Dear Concerned Alumni,

We apologize for the delay in updating all of you regarding the outcome of the March 23rd Special Meeting of the Rensselaer Alumni Association (RAA) in Troy. There are good reasons for it, as elaborated below.

RAA members present at the Special Meeting voted to invalidate the “elections” of all RAA Trustees for reasons delineated in our April 2nd update email. After much discord during the meeting, and an inappropriate dismissal of the meeting at the Heffner Alumni House, the members reconvened the Special Meeting at the Troy Hilton and demanded open and transparent elections, and revised bylaws that return control to the members, as required by NYS law.

On April 11th the RAA lawyers sent “Cease and Desist” letters to several participants of the extended Special Meeting. These letters declared the actions voted on by the members invalid.

Yesterday, our attorney sent a letter to the incumbent RAA Board informing them of our intent to litigate should we be unable to reach an accord by late June of this year. Such legal work is costly, so we have raised sufficient initial funding from our Renew Rensselaer supporters to engage our legal team. If you are able to support our continuing legal efforts, please email us at info@renewrensselaer.org to learn how you may contribute.

We also request you continue discussing these issues with your alumni friends and ask that they sign the Renew Rensselaer Platform in support.

We intend to stay the course until the RAA corrects its many errors and starts representing its membership in a transparent and inclusive manner in compliance with its IRS Form 990 Mission Statement and appropriate NYS law. This tactic–of getting the RAA to voice alumni concerns–supports our strategic objective of forcing the Institute’s Trustees to accept that better governance and new leadership is needed to reverse the decline of RPI.

Sincerely,

Renew Rensselaer