Ole Miss ASB Meets In-Person for First Time Since March

The Ole Miss ASB Senate will host their first in-person meeting since March on Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the Union Ballroom. Since the Spring of 2020, student leaders of the Associated Student Body (ASB) have held all of the organization’s events virtually due to COVID-19. The ASB has held virtual orientations, senate meetings and even personality elections.

ASB members have expressed how excited they are to return and work together face-to-face, but worries remain about the difficulties of following strict COVID-19 procedures in person. This will be the first time many of the students elected to the ASB in Spring 2020 will come together as a group.

Senate Chairman of Governmental Operations, Lucy Hulet, expressed that she had concerns about students getting accustomed to the procedures after having only attended meetings via Zoom.

“I am a little hesitant about COVID regulations,” Hulet said. “I want to make sure that those are all being followed very accurately. However, this is a group of people that are aware of the temperament of COVID right now, and they’re not going to just throw those regulations out of the window to just meet in person, so I hope that we’ll be very responsible about that.

Leaders of ASB believe that with COVID-19 regulations in place, the first in-person senate meeting will not only be a success, but very beneficial to its members as well. 

“A lot of what we do comes from the work we do together as a student government,” said ASB Student Body President Joshua Mannery. “A lot of that relationship building and community building is so important as we start to talk about initiatives and activism that we all do.”

ASB senators who are unable or not willing to attend the meeting in-person will have the option to attend virtually. While Tuesday’s meeting is informal, the first formal ASB senate meeting will be held on Oct. 13.

Those interested in watching the meeting can do so on the ASB Facebook page.

To hear the full interview with ASB leadership, check out the video above.

Video by Yasmine Brown, IMC student