Czulak '17 wins USG presidency in runoff

Undergraduate Student Government vice president Aleksandra Czulak ’17 won the 2015 USG presidential runoff with 56.9 percent of the vote, according to chief elections manager Sung Won Chang '18.

Her opponent, USG Social Committee chair Simon Wu ’17, obtained the remaining 43.1 percent of the vote.

Wu led the first round of elections on Dec. 30 with 45 percent of the votes, while Czulak took 38.8 percent and Grant Golub ’17 took 16.3 percent of the vote.

Golub is a former staff writer and former staff copy editor for the Daily Princetonian.

Chang explained that the two presidential candidates faced off in a runoff, because according to the USG election handbook, if neither of them had more than 50 percent of the vote, there would have to be a second election between the candidates with the highest percentage of votes.

Czulak noted that her victory signifies the first time that two women have been consecutively voted as the USG president, as she will follow current USG President Ella Cheng '16.

Cheng is a former staff writer for the 'Prince.'

Czulak said that her first step as the elected USG president will be to bolster mental health and academic support for the student groups on campus. She explained that while she had written a lot of points about the role of committees from the USG perspective on her campaign website, it became apparent to her in the process of going door-to-door and talking with students that student groups were not giving enough mental health and academic support to students. She said that she intends for USG to collaborate with resources such as the McGraw Counseling Center and Counseling and Psychological Services in pursuit of this goal.

She added that she will start planning now with the USG committees about her plans for the following semester, even though she will not be taking office until February.

Wu said that even though he wasn’t elected as president, he will continue trying to find ways to make USG more accessible and relevant in people’s lives.

“I support Aleks a hundred percent, she’s one of my best friends, and I’m super excited to see what she does, and support her in any way that she needs. I will continue to work on individual initiatives on my own, because change is change no matter where it comes from and there’s nothing that I can’t do now that I wouldn’t have been able to do as president,” Wu said.

He says that he hopes Czulak will find ways to make USG more accessible to the student body.

Get the best of ‘the Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

“People can come to school and float on by, and not really need USG, but it would be nice to see how we can make USG more of a resource, and have a greater impact,” he said.

Chang explained that there was less of a voter turn out during the second round of presidential elections, noting that 1,468 people voted compared to 1,623 in the first round, and added that he found this low participation to be disappointing.

“USG is more than what people think it is,” he said. “People work really hard to improve the daily lives of other undergraduate students.”

The Class of 2017 had the highest turnout of 445 valid votes, followed by 405 for the class of 2018, 319 for the class of 2019 and 299 for the class of 2016. Czulak led Wu in each of the four classes.

Chang said that what makes student government work is the election process, as this process is how students can determine who will be working for them. He added that he hopes that people will keep exercising their right to vote for the elections, with the individual class council elections coming up in the spring.