USG holds first Senate meeting with new officers

The Undergraduate Student Government discussed what it has done so far, appointed a number of non-voting and voting members and discussed communications efforts during its first meeting of the year on Sunday.

USG president Ella Cheng ’16 began themeeting with the president's report, which was a brief overview of what USG has been working on so far. She announced that the funding request of $79,000for the "main act, supporting act and operational costs [and] food" atspring Lawnpartiespassed unanimously. Cheng said the hot chocolate and bagels giveaway USG conducted on Feb. 2 was a success.

In addition, USG discussed the referendum on the length of winter break, which passed with 2,015 votes. Academics committee chair Ramie Fathy ’16 said the goal is to make sure the length of winter break is not shortened again in the future, and Cheng said having the faculty vote on the winter break issue was a possibility.

The University has previously stated it does not have enough time to change winter break for the 2015-16 calendar year, but the faculty committee responsible for the academic calendar could still potentially alter it.

The senate also approved the appointment of four voting and 10 non-voting members. The newly appointed voting members were treasurer Hunter Dong ’17, campus and community affairs chair Andrew Sun ’17 and the 2016 class senators Kristen Coke and Deana Davoudiasl.

The non-voting members were appointed to the communications and information technology committees.

The communications committee has been expanded for this year to include two more members than in past years. The group now has another chief designer and another public engagement chair.

Director of communications Nick Horvath ’17 said he wants the additional members of the communications committee to lead “face-to-face interaction with students” and serve as another outlet for direct relations between the student body and USG.

The IT committee will oversee TigerApps, as well as the general USG website.

Both IT chairs have previous experience working with web design and computer programming. Zachary Liu ’18 designed the Wintersession page, and Akash Levy ’18 was part of the winning team at HackPrinceton. Cheng said the goal is to make the USG website “visually presenting” and to get “more students to see it as a resource."

The senate also approved Grant Golub ’17 as the chief elections manager.

Golub is also a staff writer for The Daily Princetonian.

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The mental health initiative board and the diversity and equity committee were both re-established. Cheng said that USG hopes to have provisions that would make these groups standing committees, so that they would no longer have to be re-approved each year.

U-Council chair Zhan Okuda-Lim ’15 explained that while the core committees of USG, such as the academics or social committees, do not expire year after year, thead hoc committees must be renewed at the first Senate meeting each academic year.

Cheng said that USG hopes the diversity and equity committee will distinguish itself from other diversity-oriented campus groups, including the new Council for the Princeton University Community Task Force. The function of the committee would be to explore how USG can help bring together groups working on these issues on campus, she explained.