USG considers handing over summer storage to Student Agencies

In its final meeting of the semester, the USG Senate discussed the continuation of the Summer Storage Initiative, the addition of activities to Intersession and the large jump in freshman voting during the last USG Spring 2013 elections.

Currently, Hae Bin Kim ’13 and Deana Davoudiasl ’15 lead the SSI, an initiative founded in 2010 that provides students with inexpensive storage over the summer. In its first year, SSI attracted 100 participants and has grown to about 800 students in summer 2012. However, Kim, who described the project as time-intensive to organize, raised concerns about the project’s future leadership.

Furthermore, Kim said the Director of Student Agencies Jarrett Fisher and Deputy Dean of Undergraduate Students Thomas Dunne have proposed that the USG partner with Student Agencies to provide transportation and storage space. Since its founding, SSI has organized the collection of storage items, but the transfer of storage has been outsourced to an external, professional organization.

In partnering with student agencies, the USG would ensure that if it struggled in coordinating summer storage one year, Student Agencies could provide extra on-campus support to sustain the project. In addition, Student Agencies has offered to keep the price for transportation and storage at its current level.

On the other hand, most members were concerned with the drop in the level of professionalism that would accompany a switch from the external storage service to Student Agencies.

“It seems very obvious to me that if the only thing that’s changing is that we’re relying on a student agency or that we’re relying on a professional company, that we should clearly just stick with the professional company,” Dillon Sharp ’14 said.

There was no official consensus on the possible partnership with Student Agencies.

USG spring elections also saw a 75 percent increase in freshmen voting over last year’s turnout, from 370 to 646 voters. Elections manager Rachel Nam ’15 said the increased number of freshman candidates, the lengthened campaign period and the expansion of voting to stations at Frist Campus Center and through the Helios website all contributed to this rise.

Several members, such as Jameil Brown ’16, expressed concerns with the Frist voting stations, explaining that candidates who were near the locations could encourage peers to vote then and there.

Gavin Cook ’15 and Katherine Clifton ’15 also suggested programs for students who stay on campus during Intersession. Cook and Clifton proposed low-cost activities for “free time and decompression,” such as coffee breaks and face-painting. As “lectures and programming,” they recommended workshops hosted by campus dance groups, meals with professors and “hack classes,” seminars on computer programming hosted by the Entrepreneurship Club.

“It’s half free time, half structured time,” Cook said when describing his proposal for improving campus life during Intersession. “The main thing that we’re trying to do is legitimize people wanting to stay on campus during break.”

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Elan Kugelmass ’14 and Zhan Okuda-Lim ’15 were selected as U-Councilor Executive Committee Representatives. Their duties include sitting in on USG Senate and Executive Committee meetings as well as on meetings of the Council of the Princeton University Community.