USG announces appointments, plan to reinstate shuttle service

At the USG Senate's inaugural meeting of the year, last night in the Frist Campus Center, seven new members were appointed to various positions, the spring budget was approved and each USG member discussed pet projects for the upcoming semester.

The first item on the agenda was the approval of new appointments to leadership posts. The seven appointees were John Brunger '05 to U-councilor, Rishi Jaitly '04 to projects board co-chair, Olivier Kamanda '03 to special project coordinator, Kathleen Liu '04 to student groups liaison, Jacqui Perlman '05 to executive secretary, Paul Stamas '04 to U-councilor and Sam Todd '04 to campus dialogue liaison.

The USG Senate unanimously voted to adopt the 2002 spring budget, and established the Student Group Recognition Committee and the Elections Committee charters.

The SGRC, which will include five USG members and two undergraduate representatives at large, will oversee student groups, approving or rejecting proposed groups and trying to combine new student groups with already existing groups where appropriate.

USG president Nina Langsam '03 started the pet projects roundtable by talking about her specific projects and goals for the spring semester.

One goal is to improve freshmen and sophomore advising, making changes so that students will have the same advisors for their first two years.

Along the same lines, she also announced her plan to establish a guide to majors, which would be based on having outgoing seniors fill out a major survey. Langsam hopes that this major guide might help freshmen and sophomores make more informed decisions.

Another thing she plans to work on this semester is improving the peer advising system. "It exists but is in terrible shape," Langsam said. One suggestion she had is for advisors to write incoming students letters before their arrival, "so that there is already a relationship when the students come in."

Other projects that Langsam and other USG members plan to work on this semester include improving the precept system, giving more focus to minority issues, working with career services to improve accessibility to students, improving the Alumni Career Network, increasing campus social activities as alternatives to the 'Street' and restarting shuttle service to movie theaters and bowling allies.