USG discusses elections, new student groups and community initiatives

USG campus and community affairs chair Carmina Mancenon ’14 is working with Class of 2014 senator Charissa Shen ’14 and U-Councilor Elektra Alivisatos ’14 to implement the project. Students would be able to eat at restaurants like Winberie’s Restaurant & Bar for either a $12 or a $25 preset dinner menu, depending on the restaurant. Mancenon said the restaurants would self-select into the two pricing tiers.

Mancenon noted that the CCA committee is hosting the week in conjunction with the Graduate Student Government and that the project is modeled on New York City’s Restaurant Week, when the city offers discounted menu prices at eateries.

The CCA committee has also been developing two other projects, Mancenon said.

Mancenon is working with U-Councilor Lily Alberts ’13 to create a Princeton Preview version of Princeton Lunch, a platform through which University students randomly coordinate lunches with each other. More than 200 students have participated in the program so far, she said.

Alberts is also a columnist for The Daily Princetonian.

The goal would be to pair or group current students with prospective freshmen. Mancenon said this would benefit upperclassmen that opt out of hosting but would enjoy the low time commitment of eating lunch with a potential student.

Despite the high number of matches through the current version of the program, Mancenon said that there is no metric with which to see whether people have actually met for lunch.

“We can only tell that the match was made,” she said.

Mancenon also said the USG is hoping to place stickers on storefronts on Nassau Street that are currently participating in Princeton Plus, the USG’s previous discount program. These merchants with stickers would remind University students of discounts they would not have known about or used otherwise.

Earlier in the meeting, chief elections manager Julian Dean ’13 updated the Senate on the elections for the 10 U-Council and class government positions that begin today. Dean said that Ryan Low ’15 was no longer a candidate for U-Councilor. Dean said in a follow-up email that Low voluntarily withdrew his candidacy Sunday evening.

Voting begins at noon on Monday and ends at noon on Wednesday. Election results will be distributed to students on Friday. If necessary, a runoff election will be held next week.

Also at the meeting, Student Groups Recognition Committee chair Dylan Ackerman ’14 presented three newly approved student groups: Princetonians Against Obesity, the Central and Eastern European Students Association and the Palestinian People Relief Fund.