Daily Iowan-Students on campus will soon be able to charge their phones while simultaneously enjoying the great outdoors.

On March 8, the University of Iowa Student Government passed a bill that will install four new Powersol Umbrella charging stations on the IMU patio by the end of the school year. The stations will cost $2,500 apiece.

The bill was proposed as a way to encourage students to take advantage of outdoor campus study spaces while also demonstrating a sustainable lifestyle.

The charging stations are solar powered and charge mobile devices as fast as any wall outlet can. They can also charge three devices at the same time, according to device manufacturer ZON.

Sen. Titus Hou and Sustainability Liaison Andrew Hirst wrote the bill. Hirst said he got the idea from a sustainability conference he attended in Minneapolis.

“With the IMU’s patio having been newly renovated, we wanted to get more students to take advantage of the beautiful space,” Hirst said. “The conference really opened my eyes to what can be done to further campus sustainability.”

The bill was presented by Hou and passed almost unanimously.

“To my knowledge, the decision to spend $10,000 was a joint conversation between Center for Student Involvement and Leadership administration and Sustainability Liaison Hirst,” Hou said.

Hirst and Hou both said they hope to get the Powersol Umbrella charging stations up and running on the IMU patio by the end of the school year. The stations will operate as far into the following year as the weather allows.

The decision was questioned by some students because before the Senate voted on the charging-stations bill, the Senate shot down a proposal to give funding to the campus radio station KRUI for a new transmitter.

The KRUI transmitter was the most controversial topic UISG has tackled so far this year, UISG Speaker Brendan Power said at the meeting. KRUI was asking for $4,800 and even offered to pay for the $2,000 installation fee. However, UISG denied it the funding and proceeded to spend $10,000 on solar-powered charging stations.

Carter Yerkes, communications liaison, said the Senate decided to fund the charging stations, but not KRUI’s new transmitter, by four votes.

“Student Assembly Budgeting and Allocating Committee is solely in charge of money regarding student organizations, which KRUI is a part of,” he said. “However, the charging stations were an initiative by the Sustainability Committee. If the charging stations were equipment being asked for by a student organization, then [the budget committee] would be the committee in charge, like with KRUI.”

By Beau Bowman