IIT Office of Technology Services Welcome Back! The Office of Tech- nology Services (OTS) has been hard at work over the summer to make your academic ex- perience at IIT even better in the 2015-2016 school year, and we are excited to share all the improvements with you. Students will notice something new on the myIIT portal’s Banner channel. We heard student request for self-service func- tionality in Banner right from the portal and OTS has made it happen. The Banner channels in the portal now provide at-a-glance infor- mation with click-through abilities to expand content or access other web resources. Now with the Banner Self—Service channel, students can access the self—service applications in use at IIT. There is an Academic Profile channel that will provide an easy way to view curriculum information and your advisor for any given term. The Financial Aid Award channel links to the Accept/Decline/Reduce Awards page in Student Self-Service. Students will also find a Financial Aid Requirements channel which will allow them to see the status of various requirements from the Financial Aid Office. i‘t’ith the Student Grades channel, students will be able to easily view their midterm and final grades. The Student Registration Tools navigational channel will give quick access to registration—related information and activities such as checking registration status, looking up classes, adding or dropping classes, and Students experience Greek Life during Katy Banks TECHNEWS WRITER At the beginning of each semester, the Greek chapters of Illinois institute of Tech- nology organize Rush Week, a week of inter- esting events that help prospective members see what Greek life at IIT is about, and what the caliber of students involved looks like. This year’s Fall Rush Week exceeded the expecta- tions of many. Danielle Boer, Kappa Phi Delta’s Greek Council representative from last fall, had a few thoughts about Greek life as whole. Boer said, “This year, the community truly came together to have more than just the annual Taste of the Quad. It was great to see all the Greeks unified at the Summer Nights event for the purpose of community, but not neces- sarily for rushing.” The newly-added Summer Nights event allowed Greek students to get to know new students and the community with- out the need to rush. This noncompetitive time of bonding set up for an even better experience at Taste of the Quad, as chapters were found more readily engaging and helping one anoth- er set up. Boer also commented that, “It speaks volumes about our community that as Greeks, we rush Greek. It’s great to see the sharing among houses, we want the students to fit into the best house for them. We rejoice together as a community above all else, when a new mem- ber joins a house.” The pride that the Greeks have for Greek life seems to have almost doubled this week The quad was kept shipshape, all houses were regarded highly, and the newly-initiated pledge classes were far more involved than those of the past. In addition to this, the cali- ber of incoming IIT students has increased as well. The community saw that nearly all poten- Student newspaper ofiiiinois institute of Technology since 1928 OTS announces improvements for new school yea? changing courses. In the Student Work-Study Balance informational channel you can see the balance of your remaining work-study and the effective date. Blackboard also may look and feel a bit different to you this semester. Improve- ments have been made to streamline and op- timize access. Organizations have also been added to the system. Courses will work in the same way. Last fall, OTS started a program en— abling students to borrow a laptop for use on campus for up to four hours from the Galvin Library Circulation Desk The initiative was so popular with students that OTS has increased the number of available laptops by 40%, from 25 to 35. Each of the 35 laptops will have the same software on them as in the computer labs. Circulation hours mirror library hours. Students will need to sign a waiver prior to use. Students will notice many A/V im- provements around campus. OTS upgraded three classrooms in Siegel Hall with full audio- visual capabilities. The classroom projectors in Life Sciences and SR Crown Hall have been upgraded. HDMI (digital) connectivity has been added to classrooms in Life Sciences, Perlstein Hall, Siegel Hall, SR Crown Hall, and Wishnick Hall. This means that over 951.315 of the Main Campus classrooms are now HDMI compatible. Students with classes in Wishnick Hall will have access to a fully digital experi- ence due to OTS’ upgrade of the audio-visual control systems there. OTS didn’t forget about computer tial new members were academically oriented. Seeing that the encouragement and advance— ment of academics is a core purpose of Greek life at IIT, the community welcomes the oppor- tunity to strengthen its new members. Emma Zachocki, Vice President of Recruitment for Kappa Phi Delta Sorority, had ‘1 ‘ ‘ a a few thoughts to share regarding the events of -~ Kappa’s Rush Week. Zachocki said her favorite event was Family Feud because “It was more out-of-the-box than what we normally do. Triangle Fraternity is very creative and great at planning game shows. Having the event at Center Court was a whole new ballgame and a great idea I had not thought of.” The event labs’ needs. Students will benefit from an up— grade to the PCs in computer labs in the Stu- art Building, Siegel Hall, Tech North, and the Downtown Campus. There are other assorted improve- ments, too. OTS installed three monitors on carts in SR Crown Hall with wireless presenta- tion connections. This will allow you to pres- ent your designs electronically rather than on paper. IIT’s Internet bandwidth has increased from leps to 2Gbps, an increase of 100%. In the Engineering Research Building, network connectivity has been upgraded to lOGbps. Again, you spoke and we heard! Based on feed- back OTS received from last year’s Students Speak survey, duplex printing is no longer the default setting on color printers. Finally, two important reminders. First, HT and OTS will NEVER send you an email or call you to ask you for your user- name or password. Occasionally, members of the IIT community will receive deceptive emails claiming, for example, that their email has reached its limit, and their password is re- quired to ensure that they will be able to con- tinue to send and receive emails. Don’t fall for this scam. Report such fraudulent emails to the OTS Support Desk at supportdesk@iit.edu. Second, OTS would like to remind students that when they are registering all of your wired and wireless devices with the IIT network to access email, the Internet, and net- work systems, to be sure to use your full email, and not just your username. If the device has not already been registered for the first time, reached hundreds of IIT students, without in- cluding those that stopped by for just a short moment. A highlight of the event for many was the encouraged participation of the Sodexo and public safety workers. The Greek commu- nity wonderfufly acknowledged the services the stage and into the fun. However, Greek life at IIT isn’t just about fun and games. When asking Zachocki about the benefits of joining Kappa Phi Delta, she had quite a bit to say. “For me, Kappa is one of the main reasons I have had such a success- ful time here at IIT‘. I am much better off now from the support of my sisters and the com- technewsiit.com OPINION 2 CAMPUS 2-3 Aij 3-6 SLIPSTICK 1 SPORTS I please access a web browser on that device, and there will be a prompt to register with the IIT network. If there is no prompt, type in the URL: http://dhcp.iit.edu or http://216.47.l43.52. Without registering the device, it will not be able to access network and Internet services. Students will be pleased to know that for the first time this semester, because we heard and responded to the student body's frustration, if you have used your device on the IIT network in the last four months, you will not have to reregister the device. Ophir Trigalo, Vice Provost and Chief Information Officer for the Office of Technology Services, cements, “I am so pleased to be able to bring so many requested improvements to the IIT community. We pride ourselves on being a service division of the university, and our staff works hard to contin- uously make processes smoother and transac— tions easier for our students, faculty and staff. We look forward to a great new school year.” Remember that the OTS Support Desk, located on the second floor of the Gal- vin Library, is always available to help you with technology-related concerns. If you have any questions, either stop by the Library, go to http://support.iit.edu, call 312.567.3375 (on campus x7DESK), or email supportdesk@iit. edu. OTS Support Desk staff members are on hand and happy to assist you in any way they can. Rush Week munity I have been involved in. Greek life was that instant support and instant acceptance. They loved me for who I am, and now I get to do that for other girls with open arms and letters across my chest.” She remarked that in each of her classes this week, she already knew at least one student due to their Greek affilia- tion, making it very easy to reach out when in need of any kind of help. Greek life also gives students immeasurable opportunities to hold leadership roles that affect not only their chap- ters, but also the IIT community as a whole. When asked about how she feels based on the success of this rush week, Zach» ocki said, “It makes me proud that I can ac- complish something so great, even though I have never done it alone, that’s what Greek life is.” She feels as if she is the instrument that plans the events, but her sisters are the ones that determine the results as they carry them out, “I am honored to have this opportunity, but my sisters should be honored even more because they’ re the ones that have done all the hard work in recruiting great women.” All chapters practice 365 recruit- ment, meaning that any member of the IIT, Shimer, or Vandercook communities can be recruited at any time, not only during rush week. There will be many Greek recruitment events throughout the semester, so do not feel as if the chance was missed because of a lack of participation in this week. All Greek life is inclusive no matter your race, gender, or religion. For more in- formation on Kappa Phi Delta please contact Emma Zachocki at recruitment@kappaphidel- tacom. For more information about Greek life in general, please contact Nicolette Lewis, vp.recruitment@iit.greek.com. Photos by Katy Banks