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New Rec Center
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Download full study document Student Recreation Center Study Task Force Survey Analysis Team Members: Nikki Terizeif Jackie Parker David Jimenez Tracy Earll Alex Accetta Robyn Pierce Francis McBride Christy Harper Todd Bauch Executive Summary:
The current recreation center at Portland State, the Peter Stott Center, was built in 1966 when the enrollment at PSU was around 8,100 students. As the university is currently enrolling 22,000 students, and is planning to expand enrollment to 35,000 students by the year 2012, the Student Recreation Center Task Force, composed of five students and four professional staff, was convened on February 15, 2003 to study the feasibility of building a new Student Recreation Center on campus to meet the needs of the PSU community. This group, with approval from the student government, hired the architecture firm Yost, Grube, Hall to undertake a conceptual study of what the appropriate facility would be to meet the recreation needs for the future of Portland State University. As part of the conceptual study, Yost, Grube, Hall asked the Task Force to do a survey on what the students and the campus community identified as needs for recreation and to ascertain the sentiment towards improved recreation programs and facilities. Following an email sent to all Portland State email addresses, a 10-day, web-based survey resulted in 816 responses, of which 60% were students. It is clear from the survey results that the PSU community engages in recreational pursuits as approximately 80% of all respondents choose to use a recreation facility - unfortunately, the current facility, the Stott Center, is used by only a little bit more than half of those people, the other half choosing to recreate at another facility. Thus, while members of the Portland State community involve themselves in recreational pursuits it is clear that their needs are not being met by the current facility and programs. It is not surprising then that when asked if "new or expanded recreational programs and facilities at PSU would improve campus life" nearly 86% of the total respondents answered "Yes." The student-only sub set answered the same question at an even higher rate of 87.5%, while Faculty/Staff/Alumni were even higher yet at 88%. An important part of the survey was to find out the priorities that potential users placed on different types of programmable space in a new recreational facility. To accomplish this, respondents were asked to complete a ranking of what aspects of a recreation center were important. The survey concluded that a weight and circuit room were the two most important components; an improved pool was the third highest priority. A running track was fourth and a multi-use court was fifth. A rock wall was the next highest priority, followed by a dance room, social space, basketball courts and short-term child-care. While students who responded to the survey had similar answers for the first six priorities, they placed social spaces and basketball courts ahead of a dance room, meeting spaces, and short-term child care. Another area that having a new center might improve for non-users would be access for students with disabilities: only 25.1% gave the Stott Center a Very Good or Excellent rating on meeting these needs. 43% gave the Stott Center only a Good, 24.5% gave a fair, and 7.4% gave it a poor rating. This area is obviously one that should be improved in any sort of new recreation facilities. Over 80% of respondents said building safety is very or extremely important. The current recreation facility is lacking in this area. When prioritizing new spaces, safety is clearly important and a safer facility would likely lead to more use. With this information, and the qualitative responses, the Task Force suggests the following: The survey also provided an opportunity for qualitative comments from respondents. The qualitative responses can be broken down into three areas: programmatic suggestions, concerns with budgeting for a new facility, and support for a new facility. The programmatic suggestions varied widely from asking for more pool use and circuit room hours, to asking for space for bicycle maintenance and table tennis. The programmatic suggestions also clearly stated that there is some confusion as to what is available for the PSU community. Because of the highly mixed use of the building, shared between athletics, classes, and campus recreation, these replies are not unexpected. Of those who provided dissenting comments, most referred to the current lack of financial resources at the school for their dissent - not surprisingly, a majority of the dissenting comments came from the non-user group which represented 18.6% of responses - but there were some dissents from each sub-group. For example, one reply commented "It is not a luxury to watch folks trot off to play racquetball in the middle of the day. I do that in my free time, after work and by then I’m so glad to be leaving campus it wouldn’t matter if you gave away gold ingots for every lap I swam in the pool or for every basket I made in the gym. We don’t need this ‘expanded’ facility." These valid concerns need to be addressed when and if the process moves forward, but the sentiments of the majority of the respondents believe that an improved recreation facility would improve student life. Student replies in particular were positive towards a new facility, outnumbering negative replies by over two to one. To quote: "As a former faculty member, and now a graduate student, the recreation facilities would be extremely beneficial to the campus as a whole and to campus life. Many students go off campus for their health club activities, because the facility at PSU is so poor," and "This is a great idea. I’m a frosh here and I can never find time to shoot and play open gym during the evening or day time. I would spend a lot of time playing basketball if I could," and finally, "We need a new recreation center. Stott is terrible, gross, crowded, and dark." The Task Force is intent on making any project a win-win-win proposal for Portland State. While it is clear current facilities are not adequate to meet all of Portland State’s needs, as the process continues, it will be important to ensure that a new recreation center meets the needs of not only those who would use it, but those who might benefit from expanded social spaces and other services. One of the qualitative replies sums this up nicely, "Since I am not an avid gym user, I would enjoy utilizing any additional areas on campus to study at, if that is possible at a rec center - maybe a study area next to snack-juice bar where tv’s and racquetball courts are. Good luck." Finally, the assertion that a new recreation facility is needed on campus is not something new. Nearly sixteen years ago, in 1987, a Presidential Task Force had this to say: "A need to expand facilities may emerge from reduced access to current facilities and from increasing student demand for these programs as they become more visible and effectively coordinated and as student housing increases on campus." The results of our current survey suggest that the time has come to create such a new recreation facility. |
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• Peter Stott Center • Room 102 • 503.725.5127 •
Campus Rec is subsidized by student fees.