Archive for the ‘The Union’ Category:

Activities Fair 2009: Success

September 4th, 2009 by Brian Zaik

We just had the Activities Fair in the Houston Field House at RPI yesterday and a great showing for Concerto and Web Tech. We took up residence in a big corner right at the front entrance to the Field House. It was a good opportunity to introduce lots of people to Concerto Screensaver, but we also took the chance to tell people who we are in the Web Tech Group. And that was a pretty fun task, let me tell you…

I designed this big plotted poster to celebrate life through the eyes of a Web Tech Group member. If any of this sounds like you, I think it’s time you stopped by the third floor of the Rensselaer Union (the Student Government Suite, or SGS)! We want more people within our ranks – we can handle more people, and you DO NOT have to be a programmer to join. Graphic artists, electronics whizzes, marketers, carpenters, or just people who want to have fun and learn plenty about product development and help make a difference – you’ll all welcome. In fact, there’s not even a formal sign-up process! Just stop by the SGS and stay a while. If you don’t go crazy, maybe you’re crazy enough to stick around for longer as a full-fledged member of the team.

This was our big, crazy dedication to the life of the average Web Tech member...

Tags: activities fair, booth, screensaver, table, union
Posted in Concerto, Cool Stuff, Group Life, RPI Happenings, The Union | No Comments »

Student Government Packet

July 15th, 2009 by Haris Khan

Oh Boy… I’m back and I’ve got something that I never really expected to post on a blog for a “web technologies group”. I suppose we’ve expanded to more than just a web technologies group. Sure Web Technologies is something we know intimately and what most of our projects are about, but we’re expanding every day. This year, I have the privilege of being the Rules and Elections Committee Chair. I say it’s a privilege and honest, it really is – something I thought about doing when I first joined the committee, but at the same time it’s a great burden, a job only fools or masochists would want – fortunately I’m both. Now that I have the opportunity I really want to revamp the system. I want to fix the way Elections work, fix the website, create a logo, get more information out to potential candidates, and well, survive by the end of GM Week next year.

Brian Zaik and I brainstormed together to create a new logo for the Rules and Elections Committee – here it is.

Rules and Elections Committee Logo

Now that’s 1/5. I’m doing great already! Though I’m sure you expect this blog post to contain more substance than a simple logo, and it’s a reasonable expectation – so I would like to deliver. What am I delivering? Sweet Sweet Eyecandy. Actual candy, not that processed crap found in most stores across America. Now, Sit back, relax and enjoy everything this packet has to offer.

Initially this document was only going to be a 2 -3 page Word Document for incoming freshman at SO , but after Brian Zaik read it, he convinced me to turn this into a full fledged packet. Brian & I may have lost a couple nights of sleep over this , but I think it was worth it. It is no longer something useful for just freshman, but everyone at RPI who wants to get a better grasp of how student government works.

This is found on the first page of the pamphlet. It includes a brief description of the Senate’s roles, time commitment required and who to contact for more information. Similar Information is found about all student government councils through out the packet:

Senate Information

I felt it was important to include some humor in this packet to make it not only fun, but informative. Well to be honest all this stuff in the packet interests me for I’m a student government nerd, but it was important to be able to grab students who are not necessarily interested in student government and who’s life does not revolve around student government projects. If you look hard you can see an Illustration of me (the one holding the RNE poster) right after GM Week (before i slept for 36 straight hours – no joke). I have a friend who was really concerned that I would scare away potential people, who may otherwise be interested in joining my committee, with the picture of the zombies. She’s a real sweetheart , but what say you guys? Prove her wrong and send me an email at rne [at] union.rpi.edu if you’re interested in being a part of the Rules and Elections Committee. If you are moderately interested I can tell you more via email.

Haris did not feel so well after GM Week.. not sleeping for 5 days straight will do that

Finally, I think this is the most important part of the packet. Anyone and Everyone I’ve shown it to looks at this page and says, OH THAT’S HOW THEY ARE RELATED. It’s the Big Map to Student Government. Now it’s not perfect, but it clears up many things about Student Government at RPI. Hell, I bet some Senators don’t know about some of these relationships in the Map.

Big Map of Student Government

I hope these images peaked your interest. With any luck you will go ahead and Download the Packet and read all of it because my three images don’t really do it justice. If you have any comments or questions, you have my email address , or you can post a comment on this blog entry.

Tags: art, graphic, logo, pamphlet, RNE, Student Government
Posted in Cool Stuff, Other Projects, Student Government, The Union | No Comments »

Friday Updates: Union FAQ, Feedback Form

June 27th, 2009 by Brian Zaik

Tonight, we pushed some changes and bug fixes to the Union website. More specifically, we added a Frequently Asked Questions page that utilizes a nice jQuery expand/collapse action. Other than that, we’re prepping a much more detailed update to add in a powerful feedback controller. It’s going to look very nice.

A sneak peek at the new feedback form for the Union website.

Posted in Other Projects, The Union, Web Design | 1 Comment »

Financial Transparency on the Web

May 27th, 2009 by Brian Zaik

A big part of my life over the Spring ‘09 semester was spent building Union Annual Report 2009 and the new Union website. We just pushed a couple bug fixes to the Union site, but my vision for building financial transparency on the Web for the Union has not yet been fully realized. Though I have passed on my official position as Student Senate / Executive Board Liaison, I will be serving on the Union Executive Board for another year. Over this summer, I intend to complete my vision with the Union website. Specifically, we need to do two things:

Make all club and organizational budgets available to all members of the RPI community
Implement an easy way for people to ask questions about the Union budget to the Union Executive Board

For the first objective, I will be speaking with the Union Systems Administrators to open up access to all budget summaries through the Club Management System. That means that the full report pages that club officers can see for their respective clubs will be available to anyone with an RCS login. For the second objective, I’m proposing Talk Money, a question and answer area to be added to the Union website that will allow anyone to pose questions to the Union Executive Board, who can then post responses publicly. This, I hope, will ensure a healthy dialog about the finances of our great Union. And at a time when people are so interested in the economy, the Union will continue to put its best foot forward to maintaining a well-run, appropriately-funded organization.

On a related note, tonight we’ve pushed a couple updates to the Union website, including a controller that allows us to add new building hours to the front page. This is especially important for summer building hours. We also recently fixed a bug with the display of the Union Events Calendar on the front page of the site, and some random CSS fixes. Enjoy!

Tags: finances, union website
Posted in The Union | No Comments »

All Quiet on the Eastern Front

May 17th, 2009 by Brian Zaik

Commencement 2009 just happened yesterday morning, and RPI’s Troy campus has settled into the quiet boredom that is so common of summer once all the graduates and their parents leave. I got a pretty noticeable sunburn. It was very much an out-of-body experience for me, since up until only about three weeks ago, I was planning to walk on stage to receive my B.S. degree like the rest of my classmates. But just three weeks ago, I changed over to a Master’s co-terminal program at RPI in Human-Computer Interaction. Next year, once RPI’s East Campus Athletic Village has been completed (with any luck), I too will walk across the stage to receive not just one, but two degrees, and probably a minor or two.

But before that happens, there’s now a full year ahead of intense project work with the Web Tech Group. The past year has been quite remarkable; in just two semesters, Concerto grew from 6 screens to 20. Hundreds of people logged into our web interface to submit hundreds of varied, colorful, and informative flyers and ticker messages. Concerto expanded to cover emergency notifications sent out by RPI in times of crisis over the RPIAlert system. The Student Senate and Union Executive Board teamed up to create Union Annual Report 2009 (my baby), and the Web Tech Group coupled that with a brand new website – the first dramatic web revamp for the Union in over 12 years. We launched Version 1 of Flagship and assisted the Union in purchasing televisions for the launch of the ‘09 Lounge in the Union Games Room. And that’s not including the many lesser updates and mini-projects that also define our weekly workload.

But I’m one for continuous improvement, and I think we can do even better. We’ve been holding back some rather massive plans with Concerto for a while, and it’s almost time to pull back the curtain on that stuff. We’ve got some daunting challenges to face, such as what to do with myRPI, our student-powered portal that has been doing nothing but gathering dust as of late. I can confidently say that our past successes and small missteps will help us to do better next time and better focus on projects that are most important to RPI students, faculty, and staff members. And there are future-facing opportunities all over the place that we still haven’t explored. For one, Concerto has certainly been successful, but we haven’t yet realized our greater vision of a more tightly integrated network that allows people to easily browse, search, and pull up content that is currently active or active previously.

August, Brian Michalski, and I started the WTG in 2006, and while we’ve had some great success over the years, I’m going to do everything in my power to ensure that the coming academic year is that much better than the last. Best of all, I’ll be seeing it all – not from outside looking in, but from the dashboard.

Posted in Group Life, RPI Happenings, The Union | No Comments »

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