In a move that will likely lead to the merger of the DASH card and the Hanover Green Card by Fall term 1999, the College has hired Green Card founder and president, Mitch Jacobs '94, to manage the DASH program for the next year.
Jacobs and Green Card Vice-President Taran Lent '96 -- who was hired by the College along with Jacobs -- began their new job of overseeing the DASH office's operations on July 1. The pair will be responsible for the management and staff of the DASH office, as well as providing the customer support service for the DASH program.
The Green Card program, currently independent from the College, provides customers with a declining balance account which can be used at local businesses. The card currently serves over 45 merchants in Hanover and about 60 percent of the College's students, Jacobs said.
Acting College Vice President and Treasurer Win Johnson said it is likely the DASH program and the Green Card program will combine, in some form, for the beginning of Fall term, 1999.
Jacobs said although he is not sure what form the combined programs will take, one possibility is that the Green Card will "basically become what is now the discretionary account" portion of the DASH program.
"We want to combine the DASH and Green Card programs so students and parents have one office they're dealing with when it comes to managing their funds at Dartmouth," Jacobs said. "The way I see it, the fewer accounts the better."
Johnson said he does not believe the merger will effect Dartmouth Dining Services, since DBA minimums will remain in place. Johnson said he has discussed the issue with DDS Director Tucker Rossiter, and said Rossiter agrees the Green Card and Dash can merge without significantly harming the College's on-campus dining.
While the merger of the two programs will not occur for more than a year, Jacobs said students can expect to see some immediate changes in the DASH office as he and Lent will attempt to "develop the customer service side" of the program.
Jacobs said they will use e-mail and the Internet to improve the way in which the office notifies students about charges to their DASH accounts, as well as communication between College departments and the Dash office.
"From the feedback we're getting, students are most upset about charges that appear on their account that they don't know about," Jacobs said. "They show up at registration and they're not cleared to register and it's difficult for them to get information or find out why."
The DASH office will likely begin using digital photo ID systems to make ID pictures during the 1998 Fall term, according to Lent. Lent said digital pictures will make it easier for the office to replace lost cards, as well as offering a number of other advantages.
"With digital pictures, the same pictures that's taken for the ID card could be used for the first-year book, or to let teacher's put a name with a face when looking over their class lists," Lent said.
Jacobs said using digital equipment would allow DASH employees to spend less time making ID cards and more time working on customer service.
"People are tied up with the operational side of the program and they have no time for customer service," Jacobs said. "The digital system will free up someone in the office to spend more time looking over students' accounts or talking to a department that's not getting us the information we need."
Jacobs said he contacted the College last spring and spoke with Johnson "to help the College get a better understanding of the services and the expertise we could provide."
"We both thought it didn't make sense to have the two programs separately at Dartmouth," Jacobs said. "We said, maybe we should just have one program on this campus."
Jacobs founded the Hanover Green Card in 1993 during his junior year to allow for a cashless way to spend money at local restaurants and stores. At the time, the card had only eight participating local stores.
Jacobs launched a program similar to the Green Card, the Wild Card, last month at the University of New Hampshire in Durham.
The Wild Card, renamed for the UNH mascot Wild Cats, is already being used by 50 students at 30 local stores in Durham during the university's summer session.
Jacobs told The Dartmouth last month that once the UNH project is "up and running smoothly," there is a long list of possibilities for further expansion on other campuses. UNH "is just one of a lot of exciting opportunities that are available to us," he said.
Despite his long list of future plans, Jacobs said he expects his time in the DASH office to last longer than the one year the pair's contract with the College currently covers.
"I think it will be a long-term relationship," Jacobs said.
