Ohio University’s meal swipe donation initiative will return after a successful pilot phase last year. The donation program enables students to give up to three meal swipes to fellow students experiencing food scarcity. Last semester, the meal swipe donation program brought in some 500 meals for Ohio University students in need.

Following a new mandatory meal plan for incoming students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the university’s dining services has seen a significant bump in student spend to the tune of $500,000 more than the year before. The new plan has helped to financially stabilize the university’s dining program, which had started to see a decline in sales in recent years.

George Mason University is now the first academic institution to deploy autonomous robots for the purpose of delivering food to students. George Mason’s 40,000 students, faculty and staff can access the Starship Deliveries app to order food and drinks to be delivered anywhere on campus within minutes.

In early 2015, the results of an internal student dining survey indicated a need to change the University of Maryland’s dining program. But rather than simply refresh meal plan offerings, the university decided on a large-scale revamp that, among other improvements, incorporated advanced biometric technology. After consulting with campus card vendor, CBORD the university deployed IDEMIA’s MorphoWave touchless biometric readers for access to all campus dining halls.

We were promised flying cars, but pizza ATMs will have to suffice for now. Ohio State University has installed a pizza ATM in one of its campus dining halls that enables students to use their student ID card to pay for and make pizza withdrawals.

Students at Ohio State University now have the ability to donate meals to those in need thanks to an initiative with mobile ordering platform, Tapingo. The mobile platform is being offered as an extension and alternative means to navigate the donation process.

Tapingo is a mobile food ordering app geared toward the college and university space. Hear from the company’s director of business development, Ben Anderson, as he delves into the features of the service and how students can benefit from mobile ordering in today’s campus environment.

The University of California, Riverside is set to deploy a reusable to-go boxes in campus dining and will be the latest campus to deploy the OZZI system. In addition to the reusable to-go containers, the project will also install OZZI’s proprietary vending machines at UCR dining commons.

Kent State University faculty and staff now have the option to purchase a meal plan similar to the student plans. The university’s dining services announced this month that any interested faculty and staff can sign up for the new meal plan using payroll deduction.

The University of Oregon is devoting more effort to its food insecurity initiatives for students, and is leveraging the campus card to help disperse aid to students. Beyond helping students in need of a meal, the university also sees benefits in the classroom for students who leverage these services, as hunger hinders students’ abilities to focus and perform well academically.