The University of Wyoming is the only four year university in a relatively rural state: this being the case, it is relatively difficult for those who do not live in Wyoming to make the trek from the Denver International Airport to Laramie without external assistance of some kind.
This is the problem that the International Student Association at UW brought to a United Multicultural Council meeting in 2023.
Transit concerns for international students were cited as there are no official university programs to transport the students who are flying in from different countries around the world. With very few connections, the budget of a college student, and dropped into a brand new world that they are often unfamiliar with, it is very difficult for international students to find initial transportation to Laramie.
Many of these students are not even told ahead of time of the distance they have to travel to get to the university.
This problem was taken on by UMC and a project was started by the UMC Co-Chair Jasmin Mahoney and former ASUW President Saber Smith.
The project then took on additional support from former Director of Justice and Equity Paula Medina, former Director of Wellness Mack Malles, and former Chief of Legislative Affairs Rylan Knopp.
Together, these individuals worked with ASUW and UMC to put together a proposal for a DIA transit shuttle system. The process itself was a lot of legal work, as it was headed by ASUW as opposed to an official university department.
It was not a feasible project for UW to manage at the time but Medina hopes for the university to take it on as an official facet of campus.
UW has the shuttles necessary to make a project like this viable long-term and the process went well overall.
The current ASUW Director of Student Outreach Hayden Mackenzie was one of the ASUW directors who helped with the execution of the program this fall and stated that, “The process went really well. I got to chat with some students about it, and they pretty much all arrived in pairs so they were well acquainted with others.”
The ASUW Chief of Staff Peri Hennigar pushed information through social media and email in order to ensure that students knew about the service. Their work also extended to students who were not international, as the service was a first come first serve opportunity for any students to ride back from DIA.
Due to the success of the program both for international and other UW students, combined with the success of a similar pilot program ran in the early 2000’s, the hope of Medina and other members of the project are that the shuttle service running from DIA to Laramie can be a permanent fixture of the UW campus and can help mitigate travel concerns for students who do not have easy access to transportation to campus.
As the project grows towards the future, adding more shuttles to the routes and increasing both the marketing and volume of students involved will require the support of UW admin and transit. The project was a success in its initial run and has helped the students at UW immensely.
