The Associated Student Body Senate voted Tuesday night to pass a resolution requiring undergraduate students to give to The University of Mississippi Green Fund.
Sen. Austin Powell, Assistant Director of Admissions for Communications Ty Allushuski and Coordinator of Outreach and Development for the UM Green Fund Joe Bell presented the resolution.
The resolution states that undergraduate students will be charged $2 a semester that will go to the UM Green Fund.
Powell served as the author of the resolution. He said he supported the cause because he thinks sustainability is an important issue.
“I really feel like sustainability is the way for the future,” Powell said. “This is a great cause.”
Powell said he wrote the resolution because he has worked to support conservationism throughout his life.
“I’m an Eagle Scout. I’m a Boy Scout,” Powell said. “I’m really conservation minded. From the very beginning, I’ve been taught to love and care for our environment. This bill exactly does what I believe in, so I had no problem 100 percent supporting it.”
Senators spoke in opposition of the resolution saying they saw it unnecessary to charge students to support the Green Fund.
The Green Fund had previously attempted to raise funds through various outlets. The Fund raised $800 in the fall semester and $750 in the spring semester this school year.
Senator Pearce Crosland said he thought students did not show voluntary support for the Green Fund. He said he didn’t think students should be forced to pay if they didn’t volunteer to pay enough to sustain the Green Fund before the resolution was brought to the senators.
“Essentially what we voted tonight was to mandate students to participate in something they clearly didn’t want to participate in in the first place.”
The ASB Senate voted against a resolution in the fall semester that would require students to pay $5 a semester to the Green Fund.
Bell said he is glad the senate passed a resolution financially supporting the Fund.
“Every single semester we’ve made so much progress,” Bell said. “After going on three years, the time is ripe for this to be passed in the senate, and we are extremely happy.”
Thirty senators voted in affirmation of the resolution, 23 voted in negation, and none voted in abstention. Before the resolution will go into effect, it must be signed by ASB President Davis Rogers. The resolution must then go before administration and the Institutions of Higher Learning in Mississippi.
— Allison Slusher
ajslushe@go.olemiss.edu
