As the semester winds down, many students look forward to the opportunity to use their meal swipes in the campus bookstore.  Last year however, students got an unpleasant surprise when they saw that the $100 gift certificate to the bookstore would now cost them 30 meal swipes, not 25. 

To those students, it seemed like the beginning of the end: a road to ultimately get rid of the vouchers.  Matt Portner, Director of Auxillary Services said this is not the case. Portner said he has no plans to stop offering vouchers and the time frame when they are offered each year depends on how many swipes are left for the entire student body as the semester winds down. 

“It’s to our benefit to do it (vouchers),” he said. The vouchers are not advertised until the end of the year anyway because they are not actually a part of the meal plan. 

Rather, a strategy to use up excess swipes at the end of the semester. 

The vouchers are offered to offset a huge rush on Eagle’s Nest so people purchase big ticket items like sweatshirts rather than overrunning the Nest on small ticket items. 

“I don’t want to spend labor and time unloading trucks for gum…I rather unload one box of sweatshirts than a semi-load of gum,” he said.