This is one of the two CVS vending machines that will be operating in the Fall 2019 and is located at the bottom floor of the Student Union. Photo by Amina Hussain | Mercury Staff
Convenience machines will stay open late, offer hygiene products to students starting Fall 2019
At the start of the fall semester, two CVS vending machines
will begin operating on the UTD campus. The machines will provide another
avenue for students to get personal care items after campus shops close down.
Carrie Chutes, director of Auxiliary Services at UTD, began
working on the project after receiving suggestions from Student Government.
Seeing the student needs that could be addressed, she said she hoped to expand
on the student services her office already provides.
“We have a bookstore vending machine in JSOM and one of the
testing centers where we sell pens and pencils and blue books, earbuds,
chargers, flash drives and things like that,” Chutes said. “So, I think that
committee saw a CVS vending machine and thought that would be a great idea.”
Chutes said she sees the machines as another convenience the
university provides. With the rapid pace students move at, she said she hopes
having a quick way to access a pharmacy will be beneficial.
“This is just a different way to offer some basic needs,”
Chutes said.
The two machines, located in Dining Hall West and the
Student Union, will provide a range of pharmacy items, such as personal care
and hygiene products, all sold at the same prices found at CVS locations.
“(They’re) personal care products, so it’s not just
medicines,” Chutes said. “There’s peripherals — technology peripherals —
feminine hygiene products and things like that.”
The machines will stay open late, with the SU location remaining
open until midnight, and the DHW machine closing down at 1 a.m. With only two
machines currently on campus, this year will test their viability and level of
student need. Depending on their success, the project may expand and bring in
new machines in coming years.
“Obviously we’ll be getting reports as to the activity
they’re getting and sales reports,” Chutes said. “So we’ll see if there’s a
need and we’ll continue to ask students what they think, and if there’s another
location that might work, like the Visitor’s Center.”
While no other ideas for similar machines are currently
being developed, Chutes expressed her office’s efforts for innovation in
student services.
“We’re always open to new technology,” said Chutes. “I think
UTD being the techy school it is, it’s in our interest to look and see what the
latest and greatest retail avenues are.”