Daily
Tigers Dig Deep in OT Win
The
Helmsman
Independent Student Newspaper of The University of Memphis
Inside RSOs: Part 2 of 3
Mastering
Traveling, tuition and tiaras: divergent
A closer look at the budgets of SAC and SGA viewpoints
BY CHELSEA BOOZER
News Reporter
The student money trail at The
University of Memphis is paved with
campus-wide activities and scholarships,
but it’s littered with pageant regalia and
executive perks, all subsidized by man-
datory fees.
Student Activities Council’s $400,000
budget and Student Government
Association’s $265,000 budget consist
entirely of student-paid funds, including
fees charged to approximately 90 percent
of the student body that commutes to
campus.
Colis Chambers, director of student
affairs and finance, said SGA and SAC
“have the primary roles and responsibili-
ties for thinking broadly” for the student
body, which is why they receive funding
from a student fee.
If students want to know how their
money is being spent, they have a legal
right to access SGA’s and SAC’s budgets,
which are public records.
Prior to Nov. 22, a budget appeared
nowhere on SGA’s website, despite the
slogan touted last year by the reign-
Facing
the music
BY ERIN FLOYD
Contributing Writer
Somewhere there’s music,
How faint the tune.
Somewhere there’s heaven,
How high the moon.
Those who walked through the hall-
ways of the Rudi E. Scheidt Music
Building on a recent Tuesday evening
stopped to listen as Joyce Cobb, long-
time Memphis singer and moonlight-
ing University of Memphis music
instructor, stood in a classroom practic-
ing songs for an upcoming gig for an
audience of one. Students walked a
little slower as they passed the door,
peeking in to see who was belting out
lyrics from “How High the Moon,” a
signature tune of Ella Fitzgerald.
After a few more songs, the unex-
pected mini-concert came to a close,
and Cobb was able to sit down to talk
about herself and her career. Cobb said
her interest in performance began at an
early age.
“I think I was 4, 5, maybe 6 years
old in my grandmother’s church in
Oklahoma,” she said.
Her grandmother taught piano
ing F.A.C.E. party, “A Transparent SGA.”
After what President Hunter Lang called
an “intense” senate meeting, as well as
inquiries from Daily Helmsman reporters,
the budget was added to the site.
Prior to its inclusion on the website,
several phone calls, submission of a
Freedom of Information Act request and
completion of The University’s illegal
Public Records Inspection form were nec-
essary to view SGA’s full and detailed
budget.
Though SAC’s budget is also not acces-
sible online, SAC advisor Laura Hoffman
supplied it on request.
F ollow this story to page 4
for a detailed breakdown of
2010-2011 SGA and SAC operat-
ing budgets.
SGA’s Budget
Activities sponsored by SGA include
student travel, frosh camp, SGA’s spring
elections, a multicultural festival and
weeklong events for U of M’s basketball
homecoming.
The rest of the association’s budget goes
toward executive officer stipends, travel
Joyce Cobb, U of M instructor in the Rudi E. Scheidt School of Music,
regularly performs her catalog of jazz, rock, pop and country covers at
a litany of Memphis venues.
lessons at her church, so Cobb got
involved with one of the programs it
offered. She decided to start by singing
“The Best Things in Life Are Free.”
“I performed that song in front of the
congregation of the church one Sunday,
Thursday,
December 2, 2010
Vol. 78 No. 058
to state events for its president, expens-
es for students who attend Tennessee
Intercollegiate State Legislature, the $500
“Dreamers, Thinkers, Doers” scholarship
and operation funds for SGA, the senate
and Frosh Council.
Of the $10,000 allotted for SGA’s elec-
tion, advertisement accounts for 15 per-
cent. The remaining $8,500 is designated
for a graduate assistantship with U of M
professor Max Garzon in the computer
science department. Though compensat-
ed for a full year, the chosen GA is only
responsible for creating and operating
voting websites during the spring semes-
ter for the SGA election and basketball
homecoming.
According to SGA election commis-
sioner Anthony LaRocca, SGA is “chang-
ing the way we do elections,” who said he
isn’t sure if a graduate assistant will con-
tinue to be paid for running the website.
Thus far, no changes have been made.
Of the $2,000 spent on Mr. and Mrs. U
of M, half funds a scholarship for each,
and an equal amount is spent on the
flowers, crowns and supplies given to the
see Budgets, page 4
courtesy of Joyce Cobb
and I remember this total acceptance,”
Cobb said. “That’s really what it’s all
about — being accepted, causing reac-
tion, stimulating an audience to rise
see Music, page 3
Pesky Red
Wolves prove to
be formidable
foes but can’t
outlast Tigers
see page 6
www.dailyhelmsman.com
by Malcolm Regester
Colin Kidder, sculpture graduate student,
concentrates as he grinds a metal medium,
bringing his thesis sculpture into form.
BY ERICA HORTON
News Reporter
Toward the back of the Art Museum of The
University of Memphis on Wednesday after-
noon, a white folding wall blocked students’
view of an upcoming exhibit. Behind the wall,
Erin Jennings prepared 42 new spaces for
11-by-14 photographs, all featuring the naked
human form.
The work is part of the museum’s Master of
Fine Arts student thesis exhibition, “Content
Under Pressure,” which opens Saturday and
runs through Jan. 8.
The exhibit features the work of three art-
ists, photography graduate students Jennings,
Kate Wichlinski and sculpture graduate stu-
dent Colin Kidder. All share a central theme
— examining the way people look at one
another.
“It also came from the pressure we as art-
ists are under to make something good while
in an academic setting,” said Wichlinski,
whose photos focus on images from her per-
sonal life.
“I tried to instill emotion in mine,” she
said. “I tried to take portraits of people as
they really are, to find some core of who are
they are.”
Jennings, who already holds a master ’s
degree in political science with a concentra-
tion in film theory, said her art is inspired
by the different ways people view males and
females in photos and cinema.
Already surrounded by eight of her 4-by-3
photos of a man and woman naked from the
waist down, Jennings said she will display a
total of 50 nude photographs, all taken using
the digital infrared process.
see Masters, page 5