California State University, East Bay has faced many changes in the last year. The construction of the new CORE building, a conversion to a semester system, and a new Chief of Police have introduced new challenges and excitement on campus, but another change is on its way. Students are now required to get a different Bay Card after three years of having the current design.
The change comes after a new Bay Card software was installed on campus. Alongside that software change, the state of California also instituted a new mandate, Senate Bill 972, that requires student identification cards to display suicide prevention information on student identification cards.
“Moving forward, any cards that are purchased must have [safety and suicide prevention] information on the back, rather than putting a sticker on it or something,” University Clubs and Bay Card Program Analyst Matthew Marshall said in an interview.
Another change to Bay Card use stems from CSUEB’s disaffiliation with US Bank for the monetary aspects of Bay Cards. Students with accounts at US Bank were previously able to use their Bay Card as a bank card, but this will no longer be the case with the newly updated Bay Cards.
“We have to have a cut off date that these cards will not be used because the card numbers need to be cut off because they are associated with US Bank. We are no longer associated with US Bank as far as for Bay Cards,” Marshall said.
This issue happened a few years ago in 2015 with the blue Bay Cards that displayed our previous campus staple, Warren Hall. At the time, our Bay Cards could be used as a Wells Fargo banking card.
“At the time, I wasn’t in charge of this, but it was because of the banking. We were affiliated with Wells Fargo, and at the time we had switched from Wells Fargo to US Bank,” Director of Student Financial Services and Systems.
Roughly 2000 students voted on a series of potential Bay Card designs through Bay Sync, and the new design won with 810 votes.
Students will be informed by the administration when their current red Bay Card will no longer be utilized on campus via Bay Sync and email.
“There is a transition. Students will be able to use the cards they have now, but we will be sending out information [on the transition date],” Marshall said.