Memo to: The Rensselaer Community
From: Prabhat Hajela, Provost
Date: October 5, 2012

The first open session for discussion of the updated Rensselaer Plan was conducted Wednesday afternoon, and the unanimous view of the ReaLCom 2.0 members was that the conversation produced many excellent observations and suggestions. President Jackson opened the meeting by setting the context for the conversation, and while she will be unable to join the sessions next week, the ReaLCom members leading the discussions will use the same approach.

The schedule for the sessions is as follows:

• Tuesday, October 9, 7:00-8:30 p.m. - Jon Dordick, VP/Research, Facilitator
• Wednesday, October 10, 2:00-3:30 p.m. - Prabhat Hajela, Provost, Facilitator
• Thursday, October 11, 10:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m. - Tim Sams, VP/Student Life, Facilitator

Your ReaLCom representatives encourage members of the campus community to participate in these conversations. The sessions next week will be held in the auditorium of the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies. These discussions are being guided by a series of five questions about where Rensselaer should be at its 200th anniversary, and within this context, about the updated Plan. Those questions may be found at the end of the read-only first draft of the Plan, available at https://afsws.rpi.edu/AFS/dept/metasite/plan/draft/rensselaerplanrefreshdraft.pdf accessible through authentication with RCS credentials.

Let me remind individual portfolio leaders to schedule sessions to focus specifically on how the Plan relates to their portfolios. Portfolio leaders are asked to conduct the meetings of their groups, and input from these discussions will be recorded by ReaLCom members. Please advise Cindy Novak in the Provost’s Office as soon as these sessions are scheduled.

Finally, we have made arrangements for written comments to be shared with ReaLCom and the Writing Team. Those comments should be sent to realcom2@lists.rpi.edu.

We appreciate the substantive contributions being made to the development of the Plan, and we look forward to our conversations next week.