In an effort to ease the difficulty of contact tracing and help students gather with their friends, Colorado Mesa University’s (CMU) Student Life is now accepting applications to register a Mavily.

Groups that gather together often, like co-workers, study groups, family and roommates are encouraged to register. Not every member needs to be a student attending CMU.

“What we’re trying to do is create a model that includes those non-students, whether it’s co-workers and you’re a server or a bartender, or you’re living at home and it’s family, or you live in a big house with a bunch of other young people, some of whom are students and some of whom aren’t,” CMU Public Relations Director David Ludlam said.

The perks of being in a Mavily include the ability to gather as a group off-campus without masks and COVID-19 vaccine priority. 

“As Phase two [of Colorado’s vaccine program] gets underway later this spring, we’ve worked with the county and they’ve agreed that those folks who [register], are prioritized in the front of the line for vaccinations,” Ludlam said. “So if you were on the fence about whether or not to create a Mavily through the Student Life portal, hopefully that will encourage you to go ahead and do that.”

“As of now we have 15 self-registered Mavilies,” Director of Student Life Shanae Mundee said. “We are about to do a big marketing push, so I expect that number to increase drastically.”

A Mavily of nine people or fewer will need one member per week to be tested for COVID-19, while 10-20 need two people to test.

“We know last semester a lot of people felt isolated, so we are hoping this gives students the ability to gather with more people than they did last semester, while also still limiting their possible exposures by staying within their Mavilies,” Mundee said.

To register to be in a Mavily, students can log onto the app Presence, found in MavZone.