My Experience
This year, I served as the USG Academics Chair, joined the faculty-administrative Committee on Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Aid, and continued my service on the faculty-administrative Committee on the Course of Study. As Academics Chair, with the constant support of the amazing Academics Committee, I was able to work on the following:
I could not have led and worked on these initiatives alone. All of this work was done together with the members of the Academics Committee, USG at large, countless students, and administrative partners.
- Reversed the University’s publicly announced spring 2020 policy so that it would include a PDF option for all undergraduate courses . While some students preferred to make all courses mandatory-PDF and some favored optional-PDF, and my committee and I made sure to gather perspectives on both, the feasible option in the end was to introduce a PDF option into all courses, which many departments initially did not plan to do
- Extended the PDF deadline for spring 2020 to Dean’s Date to ensure that students had as much information about their performance and assignments as possible
- Suspended the PDF cap for the fall 2020 semester, such that no PDF courses could count against the usual 4 allotted PDFs across each student’s time at Princeton
- Organized the first ever virtual Academic Expo, which invited all students and particularly first-years to engage with departmental representatives through office-hour sessions, webinars, and other multimedia platforms
- Increased student engagement with the Committee on Examinations and Standing, which is the key administrative committee on grading policy, by presenting student perspectives on grading policy throughout the school year rather than the traditional once a year
- Assisted in the USG COVID-19 Student Input Survey in spring 2020 to gather student perspectives on academic matters as reflections on the previous semester and preferences for the next semester
- Promoted transparency in each department’s PDF policy by working with the Administration to collect and disseminate each department's policy to undeclared undergrads, who otherwise would not have known whether or not they could PDF departmental prerequisites and requirements
- Progressed on the policy issue of a first-year retroactive PDF option, which we are closer to now than in any year prior in which the policy has come up
- Progressed on the issue of mixed concentrations to the point where administrators and Academics Committee representatives have discussed and are continuing to discuss streamlining a procedure for forming mixed concentrations
- Worked with Vote100 on their referendum to implement a voting holiday for federal elections to increase Princeton students’ voting participation
I could not have led and worked on these initiatives alone. All of this work was done together with the members of the Academics Committee, USG at large, countless students, and administrative partners.