Card, mobile credential, payment and security
Transact + CBORD formerly announced its new name, visual identity, and branding as Illumia at its Momentum annual user conference.
According to an announcement about the launch, the company powers payments, access, foodservice, and credentialing at more than 10,000 clients in higher education, healthcare, and senior living institutions.
"The Momentum conference is the right place to bring this brand to life for the first time, with clients and partners who have been part of this journey from the beginning," says Greg Brown, the company’s new CEO.
CEO Greg Brown and Chief Commercial Officer Laura Newell-McLaughlin kick off Momentum ’26, Illumia’s annual user conference, with a fireside chat.
At the event, Illumia also recognized its 2026 Distinction Award winners including both clients and partners. Honorees include:
"There's no better reminder of what this brand stands for than what happens when these organizations and partners work side by side – sharing ideas, solving problems, and making things easier for the people they serve,” says Brown.
Illumia is a business unit of Roper Technologies. Roper acquired CBORD in 2008 for $367 million at a time when CBORD supported 750 colleges and universities. In 2024, they added Transact at a $1.5 billion price tag.
The two companies have operated as Transact + CBORD for the 18 months following the August 2024 Transact acquisition.
FutureState, a new entrant to the campus credential, dining, and auxiliary service space, announced its new closed-loop, stored value and meal plan offering called BalanceU.
“FutureState’s BalanceU is designed to help colleges and universities lower operating costs, eliminate vendor lock-in, and gain real-time financial visibility across campus,” says Christopher Augustine, Co-Founder and Head of Product Development at FutureState.
It is hardware-agnostic so institutions can choose the front-end systems that best meet their goals without being constrained by legacy one-card architectures, he explains.
Because we are not weighed down with legacy codebase, we can iterate quicker to meet emerging needs like roll over meals and donated meals to food insecurity programs.
BalanceU eliminates some of the costs that are common in traditional meal plan environments, such as fixed POS integration fees, charges for access to real-time balance data, and forced hardware replacements.
Augustine says institutions only pay for what they use, and existing systems already deployed on campus can be redirected to operate with BalanceU.
FutureState began as a project at the University of Arizona.
In 2025, Arizona took a unique approach to campus transactions, identity, and mobile credentials. The institution created its own software ‘layer’ between the credential and the multitude of campus systems that consume the credential. At its most basic form, they created a hub that manages API endpoints.
It connects the wide array of services on the campus – access control, housing, campus rec, dining, retail, parking, attendance, events, vending, laundry – to the credential manager. Because the university controls this layer, they can swap out both the upstream credential manager as well as any downstream consuming system without disrupting the larger network.
It is a radical change from the way it has always been done in higher ed. Traditionally, the transaction system or the access control system managed these connections, and this locked the campus to that vendor.
The Arizona project was led by two of the leaders of Administrative and Auxiliary Operations, Sr. Director of IT Joe Harting and IT Project Manager Chris Augustine.
“What we built sounds basic and logical, but it is a radical change from the way it has always been done in higher ed,” says Harting. “Traditionally, the transaction system or the access control system managed these connections, and this locked the campus to that vendor.”
Harting believes they have upended an outdated model, and now they hope to help other institutions benefit from their work. In this pursuit, they founded a private company called FutureState.
In the same way that the company’s credential solution is designed to integrate the array of the wider campus vendor solutions, the FutureState meal plan solution connects to a broad range of dining-centric vendors.
Supported systems include:
Self-service retail integrations include:
FutureState founders say BalanceU provides free, unrestricted access to real-time meal plan and stored value balance data. This ensures institutions can power mobile apps, parent portals, analytics tools, and reporting systems without additional cost.
“Our goal from the beginning was to give institutions immediate access to their own data so they could do things like display balances and transaction history alongside the mobile credential,” says Augustine. “You shouldn’t have to negotiate with your transaction system provider or pay additional fees to use your campus data.”
With decades of experience in auxiliary services, Harting says he understands the complexities of meal plans.
“Because we built BalanceU from the ground up using an AI native development stack, we are able to incorporate the normal dining feature set as well as features I’d wished were available through my years running both card and meal plan offices,” explains Harting. “Because we are not weighed down with legacy infrastructure and codebase, we will also be able to iterate quicker to meet key emerging needs like roll over meals and donated meals to food insecurity programs.”
FutureState will showcase BalanceU at the NACCU Annual Conference in Covington, KY, April 19-22, 2026. They are seeking a small group of colleges and universities to pilot BalanceU in Fall 2026, ahead of general availability in Q1 2027.
Transact + CBORD (rebranding to Illumia in March 2026) announced a new agreement with sports and entertainment point-of-sale (POS) provider MyVenue. The partnership allows students to use their campus card and stored-value campus funds for purchases inside stadiums and arenas.
The integration adds MyVenue’s high-volume point-of-sale platform to Transact + CBORD’s campus commerce platform.
Designed specifically for hospitality environments, MyVenue supports mobile ordering, POS terminals, self-service kiosks, in-seat and suite catering. Its real-time back-office inventory and reporting helps venues serve more fans faster and streamline operations.
For students and fans, it means shorter queues, and for operators, it means greater oversight and improved efficiencies.
According to Transact +CBORD, most campuses manage dining and events with separate systems, creating friction for students and operational challenges for staff. This leads to long wait times, inconsistent payment experiences, and limited reporting and operational visibility.
This attempts to change that by providing a unified payment experience everywhere on campus without the need for a dedicated event card or payment tender.
“The partnership delivers a faster, unified commerce experience across campus and sporting facilities,” says Tim Stollznow, Founder and CEO of MyVenue. “For students and fans, it means shorter queues, and for operators, it means greater oversight and improved efficiencies.”
Colleges and universities deploying MyVenue, can simplify vendor onboarding and deployment by leveraging their existing Transact + CBORD network. By purchasing the solution directly from Transact + CBORD, the acquisition process can be streamlined.
“MyVenue stands alone in its ability to perform in high-volume, high-pressure environments where speed and reliability matter most,” says Chris Setcos, SVP of Partnerships, M&A, and Corporate Strategy at Transact + CBORD.
The Australia-based company’s solution is used at venues including Lumen Field, Ball Arena, AT&T Stadium, Dodger Stadium, and Little Caesar’s Arena. It also serves collegiate athletics, including University of Florida, Purdue University, and Michigan State University.
ColorID announced that it has achieved HID Elite Technology Partner status within the HID partner ecosystem. This designation recognizes them as one of a select group of partners demonstrating advanced technical expertise, strategic integration capabilities, and excellence in delivering solutions built on HID technology.
The HID Origo Technology Partner Program is designed to foster collaboration with technology innovators who integrate secure mobile access into their platforms.
Only five companies globally have achieved this designation, and we don't take that lightly. Having HID Global as a deep technical partner means we can guide organizations practically, securely, and at scale.
In a post welcoming ColorID to this new level, HID explains that “Elite status signals a partner we can confidently position when customers ask not only Which credential? but How do we modernize – practically, securely, and at scale?”
Danny Smith, Owner of ColorID says that becoming an HID Elite Technology Partner is a significant milestone driven by years of collaboration and the capabilities of ColorID’s CardExchange Cloud Suite.
CardExchange is a cloud-native identity management platform that centralizes the creation, issuance, management, and revocation of physical, wallet, and app-based credentials. Unlike other solutions, it enables all three credential types to be managed via a single platform.
“The platform unifies physical and mobile credential lifecycle management, securely synchronizing across multiple applications within the broader identity ecosystem,” explains Smith.
It is a significant milestone driven by years of collaboration and the capabilities of ColorID’s CardExchange Cloud Suite.
“Only five partners globally have achieved this designation, and we don't take that lightly,” he adds. “The identity infrastructure is genuinely changing across every sector we serve, and having HID Global as a deep technical partner means we can guide organizations through that shift practically, securely, and at scale.”
As an Elite Technology Partner, ColorID will continue to collaborate closely with HID to deliver integrated solutions across physical access, mobile credentials, secure issuance, and identity lifecycle technologies. The designation reinforces ColorID’s role as a trusted integration partner supporting customers across higher education, healthcare, enterprise, and government markets.
“ColorID has demonstrated exactly the kind of technical depth and integration excellence that defines our Elite Partner tie,” says Sanjit Bardhan, Vice President and Head of Mobile for HID. “Together, we're helping organizations modernize identity infrastructure with solutions that are secure, scalable, and built to last.”
Pictured in the image from left to right: Björn Lidefelt; Executive Vice President & Head of HID Global at ASSA ABLOY Group; Todd Brooks; Vice President, Products & Technology at ColorID; Mark Degan; Vice President, Marketing at ColorID; Martin Huddart; SVP and Managing Director, Physical Access Control at HID Global; Troy Johnston; Director of Strategic Alliances at HID Global; Sanjit Bardhan; VP & Global Head of Mobile at HID Global; Jason Schimpf; Global Director of Strategic Accounts of Mobile at HID Global.
In this episode of CampusIDNews Chats, leaders from Transact + CBORD (rebranding to Illumia in March 2026), Genea, and Mercer University discuss a new partnership delivering cloud-native access control to higher education. The collaboration brings together Genea’s modern physical security solution and Illumia’s identity, credentialing, and commerce platform. Mercer is a key initial implementation of the new partnership.
Michael Wong, President and CEO of Genea, describes his company’s offering as a smart building automation platform with a physical security solution built natively in the cloud. He explains that many cloud-hosted access systems are simply retrofits of a company’s legacy offering, but Genea’s solution is designed natively for the cloud, enabling scalability and continuous innovation.
We're big believers in open hardware. Our customer retention is driven by our service and our value, not because we sold you something proprietary.
He highlights Genea’s commitment to open architecture, allowing institutions to reuse hardware and avoid proprietary lock-in. They prioritize user experience – from a modern intuitive user interface to dedicated project management during implementation. Rather than leaving customer support to integrators or OEMs, Genea handles its own 24x7x365 support enhanced by AI-driven tools.
Rasheed Behrooznia, EVP and General Manager for Campus ID and Commerce at Illumia, says one key to the partnership is a shared philosophy. He points to a focus on client satisfaction, resiliency, and scalable cloud technology.
“Leading up to selecting Genea as a partner we were exploring options to bring cloud-native access control to our ecosystem and frankly, all of higher education,” says Behrooznia. “We were looking for that partner that had exceptional solutions that operated at scale.”
For Mercer University, the move to Genea followed decades using an on-prem access control system. With nearly 4,000 readers across 12 facilities in Georgia and 14,000 mobile credentials in use, scalability and uptime were critical.
We wanted to use and be able to reuse as much of the existing Transact access control readers, the physical wiring, and infrastructure that we had in place.
Associate Vice President Ken Boyer says cloud was a must-have, as was open architecture, and the ability to reuse existing infrastructure. The university spread funding across three fiscal years to ease the financial impact.
“The vast majority of our stakeholders that are out using their credentials on our campuses each and every day see no difference,” says Boyer. “It just works. It just keeps working.”
Wong describes Mercer as a valuable proving ground. “We will do whatever it takes to solve the problems that need to be solved,” he says, noting the complexity of university environments and the importance of reliability.
Boyer adds that the partnership has improved campus operations and fostered collaborative product development. “Access control is our primary focus,” he says, “but we're looking down the road to integrate video, building systems, and other things that Genea brings to the table.”
To listen to the full discussion, click on the image at the top of this page.
TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to CampusIDNews Chats. I'm your host Chris Corum. Today we're going to talk about a partnership between Illumia and security provider Genea that's bringing the next evolution of cloud-based access control to Transact clients. We're going to hear from Mercer University, one of the first institutions to put that solution into play.
With me today, we've got Ken Boyer, Associate Vice President for Auxiliary Services at Mercer. Ken is well known to lots of us for his pioneering work in the industry, including being one of the first campuses to go fully mobile.
Rasheed Behrooznia, EVP and General Manager for Campus ID and Commerce at Illumia, which most of us know as formerly Transact + CBORD.
And third, Michael Wong, President and CEO of Genea.
Michael, we're going to let you kick it off. Can you give us an overview of Genea and your solutions?
Michael Wong: So Genea overall is a smart building automation platform, but what we'll focus our attention on specifically is our physical security solution, which we acquired in December of 2019.
That solution is an application that was natively built in the cloud, as opposed to a lot of the solutions that are out there that are purported cloud solutions, but it's basically a forklifted version of their on-prem software with all the same limitations. So be careful out there. Not all clouds built the same.
The other thing that really distinguishes us from the industry is we're big believers in open hardware, so that our customer retention is driven by our service and our value, not because we sold you something proprietary.
We help future proof the buying decision of hardware by using something that, if you don't like us for some reason, there's at least 20 other software providers that you can use that same hardware for that end user.
Then I would say most importantly, the other thing that we focus on is a fantastic end user experience.
You'll see a old legacy access control platform that feels like you're going back in time decades, or you could see that against our modern user interface, that just looks like something that's intuitive. The user experience is just a lot more improved using our platform.
But the user interface isn't just the UI.
We actually take it back all the way to the implementation process, because we are the only company that, as far as I know, assigns a project manager to make sure everything goes smoothly. That project manager gets very involved in the database migration, the entire implementation process, because you only get one time to make a good first impression. Obviously, we want to make sure that things go well.
Then ongoing support, we provide 24-7-365 ongoing support. If somebody has any problems, they're not having to go to a security integrator, and then that ticket needs to go to the OEM, and you're waiting hours, days, maybe weeks to get an answer back.
We're talking about physical security, this stuff needs to be resolved right away. On our platform is a chat bot where you can interact and ask questions. A majority of our tickets are actually resolved with our AI in the bot right now, turning to the appropriate help articles. But at any point in time, if you want to talk to a live agent, you have a live agent, once again, 24x7x365.
Those are some of the things we bring in the marketplace that are different.
Chris Corum: Rasheed, can you describe a bit more about the partnership? What's that bringing to Illumia clients? How is it helping what you're looking to do in that next evolution of access control?
Rasheed Behrooznia: Yeah, absolutely, Chris. I guess my first immediate answer is Genea shared much of the same beliefs that we do here at Illumia. Mainly an unwavering focus on client satisfaction and bringing those exceptional solutions to market.
Leading up to selecting Genea as a partner we were exploring what options there were to bring cloud-native access control to our ecosystem and frankly, all of higher education. We were looking for that partner that had exceptional solutions that operated at scale. A company like us that was focused on cloud-native technology and all that comes with that, the security and resiliency that's necessary to ensure that high satisfaction.
In addition to that technical acumen, as I said, just a partner that would be dedicated to our clients and dedicated to working with us to bring that great experience to market in higher education. That was non-negotiable and Genea really met that mark.
I would say one of the things that was a very important factor as well is Genea can work with a number of our solutions, whether that was our TSE solution, IDX, leveraging our access control integration layer to immediately be able to work with our solutions, that provision credentials across mobile and the architecture that we have.
And ultimately, just a partnership that is about giving our colleges and university choice, flexibility, a modern security foundation, and open architecture for that exceptional user experience.
So in the end, we found that exceptional partner.
Chris Corum: Ken, so Mercer is one of the first institutions to launch this partnership and the Genea solution. Can you tell us about the prior PACS environment that you had on your campus and how that led you to seek a new solution? What you were looking for?
Ken Boyer: We were on-premise with Transact for over 30 years, and that product had worked well for us. As that product was sunsetting with Transact, we started looking at other opportunities that they had, partners that they could offer to us. Genea became a clear leader in our evaluation process.
We were an early adopter, as you said earlier, with mobile credentials. We've done a lot of things with the cloud with Transact, and this just made sense for us.
Having an on-prem server solution was difficult for us because we're a 24-7 operation. You've got downtime, things like that. Moving to the cloud allows us a lot of those updates and things to happen without having to have downtime for our university.
We operate over 12 facilities across the state of Georgia, from the southern end of Georgia to the northern end of Georgia, and it was important for us to have something that could do that.
We have nearly 4,000 access control readers across all of our facilities in the state of Georgia, and right at 14,000 mobile credentials currently in use across our campuses.
Chris Corum: When you were looking for the new solution, what were the must-haves?
Ken Boyer: We were looking for a solution with open architecture. We wanted to use and be able to reuse as much of our existing Transact access control readers that we had on campus, the physical wiring, and infrastructure that we had in place. We were looking to try to do that as much as possible, and look at different options that had it out there.
The Mercury boards were really appealing to us because of the open architecture, and that was something that Transact and Genea can bring to us.
Cloud was a must-have because we had been very successful with other Transact products in the cloud, Transact point of sale was one of the first endeavor into the cloud, and it just made sense to move our access control system in that direction.
Chris Corum: Elephant in the room that always comes up in these kinds of conversations of funding, obstacles, how did you navigate them, how'd the process go?
Ken Boyer: That is always a challenge when you're trying to do something like this.
We had great partners with Transact, and we worked with our account executives at Transact at the time and Genea to try to think outside of the box and not have to do this all in one physical year. We actually spread ours across three physical years, and it's helped us to get it all there and make it happen. So, it's been a great partnership.
We were able to use a lot of our resources that we already had in place, but we had money in our budgets, so we were able to take money from three budget years. Our budget year runs July 1 to June 30th every year. So at the end of FY24 at the time, we were able to use money that we'd been saving.
We knew the sunsetting was coming to the Transact traditional door access system, so we were saving some funds to put towards that and then just got creative to be able to have those funds rolled across three years so that it was not as huge a financial impact to the institution.
Chris Corum: Okay, and initial feedback from your group, from stakeholders on campus, has it gone well?
Ken Boyer: The vast majority of our stakeholders – and students and the faculty and staff that are out using their credentials on our campuses each and every day – see no difference. It just works. It just keeps working.
Working with Michael's team, the team at Transact, and my staff here, we've implemented a process to just roll it to where things keep operating. So that has been very, very good for us.
On the administrative side of the shop there, we've been using new features and new techniques that are available in the Genea software. One which has been huge for us is the AI support that is in the Genea support and that's something that our team really loves. It gets answers to questions quickly without having to get a support tech on the phone necessarily, but they're always there to help us when we need it. So that's been huge.
We're also looking forward to working with Michael's team for other integrations.
Access control is our primary focus here, but we're looking down the road to integrate that to video, building systems, and other things that Genea brings to the table as well, which was one of the reasons that we selected them as a partner.
Chris Corum: Michael, back to you. What did you learn in the process? This was a big project and a little bit of a new market for you guys. What did the Mercer project bring to the table for you?
Michael Wong: I love stress testing our business, our technology with new challenges and Mercer definitely lived up to a new challenge for us.
Universities are not simple organizations to run. There's lots of different parts of the organizations, a lot of different profiles that we need to account for and so I think it put our team to the test.
Now what Rasheed leaned into is one of the most important things for us is to make sure that the end users are happy. I would say we did a lot of bending over backward late nights to make sure that we delivered what we needed to deliver because on a university campus somebody can't get in the door, you know, that's not a good time for anybody, right?
So the realities of making sure that we deliver something that is on time and working reliably is incredibly important for us.
I would say we learned a lot. We leaned into what makes our reputation stand out for other end users is that we will do whatever it takes to solve the problems that need to be solved.
It's also been fun, you know, leaning with the team to hear what other items would you like to see and then start developing those items. One of the nicest things about being natively born in the cloud is we can launch new features very quickly. In fact, last year alone we launched close to 80 new features whereas a typical access control platform may launch a new feature every 12 to 18 months.
Just being able to bring new innovative solutions to Ken and his team by just listening to them. What are things that you'd like to see and if there's an integration that we haven't built yet, we'll put it on the roadmap and we'll give you a timeline in which we will deliver it.
It's been a lot of fun.
Chris Corum: Ken, tell us why you would recommend other peer institutions, other campuses consider this route?
Ken Boyer: I think Michael hit on it right there. They've been listening to their customers. We all agree that it's been a challenging opportunity for everyone. We have all learned the strengths and challenges of each other and together we've had a willingness to sit down and improve the product.
The campus experience has greatly improved on our campus because of our partnership with Transact and with Genea and the team understands that each campus is different.
There's no two of us to be the same. Michael will continue to learn that as they roll this out to other institutions, but I am confident that they will sit down just like they've done with Mercer and listen to ways to make those campuses better as well.
Together we've found solutions that make some substantial improvements to the daily operations.
Chris Corum: Well, congrats everybody. It sounds like a good project is well underway or done and continuing to grow. Thanks everybody for joining me. And thanks everybody for listening in. As always, if you've got an idea for a future episode of CampusIDNews Chats, shoot me a note.
In this episode of CampusIDNews Chats, Adam Brooks, Director of the Public Speaking Program at the University of Alabama, shares practical guidance for campus card leaders seeking to better communicate their value. His core message centers on the power of storytelling as a leadership tool.
Brooks challenges the assumption that more data automatically leads to better understanding. “People aren’t motivated by evidence. They’re motivated by story,” he says. While metrics and operational details matter, they rarely inspire action on their own. Instead, leaders must frame information in a way that connects to what their audience already believes and cares about.
A lot of campus card leaders want to communicate what their offices do. Instead, think about what the things that you're doing enable the organization to accomplish?
For Brooks, storytelling means structuring communication as a journey – moving “from something, through something, to something.” That structure helps listeners see how an office’s work solves real problems and supports broader institutional goals. Rather than expecting others to interpret raw information correctly, campus leaders must place their work within a narrative that highlights its purpose and impact.
Brooks notes that many campus offices have influence but not formal power. In those cases, communication becomes leadership. He urges professionals to think beyond the immediate conversation and consider the “audience of your audience.” When someone leaves a meeting, what message will they share with others?
Think about the audience of your audience – meaning whenever that person is done meeting with you, what is the thing you want them to walk away telling others?
By distilling complex ideas into simple, repeatable takeaways, leaders make their work easier to translate across an organization. Brooks advises asking a strategic question before every interaction: “What is the one thing I want them walking away, talking about at the end of this conversation?” In some ways this is marketing 101, but that clarity increases influence and strengthens relationships, even in rooms where decision-making authority resides elsewhere.
Addressing communication anxiety, Brooks emphasizes that nervousness is universal. Accepting it – rather than trying to eliminate it allows professionals to focus on connection and listening. He reminds leaders that most people enter conversations hoping for value, not failure.
To prepare for presentations or meetings, Brooks recommends returning to fundamentals. “There are typically five questions you can ask yourself that will get you through every conversation,” he explains. “Who, what, where, when, and why.” By keeping messages simple and centered on outcomes – the things their office enables the institution to achieve – campus card leaders can communicate with greater confidence and impact.
To check out the full interview, click the image at the top of this page.
TRANSCRIPT:
A lot of times, we think that data is going to work for us, and that the more information that we have – the more information that we're giving – is telling people everything they need to know.
But people aren't motivated by evidence. They're motivated by story. The most powerful story they have is the one that they believe.
For me, the art of storytelling is about making sure that you're engaging people and having information that is meaningful to them. It's telling them a ‘from something, through something, to something.’
It's helping them understand how this information that you're giving them is in service to someone or something that solves a problem that they're trying to achieve. And I think for a lot of people out there, they're focused on ‘well we have all this information, don't people just understand what we do?’ You've got to put that in the context of the story.
For a lot of campus offices, they have influence, but they might not have power. For a lot of folks, the way that you communicate is going to be how you lead. So it's not just about making sure you get in front of the right audience. It's ‘are you thinking about the audience of your audience.’ Meaning whenever that person is done meeting with you, what is the thing you want them to walk away telling someone else?
If you think about that, going into every conversation, distilling that complex idea down into something simple. It allows your idea to be easily translated and transmitted across an organization, which for a lot of folks is exactly how you increase your influence.
As you tell somebody something, and you create an opportunity when you build a relationship, where somebody's talking about you in your room that you're not in. You're only gonna do that if you're thinking strategically going, ‘What is the one thing I want them walking away, talking about the end of this conversation?’ If you go in with that mindset, you're going to be a lot more successful at achieving your goal.
A lot of folks think that their anxiety, their nervousness, is specific to them. “I just get so nervous talking to other people. This is not what I'm good at.” But the truth is that everybody feels that way. Every single person, in every situation, they're a little nervous. The best thing you can do is try to stop making it go away. Accept that it is real and then think that at the end of the day, each person you interact with wants you to succeed.
When you interact with somebody, you're not thinking, ‘I hope they're terrible.’ You're thinking, ‘I hope I can get something from this conversation.’ Be open to that, pay attention and listen.
The other thing is stop telling yourself you can't do something. Start telling yourself that you're capable of doing something. Get yourself in situations where at first you're going to be a little uncomfortable, but through repetition and getting that idea of being clear and concise about how you communicate, you're going to have the confidence that's going to enable you to feel like you are actually achieving the goal you're trying to make.
People ask me all the time, like, okay, ‘I've got a presentation coming up what do I need to know.’
I usually break it down in about five things. There are typically five questions you can ask yourself, that will get you through every conversation. And this is going to sound groundbreaking. But it's who, what, where, when, and why. If you know the answer to that, you're probably going to be more effective. Now, there are better techniques that you can apply to make that more compelling, but at the end of the day, keep it simple. Don't make it too complicated. Don't make it bigger in your head than it has to be.
I think for a lot of campus offices, you are often thinking about what you're doing, and you want to communicate what you do. Instead, think about what is the thing that you're doing, enable the organization to accomplish?
Start talking about it in that framework. Yes, you're providing credentials. Yes, you're providing cards or services that gets you into X, Y, or Z. But what does that enable? Start thinking about the end goal that your office accomplishes and talk to that. That is something that is motivating whether you're communicating up, down, or to anybody else in your organization.
In this episode of CampusIDNews Chats, Rosty Chen, ID Administrator at Michigan State University, explains how his campus card office undertook its first comprehensive rate study to ensure it was charging appropriately for student, staff, and departmental ID cards.
The effort began with a simple realization. “We’ve never done a rate study before,” Chen says. Since the office was established in 2009, pricing had remained largely unchanged, with little documentation explaining how rates were originally set. A pending leadership transition added urgency. As Chen’s manager prepared to retire, the team saw an opportunity to revisit long-standing assumptions and “start exploring why we’re charging what we’re charging.”
Rising costs following the pandemic also played a role. With materials and supplies increasing year over year, the office needed to understand how those changes affected its budget. Because the ID office is subsidized by the university and not fully self-generating, it was especially important to clarify which services were covered and which required cost recovery.
Chen and his team partnered closely with IT Finance, meeting weekly for roughly two months to analyze data and calculate direct and indirect costs.
You want to tell executive leadership, hey, we want to charge this. With a rate study, you say, no, we need to charge this.
A key challenge was determining how much staff time was devoted specifically to card production, since the office also manages NetID credentials and provides a series of other services. They broke expenses down by card type – prox cards, non-prox cards, and badges – factoring in labor, card stock, printer supplies, and overhead.
The findings were eye-opening.
Departments were being charged just $3 for non-technology badges that actually cost about $11 to produce. Non-prox cards, also assumed to be inexpensive, cost $14 each to produce but only generated a $5 replacement fee.
The $20 student replacement card fee proved sufficient, until factoring in a $10 credit issued when old cards are returned.
The study resulted in a detailed financial document and executive summary for leadership. Chen believes the process offers value to any institution operating on legacy pricing. “If you start asking the whys and getting into the details… it’s important to do this,” he says.
Armed with data, the team can now approach leadership with confidence, presenting clear math and justification for any recommended pricing changes.
To listen to the full interview, click the image at the top of this page.
TRANSCRIPT:
We originally decided to start because we've never done a rate study before.
The ID Office was started in 2009 and since then the rates were set, but we don't know where those prices came from and why we're charging what we're charging.
It coincided with our manager retiring and we wanted to tie some loose knots before she's leaving. That gave us the momentum to start exploring why we're charging what we're charging.
Of course with pandemic and the rising costs of everything we were noticing that the prices of everything keeps going up and up year over year. We wanted to re-evaluate how does that fit into our budget.
In terms of generating revenue, we are subsidized by the university so we're not a self-generating office.
Our assistant director was on board in her support for my manager and me starting this rate study. Also, because of my manager's retirement we had that great momentum to get done so we got our champions pretty fast.
We relied heavily on our IT finance team. They did most of the calculations for us, we're giving them the data, refining the data with them.
All said and done, it took us about two months of active weekly meetings to get everything in place and ready to go.
Obviously different offices operate differently.
At MSU, we do also IT like NetID credentials so we wanted to calculate how much of our full-time staff time actually goes to card production.
That was a big challenge for us figuring that piece out and of course figuring out the cost of the card stock, printer supplies, indirect and direct costs.
Because of our subsidy from the university, we don't charge for our first card for our faculty, staff or students.
We wanted to determine how many cards we actually charge for to begin with and then from there evaluate, what goes into production costs specifically for the cards that we charge.
We decided to kind of break it down by different types of cards that we provide.
We have prox cards, non-prox cards, and badges.
The biggest surprise for us was what we were charging for the badges.
We charged three dollars to departments for us to produce a badge for them. After we did the rate study, our calculations determined that actually it costs about eleven dollars to produce a badge.
So when we consider labor costs, all the printer supplies, indirect costs, everything tied into that, we're like, wait a minute, we're undercharging significantly there.
We were happy to find out that what we're charging the students for the replacement, which is twenty dollars, was actually sufficient within our production costs.
Where we fall short is we credit ten dollars back to our students when they turn in the old card. That process we want to reevaluate and potentially stop. Because the production cost is twenty dollars, if they turn it in and we give them ten dollars back, then we're undercharging for producing that replacement card.
Additionally, for non-prox cards, we were also surprised. We don't charge for the first non-prox card, but we charge five-dollar replacement. Well, first, second or third, it actually costs fourteen dollars to produce a non-prox card.
So this whole time we're thinking, oh, it's like plastic with less technology, therefore it's probably cheap. All of a sudden, that was our biggest surprises that we found out.
When you find your champions, it's definitely easier.
So we've had our champions with IT Finance and having that collaboration was very crucial to us to getting it done.
I think anybody can benefit from doing a rate study, especially if you're in a place like us, where we were charging how we always charge.
If you start asking the whys and getting into the details of the history and not finding the right documentation to support the charges, it's important to do this. What you'll end up with is a comprehensive financial document based on data.
It will serve as evidence for the points you want to make if you want to change your pricing.
If you want to go to executive leadership, you want to say, hey, we want to charge this. With a rate study, you can come in and say, no, we need to charge this. Here's our math for it and here's why we think we should charge that.
So our timeline I wanted to touch, it took us from about we started in December through January.
We had the rate study completed, and we had the executive summary ready for our leadership early February.
We are about two months’ out from the NACCU Annual Conference and the nomination deadline for the NACCU Awards program is just days away. Wednesday, February 18 is your last chance to honor a colleague, a peer, your team, or even yourself in one of seven categories.
The annual program recognizes commitment and innovation by individuals and teams in the higher education credential and transaction system industry.
The nomination process is simple.
At the awards page on the NACCU website, you’ll find a link to the unique nomination form for each category. Most submissions require only basic contact information and a description of why you feel this nominee is deserving of the award.
Take a few minutes and share your appreciation for a job well done by submitting a nomination. See you in Covington, April 19-22, 2026.
Awards include:
Presented to an individual who has advanced the industry and is actively involved in NACCU.
Presented to an individual who has made significant contributions to their institution, the industry, and NACCU within a relatively short period of time.
Presented to an institution that has developed an innovative technology-based solution to address a problem or capitalize on an opportunity.
Presented to an institution that has created a visually appealing and functional card or mobile credential design.
Presented to an institution that has created a compelling video to promote their program.
Presented to an individual who has demonstrated exemplary volunteer service to NACCU during the current or previous calendar year.
Presented to an individual – regardless of their formal title or role within the institution –who has made a meaningful impact on the campus card office by fostering collaboration or advancing its strategic profile.
Smart lockers are becoming a key part of the modern campus dining experience, and Ashley McNamara, vice president of global marketing at Apex, says the shift to fully digital dining halls is driven by student expectations for speed, convenience, and mobile-first experiences.
In a conversation with CampusIDNews, McNamara explains how Apex’s smart locker solutions fit seamlessly into higher education dining ecosystems, helping campuses modernize food pickup without adding friction to back-of-house processes.
McNamara says today’s students expect dining to mirror the convenience they experience off campus. Apex’s smart lockers connect directly to mobile ordering platforms – such as Grubhub Campus, Transact Mobile, Tacit – allowing students to order ahead, receive notifications, and grab their meals without waiting in line. Because the mobile ordering solutions integrate with transaction system providers, meal plans and declining balance payments come out-of-the-box.
Lockers connect directly to leading mobile ordering platforms, and because they integrate with transaction system providers, meal plans and declining balance payments come out-of-the-box.
The result is a predictable, fully digital experience that lets students pick up food on their schedule and move on to their next class or social activity.
Apex works closely with institutions to tailor locker deployments based on order volume, peak times, and space constraints. McNamara explains that some campuses may only need a few compartments while others may need dozens across multiple locations.
At Rider University, students can only order through the Grubhub app to place the orders for Jersey Mike's and pick up through the lockers
“We look at all that data and then figure out what the right hardware is for that customer,” she says. Solutions can be installed indoors or outdoors, and Apex recently introduced a modular system with varying compartment sizes that allows campuses to expand over time as dining demand grows.
One of the most compelling use cases McNamara highlights is the rise of “digital dining halls,” where all orders are placed through mobile apps or kiosks and picked up exclusively from lockers. These spaces have no traditional ordering counter and highly efficient kitchens.
With more than 60 campuses already using Apex lockers, she adds that no two deployments look the same – each tailored to campus culture, scale, and student behavior.
To watch the full interview, click the image at the top of this page.
Don't miss the smart locker demo at the 8:10 point in the video
TRANSCRIPT:
Hello there and welcome to Campus ID News Chats. I'm publisher of Campus ID News, Chris Corum.
Chris: Today we're going to talk about smart lockers and joining me is Ashley McNamara, the vice president of global marketing for Apex, which is a smart locker solution leader in a lot of markets including higher ed. Can you walk us through your smart locker offering and what it brings to campus?
Ashley: Sure. You know, students these days are on the go. They're always on their phone. Campuses are also progressing with mobile ordering and using platforms that allow students to order ahead, whether that's in a retail dining or even in regular dining halls.
They expect convenience, personalization, technology.
What we can do is we offer smart locker pickup solutions. From that ordering process that they're ordering on a mobile app to then pick up in the dining facilities, it's all digital for them. There's no wait time. It's predictable.
They know when their order's ready, but on so many campuses where they're placing the order, grabbing it and heading off to the next class or even just heading to hang out with their friends a little bit longer. It gives them that convenience of being able to pick up as quick as they can and get on their way.
Chris: Tell us about the configurations that are available? I know you've got a new one, but kind of walk through like what's a standard configuration. What are options and things?
Ashley: As we as we start, when engaging with campuses, we look at order volumes? What is that standard peak time? What does that look like? This lets us make sure we get enough of the compartments to handle this?
We see orders sit in the compartments, maybe four- or five-minutes max. They're moving through them quickly. We look at all those orders and kind of figure out, okay, you need seven compartments or you have a big system, you need 23 compartments.
We look at all that data and then figure out what the right hardware is for that. We have solutions that sit indoors or that can sit outdoors if you don't want your students coming in the building.
Then we have a new solution that we launched last year that is just starting to trickle on to college campuses where it's all modular. There are different sizes of compartments, and they can build out a structure of what they need. It gives them an opportunity to grow more compartments as their food service dining grows.
Chris: Great. How about how about some ideal or interesting use cases? I always love talking about ghost kitchens, because it's such a cool concept. But what are the things like that are interesting?
Ashely: Absolutely. We've called them digital dining halls. As you walk in, there's no counter, you can't walk up and place an order.
Everything is either through a mobile app or through a kiosk that's there for maybe your visitors on campus, parents that are on campus, or students that don't want another app on their phone. They can go up, place their order digitally, and it gives them a timeline of when that order is going to be ready.
Then it's placed in the locker for pickup. So that's their only option to be able to pick up.
We've seen a number of these launching this school year – rebuilding these facilities, where they're putting different concepts at each bank, and you're students place orders before they leave class, go grab it, go sit and converse with friends. They're not having to stand wait in line to place the order, stand to wait to get it to pick it up, it's all ready to go for them when they get that notification that their order is ready.
That's a great way for campuses to utilize this, it's all then integrated with their mobile apps.
As we work with different providers, we can integrate to the systems you're already using on campus. It's additive, it's easy for the team, then to be able to do that.
What we're seeing in these digital dining halls, too, is a super-efficient kitchen, to where they're able to move these orders through really, really quickly, and potentially boost transactions and revenues too.
Chris: From the tech stack perspective of the campus, how does this play with the campus card and the payment system or the dining points, declining balance, things like that? And do you work with multiple mobile ordering apps?
Ashley: Yeah, honestly, we could integrate with whatever you're utilizing on campus. We have existing integrations with Grubhub campus, Transact Mobile, Tacit, any of these mobile platforms that campuses are already utilizing. They work with the campus cards, so we fit right into that whole ecosystem of partners to make it one seamless for the student, but two super easy on the back end for the school.
Chris: Okay, great. How many campuses today?
Ashley: We're over 60 campuses now. I think what the fun thing about that is no two of them are the same. They all have applied the solutions in different ways. They've utilized different marketing tactics, configurations, and branding to be able to bring this as part of life on campus.
Chris: That's number is up a lot from when we talked last time. You had a good year and a half or something like that.
Ashley: Yeah, I think it's becoming something that a lot of schools use this for getting students on campus. Think about as you're taking a high school senior through a campus and you walk through the dining facility and they see this super cool technology to be able to pick up their orders.
The tours are talking about it like it's an enhancement to the things that happening on campus. It’s similar to the robots, the robots are super cool.
We're a nice complement to that, to where it's all this new technology that's on campuses that's drawing students in, giving them something convenient, something they can continue to go back to that's reliable.
And that's just fun to utilize.
Chris: We’ve got listeners who will be from small schools and we got with listeners who will be from really large institutions. Can you give me an example of a small deployment and a large deployment and if that's capable and possible for both?
Ashley: One of our earliest schools that we worked with is Rider University. They had some unused kitchen space, and they didn't have a place for a front of house. So, they built the lockers as a big bank in this digital dining hall, but it was also bringing in a Jersey Mike's brand to campus. The way that students utilize it is they can only order through the Grubhub app to place the orders for Jersey Mike's and pick up through the lockers.
One of the one of the interesting things we saw was a huge spike in orders from before that concept was there to when it was there with the same number of students. They're seeing the convenience of it.
The dining hall is set up so you walk in, grab it, and walk right back out again, or go the opposite direction and go sit and have a nice conversation with your friends. That whole concept of marrying, the mobile ordering and the automated pickup with the national brand worked really well for that small campus.
As we look at big campuses, they're doing a variety of different things. We've got some schools that put our solutions at each retail concept. If you order from Einstein's Bagels, you pick up at Einstein's Bagels, and it's kind of that same repeatable process that they've done before.
We're also seeing a lot of the larger campuses deploy these digital dining halls.
They are working through how do I how do I feed lots of students in a really great, efficient, and convenient way that is efficient for the kitchen and fun for the student.
I'm notified throughout the entire process, and at the end, it's ready for me when I'm ready for my order.
Chris: All right, thanks, Ashley. Let's take a look. Can you give us a quick demo?
Ashley: Sure. [Ashley presents a demo of the lockers]
Chris: How about if somebody wants to talk to you about the product?
Ashley: You can go to apexorderpickup.com. There's a contact us form or you can email info at apexorderpickup dot com and somebody will get back to you pretty quickly.
A new California law will require public schools serving grades 7 through 12, community colleges, California State University campuses, and University of California campuses to add an LGBTQ youth hotline number to student IDs and campus cards. Assembly Bill 727, signed into law in October 2025, will go into effect on July 1, 2026.
The goal is to make support resources easier to find during moments of crisis. While the approach has prompted questions from some stakeholders, the bill is designed as a an update to existing student ID requirements rather than an overhaul of school mental health policy.
The idea behind the requirement is straightforward. If a student is struggling, they do not need to search online or ask for help to find support. The information is readily available to them, at a moment when privacy and immediacy matter.
Over the years, legislative efforts to add hotlines to campus cards often failed to consider the impacts on card offices and other ID issuers.
Research consistently shows that LGBTQ youth experience higher rates of anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation than their peers. Lawmakers supporting AB 727 say that increasing the visibility of targeted crisis resources can help reduce barriers to care, especially for students who may be reluctant to seek help through traditional school channels.
Opponents argue this is an example of the state forcing its way into issues that should be handled in the home.
Assembly Bill 727 is not the first legislation to impact hotline information printed on school IDs and higher ed campus cards in California.
In 2019, it was required that student IDs include the telephone number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, and the following year, adding the National Domestic Violence Hotline or a local alternative was mandated.
This newly passed legislation adds another required addition to campus cards – the Trevor Project’s phone number and text line.
“Commencing July 1, 2026, a public or private institution of higher education that issues student identification cards shall have printed on either side of the student identification cards The Trevor Project’s 24 hours per day, 7 days per week suicide hotline that is available through both of the following options:
Telephone number: 1-866-488-7386.
Text line, which can be accessed by texting START to 678-678.”
The Trevor Project is a national nonprofit organization that provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention services for LGBTQ youth. Founded in 1998, the organization offers support through a 24/7 phone hotline, text messaging, and online chat services.
Surprisingly, there is no mention of the addition of The Trevor Project details on digital IDs or mobile credentials.
It is named after Trevor, the fictional teenage character in the Academy Award–winning short film Trevor. The film portrays a young gay teen struggling with isolation and self-harm. The film’s creators were struck by how few resources existed at the time for LGBTQ youth in crisis. The nonprofit was created in response, with the aim of ensuring that young people facing similar challenges would have a place to turn for help.
Over the years, legislative efforts to add hotlines to campus cards often failed to consider the impacts on card offices and other ID issuers.
At times, language in proposed bills neglected to address key issues such as whether the institution would be required to replace already-issued IDs or whether they could use an existing supply of preprinted card stock rather than discarding it.
This bill seems to address these issues in a reasonable way for issuers and campus card programs. First, it states that the requirement only applies to IDs issued in the future. Second, it specifically allows the use of, “a supply of unissued pupil or student identification cards that do not comply with the requirements … until that supply is depleted.”
Surprisingly – though crisis hotlines have been added to mobile credentials in the past – the new California law does not mention the addition of The Trevor Project details on digital IDs.
Supporters of AB 727 emphasize that the bill focuses on access and visibility. Mental health crises often occur outside of school hours, when students may not have immediate access to counselors or trusted adults. In those moments, having a clearly printed support number can remove hesitation and save time.
The law does not ask schools to provide counseling services, adjust curriculum, or promote specific organizations beyond listing crisis contact information.
Because schools already include the 988-hotline on student IDs, compliance does not require major operational changes. The law does not ask schools to provide counseling services, adjust curriculum, or promote specific organizations beyond listing crisis contact information.
As with many education-related policies, AB 727 has raised questions about boundaries and implementation. Some stakeholders have expressed concern about referencing a specific external organization on student IDs, while others have raised broader questions about parental involvement and online safety.
Supporters respond that the law is narrowly focused on crisis intervention and mirrors how schools already share national mental health resources. They argue that ensuring students can quickly access help during emergencies outweighs potential drawbacks.
