Student Government Association (SGA) at Wright State has been working on an initiative to establish an independent recreational facility on campus. At a Sept. 21 Board of Trustees meeting, student body President Daniel Palmer and Vice President Adrian Williams presented their proposal to the board.
Wright State’s facilities “are lagging behind a little bit from other comparable institutions,” Palmer said at the board meeting. Currently, students are limited to the McLin gym for recreational activities. “If you’re lucky, it’s available four hours a day for students,” Palmer said.
Palmer recently signed Executive Order 19-02 to establish a task force for the recreational facility initiative. The task force will be comprised of members of the campus community. It is currently in the first phrase: research.
Before the initiative were to pass, the student body would vote on it. The idea is that every student would contribute to the expenses through student fees, according to Palmer. It is not clear at this time how much it would cost individual students, as SGA has not yet reached the budgeting phase.
“The cost per student is going to depend on what ends up being the final product,” said Ivan Mallett, chief of staff. SGA plans to announce the individual cost before the student body votes on the initiative, according to Mallett.
SGA intends to have the research and budgeting & finance phases completed by the end of the fall semester, according to information provided by Mallett. The spring semester will be dedicated to the marketing and voting phases. Public meetings will be scheduled for every step of the process, Mallett said.
The facility is meant to be “all-encompassing,” and to be used for more than just recreational space, according to Mallett. It may include classrooms, a ball room and spaces for Greek life events, he said.
Palmer said that he hopes the final product will be “the most accessible recreation facility in the country.” Although Palmer has a personal vision for the facility, he said that “it’s really important that the student body puts in their vision as well.”
Palmer said that a recreational facility would increase retention at Wright State. At a Sept. 7 mini-summit, he and Mallett presented a study conducted by Bowling Green State University. It shows that with the presence of a recreation facility, participants in club sports were 2.2 times more likely to enroll the following semester, student employees showed a 100 percent
retention rate between semesters and regular users of the facility were 1.44 times more likely to enroll the following semester.
“We have an issue here at Wright State as far as marketing ourselves, retaining our students [and] getting students to enroll here,” Palmer said. “I see this as a way to fix those issues.”
