Aaron Rice kept in touch with people in Starkville while he was in Washington, D.C., recovering from war wounds and decided to run for Student Association attorney general because Mississippi State University is entering an important period in its history.
“We’ve got new coaching staffs, we’re getting a new president, the SA was just able to disperse over $200,000 to other student organizations this year … and so many great things going on that I just really thought it was really critical that the SA and the students in general really take that time of opportunity to lay important foundations for ourselves and future students.”
Rice said he would like to form a formal relationship between the SA and activity-based organizations, such as Music Makers and Campus Activities Board, to which the SA disperses money. He said he thinks such a forum could tackle many other issues that MSU has such as freshman retention.
“If you have activities on weekends, on non-football game weekends, we could keep freshmen up here and give them a better freshman experience, retain more freshmen and allow MSU to keep growing and prospering,” he said.
Rice also wants to see the SA create an official Board of Aldermen relations committee. SA President Jon David Cole has taken the first step in this process by setting up a committee that sends students to meet regularly with the Board of Aldermen, he said, but he wants to make it a permanent committee outlined in the SA Constitution.
Rice married shortly before leaving for Iraq, and his marriage and a flexible job performing maintenance on residence halls are obligations he has outside the SA. “That’s the reason that I chose that job, is because I knew that one of my goals was to be active in the SA, and I needed something that was going to be flexible with me.”
Rice’s SA experience includes being elected to the Senate his second year at MSU, but shortly after he was elected he found out he would be leaving for Iraq, so he resigned the post. He said that although his SA experience is limited, that has its advantages. “I take it as a good thing really because, like I said, there’s a lot of changes going on right now, and I think that somebody that’s fresh with new ideas and things like that is really a valuable asset right now,” he said.
Leadership qualities he learned in the Marine Corps, in Iraq and while working on Gov. Haley Barbour’s 2003 campaign will also give him something to bring to the executive council, he said.
When serving on the six committees the attorney general must serve on, Rice will bring integrity, he said. He also brings experience as the student representative on the political science faculty committee.
The attorney general must use good judgment, and one example of a time Rice had to use his judgment was when he prepared to run for attorney general, he said. “When I went to fill out my application, I noticed in the election code that one of the requirements was that the candidate must have been enrolled at MSU the previous semester,” he said. He was told by one person that nobody would care, but he decided to talk to SA officials about the issue. “If that meant not being able to run, then that’s what it meant. That’s what I’m going to stick to,” he said.
Attorney General Seth Robbins ruled that a clause in the SA constitution prohibiting discrimination against veterans exempt recently returned veterans from the rule requiring a previous semester’s attendance at MSU.
He said he thinks the decision to allow recently returned veterans to run for office was a good one. “I’m just glad that that provision was in the Constitution to begin with,” he said.
The Constitution should be interpreted strictly, he said, because any constitution that’s laid down by an organization is not laid down halfheartedly. “The only course of action that I see to change something is to make a constitutional amendment and have it pass the Senate and the student body,” he said.