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Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Vol. 100 No. 211
Ole Miss continues efforts to improve sustainability KATIE HARRISON kaitieharrison@gmail.com
PHILLIP WALLER | The Daily Mississippian
A Greenweek organizer gives assignments to the many student volunteers who participated in the Gameday Challege.
With green tents going up in many locations across campus, the debate to invest more in going green is spreading across the University of Mississippi. Some students are completely for it, some don’t want to pay more in tuition and others want questions answered by the Office of Sustanibility before they agree to pay more in tuition. The green fund is a vote happening online this week on campus that will add $5 to $12 to tuition to invest in renewable energy, including solar and wind technology. Evie Holman, a chemical engineering freshman, said she supports Green Fund and thinks it’s worth the additional charge. “I think $5-12 is a small price to pay for such a large and positive impact,” Holman said. “I completely support it.” Political science and philosophy senior John Woods said until green technology was more
efficient and cost-effective, he felt like if students were to pay more in tuition, it would be better spent on something besides green technology. “At the current energy rates, it would take on average 20 years to pay off a $20,000 investment in solar technology,” Woods said. “Why don’t we spend our money on something more important now like professor’s salaries or scholarships and worry about this when it’s more economically efficient?” Jim Morrison, director of strategic planning and campus sustainability coordinator, said some of Ole Miss’ strides to become more sustainable in operations include installing hydration stations, offering Zipcar and Zimride programs to reduce singleoccupant driving trips to campus and increasing the amount of recycling bins on campus. Implementing the Green Fund program would allow Ole Miss to do more toward becoming a See GREEN, PAGE 6
Students blind-sided with banking overdraft fees BY KAITIE HARRISON kaitieharrison@gmail.com
With everything students deal with on a day-to-day basis, they can be subject to overdraft fees on their banking accounts, leaving little money for important things. A Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation study found that most costumers aren’t informed of overdraft until after using an ATM for a point-of-sale transaction. Exercise science sophomore Kate Davis said she thinks it’s easy for students to overdraft because they aren’t notified prior to the transaction. “I overdraft like nobody’s business,” she said. “I think students who don’t track where
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they use their card, whether it’s a debit or credit charge, will probably overdraft. “Even if they use the mobile banking application in their phone, a credit charge doesn’t show up until much later, causing them to overdraft, which is my problem.” The FDIC found that overdraft fees generally range from $10 to $38, with a median fee of $27. Davis said she likes having a local bank but isn’t happy with the $35 overdraft fee. “Having a bank in Oxford is easy because I don’t have to worry about going to Walgreens to get change, but I’m not happy with them charging me to use my debit card,” she said. “It’s $4 a month (at Regions) for using your card, and the overdraft fee is $35, plus whatever charge you overdrafted with.”
Women compete for ‘Most Beautiful’ title P. 7
FDIC stated about one fourth of the surveyed banks also charged additional fees for accounts that remained in negative balance status in the form of flat fees or interest charged on a percentage basis. In a 2007 study by the Center for Responsible Lending, consumers were found to be paying fees of $17.5 billion annually on automatic overdraft. Overdraft fees can be prevented with overdraft protection. Anne Morgan Banquer, a biological science freshman, said overdraft protection is how they prevent additional charges and fees. “My parents have online banking with Bancorp South, so they are able to monitor how much I’m spending and add
PETRE THOMAS | The Daily Mississippian
Psychology graduate student Fernado Alessandri uses the Regions ATM in the Student Union.
See BANKING, PAGE 4
Regions is among the banks that are now charging fees for debit card usage.
Big 12 approves WVU to replace Missouri P. 11
Donte Moncrief, mature beyond his years P. 12