Rec center looks to up attendance
Student Recreation Center officials say the number of women visiting the new facility is lower than expected
Joseph Vasquez / The Collegian
Recreation administration sophomore Courtney Whitlock, front, and psychology junior Adriana Chavero are among the women using the Student Recreation Center’s facilities. Chavero said she started using the center three weeks ago and usually sees about the same amount of people each time she goes. |
By Katie Hicks
The Collegian
Since its opening in February 2006, only one-third of Fresno State students have visited the 92,000-square-foot Student Recreation Center, a number which center director Derek Walters would like to see increase.
“We’d like the number to be larger, but for the small amount of marketing we did last semester we felt it was a pretty good number,” Walters said.
The $17.6 million center was originally funded by student fees and private gifts to the university and is now included each semester in student tuition as a $49 health services fee.
A computer program allows the staff at the rec center to track students who enter the gym by scanning their student identification card. The program organizes the statistics by variables such as year in school or whether the student lives on or off campus.
Walters said his staff has discovered that since the start of the fall semester, an average of 1,200 students visit the center each weekday, with the majority visiting after 5 p.m.
Deante Martinez, a freshman who lives on campus, said he visits the gym almost every night after class.
“It’s nice because it’s got everything I need,” Martinez said. “And I’m not paying for it, my parents are.”
Tanisha Surbine, also a freshman living on campus, said she cancelled her gym membership this year when she found out about the rec center.
The staff at the rec center also noticed a trend in the number of male and female students visiting.
“According to campus statistics, the breakdown on campus is about 60 percent female and 40 percent male,” Walters said. “But we noticed that the exact opposite was true when it came to using the center.
About 60 percent were male and 40 percent female.”
So Walters and his staff have begun looking for ways to bring more of the female student population into the center.
First, the rec center was added as a pit stop on the tour for all incoming students who attended the fall 2006 Dog Days event, Walters said.
“That really helped introduce new and incoming students,” Walters said.
Second, Walters brought Maia Jost on board as an assistant director and coordinator of fitness programs.
A wide variety of group exercise programs, scheduled to start in October, is one of the elements that Walters and Jost think will attract more women to the center. “Group classes would be really exciting,” said Stacia Sturman, a senior business major who didn’t know that the center was included in tuition. “I would totally do that because right now I work out at a local gym but I could just cancel my membership and go there [to the rec center] since I’m already paying for it.”
Junior Evelynn Ponce said she had heard a lot of great things about the recreation center but still didn’t know where it was located.
“The group exercise classes would really appeal to me,” Ponce said. “I would probably get more of a workout in a group than just exercising alone.”
Jost said the new group classes will offer a more intense workout than other types of exercise.
According to Jost, when she taught these types of classes in the past she had well-conditioned athletes who couldn’t keep up.
“It’s just a different kind of workout,” Jost said. “It stresses your muscles in a completely different way.”
And in order to meet the needs of all students, Jost said she is hoping to offer the classes at times when they are most convenient to students.
“We are hopefully going to be able to offer each class every day at least once,” Jost said.
Depending on student interest and the number of instructors available, the center will then add more of those specific classes, she said.
Jost said she would like to talk to any students with an interest in teaching the classes, and she encourages them to visit the rec center and talk to her about it.
“Really anyone with a background in kinesiology or any experience in exercise instruction or even just an interest,” Jost said. “The more instructors we have, the more classes we can offer.”
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