Accountability

Welcome to RIT. In four or five short years, you will leave this place, like I just have, and RIT will try to take advantage of that. Now, don't get me wrong, RIT is a wonderful school and a great place to learn. But it is also plagued with bureaucratic bullshit that will make mistakes, make promises and then conveniently forget about them when the majority of students have moved on.

I want to take this opportunity to share with you the mistakes, promises and other problems that I've encountered in my four years that I don't want you to forget about. I want you to remember them and hold the administration accountable. Some of these things affected a large majority of students, some affected very few and one in particular only seemed to bother me.

Let's start with the latter. At some point in my early years, RIT replaced every perfectly functional soap dispenser on campus with custom RIT dispensers. What a huge waste of money, and they did it without a word while increasing our tuition in the same breath.

Then there was the housing crisis in Fall 2015, when RIT converted many dorm lounges into triples to accommodate the excess students that had enrolled. They promised to reevaluate how many students to accept, but could not promise that it would never happen again.

In December 2015, Reporter broke the news that some Public Safety officers would be trained to use a gun in active shooter situations. There hasn't been an update on whether that actually happened.

NTID promised to work on communication accessibility for all of their students, not just those who use American Sign Language, after a protest in Spring 2016.

Lack of adequate parking has always been an issue, and it wasn't helped by the addition of the Gene Polisseni Center or the new MAGIC building. Next time they try to take away your parking, tell them to find another solution. 

Then there was last summer, when the RIT Student Health Center fired the only doctor capable of prescribing hormones to transitioning transgender students. They have promised to look into bringing trans healthcare on campus, but those promises are so vague. Make sure that they follow through and don't brush it under the rug.

I'm leaving this school, but it will always hold a place in my heart. Don't forget what meant so much to me, to so many. Hold RIT accountable. Because this is your school now. I charge you with one more task: fight for what you believe in, and make your school listen to you. It's the only way things will change.