Crowded. Tiny. Lack of equipment. These are the most common terms used to describe the workout area inside the Hamel Rec Center. For a school with more than 12,000 undergraduates, UNH isn’t doing itself any favors with an unsubstantial athletic facility for everyday students.
And, with the upstart business Wildcat Fitness just down the street in Mill Road Plaza, some students are actually choosing to pay an additional monthly fee – on top of what they already pay to use the Rec Center – to avoid the mid-morning rush and have access to newer, varied equipment. That’s unacceptable for a university of UNH’s caliber and size.
It’s great for the Durham community to have a place like Wildcat Fitness to work out, but when that business is drawing students away from the university gym they’ve already paid for, something is amiss.
Hamel Rec Center has 16 total treadmills, half of which are barely longer than the average person’s gait, to go along with only a handful of free-weight benches and about 20 stationary bikes and elliptical machines. Is it really too much to ask for a student-treadmill ratio better than 750 to one?
We realize a new gym altogether is probably out of the question – despite the fact that many other large, public universities have multiple facilities for the student body outside of those open only to varsity athletes – but why can’t the university buy some new equipment or spend time remodeling the gym so the equipment they do have isn’t crammed into the small space it currently sits in?
The university has most of their monetary priorities in order. Obviously, it’s more important to spend money to rebuild academic buildings, but we think a majority of students would have preferred a renovation to the gym over the new booths and tables at Holloway Commons.
It might not be the university’s goal to cater to every student wish, but an improved athletic facility would better the quality of life and further promote a positive college atmosphere. It would even help with recruiting.
UNH prides itself constantly on being a healthy campus with a generally fit student body. Healthy UNH even set a goal this year to make Durham the healthiest campus community in the country by 2020.
The university has taken steps in the right direction with the nutritious meal choices and Guiding Stars in the dining halls, but to truthfully pursue their ‘healthiest campus’ goal, the university needs to invest in exercise.
4 comments
For a second, I thought we might be talking about Ham-Smith. At least the Rec Center has working heat (and consistent WiFi)