EXHIBITS
The Built Environment: 130 Years of Growth, Development, and Change on the USU Campus: Growing a Campus Continued
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Growing a Campus Continued
Student Gifts and A-Day/Agathon Projects
Markers inset into many of the sidewalks and stairways near Old Main proclaim the involvement of students in developing the campus grounds. Each spring, Aggies dropped their pencils and picked up shovels for the annual A-Day festivities. Students were expected to participate. A Student Association vigilante squad often rounded up “shirkers,” trying them before a student court. A-Day activities included a morning of construction, usually laying concrete for new walkways, followed with lunch prepared by home economics students. Afternoons featured athletic contests and ended with a dance in the evening. The 1921 A-Day project is particularly important because students, under Emil Hansen’s supervision, laid out walkways and planted Norway maples, some of which may still adorn the parameters of the Quad today.
A-Day became the weeklong celebration Agathon during the 1950s. Although it disappeared during the 1970s, the Alumni Association resurrected the event during the 1980s, and today’s A-Week still consists of service opportunities along with other student events.
