Building a bridge towards service
While some students focus primarily on themselves and what they need to get done, the students in Honors 1340: Social Systems and Issues, have other things in mind.
The honors class has worked together to organize and carry out a service project to benefit students, faculty and community residents. Nick Eastmond, professor of Honors 1340, said the class has built a bridge and trail to provide easier access to campus for students residing in the island south of campus. He said the bridge and trail is located between Canyon road and 400 N in Logan.
Eastmond said in this class, the service project is optional. He said each student must accomplish seven grade enhancements and 25 hours of service is one grade enhancement option. Eastmond said he brought up the idea of building the bridge and the class became interested.
“The class said we could pull it off if we planned it right,” he said. “And I thought we would spread the project over a few weekends, but they decided to do it over semester break.”
Eastmond said the task was a three part project. It involved the building of a bridge, steps and a trail. Eastmond said he assigned team leaders for each of the projects to help keep things more organized and run more smoothly.
Justin Koeln, sophomore majoring in mechanical engineering, was assigned the task of building the bridge. Koeln said at first, he designed the bridge and met with Eastmond to discuss what features they wanted in the bridge.
“It was up to me on the design the bridge took,” Koeln said. “I designed it the best way I thought it could work.”
Koeln said the designing of the bridge took several hours. He said it required him to modify the bridge a few times, based on discussions between him and Eastmond. Koeln said the building of the bridge required a lot of prep work. He said he spent time purchasing materials, cutting up timbers and building parts of the bridge. He said he wanted materials and parts ready before the day of the project to help ease such a large task.
“The difficult part of my job was to design the bridge to be strong and last a long time but also be inexpensive,” he said. “It was hard balancing the strength versus the cost.”
According to Eastmond, one of the most difficult aspects of the project was the digging out and placing of the steps. He said team leader Kami Capl had a group of four individuals working on the stairs. Eastmond said a landscape architect came and showed them where the steps and trail should go and staked markers to help make things easier.
Eastmond said the class also had to receive the approval of the project by three separate entities. He said these included Rudy’s Greenhouse, the canal company and USU campus planning.
Cooper Larsen, undeclared freshman said one of his jobs was to put together the proposal and present the project to the separate entities. Larsen said everyone they presented the idea to was optimistic about the building of the bridge. However, he said getting the approval was what he considered one of the hardest parts about the project.
“The process of getting the OK was difficult,” he said. “It took more effort than actually building the bridge. When we were building the actual bridge, that just seemed to click.”
Eastmond said he was pleased with the amount of community support the class received when building the bridge and trail. He said they received help from Boy Scout groups and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint ward members. Eastmond said along with helping build the bridge and trail, the community loaned tools such as numerous shovels, picks and sledge hammers.
However, Eastmond said the class still needs more help. Eastmond said the class will be organizing one fundraiser this semester to help pay for the funds of the bridge. He said the fundraiser is still in the planning stage and more details will be coming soon.
With such a large service project, Koeln said he was surprised at how well everyone worked together. He said it was amazing to see how quickly the project came together.
“It didn’t take as much time to do,” he said. “Everyone had their own job to do and everyone performed their job together.”
Larsen agreed and said the project unified the class.
“Before the project, we didn’t interact a lot as a class,” he said. “After the project we became friends. We are all at a better friendship level than before.”
Eastmond said it surprises him how much work a class can do in a service project.
“What was fun was to see how these honor students are so involved in intellectual pursuits,” he said, “and it’s fun to get in there and see the saw dust fly.”
–courtnie.packer@aggiemail.usu.edu