Most students at UNCP know that the school requires all students to receive a Braves Card.
UNCP built the BravesCard Office for Business Services in 1998, which signified the first year the college used the Braves Card. The card was used for student identification and also for the use of Brave Dollars.
Brave Dollars is the money that students can apply to their card, which allows them to purchase items on campus without using cash.
Students can transfer money onto the card by visiting the BravesCard Office, through the UNCP website and the Bursar’s Office, which is located in Suite 4 of the Auxiliary Services Building.
In 2001, UNCP added Flex Dollars to the BravesCard mix. Flex Dollars is money that can be used at the cafeteria and restaurants on campus. The money comes out of a students meal plan.
One of the original purposes of the Braves Card was to give students the ability to use a card without having to carry around a debit or credit card.
Diane Burnett, who works in Café, believes that flex dollars are a great idea for the students. “It gives them a choice to be able to go to the other restaurants on campus.”
WOW, Papa Johns, Einstein Bros Bagels and Starbucks are some of the restaurants on campus that students can use their Flex Dollars to get food.
A popular question among students is why McDonalds, Burger King and other surrounding restaurants do not allow the use of Flex Dollars.
UNCP would have to go through the process of negotiating with the other food businesses in Pembroke to see if they can get on board with using Flex Dollars. The BravesCard Office has to convince the restaurants to add in a special type of card scanner to allow for Braves Card use.
“To eat at the other restaurants, we will need more man power,” said Braves Card Administrator Chomeka Franklin.
Franklin usually takes ideas from students who want to improve on Flex Dollars, Brave Dollars, or meal swipes.
There are a variety of meal plans to cater to different student needs when it comes to how they want to spend their money.
Freshman are required to use the traditional 12 meal swipes with 250 flex dollars, but after freshman year students can decide if they want to change to nine meal swipes with 450 flex dollars or 14 meal swipes with 150 flex dollars.
“Other colleges were doing the same method in their meal plan so UNCP decided to start it too, it was just called a different name,” said Franklin.
“Do flex dollars roll over?” This was a question some first time students scratched their heads to doing the second month into college.
“Flex dollars and Brave dollars roll over from fall to spring but flex dollars do not roll over to next year because they will expire at the end of the academic year,” said Franklin.
But some students believe that flex dollars should be rolled over to the next year also.
“If we paid the fee, it should be able to roll over to next year,” freshman Essence Coston stated during a discussion between her peers about flex dollars.
Students think there should be a spending plan between Flex Dollars and meal swipes to help students better manage their money.
Most freshman and first time students go crazy with flex dollars when they first receive them because it is not money from their own pocket.
They tend to forget that there is only a certain amount and they can’t get that money back once they paid for their wings at WOW.
If you want to give some suggestions, you can call Chomeka Franklin, UNCP Braves Card Administrator at (910) 521-6845 or through e-mail chomeka.franklin@uncp.edu. Franklin is always open to suggestions from students.
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