To my Macaulay family,
This MSC year genuinely went beyond my expectations. From our new retreat location to our spring formal being free to hosting a record-breaking Macaulay Olympics, my first year of college felt ethereal (and I’m sure many of my fellow first-years would agree). Our events are something I always proudly bring up when I’m talking with my friends at different colleges.
It may come as a surprise that I am running to be VP of Academic Affairs, especially since serving on both the IT/Comms and Finance committees has been such a blast this year under Ralph and Zoe (shoutout to the GOATs) and alongside my awesome fellow committee members. To tell you the truth, though, Academic Affairs was the first committee on my mind when I first entered MSC. Academics are such an important part of every Macaulay student’s journey and the networking, career development, and occasional workshops further enrich it. A lot of the students at my home campus, even those outside the Macaulay program, are also becoming increasingly interested in the courses offered at Macaulay central after I mentioned them. I want to see what additional courses could be offered and how we can better promote them to the student body.
One initiative current Academic Affairs VP Tin wanted to introduce and integrate was creating networking opportunities for the Friedman Transfer Scholars, which I thought was a great idea too, and it’s something I’d like to see and bring to fruition!
Beyond the formal MSC duties of Academic Affairs, I want to lead and represent the student voices for Macaulay academics because I believe it’s time we finally acknowledge a group of Macaulay students whose majors comprise roughly 10% of our student body but remain underrepresented/overlooked: engineering, computer science, and architecture majors. Scholars in these majors are the ones who struggle the most due to the 3.5 GPA barrier in the latter halves of their Macaulay journeys. They have to spend the majority of their college journey keeping their grades up in rigorous major classes where the average grades are Cs and Ds; this often comes at the cost of being able to apply and commit to internships or be more involved with the broader Macaulay community.
At Macaulay Alumni events, some alumni have mentioned that engineering/architecture wasn’t even an option for what major they studied when they RSVP’d 😅. My hope is to work directly with the College Council to develop a solution that not only helps mitigate this struggle but also complies with what the Macaulay administration is hoping to preserve in the Academics department.
Anyhow, I hope you all have a great day and an amazing weekend!
With gratitude and my best,
Ryan R. 🙂
No comments