Last spring, our students all gathered to talk about what they want our department to become.  A number of students had come back from CS Games with new ideas about how students could drive the activities in an engineering department.  They were looking for new ways to be involved, new ways to connect with each other, and new projects to work on.  Together, they brainstormed a lot of possibilities – more than the faculty could imagine and more than we could start right away.  To start things rolling, we have formed a temporary student government tasked with two missions:

T-Shirts

Everyone agreed that we need more department swag!  And our alumni were excited by the idea that swag was a way for them to re-connect with our current students.  Our Industrial Advisory Committee tasked us with having T-Shirts designed so that they could present them to the students – a way of saying, “I am a successful Ship grad – now you are on your way to being that, too.”  The temporary student government is running a T-shirt design competition with the goal of giving every freshman and sophomore a department T-shirt and every junior and senior a program T-shirt (CS, SE, or CMPE).

Student Government

It was agreed that we should form a representative student government whose responsibilities would include:

• inter-club coordination and creation of new clubs
• helping faculty with curriculum and policy changes
• pursing new opportunities like arranging for a department dorm area in the new dorms
• fund raising
• and generally keeping the students and the faculty connected.

The temporary government is drafting by-laws for the structure and election of this new government.

The Big Event

The temporary government will cease to exist on October 23rd.  On that evening, we will hold an official event where alumni will hand out the T-shirts and the officers of the new student government will be announced.  EVERYONE SHOULD COME!!!!!!