Students can now use debit or credit cards at Fountain Dining Hall and CentennialCampus’s Port City Java, which are the first dining establishments on campus to host credit card machines. Students initially had to pay for their meals with meal plans, Board Bucks, All-Campus accounts or cash.
According to Randy Lait, University Dining business officer, it will take at leastthe rest of the fall semester and possibly the rest of the 2007-2008 school year toinstall new registers and credit card machines in all dining halls, C-stores andother on-campus eateries.
“The process will go in sections,” Lait said. “Right now, I’m trying to get the newregisters set up at the Lil’ Dino’s sub shop at the Atrium, and the Wolves’ Den, but they won’t be with the credit card machines yet. By the end of the school year, everything should be in place.”
Joyce Young, a cashier at Fountain, said the credit card machines at Fountain havebeen a hit with students and their guests. She said that the new machines haveincreased business for the dining hall, especially during orientation and move-inweekend.
“When parents came to campus for move-in weekend, we had a lot of business,” Youngsaid. “Parents don’t have meal plans, and many of them didn’t have cash. They werehappy to be able to use debit or credit cards.”
She said that while she hasn’t experienced any problems with the new machines,sometimes the processing time for credit and debit cards slows the line. However,Young said most of the time she is able to perform two transactions at once, as longas they aren’t both credit or debit card transactions.
“I’m able to use the register on people with cash or meal plans while the creditcard machine is processing someone else’s order — that helps to move things along,”she said.
Business has also improved since the upgrade at Port City Java, according to Lait.
“It’s worked well at the coffee shop so far,” he said. “Almost half of theirbusiness is done with debit or credit cards.”
Lait said he anticipates a growth in business all over campus once all credit card machines are in place.
“Statistically, when people go out to eat and use their debit or credit cards, theyspend more money,” he said. “They are more likely to spend more because they aren’tlimited by the amount of cash they have in their wallet. So they’ll get somethingextra.”
Student Government enforced the incorporation of debit and credit transactions in on-campus eateries, according to Bobby Mills, student body president and junior in political science. He said the public in general supports the use of plastic transactions, and he believes the average student would find using a credit or debit card on campus to be much more convenient than cash.
“If you asked the typical student on campus what they use to pay for food — plasticor cash — the response would be overwhelmingly with plastic: credit or debit cards,” Mills said. “That’s a trend that has grown and still is growing. I’ve got $4 in my wallet, but I have a credit card and two debit cards. It’s a sign of change.”
He said that incorporating debit and credit cards into University Dining will helppromote a unified campus.
“Parents, visitors, teachers and staff members usually don’t have meal plans, and a lot of them don’t have cash either,” Mills said. “So they will go to eat somewhere off campus instead. Soon, anyone in the Wolfpack family will be able to shop at all of the on-campus eateries, all of the dining halls and all of the C-stores.”
Lait said he hopes students will have patience while the new registers and machines are put into place.
“It’s going to take a while to get all of the machines set up and teach all of thecashiers to use them,” Lait said. “But it will happen.”
