USG discusses low candidate turnout, staff appreciation

Chief elections manager Grant Golub ’17 provided an overview of the spring elections process for U-councilor and class government positions at the weekly Undergraduate Student Government meeting on Sunday.

There are 13 candidates running for the 10 available U-councilor positions, Golub said. In each class, the positions of president, vice president and social chair each has one candidate, he said, adding that there are two candidates for Class of 2018 treasurer and for Class of 2016 secretary, while the same positions for the other two class years only have one candidate.

Golub is a former staff writer and senior copy editor for The Daily Princetonian.

Golub said USG members were making a concerted effort to recruit people to run in the spring elections by personally reaching out, posting videos or sending emails to the student body.

U-council chair Zhan Okuda-Lim ’15 said students may not run because by the spring, freshmen already know what activities they want to be involved in, and sophomores and juniors might already be involved in activities.

“Perhaps in the future, we can discuss and advertise running for U-Council or class government in a way that students feel that they can make proper balance between serving on the USG senate or serving on class government and having time for academics or other commitments,” he said.

U-councilor Dan Mozley ’17 asked if there were ways to improve student involvement, such as making deadlines more flexible or reducing the number of signatures needed to petition for a position.

In line with such comments, Golub said the USG is planning an institutional reform of the elections handbook over the summer.

“As we’ve been going through this period, we’ve realized how many rules are unnecessary and outdated, including for referenda,” Golub said. “The fact that we require three forms is absolutely unnecessary. It should be one form.”

Golub worked with Okuda-Lim to research the referenda process of peer institutions to better understand how referenda should be carried out at the University.

According to Okuda-Lim, Harvard and Yale allow pro and con statements to be prepared before any referendum is voted on, and their referenda timeline is extended so that students can come together to organize formal support and opposition groups for a given issue. USG’s handbook has no such provision as of now.

In addition, while the Senate must report to the administration the outcome of each referendum, USG does not need to take any specific action unless the question itself explicitly stated that USG would form a committee or take other action, Okuda-Lim explained.

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In contrast, the student governments of Harvard and Yale write a letter to the administration every time a referendum passes, letting the administration know what students want administrators to do in response, he said.

U-councilor Mallory Banks ’16 suggested introducing greater transparency about which specific students or student groups on campus are behind each referendum. Banks noted that not knowing who to direct questions to could lead to uninformed voting.

Communications Committee media chair Jianing Cheng ’17 said she hopes to include more University staff in USG’s effort to express student gratitude.

For example, she said, USG will man a table in Frist Campus Center during Late Meal hours for students to share messages of appreciation or personal anecdotes related to staff. USG members are also working on making several videos.

“One of the things I felt was a bit lacking was person-on-person thanks. For me, the beauty of being grateful is you can talk to people about it,” U-councilor Jacob Cannon ’17 said. “I think maybe something we want to consider is a poster campaign, having posters on campus with maybe phrases like ‘staff appreciation week,’ or have punchlines about what to be thankful for, just to get students thinking about it.”

Deputy Dean of the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students Thomas Dunne noted that there are a number of staff appreciation events that can feature student-created content, including banners, photos or videos.

“It’s an awesome initiative, and I’m really grateful to see happen,” Dunne said, “Sometimes, we all fall in love with a card checker. For me, in [Rockefeller College], Howard is awesome. But I think there are a lot of Howards out there that don’t get that platform. And they really believe in this place. It would be so nice for people to hear that students see them, appreciate them.”

U-councilor Dallas Nan ’16 noted that a Facilities recognition event will be held in Richardson Auditorium this coming Wednesday. The staff members plan to have lunch as a group afterward.

“They clean up after their own recognition lunch, which I just think is against the point of recognizing them. So I think we as USG should get together and volunteer our time to break down the tables,” Nan said.

The senate approved a request for $2,755 in Projects Board funding for Service in Style’s annual charity fashion show, Fashion Speaks.

Service in Style representative Margaret Spencer ’16 said she expected donations to pick up as the show approaches, and that this year the group is looking forward to raising around $15,000 to $20,000.