USG approves $6,300 to hire summer web development intern

The USG approved $6,300 for a summer technology intern to work on USG-related projects including a mobile calendar application and an improved meal exchange site at the USG Senate meeting held in Frist Campus Center on Sunday evening.

“This is actually a really interesting and exciting new program,” said USG president Michael Yaroshefsky ’12, who sponsored the proposal.

He said the USG is well-known on campus for its different technology programs, including the Integrated Course Engine and new events calendar.

However, “some of the [other] systems that we have now ... are aging and broken,” Yaroshefsky said.

The summer intern, current USG IT Committee chair Rodrigo Menezes ’13, will also work on projects such as improving Point, the DVD rental system and the USG election registration site.

Menezes will join two other University summer interns on campus. Both the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students and the Office of the Vice President for Campus Life sponsor internships.

The ODUS intern will focus on a new program called SwoopText, a group text messaging system that will work with the USG’s TigerApps. The campus life intern will work on adding University-specific elements to AlcoholEdu, a mandatory program for incoming freshmen about the risks of alcohol use. The campus life intern will also work on USG projects.

Yaroshefsky said that this is the first time the offices have hosted technical interns. The $6,300 will cover summer housing and a $17-per-hour salary for the USG intern.

The funds are drawn from the USG’s capital improvement budget, which is a collection of unused money from past years.

Yaroshefsky will supervise the projects, ensuring that the interns will “work dawn till dusk to develop their applications” and meet their goals.

The USG Senate also approved the appropriation of $4,500 to social chair Jake Sally ’12 to organize a Dean’s Date event. The money will fund an ice cream truck, pizza and kettle corn.

Sally said funding is not available for any kind of giveaway — on the last Dean’s Date, sweatpants were given away to students — but that he will keep looking for outside funding.

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“Some people have come to expect a giveaway,” Class of 2012 senator Julie Chang noted.

Sally also introduced the newly elected social chair Benedict Wagstaff ’14. “I hope to contribute as much as I can and I hope to hear all of your ideas in the coming days, weeks, months,” Wagstaff said.

Yaroshefsky also announced the results of last week’s USG elections and confirmed that, as a result of the passage of a referendum, he would write a letter to the University Board of Trustees asking for their support of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

A run-off election will also begin today between Jason Adleberg ’14 and incumbent Michael Moses ’14 for the Class of 2014 vice presidency. Adleberg is a former staff writer for The Daily Princetonian.

Yaroshefsky noted after the meeting that registration for the USG’s new Summer Storage Initiative ends tonight at 11 p.m.