Southern University students are getting a facelift in the way they identify themselves this year with the new SU One Card, which may eventually serve as more than just another ID card.
The new identification cards will provide students, alumni and visitors with a variety of convenient new options, officials in the Office of Auxiliary Services stated.
“The card will allow students to continue to have the features of copying, printing and (purchasing) meals,” said LaTonya Green-Jones, director of auxiliary services.
The card will also give students traditional access into sporting events, dormitories, on campus laundry facilities and various labs throughout campus, Jones said.
One of the new features projected for the new ID cards will be the ability for students to upload monetary value onto their card accounts to use for purchases they make in the campus bookstore and some off campus venues.
Students will just have to go to a reload machine similar to the one located on the first floor of John B. Cade Library to add money onto their cards, Jones said.
As the process of perfecting the cards continue, the University has the intentions of following in the footsteps of other universities who have turned the ID cards of their students into debit cards by placing financial aid refunds onto the identification passes.
“I think the new cards will benefit use in some ways,” said Adrian Hogan, a senior accountant major from Hammond, La. “For instance, keeping track of the traffic in and out of dormitories.”
“Later down the line these new features of placing students refund checks in an account may help teach the students money management,” said Hogan.
The capabilities alumni and visitors will have are still in progress, Jones said.
Through the experiences of Latarvin Rushing, an alumnus of Dillard University, who did implement the ID/debt card system, students at Southern may be less enthusiastic about the new functions of the card.
“I didn’t like the fact of giving us debit cards because some people were given their debit cards but the money wasn’t placed on the card until a later day,” Rushing said. “In some cases people even had to get their cards reordered because of a malfunction with the cards.”
“The checks were better because once you cashed the checks you knew for sure that you were going to have your money,” Rushing said.
If lost, the replacement of the new cards will cost $35 for the first two cards lost. That price will increase to $50 a card for any additional cards misplaced by students.