JAUnt Golf Service provides accessible transportation on cam- pus

CAMPUS

JAUnt Golf Cart Service provides accessible transportation on Auburn’s campus

By CATHERINE HAYNES Opinion Editor

Auburn University’s door-to-door golf cart service for students, faculty and staff with disabilities or medical conditions, otherwise known as “jAUnt,” will gain two golf carts for its fleet in fall 2022.

The addition will bring the golf cart fleet to a total of eight standard golf carts and one wheelchair-accessible golf cart.

The golf cart service was launched in fall 2011 with the goal of providing accessible transportation across Auburn’s campus to students, faculty and staff with any disability or medical condition that might make traveling difficult.

At the time of its founding, jAUnt’s fleet consisted of three standard golf carts, one wheelchair-accessible golf cart and less than 10 drivers.

According to Christi Burnley, office supervisor for Auburn University Transportation Services, jAUnt faced many challenges in its first few years of service, including old golf carts that broke down often.

“We jokingly referred to them as being on their last wheel. We had situations in which a driver couldn’t even get out of the parking deck with the cart because the charge wouldn’t hold,” Burnley said.

In 2019, Auburn University Transportation Services took over jAUnt and replaced the golf cart fleet in its entirety.

“It took some time to get them in, but once we were able to, it was great,” Burnley said.

Throughout the 2021-2022 school year, jAUnt transported 4,522 passengers, a number Burnley said is managed by strategic scheduling.

“We do all of our scheduling logistically, so we are looking at where people are going. With our campus map we figure out if there is somebody else that we can get picked up who has an appointment at that same time,” Burnley said.

Beth Weathers, junior in biomedical sciences, used jAUnt at the beginning of the spring 2022 semester while recovering from a concussion.

Weathers said although the people she encountered through jAUnt were very kind, she experienced challenges during her two months using the service such as rides running late and making unscheduled stops.

“JAUnt was great whenever it was preplanned, but there just weren’t enough people or golf carts to really be efficient if anything unexpected happened,” Weathers said.

Weathers also said she wishes jAUnt would continue to grow and gain more golf carts and drivers in order to help more people navigate campus with ease.

In order to get approved for jAUnt golf cart rides, students, faculty and staff must go through a series of steps which include providing qualifying medical documentation to the Office of Accessibility as well as filling out scheduling paperwork provided by jAUnt.

Students, faculty and staff interested in jAUnt are encouraged to get more information by visiting their website.

Outdoor learning lab and walking trails added to Weagle Woods

By KACIE BARRETT Podcast Editor

A new feature of Auburn’s campus is continuing to grow to enhance the learning experience outside of the classroom. Located behind the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences building, Weagle Woods is an 11-acre wooded area that is developing walking trails, a learning laboratory and educational signs on its path.

Beginning in Spring of 2022, Weagle Woods added a walking trail within the area that is open to all students and the public. Visitors of Weagle Woods can find trees estimated to be over 200 years old and various resident wildlife.

“The whole idea is to put the information out there so all walks of life can enjoy and gain information from it,” said Amy Counterman, professor of practice in the college and project coordinator. Counterman prepares to utilize these new aspects of Weagle Woods to incorporate in her classes for this upcoming semester.

The new walking trail allows participating classes to have easier access to explore the environment. The trail follows a path of specific areas that provide learning and research spaces.

“It gives the teachers a lot more flexibility,” said Jack Childree, a student at Auburn University. “It’s a great resource to go out and still get the experience of being in a forest without having to leave campus.”

Weagle Woods will allow the students involved to conduct research on the atmosphere it offers, including climate, wildlife, pollen, and water flow within a stream that runs along the area. This experiential learning aspect gives students the ability to apply the skills and tools they gather

from classes in a real world environment.

“Once there is more signage and activities to go do and find in there, I think it will become a fun resource,” Counterman said. The College of Forestry, Wildlife and Environment hopes to use Weagle Woods for educational purposes in Fall 2022, however, it will be a continuous project with more supplements added on as studies develop and advance.

“It does provide so much value,” said Heather Crozier, the director of development. “To give somebody who is maybe not as familiar with natural resources, to better educate them on the importance.”

Weagle Woods also grants the College of Forestry, Wildlife and Environment recruiters the opportunity to illustrate the first-hand experiences that students of this college are a part of. The natural space introduces what the college has to offer and what their learning experience entails outside of the textbook

“It was just a fantastic opportunity to get hands-on experience in a science class. To take something hands-on and have access to go out there and actually interact with the things that we talk about in class,” Childree said.

The idea of an outdoor learning space within the College of Forestry, Wildlife, and Environment was brainstormed by faculty over recent years. Investments from outside assets permitted the growth of the project, on top of the actions taken by the department to bring the design to life.

“If we can find stakeholders that are willing to invest in a second phase, we will certainly be able to expand upon this project,” Crozier said.

Weagle Woods plans to initially include informational signage around the trails to give context to visitors and is considering electronic components that can be accessed from the buildings surrounding the area in the future.

The walking trails of Weagle Woods are currently open to the public with one of the main entrances at the intersection of South Donahue Drive and Lem Morrison Drive.

DANIEL SCHMIDT | PHOTOGRAPHER

CAMPUS Auburn students, community react to overturning of Roe v. Wade

After the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Auburn students and community, like the rest of the nation, had split reactions.

FILE PHOTO

By DESTINI AMBUS

Editor-in-chief

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health that the Constitution of the United States does not confer any right to an abortion, overruling Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. This decision effectively returned the power of abortion regulation back to the state legislatures and elected officials.

The day the decision was released, The Plainsman posted a survey, allowing Auburn students and community members to voice their thoughts on the subject. From the survey, 86% of the responses were anonymous. To present a holistic view, we have included quotes from these anonymous responses as well as named interviewed sources from both sides of the issue. The anonymous quotes are in italics at the beginning of each subhead for clarity.

The pro-life perspective

When I woke up to the news that Roe v. Wade was overturned this morning I cried tears of joy. FINALLY! FINALLY! - Anonymous

I am pro-life. Before you judge and start reading please give me the same respect that I personally feel I have been giving to others…. -Anonymous

“For the past three weeks, pretty much since the beginning of June, I have been refreshing the supreme court website, beginning at 10 o’clock, every 10 minutes on every decision day that the court has announced,” said Gwen Charles, senior in economics. “So I saw the decision come out at exactly 10:10 on Friday.”

Charles was crying for a solid 20 minutes, tears of joy, she said. She was overjoyed and thanked God for what she considered to be a miracle.

Charles was an officer of Students for Life last year, a non-profit anti-abortion organization. Her primary job this past year was organizing a trip that the group took to Washington D.C. to participate in March for Life, an annual demonstration in which pro-life supports gather to “celebrate life from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death and every moment in between,” according to marchforlife.org

As a member of Students for Life, Charles said her biggest goal was to change minds and hearts, to be willing to listen and ask questions while also providing her own perspective.

That perspective is “staunchly pro-life,” she said, staunchly anti-abortion. “I think, for as long as I can remember, I have cared about the issue of abortion,” Charles said. “I never really understood why it was really a thing.”

She said she thinks a lot of it had to do with the fact that she grew up around a lot of adopted families, families who were longing for a child, while at the same time there were children not being given the chance to live.

“The older I got, the more that I understood about abortion, the more I understand the dignity and humanity of every person from conception, the more I cared about protecting those innocent children’s lives,” Charles said.

Another reason she’s passionate about the cause, she said, is because she really does care about women.

“I think there is this lie that, oh, I’ve heard so many, you’re not pro-life, you’re pro-birth, you’re anti-woman,” Charles said. “And that’s just not the case. Pro-lifers for the past 50 years under Roe have been working to support women to have their children.”

Increasing access and making sure certain resources are available for women is something that the country really needs to work on, Charles said. That means ensuring that there are various infrastructures for women of all backgrounds, incomes, living in urban or rural areas to safely deliver children, and ensuring that there are hospitals in rural communities with maternity wards.

“There are tons of crisis pregnancy centers,” Charles said. “These clinics, federally qualified health centers offer things like mammograms, ultrasounds, pregnancy, STD testing and more holistic care. So, let’s counsel a woman who’s found herself pregnant, and she’s scared, let’s provide her with a parenting course, let’s provide her with community.”