(Friends) with Benefits: University accommodations benefitting students

Over the past few weeks, I’ve spent quite a bit of money on school supplies, rugs, speakers, textbooks, clothes and other basic college necessities in order to make my next year in Oxford more enjoyable, as you probably have as well.

For some reason, this spending spree catalyzed my brain into thinking about money. In light of this new train of thought, I decided I would make a fanciful list of items that Ole Miss could pur- chase in order to enhance the collegiate experience of its students.

By now, nearly every one of you should have ventured into the Student Union for some reason or another, perhaps to buy textbooks, to check your mail, or to grab a quick bite to eat. No matter where you are in the Union, however, you cannot help but the smell of mouth-watering Subway sandwiches that permeate throughout the entire building. I applaud Ole Miss on this culinary achievement, but I think we should tackle placing yet another restaurant in the Student Union– Taco Bell.

As we all know, college students are not your average, run-of-the-mill people: we stay up until the wee hours of the morning regularly and thrive on cheap food. Thus, we do not need just an ordinary Taco Bell, but a 24-hours-a- day, seven-days-a-week, 365-days- a-year kind of Taco Bell. I can guarantee you that students could be found at this Taco Bell (nearly) every hour of the day.

As you very well know, the University of Mississippi is in the midst of a heated mascot debate. I say, whichever mascot we choose to have, we should keep a live one on campus, whether it be a live bear, lion, landshark, or even Hotty and Toddy! LSU has a live tiger, so why can’t the better rival have a living mascot as well? With this in mind, I suggest we steer away from the nonexistent fish and muppet-like men, and instead choose the lion or (more preferably) the bear. A bear leading the Walk of Champions before a game in the brisk October air would surely pump everyone up before the game, and the bear lends itself towards Mississippi history.

Finally, I believe Ole Miss should remove the gratuitous stop signs around campus. The Turner Center area is heavily congested with traffic because of this, and the two stops signs in between the Village Apartments and the new Law School seem unnecessary, especially since one of them currently only has two-way traffic. Coupled with the lack of efficient parking spaces, these stop signs contribute to the high traffic congestion on campus. Several students only have a one hour break for lunch, so many times they must walk (or run, usually) to their car, fight traffic, drive to a fast food restaurant, wait in line, eat food, drive back to campus, find a decent parking spot, and walk back to class.

This is a very time consuming process and, although I believe a Taco Bell at the Student Union would certainly help alleviate this problem, the university should establish more efficient driving and parking accommodations as well.

These few options would be ben- eficial to the Ole Miss community. Students would have a place to buy inexpensive food every hour of the day, would have a more viable to reason to contribute discussion to the mascot debate, and also save time in between classes. Ole Miss should consider adopting some of these changes since, ultimately, students are what allow the Uni- versity to exist.