By From The Chronicle

The rec center on campus needs more equipment to meet the needs of a more health-ambitious community. Students (part-time, full-time, undergrad and grad), faculty and alumni all have access to a rec center that falls seriously short in serving the volume of its users.

From the outset three stair climbers, six elliptical machines, 12 bikes, four treadmills and four rowing machines may seem like enough. But, for a campus with 13,000 students that’s not much-and that’s not counting faculty and alumni.

That leaves about 130 time slots for the treadmills on a weekday.

Even with 130 time slots, there are times in the morning and evening when those machines are in particularly high demand because most people on this campus use the facilities before or after classes each day.

The track is not a satisfactory alternative to treadmills because even though it’s carpeted, it’s essentially like running on cement.

Enabling, if not encouraging, students to exercise regularly should be a general goal for any community. More and more large companies host onsite exercise facilities or free memberships to gyms, shouldn’t colleges do the same? By not providing the necessary resources, the University is effectively saying exercise isn’t all that important.

Funds need to be appropriated to install a better track floor, add equipment to accommodate the increasing number gym-goers and open up more space so the machines are not so close together.