Phillip Waller | The Daily Mississippian
Former ASB President Kim Dandridge poses for a portrait.
BY CATY CAMBRON
cjcambro@go.olemiss.edu
Kim Dandridge spent the past school year pursuing big changes for The University of Mississippi. As the first black female president of the Ole Miss student body, she created a legacy for both herself and the continuing progress of the university. Dandridge reflects on her former term as she addresses the eight areas of her platform that were based on unity.
Serve as a liaison between the student body and the administration.
According to Dandridge, she did her best to bridge the gap between students and faculty by informing the student body of what was happening on campus and throughout the university. At the beginning of her term, she gave a state of the union address to announce her plans for the semester and other ways that students could get more involved.
“We tried to use as many news outlets as possible to get students engaged,” Dandridge said.
She added that she tried to connect to the student body through the use of social media, press releases and the school newspaper.
Provide students with free printing services with a maximum of 160 pages.
While this project was not passed, Dandridge believes it was the hardest platform.
“Anytime when you are talking about funding something, it definitely takes a longer time to get something done,” Dandridge said.
According to Dandridge, ASB drafted the proposal for free printing last semester. The financial office and university administration have yet to respond to the proposal.
Promote a more energy-efficient and green campus with initiatives like Water Awareness Week.
Dandridge worked with fellow student Jeffery Peavy, clerical intern for the Office of Sustainability, to help plan what they called “ASB Water Awareness Week.”
“We basically sat outside the Union and passed out stickers and brochures about how students on campus waste tons of water each week,” Dandridge said.
The event, which took place Nov. 26-30, was organized strictly by the ASB.
“This was an event that Dandridge expressed early into her presidency and was phenomenally accomplished through the efforts of her executive cabinet,” Peavy said.
Peavy and Dandridge worked to promote recycling at athletic events with giving out free prizes.
Extend the C-Store hours to 24 hours.
Dandridge sought to extend the hours of this specific C-Store beyond 2 a.m.
“We were hoping to get the store in Stockard and Martin extended to 24 hours,” Dandridge said.
Dining Services agreed to conduct a trial run in order to determine possible returns from staying open later but, according to Dandridge, did not follow up on this during her presidency.
As of right now, the only extension of C-Store hours is during finals week until 3 a.m., according to Jason Phillips, operations director of Ole Miss Dining. Phillips said this policy been in place since December 2012.
Provide students with more academic resources such as free graduate school test prep and more free tutoring in rigorous courses.
Kaplan, a for-profit corporation that provides test preparation materials for standardized tests, has routinely set up a table in the Union at Ole Miss.
Dandridge aimed to help Kaplan by publicizing the tests being offered and their location times to students. Kaplan has always provided free test prep for various tests such as the LSAT, GMAT and GRE.
“It wasn’t like we didn’t have these things already, it was just that people didn’t know about them,” Dandridge said.
Provide students with free tablets and clickers to check out.
Students cannot rent free tablets for use, but they can check out clickers free of charge. As of January 2013, students can now rent clickers from the library free of charge. Dandridge said 20 clickers were purchased from the ASB budget to allow students to do this.
According to the Dean of Libraries Julia Rholes, these clickers can be checked out at the main circulation desk.
Create discount student ticket program (freshman 10 percent, sophomore 15 percent, junior 20 percent, senior 25 percent)
“I feel like students make the atmosphere (on campus), and so I think rewarding them for coming to events and participating in events should happen,” Dandridge said.
This specific platform did not get passed.
According to Ty New, sports marketing and fan experience program assistant, the Athletics Department took Dandridge’s idea of percentage discounts to expand the Rebel Rewards program.
“We were already doing student discount programs, and so we basically just revamped her proposal,” New said.
The new Rebel Rewards proposal will mean students who obtain a set amount of points will receive a set percentage discount on student football tickets. New said this will not start until 2014.
A part of the current Rebel Rewards program is that students who get 80 points receive free student football season tickets.
Dandridge worked to extend the current Rebel Rewards program by rewarding students who attended non-athletic events.
According to Dandridge, students can get Rebel Rewards points by attending dean of students’ official events such as the spring concert in the Grove and participating in the Big Event.
Create athletic rewards program for attending women’s athletic events.
This is part of the Rebel Rewards program as well.
“By the time we got in office, this was already actually happening,” Dandridge said. “They were already rewarding students for attending women’s events, so we just promoted people to download the Rebel Rewards app.”
According to New, women’s athletic events are not any different from other sporting events.
“There’s no special treatment for attending women’s events,” New said.
Gaining points for attending women’s events has been a part of the Rebel Rewards program since it was revamped in 2012.
Beyond these platforms, Dandridge was able to extend the Turner Center hours as well as host the first Ole Miss Gay Pride Week, during which she hosted 148 students from the Delta.
