Salciccioli ’09 named U-Council chair

Maria Salciccioli ’09 will replace Sarah Langberg ’09 as U-Council chair, USG president Josh Weinstein ’09 announced at Tuesday’s weekly USG Senate meeting. U-Councilor Liz Rosen ’10 will also serve as a member of the Executive Committee of the Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC), a position Salciccioli held this year. Langberg did not run for re-election to the U-Council.

The decision came after more than an hour of closed discussion during an “executive session,” closed to members of the public. Though the possibility of Salciccioli and Rosen serving as co-chairs was discussed, the option was discarded in favor of a single chair, said a USG official who was granted anonymity because of the closed-door nature of the meeting.

“I’m really excited to take charge and get a new group of U-Councilors really excited about being in USG and setting a precedent for the U-Council being fun and productive in the future,” said Salciccioli, who will take office on June 1.

Salciccioli said she will meet with Rosen soon to decide which U-Councilors will serve in the liaison positions created earlier this semester. These positions include liaisons to interact with the administration on issues ranging from facilities and building improvements to public safety, transportation and sustainability.

Salciccioli will welcome six new U-Councilors, continuing last year’s more than 50 percent turnover. Last May, seven new members were elected.

“I think that this year the people who did stay on are really good, and they’re going to provide great leadership to the new six,” Salciccioli said. “We had a lot of turnover, which was disappointing. I hope to train the new people, keep them involved and have them run again in the future to develop institutional memory.”

Rosen said in an e-mail that she’s excited to continue her work next year in a new leadership position. She hopes to bring change to a CPUC that has often been dominated by faculty concerns.

“I will try ... to guide [CPUC] meetings toward topics that concern students most and that are of most importance to my fellow U-Councilors,” she said. “I am interested in using the CPUC forum for U-Councilors ... to raise pertinent questions regarding those projects so that they are able to gauge the administration’s stance on certain issues.”

Weinstein praised both new officers.

“I think it’s pretty clear that both people are going to be awesome,” he said. “We acknowledge that Liz is a really great U-Councilor who has led by example and did a great job this semester.”

"[Maria] has shown, on multiple occasions, that she is ready to devote herself to ... the enthusiasm of the members of the organization to make [the USG] a more effective body,” Weinstein later said in an e-mail.

Langberg said she thinks the U-Council is good hands and offered advice for both students.

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“Remember that the USG is your number-one focus,” she said. “You chose to make it that way by running for election. Treat it as that. It comes first over everything else.”

Langberg added that she looks forward to seeing continued progress on issues including study spaces, Dillon Gym and housing.

Also on the agenda

In addition to the U-Council chair election, the meeting included a review by senior elections manager Braeden Kepner-Kraus ’10 of last week’s election process. Kepner-Kraus said that next year the USG will conduct U-Council elections using the single-transferable voting (STV) formula and voters will rank their top 10 preferences.

U-Council elections in May 2007 allowed voters to rank 10 preferences but did not use STV, in violation of both CPUC bylaws and the USG constitution. This year’s ballot only allowed voters to rank their top two preferences.

USG social chair Christian Husby ’08 informed the group of progress with tomorrow’s first annual Princeton Travel Festival, which will be held in the Friend Center convocation room from 8 to 10 p.m. Husby said the event, sponsored by the USG and the Graduate Student Government, will offer free food from around the world and an opportunity for individuals going abroad to meet students who have already been overseas.