Column: New students IDs are pointless
Published Aug. 24, 2007
So, I finally got back to Columbia on Saturday after my year abroad. It was nice. I saw some friends and had some Shakespeare's, overrated though it can be. Sunday was lazy and uneventful, as all Sundays should be. Then came Monday. It was here my troubles began.
I got up bright and early Monday morning ... sort of. Anyway, because it was the first day of classes, I decided to buy some books. Books are good to have. Apparently, they are required. With a copy of The Da Vinci Code and an FHM in hand, I sauntered up to the counter, coolly as you please. It was there, to my dismay, that I discovered my old student identification card didn't work.
Some genius while I was abroad had the brilliant idea to force all 35,000 students and employees to get new IDs. Being the loyal Tiger I am, I refused to question the motives of those above; I simply chalked up the changes to the infinite wisdom of our kind and benevolent leaders, be they the bureaucracy in Jesse Hall, the Missouri Students Association Senate or my editor at The Maneater.
After trudging over to Memorial Union and picking up my new ID, I made my way back to the bookstore. But, alas, it was not to be. The surly cashier turned down my new ID with a fatalist, "It doesn't work."
What the fuck?
What is the point of having new IDs if they don't work anywhere on campus? If I can't buy a book with it, can't student charge sports tickets on it and have to walk to Plaza 900 to set up E.Z. Charge, then I might as well pay cash for everything.
On top of that, everything you need done at MU, from transcripts to meal plans, requires your student number. Do not believe the hype; you are nothing but a number, which was OK when the student ID cards had the student numbers on them, but not anymore. Now, every time I need something done, and someone asks if I know my student number, I have to shrug and say "no". What the hell? Shouldn't our IDs at least do something?
What was the point of new IDs in the first place? My old one worked fine.
The new IDs and old IDs function identically. Sure, the color scheme has changed, as has my picture.
Other than that, this new ID scheme has been nothing more than a waste of money. How much do you suppose this whole farce cost? Who is responsible for this?
Changing the system could have made a great number of improvements. Perhaps we could have used our IDs for more than just meal plans or the Student Recreation Complex. As my friend and Web-logger extraordinaire Dan Oshinsky suggested, IDs could be used to reserve sports tickets online instead of the ludicrous handout system that stifles attendance by forcing students to walk to Mizzou Arena and pick up their tickets.
Perhaps IDs with student numbers could have allowed students to access TigerNet Wireless and allowed the whole campus to go wireless without fear of unauthorized use.
Hopefully someone will consider these suggestions and possibly implement them in the coming months or years. But until that happens, the great ID fiasco of 2007 will be a microcosm of the problems that plague MU as a whole: a wasteful, myopic bureaucracy that makes changes for the sake of change.
Editor's note: Are you also wondering about the new IDs? Check out a recent article printed in the Aug. 21 issue of The Maneater about the new student IDs. The story is also available on our Web site themaneater.com.