Students may soon have the opportunity to travel to Wegmans and Target via bus for free.

 

Student Association committees had various plans they hoped to accomplish throughout the summer. These plans included the supermarket transportation and the creation of a student-driven search engine, both initiated by the student engagement committee. 

 

In the spring, members of the committee were trying to find a way for buses to take students to Wegmans and Target on weekends. SA is hoping the program will start within the next two weeks, said David Woody, chair of the student engagement committee.  

 

‘It’s not 100 percent, but we think we’ve secured funding for these buses,’ he said. ‘All buses seem on board, and there’s a lot of support.’ 

 

Once the program begins, buses will take students from the Schine Student Center to Wegmans and Target on a loop for six hours. The first few buses of the day will only take students to the stores, and the last few buses will only take students back to campus, Woody said.  

 

SA is currently aiming to keep the supermarket transportation free or at a low price — $2 at the most. 

 

In the past, there was a bus that took students to P&C Foods on weekends, but not many students knew about it. When the idea for the bus was first proposed, Woody said, students said they would rather have transportation to Wegmans over P&C in a survey.  

 

‘Once we get off the ground and gage the support, which we hope is outstanding, we’ll be able to run more buses and make it a perpetual weekend,’ Woody said. 

 

The student engagement committee also started to build Syracuse Wiki, known as a ‘How-To’ website this summer. 

 

The website, in which students can give and receive opinions from fellow students, is based off the Wikipedia software and serves as an alternative to the syr.edu search engine. 

 

‘We started a new website to try and make it student based,’ Woody said. ‘So if you want a haircut or something, you go online and type ‘haircut’ in the search engine, and it’ll  come up with student opinions and places around where you can get a haircut.’ 

 

Similar to Wikipedia, students will be able to comment on the website. Comments will be overseen and regulated by a policy studies class, Woody said. 

 

Before summer began, the student engagement committee was also planning to provide transportation via Shuttle-U-Home for architecture students who stay at The Warehouse until late at night. The plan was not implemented because it did not need urgent addressing, as found in a survey, Woody said.