Quinnipiac University dining recently implemented a swipe checkout system in several dining locations on the Mount Carmel Campus, replacing the tap system and wreaking havoc on checkout lines and student wait times.
Technical issues forced two dining locations on the university’s main campus — the on-campus Starbucks in the Carl Hansen Student Center and the Bobcat Den — to ditch tapping to checkout over the summer. The temporary swipe system requires staff members to swipe a student’s QCard at the checkout register for the payment to go through.
University officials attributed the system change to a recent register hardware update and the implementation of new tablet interfaces.
“We updated the register hardware which needed configuration to the tap-system,” wrote Emily Gardiner, a senior Quinnipiac dining official, in an email to The Chronicle. “The system required this change, so for a temporary replacement we did the swipe system.”
Gardiner said the university’s dining staff uses the swipe system whenever the tap system is experiencing issues, but noted it has experienced “some hiccups” that staff are still working to resolve. One solution, she said, could mean another checkout line in the Bobcat Den’s main store area.
“We have identified the line issue,” Gardiner wrote. “We are currently working with the university on adding an additional register on the second floor of the Bobcat Den.”
The prospect of a second register in the Mount Carmel Campus’ late-night dining location “would be great,” a staff member said.
“The lines wouldn’t be so long, but let’s talk about the heat,” she said, lamenting the excessive heat that separately forced university officials to close the Bobcat Den for nearly three consecutive days earlier in the month. “It’s too hot in here.”
However, Gardiner said university officials do not currently have a date planned to add a second register.
“As of right now the systems have been configured,” Gardiner wrote, explaining that university officials should have reinstalled the tap system in all on-campus dining halls.
It is unclear why university officials did not update certain registers.
As of Sept. 9, staff members no longer need to swipe students’ QCards in Café Q, Sushi Do, the York Hill Café and the Bobcat Den. However, students are still unable to tap their QCards at the on-campus Starbucks location because the tap monitor resides behind the register.
However, staff members in the Bobcat Den told The Chronicle that the swipe system remains on standby in the event the tap system fails again.
Neither Quinnipiac officials nor the Chartwells dining staff notified students about the system changes, leaving them to speculate about the inconvenient shift away from the tap system.
“I just think it’s annoying,” said Maisa Khan, a first-year biomedical sciences major. “I don’t really see the difference between the two, so I don’t see why they had to change it. I definitely like the tap system better.”
The unannounced changes significantly increased student wait times, particularly during the lunch and dinner rushes. The changes have been especially catastrophic at the Bobcat Den, where checkout lines now routinely stretch outside of the building from around 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.
“I came to get something from (the Bobcat Den) and pretty much waited for like 30 minutes,” said Kathryn Allegra, a first-year interdisciplinary studies major. “It was so hot and definitely not worth the wait.”
The checkout system was not even the only reason students experienced recent delays in the on-campus dining halls.
Quinnipiac Dining also shared a post to its Instagram story on Sept. 11 informing students that the Transact mobile ordering app was experiencing delays. On Sept. 9, the app was not working at all in certain locations, including the Bobcat Den and the Grill at Café Q.
