The first thing every Mav learns when they begin their career at Colorado Mesa University (CMU) is that your MavCard is your life. Your MavCard means food. It means housing. It even means your laundry. 

So why is it that these fragile plastic cards must be our only access to basic necessities?

Despite the importance of these cards, it is almost unavoidable to loose them at some point within the school year. More likely than not, if you haven’t lost them multiple times within the year, you know plenty of Mavs who do.

Of course, any Mav that looses their precious MavCard is more than welcome to replace it at the MavCard center, conveniently closed on weekends. That’s right, loose your card on a Friday night and you can say goodbye to your meal plan for the weekend.

Did I mention each replacement is $15? Maybe a little extreme of a fee for broke college students who lost their key to the campus.

Though you may be paying anywhere from $4,755 to $5,165 a year for on-campus food, loosing that piece of plastic while the MavCard office is closed typically means you lost eating privileges. 

Theoretically, students should be able to use their #700 as proof of identity and payment; yet, nearly every Sodexo worker has an obligation to inform you they shouldn’t be doing it and you’re basically ruining their day.

When it comes to getting into your room without your card, there are work-arounds, but it certainly calls the convenience and lack of concern from the school into attention.

From calling RAs to unlock your door, clinging to roommates for a let-in, to propping your doors open and risking the security, none of the alternatives seem too appealing

While these are all possibilities, it’s all quite unnecessary given that there are a lot of alternatives CMU could install which would solve these problems through the modernization of MavCards. 

With new technology such as tap to pay and barcodes, where the use of barcode scanning is already used in the Hamilton Rec Center, it doesn’t make much sense why the old-age MavCards get a revamp.

Perhaps it would cost the school money between the electronic updates and loss of profit from overcharging for lost MavCards; yet, this investment in the student body holds much more value than any student concert or overly-green grass.

With the traditional MavCard as a backup for if the student’s phone dies, an electronic version of the student lifeline would allow for ease of access to food, dining, and yes, even your laundry.