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.

With the number of universities issuing mag stripe or 125 kHz prox credentials still alarmingly high, it’s worth taking the time to discuss the options available to campuses as they plot moves to more advanced, secure student credentials. To better frame the issue, CR80News caught up with CBORD’s Read Winkelman and Larry Delaney to discuss some actionable steps that campuses can take.

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.

Allegion’s Jeff Koziol discusses the expectations that students now have when arriving on campus, and how mobile credentials have become a part of that landscape. Koziol covers all the top considerations, including cost and procurement factors, ways to support the Android user base, areas on campus that can benefit from mobile credentials, and pathways forward for universities trying to achieve mobile implementation.

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.

Trusted identities, payments and data protection provider, Entrust, has announced its new cloud-based, direct-to-card solution for physical and remote ID card issuance. The next generation Entrust Sigma series card printer has been built with today’s cloud environments in mind, leveraging encryption, trusted HSM technology and secure boot to issue highly secure credentials.