Community Connections
Connecting a University and Community: Ogden Express Bus Rapid Transit Case Study View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Hailey Gillen Hoke, John Hoke
This study-in progress explores the impacts of a newly introduced bus rapid transit (BRT) line in Ogden, Utah. Specifically, the study explores the benefits of the Ogden Express Bus Rapid Transit (OGX) line on the local University, Weber State University (WSU). WSU is an open-enrollment, emerging Hispanic-serving institution with an enrollment of 29,914. A majority of Weber State students are nontraditional, and less than 4% live on-campus. As such, the partnership between the WSU and the Utah Transit Authority provides an interesting case study to explore the ways in which public transportation can increase accessibility to a campus that serves the local population, with 77% of students originating in the three counties adjacent to campus. In August 2023, the Utah Transit Authority (UTA) began service of a BRT line connecting central locations in the city of Ogden as well as a local medical center to Weber State University. The line will be cost-free to riders for the first three years of service, after which it will continue to be free to University students with a valid student transit pass. This research in progress includes interviews with University administration, faculty, staff, and students in order to explore the existing and potential impacts of this new BRT line on a commuter University serving a unique population. Additionally, as a majority of students have historically commuted to campus alone in a private vehicle, the sustainability and environmental impacts of the OGX will be explored.
The Everyday Life of Pious Enactments and the Making of Spiritual Places of Belonging in Washington, D.C.
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session JoAnn D'Alisera
This paper explores how Sierra Leonean Muslims living in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area creatively utilize urban space to navigate the complex global flow of meanings in the diaspora. I focus on how religion is employed to build community relations around the complexities of urban life and how city environments, layered with disparate social activities, relationships, and the architectural and civic objectives of city planners, are rewritten by Sierra Leonean Muslim “self-representation.” Through fine-grained ethnographic description and analysis, I show how individual life trajectories intersect with the collective forces of city life and how acts of public piety are part of a repertoire of “tactics” that they use to express themselves in the face of displacement and alienation. This is particularly significant in a city where nearly every public space is punctuated by shrines and memorials through which patriotic orthodoxy and national myth are materialized, ritualized, and celebrated. Challenging the notion that cities are inherently knowable secular environments disconnected from religious sentiment and expression, I illustrate how dispossessed communities use public religious practice as an antidote to the powerful sense of displacement they feel living far from home. In so doing, I draw attention to the changing American religious landscape and broader transformations in the Muslim world, exemplifying how religious practices remake city space to produce distinctly urban forms of faith and a powerful sense of belonging.
Playing Tag: A Short and Incomplete History of the Sipyard View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Bridget Benge, Jeffrey Poss
The history and transformation of the Sipyard, an experimental outdoor beer garden and live music venue located in Urbana, IL, raises questions about the role of creative expression in urban areas and its implications for public perception. Unsolicited wall art, or Graffiti, played a significant role in the original Sipyard's success, but it also created problems with maintaining control over the space, eventually leading to its closure. The next transformation of the space. developed by the authors, centers around the owner's dismay at the Sipyard deterioration, and his vision for an improved business model. Our initial scheme maintained an informal outdoor atmosphere while controlling the space through architectural modifications that included off-hour closure and no expression of public art. Members of the Urbana creative community perceived the Sipyard as a public space—their space. Therefore, the owner's desire to control the privately owned property has sparked a public response. The paper explores the evolution of the Sipyard, the exploration of architectural solutions and feedback gathered directly from the Urbana community. It examines larger issues surrounding graffiti and its implications for public space and private business. The results reveal complex relationships between public perception and desires, demands from city administration, and the responsibility of business owners within urban communities. Based on the findings, an architectural and programmatic negotiation is proposed that attempts to resolve the factors that prompted the closure of the Sipyard while mitigating the potentially negative response from the public to the newly controlled environment.
