation.