WSU's $39 million recreation center awes students
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Students marveled at the new facilities when Washington State University informally opened the doors of its 160,000-square-foot student recreation center last month.
The student-funded, $39 million complex houses lap and leisure pools, a 53-person hot tub, squash and basketball courts, a four-lane, elevated running track and what the university touts as the nation's largest student weight-training center.
The facility also includes a health and wellness center with a nutrition clinic, personal trainers, massage therapy and weight-loss seminars. And for those less interested in good health, there are lounges where students can plug their laptops into Internet portals or sit down to caffe lattes.
In other words, there is something for everyone, backers of the center say. The praise has been effusive among university officials, faculty and students, some of whom say the center, in just two weeks of operation, is transforming campus culture.
WSU is one of a growing number of colleges that are pouring millions into sprawling recreation centers - betting big that swimming pools, climbing walls and treadmills will give them an edge in the increasingly competitive market for prospective students.
But weeks before the scheduled Feb. 22 grand opening, a sour undercurrent is trickling through the Pullman campus. Small pockets of cost-wary students are questioning the mandatory $100 fee every student pays per semester, whether they use the facility or not.
"My concerns lie with the fact that students do not have an option in paying a fee for a nonacademic facility they may never use," graduate student Michael Clark wrote in an e-mail to fellow grad students last week.
"I think it's an extraordinary waste of money," said another student, junior James Beitinger. "And if you do what I do and complain to the (student government), they say, well, you voted for it. Well, I didn't vote for it."
In fact, most of the students who voted overwhelmingly for the center in 1997 graduated before ever having to pay the fees.
University officials are not considering any fee waivers and for now are hoping that the center's splendor - and the positive effect it has on campus life - will win over its detractors.
"It's already happening," said Kathleen Hatch, WSU's interim recreation director. "I think people are walking around with a little more skip in their step."
A testimonial to the center's popularity are the wait lines for weight-training and cardiovascular stations. The facility is bustling with students from the time it opens at 6 a.m. until closing at 11 p.m.
In the first two weeks, an average 3,400 students used the center each day. For many students, it has become a daily ritual.
Freshman chemical-engineering student Megan Chaffee says she spends nearly two hours a day lifting weights and soaking in the hot tub. She's among hundreds of visitors who say the fee is a small price to pay for a center that has all the amenities of an expensive fitness center.
"I go every day of the week," said fellow freshman Chris Reed, who, in addition to weightlifting and running admits an added attraction: "There's a lot of girls, so that's not too bad."
If the praise sounds overblown, a glimpse at what the students had before may explain why.
"We had a 1,200-square-foot weight room that was like a shoe box, and we had people lined up for an hour, two hours every weeknight to get in there," said Steve Wymer, student president.
"So the need was desperate. I mean, we're in Pullman."
The revelation that the center is also serving as a social gathering place is good news to a campus and city that is popularly perceived - justly or not - as having little to offer in terms of recreation, except drinking.
With stagnant enrollment, WSU has been budget-strapped in recent years. College officials hope the center will help turn that around.
"It's going to be great for recruitment," WSU spokesman Hugh Imhof said.
Dozens of institutions are racing to build similar facilities, continuing a movement that began more than a decade ago but has taken off only in the past five years.
The National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association estimates about $1.25 billion is going into new student recreation centers at 66 colleges and universities.
"We're talking about some very big recreation centers," said Aaron Hill, the association's marketing director.
The association is in the midst of launching a national study to measure the effect of such centers on recruitment and retention, students' health and psyches, high-risk drinking and grade-point average. WSU's Hatch, who is also a vice president and board member of the recreational-sports group, plans a similar study at Washington State's new center.
The hope is the results will silence the critics who think the money would be better spent on libraries, classroom technology or faculty salaries.
Among the naysayers is Chester Finn Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based educationreform group and a frequent critic of college spending. Finn characterized such projects as "the amenities approach to higher education."
"Higher education should be focused on (improving academics), not on mimicking spas," he said.
Among the 50 or so complaints Hatch has fielded are from students who say the fee should be based on usage, since it is for a nonacademic luxury.
Steve Kuehn, president of the Graduate and Professional Students Association, said he's received at least a dozen e-mails with similar gripes.
"Which is actually quite a lot for one issue," Kuehn said.
Hill, of the recreational-sports association, said WSU's $100 fee is high compared with other schools, "but not outrageous." The added expense raises the total student services and activity fees to about $407 annually.
By comparison, the University of Georgia charges a $50 mandatory fee for its recreation center, which at 430,000 square feet is the largest in the country. Students at the University of Texas at Austin pay between $65 and $75 a semester.
But schools such as Georgia and Texas have the luxury of sharing the costs among student populations three and four times the size of WSU's, Hatch said.
And WSU students still pay less for services and activities than their University of Washington peers, who soon will pay an additional $35 a quarter to renovate and expand their 170,000-square-foot intramural-activities building.
The added fee will push their annual service and activity fees to about $378. Tack on a $40 quarterly technology fee, and UW students pay about $498 a year in fees on top of tuition, said Amy Skei, student chairwoman of the UW services and activity-fees committee.
With the first debt payment of $1.8 million on WSU's center coming due next year, followed by a $3 million payment in fiscal 2003, there's little to no chance the fees could be dropped or lowered, Hatch said.
The student government is considering lobbying the Legislature to help pay for the center's maintenance and utility costs. And Hatch hopes retail sales and faculty, staff and guest-user fees will offset some of the expenses.
In the meantime, school officials are urging the naysayers to visit the center, indulge in massage, have a fruit smoothie and enjoy.
After all, they're paying for it.
Ray Rivera's phone number is 206-464-2926. His email address is rayrivera@seattletimes.com.