The Undergraduate Student Government (USG) Senate convened on Sunday, Sept. 29, focusing discussion on the breakdown of the Fall 2024 Lawnparties budget and raised questions for future budgets. The Senate also heard from a facilitator of the Princeton Gender Affinity Group about the transgender student experience and passed two student group event budgets.
4,404 wristbands were sold for Lawnparties this year, a record-high attendance. Total spending summed up to $279,768, just under the $280,000 budget. An additional fund of $20,000, allocated for contingency spending was not tapped into.
“The budgetary philosophy we really have with these contingency payments is that they are for contingency,” said Treasurer Uma Fox ’26. “In the best case, you don't want to spend up to the $20,000.”
Social Chair Enzo Kho ’26 recommended that future Lawnparties should have a target spending of $260,000, a reduction from this year’s spendings.
Later in the meeting, facilitator of the Princeton Gender Affinity Group Aster Haviland ’26 spoke about the difficulties of being a transgender student at Princeton and reflected on what they heard at the Every Voice Conference on Sept. 20. Haviland discussed discrepancies in results from a 2022 University survey that found 9 percent of all students disagreed with the statement “I feel like I belong to the Princeton campus community,” while 31 percent of transgender and non-binary students disagreed.
Haviland further discussed other issues faced by transgender and non-binary students, such as professors using incorrect pronouns to refer to their students.
“I was in class with another trans student, a junior who had taken a course with the same professor before he transitioned. He was using a different name and had changed his pronouns,” Haviland said during their short speech. “The professor was clearly having a difficult time getting used to it … She kept using his dead name, and I told her, actually, I’m pretty sure he goes by this and she sort of just brushed it off.”
To make transgender and non-binary students feel more accepted at Princeton, Haviland proposed additional education for people in leadership positions and those who frequently interact with students.
Additionally, the meeting also saw budget approvals for events proposed by the Princeton Filipino Community and the Princeton Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) both passed the Senate vote.
The Princeton Filipino Community will host a Halo-Halloween & Filipino Ivy League Conference in November, where students from Princeton and other Ivy League schools will participate in cultural workshops, hear from guest speakers, and watch performances.
The Young Democratic Socialists are hosting the Amazon Labor Union President Conner Spence along with another yet-to-be-named guest speaker on the labor movement and unionizing at Amazon.
USG meetings are open for all students to attend and are held on Sundays from 5–6 p.m. in Robertson Hall 016.
Devon Rudolph is a News contributor and a Sports contributor for the ‘Prince’ from Fairfax, Va.
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