New class officers elected, two referenda failed

Election results for the Undergraduate Student Government Spring 2016 Elections and Referenda were releasedFridayafternoon in an email sent by USG President Aleksandra Czulak ’17 to the student body.

Pritika Mehra ’18, Jacqueline Pan ’19, Pooja Patel ’18, Lucas Ramos ’19, Miranda Rosen ’18, Ellie Shannon ’17 and Wendy Zhao ’19 were elected as U-Councilors.

The applications for the remaining three positions will be released at the end of April.

The newly-elected class presidents are Andrew Sun ’17, Brandon McGhee ’18 and Chris Umanzor ’19. Their vice-presidents are Nathan Suek ’17, Anyssa Chebbi ’18 and Susan Liu ’19.

“It just makes me happy that members of the Class of 2019 saw the work we have done for the past year,” said Umanzor.

For next year, Umanzor plans on building on existing, popular programs from this year such as '19 on Nassau and the Professor Dinner Series.

He said he also plans on creating new avenues to help sophomores navigate the transition to junior year.

“When you leave sophomore year to go to junior year, you’re facing a lot of new obstacles. You have to know a little more about housing, a little more about dining options both of which can be really confusing. I’d like to create some kind of way to facilitate that transition to make it a little bit easier.” Umanzor said.

McGhee said he is humbled and honored by the results.

For the upcoming year, McGhee said he plans on increasing networking opportunities between the Class of 2018 and other Princeton Alumni.

“I want there to be opportunities for mentorship, opportunities for perhaps internships, and also keep them connected to what is going on with us on campus” McGhee said.

McGhee also plans on focusing on creating more study breaks to engage with the Class of 2018.

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Sun did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

The elected treasurers include Caroline Snowden ’17, Yash Patel ’18 and Nicole Kalhorn ’19. Elected secretaries include Nusrat Ahmed ’17, Kevin Liu ’18 and Carly Bonnet ’19. Social chairs are Ariel Hsing ’17, Adnan Sachee ’18 and Chelsea Ng ’19.

Two referenda were also voted on during the election cycle under new rules approved in the fall, which required a turnout of at least one-third of undergraduate students, or approximately 1,754 students, according to the email.

The referendum to form a task force regarding disciplinary reforms at the University, proposed by Justin Ziegler ’16, failed to meet the turnout threshold. The referendum that the University should divest from corporations that draw profit from incarceration, drug control and immigrant deportation policies, proposed by Students for Prison Education and Reform also failed to meet the turnout threshold, alsoaccording to the email.

Czulak added that a town hall meeting will be held later in the semester to discuss the changes to the referendum rules and how it impacted the results of this election cycle.

Ziegler noted that though the referendum did not pass the vote threshold, the vote totals were 1160 for yes and 50 for no.

“I think that is a very compelling popular mandate, that the student body wants some change.” Ziegler said.

He also pointed out that this type of voting threshold was just enacted a couple months ago and that he did not know of any other referendum that has met this voting threshold.

Daniel Teehan ’17, a student co-leader of the divestment referendum, declined to comment.

The current policy for voting is that students can vote for each issue item-by-item. For a referendum to pass, at least one third of the student body must vote on a referendum and it must win by a 50% majority.