Spring Ahead with Planning for Campus Recreation to be Prepared for the Fall
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Spring Ahead
with Planning
for Campus
Recreation to
be Prepared
for the Fall
By Alaina Brandenburger
C ampus Recreation Centers serve as
some of the most popular facilities with
students and faculty, offering a respite
grams, and services.” Recreation facilities are often one of
the primary spots on campus recruiting tours, as they are
important to many potential students.
from the stress and chaos of student life. Having spent more than 30 years of his career working in
Early in the spring and fall semesters, collegiate recreation, Tom Diehl, CPRP, GreenPlay Principal,
campus recreation professionals must find has ample experience developing, managing, and sched-
uling campus recreation facilities and programs. While
ways to manage large upticks in usage. A working for Marist College in New York, Tom was involved
facility that is sparsely used during winter in building a Division 1 baseball stadium and in building
break and summer sessions may see itself athletic and recreation fields along the Hudson river, ren-
overscheduled and crowded once students ovating the boat houses from Marist College and Cornell,
and renovating the McCann center, which is the campus
and faculty return to campus full time. recreation center.
Preparing for these increases in usage is
essential in managing use and keeping the Tom has also been involved with scheduling and program-
facilities running smoothly. ming at these facilities, and mentions that preparation is
key to ensuring that they are not taxed beyond capacity.
Campus Recreation Helps Students Determining schedules ahead of time and making sure
Succeed, and Scheduling is Key that each facility has down time is essential, according to
Tom. “One of the most important things is to provide some
Recently, more studies have been completed on how cam- sort of grid schedule that shows every area for the next
pus recreation contributes to the wellbeing of students. two weeks -when it is available for free play and when
According to a 2014 NIRSA study by Dr. Scott A. Forrester, it is scheduled. That way the students know when it’s a
“75% of students use on-campus recreation facilities, pro- good time to come in and use the gym. They know when
From the — Spring, 2020
Email: info@greenplayllc.com
© 2020 GreenPlay LLC. All rights reserved.
they can play pick up ball or if it’s not a good time, because full use, staff is well equipped to handle a full volume of
there is an activity scheduled.” customers.
Campus recreation not only provides health and wellness Aside from training and maintenance, Diehl recommends
opportunities for students, it also helps to build a sense of making plans for your facilities in the off season as well.
community within the campus. According to a 2006 study, He suggests surveying students and other potential users
“intramural sports might contribute either to differentia- during the school year to determine future programming
tion and stratification or to integration within the overall options. “What campus recreation providers really need to
university.” (Artinger, et. al. 2006). By advertising recreation know is what the community desires. They should peri-
schedules, including opportunities in which students can odically conduct needs assessments to find out what the
participate in intramural sports and other recreational student body would like and to see where the shortages
activities, the campus recreation department can help con- and gaps are.” Spring is the perfect time in which to con-
tribute to student wellbeing and retention. duct these assessments, because students have been using
the facility for most of the year, so they likely have a good
Plan in the Off Season idea of what is working and what is not. Diehl advocates
hosting focus groups, conducting user satisfaction surveys
Since recreation facilities will become some of the most and conducting intercept surveys of users. Once these have
highly used on campus throughout the school year, plan- been completed, school officials can determine where gaps
ning ahead is crucial to keeping them in good shape and exist and methods for filling them. They can take advantage
running smoothly. Diehl recommends doing the major- of slower periods during the summer to assess what types
ity of programming plans and maintenance during the of equipment may be needed to tackle new programs and
summer. “Make sure that all of the facility projects are draft new schedules to meet gaps.
done before the school year starts, so that facilities are
top notch when students and faculty return to campus.” Serving the Broader Community
He also recommends completing the bulk of staff train-
ing during the summer when facilities are not being used For some collegiate recreation providers, campus recre-
as often. This way, when use of the facility returns to ation facilities serve more than just the student body, they
From the — Spring, 2020
Email: info@greenplayllc.com
2
serve the community as a whole. According to Diehl, these We did a needs assessment, with focus groups and engage-
communities can manage potential conflicting user inter- ment with the student body. Then we developed our plan
ests with carefully crafted policies. He said, “If necessary, with the experience we had with multiple facilities we had
a school can have its facilities be specifically for students. where the students didn’t get the access that they needed.”
It is also possible to sell community memberships and put
time frames and limits on when non-student members can Diehl states that strategic planning is a necessary step
come. Typically, the revenue that can be generated from toward ensuring that facilities are properly scheduled and
community memberships and the goodwill is definitely maintained. “Every time a facility or a program is added,
worthwhile A lot of times, campus recreation professionals the recreation department should be reviewing it making
try to identify what would be low use times for the stu- sure that they are setting aside the budget to maintain and
dents. One of the difficult things in university recreation operate it.” He mentions that having big, beautiful recre-
is that a lot of the facilities are shared, so the recreation ation centers means nothing to the student body if there
department might not get as much access to them as they are not proper resources in place to operate them.
would like and the students would like. A needs assessment
and a feasibility study can help demonstrate that there is a Scott Forrester, PhD. “Benefits of Campus Recreation.” NIR-
need for the facilities to be dedicated and how you can use SA. 2014. https://nirsa.net/nirsa/wp-content/uploads/Ben-
them.” efits_Of_Campus_Recreation-Forrester_2014-Report.pdf
While working at Virginia Commonwealth University, Diehl Lori Artinger, Lisa Clapham, Carla Hunt, Matthew Meigs,
and his team conducted a feasibility study in order to show Nadia Milord, Bryan Sampson, and Scott A. Forrester. “The
decision makers that there was a need on campus for addi- Social Benefits of Intramural Sports.” NASPA Journal of Stu-
tional recreation facilities. “That study allowed us to build dent Affairs Research and Practice. 2006
new facilities. They were dedicated student facilities. There https://www.albany.edu/involvement/documents/social_
were no athletic practices and no special events at first. benefits_of_intramurals.pdf
From the — Spring, 2020
Email: info@greenplayllc.com
3
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