New Mavcards were issued to both existing and incoming Colorado Mesa University students prior to the beginning of the fall semester. Shortly after the semester began, students began raising complaints about having issues with their cards. After examining the problem and learning the cause, the university has begun replacing cards free of charge to students. CMU President Tim Foster became aware of the problem while performing dorm visits.
“I do dorm visits a month or five weeks into the session, so we were doing those and a bunch of students pulled out Mavcards that were worn on the front across the picture,” Foster said. “Actually a lot of students pulled them out and so it was clear to me it was fairly widespread.”
CMU felt the swipe stripe on the back of the cards was more important than the pictures because the stripe is connected to meal plans, Mav money and room access. Consequently, an improperly functioning card can create a number of difficulties for students.
“I talked to Jeremy Brown in IT as well as other folks,” Foster said. “[…] and so we got a briefing on what we were trying to do to resolve that.”
After looking into the problem, the conclusion was that it issued from a defective laminating process used by Heartland, the third party supplier CMU uses to provide cards to students. CMU contacted the company and let them know about the card problems.
“We just raised, I think, the temperature a little bit and John Marshall forwarded a letter to them saying ‘you know we’ve had a lot of issues with you all,’” Foster said.
“We have communicated in very direct terms with the organization about our expectations of quality and student experience and we have not yet hit that at this point, so they’re aware of that and they’ve got some work to do,” Vice President of Student Services John Marshall said.
The problem arose from the manner in which cards were laminated. The process involved laminating the cards twice, once on the front and once on the back. The laminating was done separately and at different locations.
“One is done, I think, at their place of business. I think the front probably is in the machine when they print the photo and I think the back with just the swipe is done when they send them,” Foster said. “They concluded that they sent us the stock that were not appropriately done. So I think they resolved that.”
According to Foster, a card ought to last a student their entire college career, so there was no reason for cards to be having such issues one month, or earlier, into the semester.
Director of Media Relations Dana Nunn said the problems began shortly after new cards were issued.
“The first card we exchanged was July first,” Nunn said.
With the issue of Mavcards as well as other concerns, Foster wants to make sure students understand that CMU is willing to listen and search for solutions to problems.
“We do these dorm visits for a reason because students talk about what issues they are having,” Foster said. “It’s a point of being that we can take those issues seriously and try to fix them.”
According to Foster, the chief concern from students was that they would be held financially responsible for the current issue with the cards. CMU wants to make sure students understand that they are not required to pay to replace the cards.
“Normally they would,” Marshall said. “But I think we’ve established pretty clearly that this is a vendor failure, not a student problem.”
Because it is a warranty issue rather than a problem centering on how students use the cards, replacement is free of charge. CMU does not have to pay for the replacement cards, so they are not requiring students to come up with additional money.
“If you have problems with your Mavcard because it’s worn out, give it to the Mavcard office and we will replace it at no cost,” Foster said.
Replacement cards are supposed to have the corrections implemented in them and shouldn’t wear out as quickly as the ones being turned in. Time will tell if the new cards will hold up or additional actions need to be taken.
