Green Fund Initiative passes student vote

University of Mississippi students have voted, and 85 percent of the 2,433 students who expressed opinions in the Green Fund Initiative survey were in favor of paying more tuition for a specific fund for sustainability projects around campus.

Of the responders, 95 percent were in favor of a the sustainability-project fund. 

The next step for the Green Fund is for legislation to be drawn up and voted on by the Associated Student Body senate.

Support of the Green Fund Initiative will provide a cutting-edge educational experience in the area of sustainability, advance their ongoing commitment to support innovative research and improve the efficiency of campus operations, according to students behind the initiative. 

Taylor Cook, junior liberal studies major, is pro-Green Fund and said that Ole Miss could benefit from a program such at this one.

“It’s a really great idea,” Cook said. “Other schools have them and are benefiting from them, so I am confident we could benefit from one as well.”

Cook said there are a lot of great benefits to the Green Fund, ranging from student opportunities to saving money.

“We can create opportunities for student leadership on campus; we can save our university money, which might save students from future tuition increases,” Cook said. “We’ll be helping our planet by investing in projects that will help us achieve our university and national goals of sustainable development.”

The fund continues to promote their work for improving the university’s sustainability, however, some students don’t seem to buy it.

John Woods, senior double major political science and philosophy major, said he is concerned with the vagueness behind the initiative.

“In principle, I don’t give my money away to causes when I don’t know how that money will be spent. Be it $5 dollars or $50,” Woods said. “The Green Fund wants to tax me for some purpose, but they haven’t made clear what that is exactly. Until they give me a cogent argument for it, I don’t see why I should support it.”

Woods said the fund is charging students for issues that are in-and-out of the public eye.

“The Green Fund wants to ignore the problems of their logic and tax students for their flavor-of-the-day issue,” Woods said. “I think the money can be better spent on things we know it will have a positive effect on, like decreasing tuition or providing more competitive professor salaries.”

Zachary Jarjoura, sophomore sociology major, is pro-Green Fund and said being anti-Green Fund is more ideologically related, than it is monetary related.

“Some people may be against a student fee to support the Green Fund. This argument I could definitely understand IF the fee was large, but we’re talking about, as Alec Jones stated (in a column in The DM), “...[a] lunch at Chik-Fil-A.” each semester,” Jarjoura said. “Opposition to the Green Fund is more about ideological reasons than any fear of negative effects of it.”

Jarjoura said people associate the terms “sustainability” or “green” with liberal or Democratic standpoints, which he said are not. 

“Environmental issues should not be politicized, they are issues that affect and should be important to us all,” Jarjoura said. “But unfortunately there are politicians like Michelle Bauchman who are crusading against environmental sustainability and some people are influenced by this.”

Cook said the only downsides of the initiative are the word associations and added fee.

“I think the only downside to a Green Fund is some people can’t look past the word “green” or the phrase “addition to tuition” and see the potential for an awesome investment opportunity,” Cook said. 

 Cook said he hopes for a positive outcome of the Green Fund, which could help improve our school, state and nation.

“We have a chance to not only make Ole Miss better for future students, faculty and staff, but also to maintain our role as leaders in sustainability initiatives for our state and our nation,” Cook said.