One of the immediate challenges that campuses across the country are facing as a result of the spread of the COVID-19 virus is how to move students off campus. This has also led institutions to determine how to issue room and board refunds to residential students who will no longer be utilizing those services. The University of Connecticut is the latest to announce that it will be issuing refunds to its residential students who can no longer call their campus home.

In response to the COVID-19 virus, classes at a growing number of universities have been moved to an online format for the remainder of the academic year, and students that have left for spring break are being encouraged not to return to campus. These continuing developments, alongside others, have led universities to determine ways to best move students out of on-campus housing while meeting health and safety guidelines from the Center for Disease Control (CDC).

Florida SouthWestern State College has installed a batch of new vending machines on its campus, but instead of food the machines issue laptops. The new vending machines enable students to use their student ID card to rent laptops.

Nova Southeastern launched a brand new campus card loyalty program this month that rewards students when they use their SharkCard student ID to make purchases. In addition to rewarding the use of its campus card, NSU’s loyalty program is also seeking to improve student engagement on campus by incentivizing attendance and participation in university events.

The University of Florida is leveraging student volunteers in a secret shopper program to help evaluate and hone in its student-facing campus services. The program has been operation for some time now and is designed for secret shoppers to report feedback on their experiences in various university-run businesses.

Washington College has moved to printing solutions provider, ink, from previous provider Pharos. Ink leverages touchscreen kiosks, called SmartStations, to support print, copy and scanning.

Beginning this semester, Binghamton University has enacted a new preferred name policy that will enable members of the campus community to choose a first name other than their legal name. The policy will support preferred name use in a number of campus systems, as well as appearing on student ID cards and other outward facing applications.