THE
Daily
MISSISSIPPIAN theDMonline.com
Thursday, March 9, 2023
Volume 111, No. 21
YOU BE THE JUDGE: AN INSIDE LOOK AT ASB Transparency. Tensions. Legislation. Protocol. Accomplishments. The Future. KHARLEY REDMON HAL FOX MARY BOYTE
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With senate and officer elections coming up on Tuesday, March 28, The Daily Mississippian looked into the Associated Student Body to provide the university’s students with more insight into the organization. ASB was established in 1917 “to serve selflessly and to represent justly the student body, in accordance with the University of Mississippi’s Creed, by prioritizing students’ interests and needs above personal ambition and prejudice,” according to the ASB website. The organization is student run and consists of the executive, legislative and judicial branches.
Transparency In The Daily Mississppian’s preliminary examination of ASB, which included website and social media analysis as well as attending all senate meetings, questions concerning transparency arose. According to Section 101, Rule 6, Line 6.8 of the ASB Code, student opinions submitted to the student body through the senate opinion form must be read to the entire senate for members’ consideration. This year, not a single student opinion was read, as the link to submit student opinions on the ASB website is broken. The duty of aggregating and reading student opinions typically is that of the senate liaison, a position
SEE ASB PAGE 4
FILE PHOTO: HG BIGGS / THE DAILY MISSISSIPPIAN
20 years of the Gertrude C. Ford Center: Stories of the Present WILL JONES
thedmfeatures@gmail.com
In 2017, nearly two decades after being awarded a grant by the Ford Foundation to build the Gertrude Castellow Ford Center for the Performing Arts, the center’s staff sought to re-evaluate their institution and its practices. “I figured we needed to make some goals, so I put together some strategic planning that was led by Provost Noel Wilkin and Katie Busby, director of Institutional Research, Effectiveness and Planning,” said Julia Aubrey, director of the Ford Center. “We brought together about 25 people from the community and the staff on campus to really
discuss what the Ford Center meant to them and what they thought would be good goals to set going forward.” These goals, both practical and conceptual, became outlined in a formal strategic plan in 2018, which the Ford Center has been building off ever since. “You have to cooperate in order for something like that to come together,” Aubrey said. “It takes a lot of different people and different ideas, and you finally put it all together and create something that’s unique and something exciting.” Above all else, these collective ideas are in service
SEE FORD CENTER PAGE 7
The Ford Center Main Hall houses 1,250 seats.
PHOTO C0URTESY: ROBERT JORDAN VIA JULIA AUBREY