USG Senate announces budget, goals for the semester

The Undergraduate Student Government Senate announced its budget and goals for the year in Sunday afternoon’s senate meeting immediately following the town hall meeting on sexual assault policy.

The meeting was not held at its usual time or location and the change was not communicated to the student body, which funds the USG, nor to The Daily Princetonian. As a result, a reporter was not present to report on the events or on the discussion. Instead, the information provided in this article is from the meeting minutes provided to the ‘Prince’ by USG.

In his presidential report, USG president Shawon Jackson ’15 announced that the main priority for senate projects undertaken this year would be increasing all students’ access to information and resources the school has to offer.

To achieve this, Jackson listed five areas of particular interest in promoting accessibility. These included promoting diversity, addressing issues pertaining to sexual misconduct, ensuring that all students are taken care of with respect to mental health, creating more leadership and professional development opportunities and finally eradicating the culture of “effortless perfection” that Jackson identified as a problem at the University.

Addressing specifically this culture of perfection, USG is planning to launch the Princeton Perspective Project for this October, which looks to normalize conversations about struggle and shift away from the campus-wide emphasis on effortless perfection.

To work toward all of these goals, Jackson said that he met with Deputy Dean of the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students Thomas Dunne and Vice President for Campus Life Cynthia Cherrey to discuss USG’s goals for the coming year.

Jackson also emphasized the need for servant leadership, which means pursuing projects based on student need rather than on personal interests. The biggest components of this, said Jackson, is being approachable to students who want to voice their ideas and being accountable for following through.

USG announced its budget for this semester, adding up to a total of $177,458.70. Lawnparties was allotted a budget of $65,000 this fall, and upon review USG found it lost very little money in merchandise sales and overall was “in the green” after Lawnparties.

USG office’s operations were allotted $11,443.70, the Movies Committee $18,000 and the Projects Board $35,000. A majority of the rest is given to senate projects and social events like those on Dean’s Date.

The senate also announced its intention to lower office costs this semester. The USG retreat this year was provided with $1,860 in addition to its office funds.