Student Association recently passed a bill requesting Residence Life and Housing to extend hours of operation at the Cooper and Glimmerglass Fitness Centers on the Oswego State campus.
After hearing concern of students being too busy to exercise in the fitness centers during open hours, Student Association Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Omar van Reenen decided to look into the issue.
“A lot of our students are highly invested on campus within clubs and organizations while they are living on campus,” van Reenen said. “By being heavily involved on campus, they can’t sometimes use the hours that are provided to them now.”
The current hours for both fitness centers include: Monday through Thursday, 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.; and Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.
“I think the hours are okay right now, but I would prefer to see them extended later to maybe 11[p.m.] or 12[a.m.], which seems late, but we have other student workers on campus working until 3[a.m.],” graduate student Kimberly Lagatta said. “Midnight isn’t that bad.”
The bill urges Residence Life and Housing “to further accommodate the students’ need for extended hours and address the possibility of implementing the hours as they deem fit, in conjunction with the results in the survey,” according to Student Association Resolution: The Extension of Fitness Hours Act.
The Fitness Center Extended Hours survey was made available to students via the Facebook pages for SUNY Oswego Accepted Students of 2019, 2020 and 2021. Of the 200 responses, 70.5 percent claim to already be a member for the fitness centers. Additionally, 95 percent said they think the fitness centers should offer extended hours during the week. Of the responses, 77.3 percent of students said they would prefer to have the fitness centers stay open until 11 p.m.
If the extended hours were to be enacted, 43.2 percent of the surveyed students said they would be likely to buy a membership to the fitness centers.
“A large amount of people want extended hours, and a large amount of people are willing to buy a membership if it gets extended,” van Reenen said.
Brian Wallace, the manager of the fitness centers, said if the decision is made to extend the hours, the fitness centers would probably have to add one or two more student employees, and the membership fee would increase to compensate for the extra hours of operation.
There are a little over 3,000 students with memberships, which is 37.5 percent of residents, according to Wallace.
“Although that number is a little hard to quantify, about 40 percent use the actively use their membership at least once a week,” Wallace said. “About 165 students have not swiped in at all, and 60 percent of the members use the fitness centers sporadically – less than once per week.”
The fitness centers are launching a pilot program next semester with extended hours to compare usage and membership with the fall 2017 numbers, according to Wallace.
“We already anticipate increasing membership rates due to increasing minimum wages,” Wallace said. “Adding operating hours may be challenging unless the additional hours will add new members. The members of SA and results of the survey both bring up valid points, as we want our students to have the convenient outlets to be physically active.”
Photo: Kyle Hurley | The Oswegonian
