Do It in the Dark!

Each year, the Husky Energy Action Team works incredibly hard starting in September to plan “Do It In the Dark” (No, it is not a Sex Week event!), an environmentally sustainable initiative combining programming with activism and education. It is co-sponsored by the Resident Student Association and really important for the University the environment and your tutition bill! The focus of the program is energy conservation, hence the encouragement to shut off lights/ water/ dishwasher, etc whenever possible. This is a competition between residence halls to lower the overall amount of energy expended so make signs and encourage your fellow residents!

You can see the list of events at http://www.heat.neu.edu/events. Some of the highlights include Bill Nye The Science Guy [3/22/2009, 7 PM], a showing of Everything's Cool [3/19/2009, 7 PM, 105 Shillman], and the Student Body President Debate [Monday, 7pm, 10 Behrakis] in which our own Vice President of Housing Services, Matthew Soleyn, will be speaking. If you are interested in helping out, send an e-mail to heat@neu.edu. They are looking for Residence Hall stormers to advertise in the residence halls. The competition for Do It In the Dark kicks off this Friday and the winning hall gets free massages for a day during finals week as well as being entered into a raffle for prizes!

Tips:
• Make signs or post-it notes for next to the light switches to remind guests and roommates to turn off the lights.
• Unplug appliances like coffee makers or cell-phone chargers when you are not using them- this helps save little amounts of energy.
• Turn the water off while washing your hair or brushing your teeth, then back on to rinse.
• Wash clothes in cold water.
• Air dry clothes instead of using a dry cycle (saves laundry bucks too!)

Thanks!
Meg McCormick
Member, Housing Services Committee, RSA General Council and Husky Energy Action Team
President, National Residence Hall Honorary
megmccormick18@gmail.com

E-Mail Bounces

On Monday there was a big problem with e-mail to @neu.edu addresses being rejected because the mail servers treated the messages as spam. Vice President Weir of Information Services explained the situation on myNEU:

Northeastern receives over 1 million emails per day to faculty, staff, and students and over 90% of those are SPAM and are rejected accordingly. This afternoon at approximately 2pm, one of the two systems that filter out incoming SPAM malfunctioned. That system was taken offline at approximately 2:30 pm and is being repaired.
During that 30 minute period, the system in question rejected about 6000 incoming emails as SPAM. Unfortunately, a number of valid emails were rejected as well. In those cases, the sender will be notified that the address on the original Northeastern email was invalid and, in most cases, senders will simply resend the message which should be delivered normally.

If you were expecting an email from someone outside Northeastern which has not arrived, you may wish to contact the sender to ask that the message be resent. If you have additional problems or issues, please contact the IS help line (617-373-HELP(4357) or help@neu.edu) for assistance.

We apologize for any inconvenience this problem may have caused.

Bob Weir
Vice President, Information Services

Bids Up

Many members of the Resident Student Association have put hard work, late nights, and lots of dedication into writing a series of various Association-wide and individual bids for Regional Awards that will be announced at the upcoming North East Affiliate of College and University Residence Halls [NEACURH] conference at Fairfield University. Savannah Rose, the National Communication Coordinator for the Resident Student Association has posted Northeastern's bids online. You can download them and read about them here.

UPDATE: If you are looking for other institution's bids, they will be posted on the NEACURH website on Wednesday, March 11, 2009.

City Hearing Today

Today at 1:00 PM the City of Boston is holding a hearing regarding an ordinance/amendment proposed by City Council President Michael P. Ross that would result in Universities having to report the addresses of all off-campus students to the City of Boston to help enforce the "no more than four undergraduate students" law that prohibits five or more undergraduate students from sharing the same apartment. Given that it is apartment hunting season and many current residents may be looking to head off-campus this summer or in the fall, we wanted to pass along the information on today's hearing:

Docket #0283 - An Ordinance Increasing University Accountability
Time: 1:00 PM
Date: Tuesday, March 10th, 2009
Location: City Hall - Christopher Iannella Chambers (5th Floor)
Address: 1 City Hall Square, Boston, MA 02201-1020

You can read more information on this topic at The Boston Globe, at the blog of Student Body President Rob Ranley, and from Councilor Ross himself.

Schedule Updated

The new RSA Television schedule is online.

Survey Up!

Please take our survey about issues affecting on-campus students. We hope to use the results to better advocate for the students living in the residence halls.