Aggie SLC Express takes maiden voyage
Last Saturday, Jan. 13, marked the first trip of the Aggie SLC Express from Logan to Salt Lake City. Hosted by Utah State University’s Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and the International Student Council, this monthly round trip via a shuttle bus is available to all students at no cost. The bus left the TSC slightly after 8:30 a.m., and returned around 5:40 p.m. Both delays were due to the poor weather that day, as the original itinerary list an 8:30 a.m. departure and a 5 p.m. return.
The Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion does work for student programs with the ultimate goal of improving student well-being. They also coordinate with the various offices and departments at USU, such as the ISC. As such, the Aggie Express is sponsored by the various colleges here at USU.
The shuttle bus is a 38-seater. While in Salt Lake City, the group will go to a variety of different stops. These include shopping, cultural locations and cultural resource places. More specifically, they include City Creek Center and the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, as well as various grocery stores within Salt Lake.
The museum the group visits will be switching each month between the Utah Museum of Fine Arts and the Utah Natural History Museum. This trip will occur every second Saturday throughout the semester.
The reason behind the program is based on the concept of opportunity. Niyonta Chowdhury, USU’s policy, programming & assessments specialist, said research has shown students with access to cultural resources have a better sense of belonging compared to those in more remote locations.
“The idea here is to provide access to these resources to USU students who may not necessarily have the privileges to [do] that themselves,” Chowdhury said. “For example, a lot of us [students] don’t own cars. Salt Lake express is almost $100, which isn’t fun. Ubers are also almost $100, and they’re also barely ever available in Logan.”
Another reason is access to items not available in Logan. For many students, cultural goods and foods that aren’t commonplace within mainstream American culture might be hard to acquire in Logan, but can be acquired in Salt Lake City. This is why so many of the stops later in the program are various grocery stores, such as Shahrazad Market & Restaurant, a Middle Eastern grocery store, or Namaste Nanglo, a South Asian grocery store.
“A lot of us have different dietary needs or dietary customs which we don’t have over here [Logan],” Chowdhury said. “This bridges that need and ensures that students do have access to their own cultural foods, or cultural foods from other cultures.”
Sign-ups for the trip will be shared two weeks prior to the excursion on a digital sign-up sheet. If a scheduling issue arises, participants must notify the ISC by the Thursday before. Failure to do so will result in a trip suspension for the rest of the semester.
Demand has been high for the excursion. The ISC has done similar trips before, twice in 2020, as well as in spring of 2023, all of them well attended. In fact, many of the grocery stores were recommended by ISC from these previous trips. This has set a precedent, as this first excursion of the Aggie SLC Express was at full capacity, with a waitlist after being in the hundreds.
This first trip was supervised by Chowdhury, but all future ones will be supervised by the ISC vice president of culture.
A survey will be given to participants after the trip to see what was good and what could be improved upon. The findings will be relayed back to the various colleges to help formulate how much that college should sponsor the express.
These findings will also help shape future excursions with potential changes, such as not sticking to a preset program or even the addition of additional buses.
“It was overall good,” said Guillermo, one of the students who went on the first trip.
Not even poor weather dampened the experience.
“He [the bus driver] took a safe, safe passage not only to Salt Lake,” Guillermo said, “but also coming back, especially with the snowfall.”