This year, instead of receiving football tickets by mail or picking them up at Jenison Field House, student season tickets are now contained on MSU student ID cards.
Senior associate athletics director Mark Hollis said this is only changing the process for students to get into football games.
"Please understand, there is no change in the policy for admission into the games," Hollis said via e-mail Tuesday. "The only adaptation is the use of a student ID card electronic admission, rather than a printed voucher, as a means to gain a seating location in Spartan Stadium. Upon entrance, each student will continue to receive a ticket with a seat location printed on it."
University spokesman Terry Denbow said he knew nothing about the recent change. Hollis could not give a specific date that it was made.
Some students were not informed of the change, but there was an e-mail sent out to some students on Monday night.
Many students on campus hadn't heard of the change and ASMSU, MSU'S undergraduate student government, found out about the new measure via e-mail.
Numerous calls by The State News to the Athletic Ticket Office manager Wendy Brown were not returned Wednesday.
ASMSU Student Assembly Chairman Andrew Schepers said he had no warning about the change but was not surprised. He said he plans to call Athletics Director Ron Mason.
"We're going to take a look at it now," Schepers said. "It's so new; we're just in the phase of researching it. We are always under the impression that things can change."
Hollis said the issue would be discussed both internally and with the Athletic Council. But Andrew McCoy, the ASMSU Student Representative on the Athletic Council, said the council never met about the issue or discussed the elimination of handing out vouchers before the change was made.
"This is something the Athletic Council would typically talk about," said McCoy, who is also a member of the State News Board of Directors. "I was surprised that I hadn't heard anything before (Monday)."
The MSU Athletic Council consists of faculty, staff, students and alumni representatives and advises the athletics director and university administration in regard to matters of policy, procedures and organization in Intercollegiate Athletics.
McCoy said he would have fought the issue "tooth and nail" had the council met about the issue. He added that a lot of times the council comes up with things that weren't originally thought of.
"I don't think they're going about it the right way," McCoy said.
Hollis said the idea of the new ID ticket form is to create a nontransferable voucher, and the goal of the university is to make efforts to control, what he calls "ticket integrity."
"Once policy is created to permit exchange, sale, borrowing, transfer or redistributing tickets the exceptions overtake the norm and the university loses control of its ticketing structure," Hollis said.
"Only then, can the university make its best effort to provide the intended benefits to the appropriate individuals with the university event tickets."
The new process mirrors The Ohio State University and the University of Michigan, where each university requires an ID to get into the games. However, at each of these schools, the students receive tickets before the games.
Former MSU student Jeremy Williams said if MSU is trying to follow in the footsteps of other schools' ticket programs, the student following isn't there.
"For freshmen, it might be easier," Williams said.
"But once you get out of the dorms, you stop using Sparty Cash, and you use your ID a lot less."
Williams was not the only one concerned about the change. Interdisciplinary humanities senior Dave Engstrom said he sees both sides of the situation.
"It's kind of cool because it makes it a lot easier," Engstrom said. "But what happens when you're out of town and you want to sell it?
"Shouldn't somebody be able to use that ticket?"
Staff writer Lindsey Poisson contributed to this report. J. Ryan Mulcrone can be reached at mulcron3@msu.edu.
