Rodman Newsletters offer current engineering students, Rodman scholars, and Alumni alike an opportunity to catch up with the goings-on of the organization and see what the University's top engineering students are up to!
This semester has been an exciting one for the Rodmans. With our biggest class of incoming first years the program has ever seen, it has been a thrill to see our program continue to grow and thrive. From creative Rodman seminars to unique engineering designs, as well as our annual Rodfest, the start of this school year has been quite the adventure. We are excited to work towards making it even better for the spring semester.
Thank you all for an amazing year! This semester has been interesting weather-wise. There have been
many days where dressing for the weather is impossible. 30’s in the morning and 70’s in the afternoon. It
even flurried a bit in March (I wonder if climate change is real). At least we got a day of my favorite
weather! Misty and gloomy. It makes me feel like I’m in a gothic, Victorian drama. Perfect weather to go for
a stroll in the graveyard donned in an all black veil.
Anyways, our goal for this year was to rekindle the Rodman Scholars community we pride ourselves on
coming out of online classes. We are so excited to have brought in the new Rodman midyears, who have
already accomplished so much as first years and who are doing excellent work in their ENGR 1420 class. We
were so proud to hear of the amazing ENGR 1420 projects you all have been working on from working on
monoski accessibility to collaborative learning games, and especially those collaborating with clients such
as the Virginia Institute for Autism and the Department of Transportation. As decisions roll around, we’ve
gotten the opportunity to meet the wonderful incoming Rodmans who we hope will join us in the fall! We
would like to take this opportunity to thank the lovely members of RodCouncil and Professor Bailey for
supporting and building the Rodmans this year through rodsems, social and wellness events, advising,
midyear admissions, service events, and this newsletter all of which have exceeded our expectations.
This semester, we kicked things off with amazing social events and the highly anticipated
annual Rodfest chez Elzey. It was really great seeing old and new Rodman faces in real life
(shoutout to the members of Rodcar — you know who you are). We would like to thank
Professor Dana Elzey for everything he has done for the Rodman program and are so excited
to welcome Professor Reid Bailey as our new Rodman director.
We are looking forward to a new and bright year!! Go out in the world and be great humans.