Committee plans PENNcard expansion

The Undergraduate Assembly's PENNcard committee has joined the administration's own PENNcard committee to plan expansion of the identification card's functions. And if the UA has its way, students will be charging their Book Store purchases to their PENNcard next fall. The UA committee, composed of six UA members and one non-UA member, has been discussing expansion since September. A separate committee of administrators started planning in the summer. The two committees have decided to collaborate, forming a joint advisory body to Senior Vice President Marna Whittington. In addition to examining the PENNcard's current functions, the joint committee is also looking at schools who have already implemented extensive one-card systems. A group of administrators and students will visit Duke University next semester to look at the school's one-card system, which allows students to charge purchases from the bookstore and area merchants to a debit account. Many Duke students and administrators said it is a successful and convenient system. UA PENNcard committee Chairperson Andrew Tsai said yesterday that administrators looking into the PENNcard had focused largely on parking and building-access issues. Tsai said his committee will represent more student-oriented concerns, such as convenience in purchases. They hope to make Book Store charges to the card possible by fall of 1991. The committee has also suggested other uses of the identification card such as voting in student elections, charging photcopies and replacing keys. In addition, he said, committee members will distribute surveys in the next two weeks to gauge student reaction to expanding the card and to determine students' preferences and priorities in a one-card system. The surveys will offer committee members "a more usable guide to what students want," Tsai said.

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