Western Michigan University will allow students enrolled exclusively in online classes the opportunity for penalty-free housing contract cancellations next semester. With the fall semester quickly coming to a close, sights are now turning to the spring and accounting for what the coronavirus may bring.

Drake University recently expanded the reach of its Bulldog Bucks off-campus program and declining balance account, enabling students and other Drake community members to make purchases at local businesses. The university hopes the initiative will foster a stronger town-gown relationship by helping to both encourage students to explore more of the Drake neighborhood, as well as support local businesses affected by the pandemic.

A student-led initiative brought Green2Go reusable containers to Carleton College last spring, and despite campus changes amid the coronavirus the containers have been a successful fit on the Northfield, MN campus. Plans for the reusable container program preceded the arrival of COVID-19 as a simple sustainability measure, but changing perceptions around eating in at campus dining halls might be breathing new life into the program.

To support higher education leaders in creating safe plans for reopening and maintaining healthy, secure campuses, Transact Campus has launched a self-service capacity management app. The app is called Transact Capacity Management, and it enables institutions to help control the number of individuals that enter a building at one time, as well as reduce physical touchpoints and manage social distancing.

In this episode of CR80News Chats, we catch up with ColorID’s David Stallsmith to talk about how ColorID has been helping universities tackle contact tracing and other COVID-19 related challenges. Contact tracing, in particular, is an emerging conversation for universities of all sizes, so we talk through some of the options available to campuses as they try to implement a contact tracing system that best suits their needs.

The University of Georgia is now providing its online students with their own UGA OneCard complete with ID photo. The move will provide online students with the same credential as their on-campus peers, as well as provide digital learners with all of the benefits of the UGA OneCard.

The University of New Mexico has launched a new initiative that will, in part, use LoboCard student ID scanning to keep track of individuals, including vendors, contractors and visitors, that enter the most highly trafficked buildings on campus. The “Shared Location Entry Tracking” program will capture the identification of all individuals and employees entering select buildings and will eliminate the need for manual collection of contact information shared with the New Mexico Department of Health’s contact tracing team.