The University of Louisiana at Lafayette (UL Lafayette) has expanded its campus card services, integrated offices, and streamlined processes with TouchNet OneCard Campus ID. By maximizing its many capabilities, the card system is being leveraged to solve problems and simplify campus operations.

Coinciding with the expanded use of the campus card system, UL Lafayette has grown as an institution. As the university expands, it has been purposeful in taking advantage of modern ID technology through TouchNet OneCard Campus ID.

UL Lafayette’s campus card, known as the Cajun Card, supports access to housing and academic buildings, and payments on campus for dining and laundry services. The card also supports library rentals, class and exam check ins, event attendance and parking permits.

Students can deposit funds to a debit-like account, called Cajun Cash. Additionally, students can make purchases with select off-campus vendors that have worked with UL Lafayette’s Card Office to accept Cajun Cash.

Extending use cases

Kari Foti, Director Cajun Card Office, seeks out departments and student organizations that could use the card system to solve a problem or facilitate their activities.

By integrating with the recreation center and residence hall software, the Cajun Card provides the data needed to manage the access levels of students. It also allows professors to pull data on how students are using on-campus resources, including who is entering a laboratory to do course work.

Dining services receive transaction reports from card data, helping them improve their service delivery. The card office has also worked with TouchNet and Sodexo, UL Lafayette’s food-service provider, to develop an online ordering option for campus dining services.

Hub and spoke model

Key to the success of UL Lafayette’s new Cajun Card is the hub-and-spoke structure of the card system.

At UL Lafayette, the Cajun Card Office acts as a hub, with the various services it supports acting as spokes. All the components work together to keep the campus running. The card office team manages the core solution while the specific functions are managed by offices across the university.

UL Lafayette’s hub and spoke structure is a model for other institutions trying to balance administrative centralization and departmental decentralization. Each office can independently manage their service and make the service available to everyone else via the campus card.

Software integration help to streamline the process, connecting the spokes to the hub.

Future expansions

UL Lafayette is already looking to expand the Cajun Card going forward. The card office is encouraging student groups to use Cajun Cash for new activities like fundraising and Greek life events.

Ease of use and application has made the Cajun Card a success across the campus and provided UL Lafayette with a tool to improve the student experiences and support its growing institution.

For the full story on UL Lafayette’s campus card system from TouchNet, visit TouchNet.com.