Card system vendor, Transact, will host a webinar detailing a number of mobile solutions suited to helping university campuses re-open and manage the new normal. With the COVID-19 pandemic continuing to impact higher education, universities have needed to quickly adopt new and creative practices to keep their students, faculty, and staff safe.

Arizona State University is the latest institution to turn to robot delivery from Starship, with a fleet of 40 autonomous robots being deployed on the Tempe campus. Assisting in the initiative is ASU’s food-service provider, Aramark, who has partnered with delivery robot provider Starship Technologies to provide the program to higher education institutions.

Vanderbilt University is now enabling students, faculty and staff to add their Commodore Card, the Vanderbilt student ID, to Apple Wallet for use via their iPhone and Apple Watch. Vanderbilt, a CBORD campus client, is leveraging CBORD’s GET app to add student credentials to Apple Wallet, as well as reader hardware from HID Global to support the full range of transactions across the Nashville campus.

Over the summer, universities worked diligently to evaluate and implement actionable steps to make dining safer. CBORD was also hard at work this summer – and that work continues – launching campus dining reservations for a number of campus clients across the country, along with a host of other healthy return solutions supported by GET and efforts from other CBORD partners.

Allegion’s Jeff Koziol details the new Mobile Credential project at the University of Tennessee, delves into the benefits of a mobile student ID, and how the need for them now is even more apparent. Hear how mobile credentials enable remote distribution to cut the number of students picking up replacement cards in person, as well as how transactions and secure access can occur without students needing to swipe or hand over a physical card.

The University of Miami has outlined its plans for on-campus dining this fall, including a new mobile reservation system via CBORD’s GET app, and density monitors located outside dining facilities to display current occupancy numbers. Miami’s dining halls reopened food service to students, faculty, and staff on August 9, incorporating new foot traffic signage, floor decals, and plexiglass barriers to encourage physical distancing.

In this installment of CR80News Chats, we discuss a return to campus this fall with Transact’s senior director of product management for security, Scott Dennison. Scott shares some of the tangible challenges he sees coming for campus card offices and the auxiliaries, notably crowd capacity control and the use of mobile technology to manage social distancing in highly trafficked areas.