Maggie Gordon found ‘Scholarship in Action’ at Forever 21 in the Carousel Center last weekend.

The junior newspaper and women’s studies major, who also works at the popular women’s clothing store as a cashier, was handed a black KeyBank debit card last Saturday.

‘When I got the card, I asked for a photo ID and I looked at the card and it said ‘Scholarship in Action’ on it,’ Gordon said. ‘I said to her, ‘Are you kidding me?”

Gordon recognized the card as the one all freshmen received from Syracuse University, intended for use in downtown Syracuse, but able to be spent anywhere MasterCard is accepted.

All freshmen had the opportunity to pick up the cards, worth $50 apiece, from the Office of Residence Life on Jan. 25 and 26. The program, dubbed ‘Paint the Town Orange,’ was designed for the Class of 2010 to explore downtown Syracuse and Armory Square – with a little cash incentive to help jump-start a trip to a downtown business.

At least that was the plan.

Because the debit cards can be spent anywhere, much of SU’s and ORL’s original planning has gone by the wayside. Freshmen students are not using the cards downtown, but instead at the mall, online or to buy alcohol.

‘I’m going to use it on alcohol,’ said Alex Cho, an undecided freshman in the college of Human Services and Health Professions. ‘Our RA said save $10 for our trip downtown. The floor organized something. I don’t know what it is. It’s coming up I think.’

Gordon worked all weekend at Forever 21 and saw six ‘Scholarship in Action’ cards on Saturday in four and a half hours as cashier, she said. She worked another six hours and accepted 10 cards on Sunday, when the store had two other registers running as well.

Rebecca Reed Kantrowitz, director of residence life, said going into the program, ORL knew not all students would use their cards downtown.

‘It’s a gift card,’ Kantrowitz said. ‘With a gift card comes the opportunity to use that money to spend downtown. You have to keep in mind, if you chose to use your money in a different way, that’s your prerogative.’

Noah Kugielsky, a freshman biopsychology major, who lives on the second floor of Flint Hall along with Cho, said he does not know what he will spend his $50 on, but that it will not support a business downtown.

‘I would have no association with the city,’ Kugielsky said. ‘Most people have spent it at Carousel.’

Kevin Quinn, vice president for public affairs at SU, estimated approximately 3,100 students had the chance to pick up the $50 cards. ORL also supplied every resident advisor with a card, Kantrowitz said. Quinn estimated roughly more than $150,000 was spent on the debit cards and the money was a ‘cost within the university’s budget.’ He would not elaborate further on where the funds came from.

Stephen Fournier, president of KeyBank’s Central New York district, said the university approached KeyBank with the program’s idea, but that there was no financial contribution from his company.

‘We’ve made donations and grants to the university, unrelated to this,’ Fournier said. ‘This is just a service that we provided.’

Around 80 to 90 percent of eligible students picked up their cards on Jan. 25 and 26, Kantrowitz said. Each student needed to provide a valid SUID at the time of pickup and was required to sign for the card. Kantrowitz said ORL is still thinking of a way to distribute the remainder of the cards.

Freshmen-floor RAs were required to plan programs – 140 in all were designed and approved – for their first-year students to spend the debit cards downtown, Kantrowitz said. But, the programs are not mandatory for students to attend.

‘It’s our hope, our expectation, that students will use this for its intended purpose,’ Kantrowitz said.

Jillian Volk, a senior public relations major and RA of the 11th floor in Lawrinson Hall, took her students downtown on Jan. 27, she said. She took her floor to the Museum of Science and Technology in Armory Square, then to Pastabilities for dinner, Starbucks for dessert and Sound Garden for shopping afterwards.

While the trip went well, Volk said (Pastabilities even gave her a private room to eat), fewer than one-third of the students on her floor attended. Volk says she does not know how the other 22 students on her floor plan to spend their cards, or how many plan to go downtown on their own.

‘I couldn’t put an exact number on it,’ Volk said. ‘Even if a card wasn’t spent downtown and still helped the Syracuse community, I think the purpose was served.’

Tony Christopher, owner of Tony Christopher Hair Design at 131 Marshall St., said he disagrees with Chancellor Nancy Cantor’s initiative to direct student business to the downtown area. He says the current struggle for Marshall Street businesses to stay alive should be just as much of a concern for the university.

‘When we hear the chancellor is offering $50 to spend down (in Armory Square), we don’t understand,’ Christopher said of himself and other business owners on Marshall Street. ‘Why would she do something like that? We’re the community. You want to help the community? Help your backyard here. Help out at home first before going somewhere else.’

The ‘Paint the Town Orange’ program could actually be supporting Marshall Street businesses, albeit accidentally. Because students can cash the KeyBank debit cards at any ATM, it is impossible to track where students who do not chose to spend the $50 downtown are actually using the money.

Kugielsky said he thinks the urge to spend the debit cards without going downtown could have been averted.

‘It would have been cool if they would have given it to us before, when we went downtown at the beginning of the year,’ Kugielsky said.

In August, the university bussed approximately 2,000 first-year students to the downtown area in an event called ‘Exploring the Soul of Downtown Syracuse.’

Kantrowitz said the idea of handing the debit cards to freshmen during the event was discussed.

The gift card program was not developed until after August, she said, and the university saw ORL as a way to distribute the cards.

‘We talked about this in a variety of different ways,’ Kantrowitz said. ‘Maybe you have to go downtown to get the gift card. But in the end we felt this was the very best way.’

Nick Grofalo, a manager at Sound Garden in Armory Square, said he saw around 10 to 15 cards last weekend, but only two or three since.

Steve Samuels, executive chef at Ambrosia, an Italian restaurant in Armory Square, said he had yet to hear about the program.

‘From our perspective in ORL, this has gone really beautifully,’ Kantrowitz said. ‘Getting the gift card to all first-years was really important to us. To design 140 programs to go downtown was great.

‘The next question for us will be, ‘How many first-years actually participated?”

Back at the Carousel Mall, the black debit cards were a usual sight.

‘A lot of people are spending them,’ Gordon said. ‘We had three registers open on Sunday and one of my co-workers asked me about the cards. She got so many that she asked me what this was about.

‘We were insanely busy and it was mostly SU girls,’ she said.

Freshmen Melissa Bezas and Ashley Hallenbeck, both fashion design majors, said they had big plans for their $50 from the university. Bezas spent hers on jewelry at the Carousel Mall and Hallenbeck had her eye on a pair of shoes.

‘Honestly, it’s free money,’ Bezas said. ‘I can’t complain.’

Published on February 5, 2007 at 12:00 pm