Sunday, April 9 saw a minor shake-up in Undergraduate Student Government (USG), as the long-planned shift to establish a mental health core committee led to Class of 2024 Senator Noah Luch ’24 resigning from his role as a senator to lead the committee. Sustainability Committee Chair Sean Bradley ’24 also resigned on Sunday, leaving two vacancies in the Senate.
The USG Senate met for a second vote on the mental health core committee and to hear committee updates, including a report on this semester’s Lawnparties and changes to academics programs.
The meeting began as the Senate took a second vote on creating a Mental Health Core Committee, which passed unanimously. The mental health committee has been an ad hoc committee, which means that it does not have an elected chair. Instead, the USG President appoints a chair and members. With increasing campus discussion about mental health, there has been a strong push to make it a core committee, with a chair elected by the student body.
“It’s honestly startling that we don’t have a mental health committee institutionalized in USG already,” USG Treasurer Walker Penfield ’25 said in February.
USG President Stephen Daniels ’24 appointed Luch as chair of the committee. Luch worked extensively with the Mental Health Initiative (MHI) before being elected Class of 2024 Senator in the winter election. Luch resigned from his position as senator to serve as a committee chair, as the USG constitution stipulates that one person cannot hold two voting positions.
All core committee chairs provided mid-semester updates on their progress. Bradley was not present during the meeting and no updates from the sustainability committee were presented.
Daniels later told The Daily Princetonian that Bradley had resigned from his role. USG Vice President Madison Linton ’24 said in a comment to the ‘Prince’ that “there was no drama” and understood that Bradley “had a lot on his plate.”
Bradley served as Class of 2024 Senator between January 2021 and January 2023. As a senator, Bradley co-led the Housing and Facilities Task Force with Mariam Latif ’24, and organized box fans for some students without air conditioning in August 2022. Bradley defeated Greg Arevalo ’25 by 28 percentage points in the December election, the only member of the Further Together slate that won a contested election.
Bradley left open the possibility of returning to his former position. “I’m aware of a possible opening for ’24 Senator, and I am considering it just as much as I am considering any other possibility,” he wrote in a statement with the ‘Prince.’
Bradley’s departure leaves an opening for Sustainability Chair.
Social Chair Avi Attar ’25 provided updates on Lawnparties describing a general approach of investing “resources across the span of the entire day,” promising “more robust photography related capacities,” and multiple DJs around the SPIA fountain.
Other updates included progress on the Campus Pub from University Student Life Committee Chair Caitlin McNally ’24 and the Farmers’ Market and Tigers in Town from Campus and Community Affairs Chair Isabella Sibaja ’26. Academics Chair Srista Tripathi ’25 updated that the committee had created a first-year working group, was working on the minors program, revamping the academic expo, and institutionalizing efforts to help first-generation low-income (FLI) students given that the Scholars Institute Fellows Program (SIFP) may not be able to support the expanding class size. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Chair Uma Fox ’26 focused on an upcoming housing event and better access to gender-neutral housing and bathrooms.
The Projects Board requested an additional $5,000 in funding, with $6,500 in their current balance “in anticipation of a lot of year-end events.” Penfield stated that the USG had $25,000 in its reserves and said he was “not hoping to spend more major amounts of money,” but thought it was a “very apt reason to dedicate more funding to projects board for the rest of the semester.” The request was approved in a unanimous vote.
In a follow-up from the previous week’s security discussion, the USG discussed how to include more student input for policy decisions that deeply impact undergraduate student life. The group then moved into an executive session.
The USG meets on Sundays 4–5 p.m. at Robertson 016 and meetings are open for all students to attend.
Nandini Krishnan is a Staff writer for the ‘Prince.’
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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