Princeton Undergraduate Student Government

The results of the 2009 COMBO Survey are now available.  The Analysis of Princeon Attitudes Committee (APAC) has released the following highlights:

1. Eating clubs: It appears as though eating club financial aid has been successful in attracting students to join clubs.  Even more students would join if it were expanded to cover social fees, although there are strongly diminishing returns to vastly increasing aid to eliminate the cost difference between a dining hall and eating club.  A majority of those not currently in clubs would join (at least temporarily) if sophomore fees were covered. 
   
2. Perceptions of racial diversity: Princetonians today rank the campus as more diverse than our predecessors did five years ago. On a scale of 1(homogeneous) to 7(extremely diverse), the ranking increased from 3.7 in 2004 to 4.72 today.
3. Post-graduate plan change: There is a very large change in the number of people getting finance jobs for the summer compared to two years ago, and more students appear to want to spend their first couple of years doing public service. 
   
4. Friends: Princetonians talk to many more people about matters important to them than the national average.  Unlike the rest of the country, we are not “Bowling Alone.” 
   
5. Academic calendar: A slim majority of students does not want an academic calendar change. 
   
6. Why Princetonians are happy/unhappy: About 60% of students say socializing with friends is the activity that makes them the most happy on campus.  Intellectual discussions were also highly ranked. Grading policy/competition,” lack of sleep, and “being overwhelmed by schoolwork” were by far the top sources of unhappiness.  About 34% of students did not rank a fifth source of unhappiness (compared with only 10% who failed to rank a fifth source of happiness), potentially indicating that some students are so pleased with their experience they have trouble finding many sources of unhappiness on campus, or there are only a few very important sources of unhappiness.

Download the raw data

Download the analysis

Download the 2007 report

The USG would like to officially welcome our newest members to the USG community.

Carter Greenbaum, Tiernan Kane, Steven Lindsay, JB Marek, Alex Pretko, and Kelly Roache will all be joining our team of U-Councilors.

For class governments, we would also like to congratulate the following officers for winning their elected positions:

The results for the 2009 USG Spring Elections have been certified.  Congratulations to all winners!

The results are presented including vote counts in the following PDF files:

• Class Government Results
  • Class of 2012 Run-Off Results (New)
    
• U-Council Results
• Referenda Results (results for Referendum I are incorrect; see below)
  • Corrected Results for Referendum I
  • Free Response Answers

This article clarifies the voting tabulation of Referendums IV and V.

This article aims to clarify the results of Referendum IV (USG concert and social funds budget item) and Referendum V (USG Senate Pilot Programs budget item). The results PDF for the referenda has been updated to be clearer with respect to these referenda.

As a result of the Single Transferable Voting mechanism, the USG concert and social funds budget (Referendum IV) will be dedicated towards student-initiated service projects.

This was the process behind the Single Transferable Voting (STV) mechanism for Referendum IV:

• In the first round of tabulation, 1008 students ranked "student-initiatied service projects" first, 941 students ranked "I would not like to donate these funds" first, and 465 students ranked "Annual Giving" first.
• Since no majority was reached based on first choices, the option of "Annual Giving" was dropped from future consideration according to the STV algorithm.  Of those who ranked "Annual Giving" first, their second choice votes were then distributed to the two remaining options as an "instant run off."
  
• In this second round of tabulation, 1387 voters preferred "student-initiated service projects" while 1011 voters preferred "I would not like to donate these funds." (The total number of votes do not add up to the number of first choice votes cast because there were voters who omitted specifying certain preferences on the elections ballot.)
• As a result of this process of Single Transferable Voting, the option of "student-initiated service projects" gained a majority over "I would not like to donate these funds" and was declared the winner.
  

Please e-mail Sophie Jin with any further concerns over the elections process.