The U has offered students a variety of disciplines to major in, but students who wanted to specialize in design had to go elsewhere — until now. This fall, the School of Architecture + Design is introducing the bachelor of science in multidisciplinary design. Though the program is new, it might have an impact on tailgating at football games.
Jim Agutter, director of the design program, taught a class last Fall Semester in experience design. The goal of this kind of design is to take a mere activity and transform it into an experience designed for maximum enjoyment. Agutter said Walt Disney theme parks are a good example of this comprehensive approach to design.
Students in Agutter’s class created their own hypothetical experience design projects using the football fan experience at the U. They conducted research on the traditions central to the Utah fan experience and traveled to Oregon State University, Arizona State University and UCLA to get new ideas.
Agutter said the class worked with the Athletics Department to look at creating new and interesting football traditions at the U.
They also ran an online Spark campaign, requesting students to submit their own ideas for football traditions. Agutter said they recieved more than 50 ideas, but ultimately settled on two: engaging the Ute tribe and closing off University Street for tailgating.
Evan Howard, a junior hoping to enter the new design program in the fall, said the crowd-sourced idea to close off University Street would centralize the tailgating parties that happen across campus on game days.
“If everybody would come and meet in a common place … you could really build better morale,” Howard said.
He traveled to Oregon State as part of the project and saw that OSU fans could tailgate right outside the stadium.
“At halftime, everyone would leave the stadium and go out and tailgate,” he said. “Having something closer to the stadium was just a huge deal.”
Currently, tailgating is held on Guardsman Way — southeast of the stadium.
“It’s kind of a big mess,” Howard said.
The students have compiled their ideas for increasing school spirit at the U into a book, which they will present to the Athletics Department.
In addition to changing the tailgating location, they also propose that freshmen be “indoctrinated” into the fan base at the U. In their research, they found that 60 percent of freshmen knew nothing about entrance to football games.
Agutter said centralizing tailgating was a big theme of the class, which looked at several ways of combining the many group tailgates into one larger, better tailgate.
Ann Argust of the Athletics Department said working with the design students has been a “really valuable experience.”
“Every time we partner with an academic partner on campus, they research, they go out, they experience other schools,” Argust said. “The feedback is always something that we appreciate and we take very seriously.”
She thinks more engagement is needed on campus, and while blocking off University Street might not be impossible, there are lots of logistics to be considered, and it would take a lot of negotiations with the city.
“I’m not sure if for this upcoming season, if that’s something we could do,” Argust said. “Every time we’re handling stuff with the city … there’s a lot that goes into that.”
She said there are also safety issues.
“There’s a lot of issues … traffic, what else is going on on that street — is it a major access way to an emergency area? There’s definitely more than just, ‘Hey, we’d like to close the street.’ ”