Action taken after meeting with student leader

The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Board of Trustees, at its meeting Dec. 3 on the Troy campus, voted “unanimously and unequivocally” to endorse President Shirley Ann Jackson’s leadership, and “committed itself to full support of Dr. Jackson’s presidency and The Rensselaer Plan.”

The action, announced Dec. 6 in a joint statement by Board Chairman Arthur J. Gajarsa and Vice Chairman Ronald J. Zlatoper, was taken after the Board’s Committee on Student Life met Dec. 2 with the Grand Marshal, as the representative of the Student Senate, to discuss a resolution adopted recently by an 11-7 vote of the Student Senate raising concerns about President Jackson’s leadership style, the management of the Institute, and the continued viability of the Rensselaer Plan.

On Dec. 3, the Board of Trustees, at its regularly scheduled meeting, discussed the resolution, and at the Executive Session of the Board, “the members of the Board of Trustees unanimously and unequivocally voted to endorse Dr. Jackson’s leadership,” Gajarsa and Zlatoper said in the statement.

“Although the board appreciates the students’ concerns, it is of the judgment that Dr. Jackson’s vitality, her national and international reputation as an educator, her profound understanding of educational issues, her outstanding leadership, and her ability to pursue and implement The Rensselaer Plan at Rensselaer to improve the educational experience of the students has been successful in obtaining for the university a global reach and recognition,” Gajarsa and Zlatoper said.

Contact: William N. Walker
Phone: (518) 276-6531
E-mail: walkew2@rpi.edu