USG attempts to move forward with library plans

Weinstein explained that he has been meeting with Matt Kinsey ’98, associate director for planning and administration in Executive Vice President Mark Burstein’s office, and Veronica Demtchouk ’10, a summer intern in the office, to discuss keeping the library open in the early-morning hours.

“Their office has been very helpful working with us and trying to price [the cost associated with extending hours] out,” Weinstein said. “Things are going along slowly but surely.”

Burstein told The Daily Princetonian earlier this month that he does not think the University should extend Firestone hours because the estimated cost of keeping the building open until 2 a.m. four days a week for most of the semester and until 4 a.m. during midterms, finals and reading periods would be “more than a couple hundred thousand dollars” each year.

“Given the tighter financial times we are in as an institution, it is hard to make an argument for investing significant funds in [this] option,” he said, adding that not enough students would be using Firestone in the extended hours to justify the cost.

Weinstein said at the meeting that the results of the survey on study spaces that the USG administered last spring showed that students want Firestone to stay open. “We have pretty conclusive evidence to support the extension of Firestone hours,” he said.

Study space hours in general will be an agenda item for the next meeting of the Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC) meeting on Dec. 8, he added.

The USG also proposed that housing policy be included on the CPUC agenda. Weinstein said that upperclass and independent housing should not be added to Whitman College, explaining that all of Spelman Halls should be independent housing and that Wright Hall should remain upperclass housing

In January, the University proposed adding both Spelman 7 and 8 to Whitman but reached a compromise to keep Spelman 7 as independent housing. Spelman 8 now houses 24 Whitman juniors and seniors.

In March, the University had planned to merge Wright Hall into Whitman but quickly reversed its decision after Weinstein told Burstein that USG members, campus leaders and eating club presidents all had deep reservations about such a move, noting that Wright tends to be a popular option for upperclass room draw.

Voting recap

Elise Schlissel ’09, co-chair of P-Votes, also attended the meeting to answer questions about the presidential election. She said that P-Votes registered 478 people and garnered high turnout from the debate-watching parties in the weeks leading up to the election.

Schlissel explained that this is the second time that P-Votes, which was founded in 2004, operated during a presidential election. Despite this, she said, P-Votes had little difficulty coordinating with students.

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“I think that it’s hard to compare this election to other elections,” Schlissel said. “I think this election was really unique … [students] were looking for us at times.”

Schlissel said that P-Votes will work with the USG to advance David Christie ’10’s proposal to change the polling place for Borough District 1, currently Trinity Church on Mercer Street, to an on-campus location such as Dillon Gym. Christie said at a USG meeting in October that, according to 2007 voting results, only 4 percent of voters in District 1 were not University-affiliated.

“I definitely think that would be a very logical partnership [between P-Votes and the USG],” she said.

Film notes

Niklas Peters ’11 presented on the progress of the Undergraduate Film Organization (UFO) this semester.

“We’ve been having a really good semester. It was a little slow at the beginning, but we’ve sold out Wall-E, and we sold 360 tickets that weekend,” Peters said. “Usually we sell around 100 each weekend.”

He added that UFO has co-sponsored a few events, such as the screening of the movie “Recount” and subsequent discussion.