USG proposes mini-golf course, crush website for upcoming year

Having increased student e-mail quotas, chartered buses to Yale and lobbied the University to make late meals start earlier, the USG is now aiming to help students find true love.

Last night, USG vice president Josh Weinstein '09 presented a prototype "crush website" that will allow students to list the netids of five students they have a crush on. Anonymous e-mails are then sent to those people telling them that someone has a crush on them. If two people have crushes on each other, the website informs them of the identity of their secret admirer.

The matchmaking website was among the 61 specific goals listed in a document that USG president Rob Biederman '08 issued at the USG meeting last night.

The two-and-a-half page document consisted of seven broad "number goals" each accompanied by a number of more specific "letter goals" for the year.

"Last year each person worked on individual projects, and lots of stuff got done, but there wasn't really a coherent plan to it all," Biederman said. "Using this [list of goals], everything we do is related to one of these seven goals, and I think it will lead to a more coherent way to think about what we're working on."

The seven main goals outlined by the Executive Committee are improving student services such as late meal, laundry and newspaper delivery; increasing the quality and quantity of social alternatives to the Street; improving resources for navigating Princeton, especially for freshmen; continuing initiatives to improve students' academic experience; promoting undergraduates' relations with the Township and Borough; creating a more effective and approachable USG; and improving campus health and wellbeing.

The 61 specific "letter goals" ranged from building a mini-golf course and publishing a "Princeton on a Budget" guide, to installing more elliptical machines in Stephens Fitness Center and stocking Frist bathrooms with two-ply toilet paper.

Additionally, a few initiatives directed at freshmen were discussed, including the USG's reinstated "Taste of Prospect" program, which will allow 234 freshmen to eat dinner at eating clubs, as well as the possibility of organizing state-themed orientation events for freshmen from the same region.

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"It would be, like, organizing a barbecue for students from Texas, or taking everyone from Minneapolis and [putting] them in a meat-locker downstairs," Biederman joked.

Weinstein outlined the progress on the U-Bikes program he has been working on, which would allow students to rent the abandoned bikes collected by Public Safety or access free bikes distributed around campus. He also announced that the USG hoped students would be able to swipe proxes at the U-Store "by next month."

Biederman said the USG had hoped for the system to be in place already, but he believed it would happen "quite soon."

With 61 initial "letter goals," the USG hopes to accomplish a great deal in 2007. Toilet paper and matchmaking aside, Biederman also named three things he would most like to accomplish as USG president.

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One objective would be "completely revitalizing intramural sports so they're really exciting and a really big deal." Another would be "making the prox a more valuable item" by setting up prox-swiping on Nassau Street and at the U-Store. The third goal would be to hold more all-school events, like the bonfire, that "involve everyone, regardless of fraternity, sorority or eating club, and that students remember forever as really fun college experiences."

Biederman added that he plans to e-mail the student body an abridged version of the list of goals today.