Student Services Set to Distribute Safer CUIDs in Coming Weeks

Columbia is set to distribute new identification cards to students, faculty, administrators, and staff over the next two weeks.

All new students and many others have already obtained the new cards. Those who have not will be invited to pick up theirs beginning this week, according to Assistant Vice President of student services Rosemary Keane. Students should expect to receive e-mails with logistics early this week. In total, the University is replacing 50-60,000 cards.

The Kent ID center will temporarily relocate to Lerner Hall. There, the thousands of students, staff, and faculty who don’t live in residence halls will be scheduled to pick up their IDs over the next few weeks.

Keane stressed that it is important for Columbians to pick up IDs at their appointed times so that Student Services can transfer all important data and accounts to the new cards and dispose of old cards. The old cards contain social security numbers, which could leave cardholders susceptible to identity theft.

“The whole point of this is to get the social security numbers disassociated from the cards,” Keane said.

New ID readers, which will be installed in Columbia buildings in the coming weeks, will not recognize the old cards. Public Safety officers as well as ticket offices at city museums, which offer deals to Columbians, will be instructed to turn old IDs away.

In other student services news, the new emergency management system which notifies Columbians with instructions in case of emergency is now online. Students can enroll in the program by entering their cell phone number on student services online.