The University of North Georgia has launched mobile ordering from Transact, giving students the option to place food and drink orders from their smartphone and skip the line at pickup. Transact Mobile Ordering will enable UNG students to place orders at the Dahlonega campus’ Starbucks, Twisted Taco, and Einstein Bros. Bagels with additional campus food retailers to be added soon.

The University of Houston is joining the roster of early adopters to deploy delivery robots on campus. Houston will partner with Starship Technologies, the company behind the autonomous, wheeled robots now on university campuses across the country.

A new meal donation initiative has commenced at Vanderbilt University offering students the option to donate meal swipes to students in need. The program is enabling those grappling with food insecurity to apply for and receive up to five meals per week through the university’s dining services and financial aid departments.

Georgetown University’s fall semester meal-swipe drive managed to double the number of student donations it received last spring from 538 to 1,092. The program enables donation recipients to access swipes directly from their GOCards — Georgetown’s student ID card — in an effort to both increase participation in the program and make the process more discreet for those individuals facing food insecurity.

Savannah State University has made the decision to stop issuing meal plans that include Dining Dollars, instead offering meal plans supplemented by students’ personal cash or Flex Funds. The decision to discontinue Dining Dollars was in part the result of a policy implemented at the University System of Georgia level.

University of Pennsylvania students have a new way to place mobile food orders on campus after the university’s dining services established an agreement with Transact to provide its Mobile Ordering app. Penn Dining launched the “Penn Eats” app at the start of the fall semester and will enable students to place orders from their mobile device and skip payment lines to head straight to pick up orders at both campus-run locations and the on-campus Starbucks.

Vanderbilt University has amended its meal swipe donation program to enable students to donate side items from campus dining halls on a year-round basis. The initiative, established last year, initially allowed donations during select periods throughout the semester.

Purdue University has joined the list of early adopting campuses to deploy autonomous delivery robots from Starship Technologies. The unmanned delivery robots are equipped with GPS and geofencing technology and can navigate college campuses to deliver food and beverage orders to students.

After a long partnership with mobile ordering provider, Tapingo, Texas State University is set to continue providing mobile ordering to its students through Grubhub. The new partnership with Grubhub, who purchased Tapingo in 2018, is expected to offer many of the same features as before along with improved delivery benefits.

Minnesota’s St. Thomas University has installed touchless biometric hand scanners that students will now use to gain entry to campus dining halls instead of their ID cards. The initiative will leverage IDEMIA’s MorphoWave biometric readers, and will see all members of the campus community with meal plans be enrolled in the system.