History

The Beginning

The concept of the MavCARD Office began in 1993. The idea was to bring together several cards into one - Minnesota State Mankato had a Student ID and separate campus dining card prior to 1994 and we wanted to add that and more. There were a few student IDs that had banking features and long distance calling card features built-in to a university ID around the United States. Florida State and University of Minnesota were a couple of institutions that had just started this type of card as well. Visit NACCU.org for more Campus Card programs.

Minnesota State Mankato MavCARD Office has been a member of NACCU since 1994.

Interesting Tidbits

• It took 4 minutes just to print a card in 1994. Since 2006 it takes about 1 minute to print out a card.
• The whole campus was re-carded in Summer/Fall 1994 and Spring/Summer/Fall 2009
• The name MavCARD comes from our University Mascot name Mavericks.
• The MavCARD Office has had a web page since 1995 - they were originally designed to be used with Gopher.

Locations

The MavCARD Office has been in several locations:

• Business Services Office (first location - Summer 1994)
• Centennial Student Union (in the area where the International Student Center is located, Fall 1994 - Summer/Fall 1996?)
• CSU Mavs Rental former location (2nd Floor CSU room is no longer there - the area of the International Student Center, 1996 - 1998)
• Former Post Office location (now the CSU Ballroom Ticket window room and coat room by the entrance to Wigley Admin, 1998 - 1999)
• 1st Floor of Wigley (where the Registrar's Office and Registration Help Desk are now, 1999 - February 2005)
• 1st Floor Centennial Student Union ( February 2005 - Present)

Options on Card

Financial Institutions Feature

• 1st Bank (now US Bank) (May 1994 - June 1998)
• US Bank and Norwest (now Wells Fargo) (June 1998 - June 1999)
• US Bank and Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union (June 1999 - May 2004)
• TCF Bank (May 2004 - May 2009)
• Wells Fargo Bank (June 2009 - March 2020)

Vending Feature (MavCASH) had been a part of the MavCARD since its inception in 1994. The offline Debitek vending readers were installed in January 1995. They had serve the Minnesota State Mankato Campus until Winter 2006, when the online BlackBoard system was installed. Vending readers were installed in soda/pop machines, photocopy machines, Campus Dining Service areas (Danyl readers) and laundry facilities in the Residence Halls (Mac-Gray readers). Eventually the Residence Halls incorporated laundry costs into the Residence Hall costs in 2012. The campus adopted alternate e-commerce solutions for campus purchases and as a result the MavCASH feature was phased out in 2020.

Calling Card Feature was apart of the MavCARD from Summer 1994 - 1998. With the increase of personal calling cards and low rates - this feature was dropped.

Barcode Feature has been apart of Minnesota State Mankato student IDs since the 1970s - for use with checking out books and materials in the Memorial Library. The Barcode has been a feature ever since. The Barcode has been used for Campus Dining Services meal plans and flex dollars up until Fall 2005, when the switchover to using the wide stripe was used. Also, the Barcode had been used for admittance to home Hockey event ticket distributions (1995 - 2019) and certain Campus Recreation facilities areas (2004 - 2020).