An unidentified Caucasian male student has been vandalizing the campaign posters of candidates running for positions on the Undergraduate Council of Students, Undergraduate Finance Board and Class Coordinating Boards, according to Ben Farber '12, UCS vice president and a presidential hopeful. The word "poly-slut" appeared on campaign posters across campus over the past few days, as students began voting Tuesday for next year's leaders. It is unclear what, if anything, the word means.
Elections Board Chair Anthony White '13 said he first came across a defaced poster at 2 p.m. Tuesday and sent an email to candidates that evening asking them to remain alert for such "disrespectful and completely unacceptable" behavior. White also notified the Department of Public Safety of the developments.
Farber witnessed the vandal scribbling the phrase across posters Tuesday. Though Farber confronted the vandal, he did not ask for his name. The vandal appeared slightly "embarrassed," Farber said, but remained firm about his actions and expressed frustration about the posters' placement across campus. "Everyone has a voice. I do too," the perpetrator told Farber.
UCS Student Activities Chair Ralanda Nelson '12, who is also running for president, said a friend saw the individual vandalizing posters in Metcalf Hall yesterday afternoon. "I'm going to beat his ass," Nelson said at the UCS general body meeting last night, eliciting laughter from the council's members.
Catherine Zabriskie, director of academic technology services, and Gillian Bell, Computing and Information Services project manager, also spoke at the meeting about the Learning Management System Project. The project, which began in the fall, aims to evaluate MyCourses, gather community feedback and recommend a new online platform.
The team received 767 student responses, 234 faculty responses and about 15 staff responses to an online survey, Zabriskie said, and concluded MyCourses is "ineffective on student communication and group projects."
The project team is seeking a learning management system with a "straight-forward navigation approach" capable of supporting online chatting, multiple platforms and foreign languages, Zabriskie said. The team is also interested in incorporating Google and Banner capabilities into the new system to provide a "one-stop shopping" site.
Four system vendors have been invited to campus, Bell said, and undergraduate and graduate students have been involved in listening to and reviewing their presentations. The team is evaluating potential learning management systems based on price and flexibility, among other factors.
Zabriskie said the team will test potential systems in the Sharpe Refectory April 20 during lunch. The team hopes to make a recommendation to the University by early May, reach a decision by early June and implement a pilot program next year.
The council, in cooperation with the Brown Democrats, also introduced a resolution supporting the passage of the "Opportunity RI" legislation in the Rhode Island General Assembly. The bill aims to keep college graduates in the state by providing tax credits to pay back student loans.
The bill has received bipartisan support in the legislature and on campuses statewide, said Jeremy Feigenbaum '11, president of the College Democrats of Rhode Island.
