Shannon Welch/Photo Editor
A Season’s Federal Credit Union ATM was installed in the lobby of Exley Science Center over winter break as an alternative to the Bank of America ATM in Usdan.
Student groups such as Occupy Wesleyan were unhappy with the monopoly that Bank of America held on campus banking options. The project that resulted in the new ATM was part of Occupy Wesleyan’s attempt to encourage more students to switch from national banks to community banks.
“We planned a Move Your Money campaign, which was intended to draw attention to the privileged relationship this institution shares with Bank of America, and by extension, our complicity in the predatory lending practices and rampant evictions for which Bank of America is responsible,” Daniel Plafker ’15 wrote in an email to The Argus.
To the Occupy Wesleyan group, the availability of only a Bank of America ATM was not satisfactory.
“We thought that one good way of promoting more fiscally responsible banking would be trying to get a second ATM on campus or replacing the Bank of America ATM,” said Anders Dohlman ’15.
The desire for a second ATM was brought to the attention of the administration by a collaboration between two groups, Occupy Wesleyan and the Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA), around the same time that the contract for the Bank of America ATM in Usdan was expiring.
WSA President Zachary Malter ’13 worked with Occupy Wesleyan to formulate arguments as to why, instead of renewing the Bank of America contract, it would be more appropriate to set up a Request for Proposals (RFP) for a new ATM on campus. An RFP enables various suppliers to submit business proposals and go through a bidding process for the sale of a commodity.
“Our arguments were that Bon Appétit workers used community banks, that network ATMs could be cheaper in terms of payments imposed on non-bank members, [and] that there are some community banks that have more national networks that could be worth exploring,” Malter said.
In response to the posed arguments, the administration decided to go through with an RFP process for a second ATM.
Still, the involved students were concerned that Bank of America would win the bidding process.
“It’s just an open bid, anyone can bid for an ATM,” Dohlman said. “We thought that Bank of America was going to buy everybody out.”
But Bank of America did not end up submitting a bid, and while at some point it seemed like Liberty Bank would win, Season’s Federal Credit Union ended up winning the bid and providing the new ATM.
According to Malter, the proposal was approved last summer and the details for its implementation were worked out early in September of last year.
Associate Vice President of Finance Nathan Peters reported that the ATM cost approximately $500 for technology set up.
“I just think that this project demonstrates the success of collaboration between WSA and student groups, and WSA’s commitment to working with student groups and helping them achieve their goals, especially when their goals benefit all students,” Malter said.
1 Comment
Seasons Federal Credit Union
Great article! We love this very much. Thank you for the great press. We love working with students at Wesleyan and help them with their needs and wants on their campus!