Ag Week highlights cafe
The oldest college on campus will highlight one of USU’s newest buildings as part of their annual week, held Sept. 17-21.
The College of Agriculture will hold a grand opening opens for Luke’s Cafe on Sept. 20. The opening will highlight the new Agriculture Sciences Building, which was completed last spring, said Agriculture Council Senator Ashlee Diamond. She said the cafe had a soft opening in April, but now that it’s fully functioning, the Agriculture Student Council wanted it to be a focus of Ag Week.
USU alumnus Allen Luke and his wife, who helped fund the cafe, will be in attendance at the event.
“Allen Luke and his wife donated a lot of money to get a few things in the building going and one of those things was the cafe,” Diamond said. “We’re going to do a ‘Meet the Lukes.'”
Other events at the cafe include a spinning wheel on Wednesday, where students can get free food, and the introduction of Feminino coffee, a new flavor. The coffee comes from farms in South America run solely by women, said cafe manager Karli Salisbury.
Salisbury said the coffee is certified, meaning the women get a fair selling price.
“It’s mainly in the South American areas people have started this project,” said Salisbury.
“The coffee comes from a whole bunch of different farms. The women get grants for them to run the farms. It enhances the lives women in those communities.”
The coffee flavor has been offered other places on campus, but has not been available at Luke’s since it opened for business last spring, Salisbury said.
Other major events during the week include a technology expo on Monday and a tractor parade on Friday. Agriculture Student Council President Alyssa Chambliss said the Council ran into some planning difficulties with the week being so close to the start of the school, but a restructuring of responsibilities last spring took away much of the pressure that was present before.
In past years, the agriculture senator has been in charge of planning most of the week. Diamond said responsibility has been dispersed among the council, leaving her to focus more on legislation and academic issues.
“By (the Council) taking on planning responsibility, I’m able to focus more on the students,” she said.
Chambliss said the process has been much more smooth than in the past.
“Previously the senator has been the sole head of the Council,” she said. “They have been in charge of
anything. Now, we share senator’s responsibilities. It hasn’t rested on a single person.”
Diamond said the college is expansive includes areas many people don’t know about. Ag week, she said, is a way to inform people of how far the college reaches.
“I think it’s a great opportunity for students to see how we’re changing what traditional agriculture is. We have a lot of majors in our college that aren’t what you expect with tractors and farming and animals. We have nutrition and dietetics. Now we have aviation and technology and engineering education.”
Chambliss said Ag Week is not just for those in the college, but it extends to the entire campus.
“We are land grant university,” she said. “Students can learn how important agriculture is to America in general. We have planes, we have tractors with GPS systems…we have lots of technology. Anybody would benefit from this.”
– allee.evensen@aggiemail.usu.edu