The Associated Student Body introduced new deputy attorney generals, legislation regarding campaign budgets and a call for all student worker jobs to be publicly posted on the University of Mississippi’s website during a formal meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 12.
Resolution 24-9 calls for the Department of Human Resources to have all university departments post student worker jobs with hourly pay rates to the University of Mississippi jobs website. The resolution passed with unanimous approval.
Junior public policy leadership majors Edward Hunter and Elizabeth Wildman authored the resolution and spoke about students having difficulties with job searches due to the limited offerings shown on the website.
“Out of the 196 individual departments that have student employees, only 46 use this site, and currently there are only 14 entries in the website,” Hunter said. “By gathering all available positions in one easily accessible platform, the university can help students quickly find opportunities to meet their needs and institutes.”
The ASB also discussed Bill 24-7, which proposed a budget increase in campaign expenditures from $100 to $125 for senate, homecoming maid and senior class officer elections. The bill passed unanimously.
Haley Warren, a senior political science and history major, co-authored the bill with Andrew Nichols, a junior public policy leadership and economics double major.
“I think this is an appropriate amount because of an increase in students on campus and a fairly long election period,” Warren said. “But I mainly think that this is an important increase because of recent additions to the code that allow us to hand out things like food for under $1.”
Nichols spoke about previous complaints of the $100 budget not being sufficient over a week-long campaign.
“With food having a limit of $1 per item, that only gives you 100 items on campus for about 18,000 undergrads, so we just want to increase it a little bit to help out people,” Nichols said. “We want to give people a little more wiggle room, so they can get the full experience of campaigning.”
ASB also announced the upcoming Adopt-a-Basket, a program that accepts food and cash donations to create Thanksgiving meals for the LOU community. Beginning on Nov. 1 and lasting until Nov. 19, donations can be dropped off at the ASB office in Union Suite J301 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m or submitted through a form on the ASB website.
Braxton Dagg, a junior integrated marketing communications major and ASB secretary, is in charge of this year’s program.
“This year, hopefully we will be able to serve a lot more people, and we have got a lot of monetary donations,” Dagg said.
He also encouraged the community to help pack baskets on Nov. 19 in the Union Ballroom.
“If you would like to come, you’re more than welcome to,” Dagg said. “This is one way we can give back as a student body, so make sure you donate and make sure someone has a great Thanksgiving Day.”
Alex Kipping, a senior public policy leadership major and attorney general of ASB, was responsible for appointing two new deputy attorney generals at Tuesday’s meeting: Lauren Austin, a senior political science major, and Owen Plaisance, a junior public policy leadership major.
Austin said that, in her role, she will be able to help shape the documents that keep the ASB organized.
“Being involved in ASB since my freshman year has shown me just how important it is to have clear policies that reflect the needs of our campus community,” Austin said. “Moving forward, I want to make sure our Code and Constitution continue to support everyone’s efforts and foster an environment where ASB can thrive as a unified organization that truly helps our student body.”
ASB Vice President Jack Jones, a junior economics major, agreed with Kipping’s decision due to both appointees’ prior experience in ASB.
“Both have been involved with the code for quite some time and are very well educated on what the code is and what it needs to be,” Jones said. “Those are all the things that you need to know to be a deputy attorney general.”
