Dear Reporter,
I read with great interest your editorial in the September 12 Reporter. Constructive feedback from students is always welcome and will be put to good use. I would like to take this opportunity to briefly respond to the three topics identified in your editorial, specifically housing, parking and transportation, and communications.

We are aware that housing is tight on campus during the Fall quarter. This is being caused by demand for on-campus housing by both a large entering freshmen class and higher than anticipated demand from upper classmen. Park Point has added an additional 900 beds in the vicinity of RIT, but that still has not satisfied the demand. We know that some of this demand will be eased by the erection of our Global Village, which will replace over time the current Riverknoll facility. Construction of Phase I of Global Village, to include approximately 500 residential beds plus 20,000 square feet of retail and commercial space, will begin in Spring of 2009 and be completed by Fall Quarter, 2010. A master plan is being created which can guide ultimate redevelopment of the Riverknoll site to as many 1,300 beds.

A Comprehensive Parking and Transportation Strategy survey was completed by national consultants last Spring that assessed current and future transportation and parking needs of our university. The resulting documents and process are posted at finweb.rit.edu/grms/patspatstrategy.html. A number of public meetings were held to discuss the recommendations and then they were subsequently endorsed by representatives of Student Government, Academic Senate, and Staff Council and were approved by the Parking Advisory Group and university leaders. In the short term we are working to alleviate some of the overload on the buses by scheduling more buses and adding buses that can transport more people. We are also investigating the placement of covered shelters and other amenities to support the use of public transportation. While in the short term various changes and restrictions on parking will be necessary, there are new programs and plans being considered that will hopefully bring positive results to the entire RIT community in the next few years.

A number of methods will be used to improve communication this year. I have asked Vice President Kit Mayberry to coordinate an “Open Administration” project, which will have each member of my vice presidential cabinet making presentations to the RIT community on the initiatives they are undertaking within their divisions. Your suggestion about using “media outlets on campus to introduce some more transparency” with decision making is a good one. I currently have a series of call-in radio shows set up with WITR Radio called Ask President Destler. Also, we are working with Student Government and others on campus to establish a strong presence on iTunes U, where we can upload information. Finally, should all else fail, you can always ask a question on my website, “Ask the President” where I post answers to questions that many may be wondering about. It is my hope that these methods will improve communication among all of our constituencies.

I hope this information is helpful and I look forward to further dialogue with the student body this academic year.

Bill Destler
President

Dear Reporter,
Why write an article on RIT football? Why not focus on some positive sports story?

If RIT has 400 student athletes per year, then over the 31 years since football was discontinued, 12,400 athletes have competed in various sports for RIT over that time. You did a story on three RIT athletes who turned professional, that has the right kind of focus. I know that there are other RIT athletes over the years that have gone professional. How about RIT athletes that have gone on to be coaches at other colleges?

Let football rest in peace.

Rob Pearson
Faculty, Department of Microelectronic Engineering

Dear Reporter,
What happened to the cute girl teaching Sign of the Week? This was the first thing I looked at when I opened Reporter every week. Not only was it informative, but it was also a lot of fun to figure out the signing for later uses. Please bring back the cute and informative signing!

Thanks in advance,
Anthony Santaferra
5th Year Software Engineering

Editor's Note: We will not be printing Sign of the Week anymore. We're working on getting a video Sign of the Week for our website. For more information on changes at Reporter, see the Reporter Blog.

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