By SHANNON O. WELLS
As access for Pitt faculty and staff to the brand-new Recreation and Wellness Center remains unclear — and pools at the Trees and Bellefield halls no longer available — frustration is building among those in the Pitt community who have had no campus fitness facility options since mid-July.
“It has been extremely frustrating for faculty that the University that we all love — and in my case, moved the entire family to work for — has left us hanging since before summer,” said Frederico Xavier, associate professor of pediatric hematology/oncology, of the lack of lap-swimming options since mid-summer.
“As you can imagine, as a medical provider, researcher and teacher, my quality of life has been severely impacted (because) I have not been able to practice the sport that has kept my mental health, blood pressure and glucose under control.
“I hope this situation ends soon.”
Xavier is one of several faculty members who contacted the University Times to ask questions and express dissatisfaction about the lack of fitness facility access, not knowing when access might return, and what fees they’ll be required to pay to use the Recreation and Wellness Center, which opened for student use on Sept. 14.
Until July 18, both Trees and Bellefield hall pools had been available to students and at least intermittently to faculty and staff. Since then, the Trees pool and fitness center have been reserved for use solely by Pitt Athletics and community organizations, with faculty and staff excluded. The aging Bellefield Hall pool closed permanently.
A Pitt spokesman confirmed in early September that access to the Rec and Wellness Center and an accompanying membership fee structure are still being discussed. They are among negotiation topics for the initial collective bargaining agreement (CBA) involving the Pitt Staff Union, which is part of the United Steelworkers (USW).
“While CBA negotiations continue, we will not offer represented staff access to the (Recreation and Wellness Center),” the spokesperson said. “Once the University and the USW have ratified a CBA that includes an agreed-upon membership fee structure for represented staff, access to the (center) will be based on the agreed-upon membership fee structure.”
But even non-represented staff and faculty currently don’t have access to the building. Regarding the overall cost of membership for Pitt employees, the University’s goal has “remained to make it affordable but in line with market costs, given that the facility was always planned with students as its intended primary user base,” the spokesperson said.
On Oct. 1, the spokesperson said there will be “more to say on that publicly … likely within a few days,” but indicated no new information was available as of the current edition of University Times.
Narrowing lanes
While many expressing concerns about employee access to fitness facilities say they accept that Pitt — like many of its neighboring and peer universities — needs to charge fees to use student-dedicated recreation facilities, others are less certain of the model.
Tomas Matza, associate professor in the Department of Anthropology, said it’s “really troubling” that faculty and staff could be charged a monthly fee for accessing health facilities, “especially given various statements about Pitt’s ‘new era of wellness.’”
Access fees, he explained, would create an “unprecedented barrier to the very facilities that provide wellness for many of faculty and staff. Moreover, as massive contributors to the mission of the University, faculty and staff should already be seen as ‘members’ and should have access to the same top-rate facilities that other community members do — without being charged.”
Faculty and staff previously had free access to Trees and Bellefield halls’ facilities.
Calling himself a “longtime user” of the Trees Hall pool, Matza said he’s seen a “steady erosion” of faculty and staff-oriented recreational benefits. In the years before the COVID epidemic, he said Trees provided employees a dedicated locker room, a designated recreational swim period in the larger of its two pools, and domestic partner/spouse access to the facilities.
In his 10 years at Pitt, however, he said access to long-course meter lanes at Trees “became exceptionally rare and unpredictable.”
“When we did have access to the big pool, we were squeezed into six lanes, even when there are no other practices, (and) domestic partners/spouses have also lost access to rec facilities,” he noted. “In the last two years, more often than not, we would be shunted into the small, dark pool, while the large pool sits empty.”
This past summer, he added, “we also lost an hour of swimming time each day.”
Peer institution recreation fees
Warren Shlomchik, professor of medicine and immunology in the Pitt School of Medicine and endowed chair in cancer immunology, said although he’s concerned about fitness-facility access for faculty and staff, he’s willing to pay a regular user fee.
“I also think single-day passes should also be offered. It would be a very sad outcome if faculty and staff are excluded from the new rec center,” he said, noting that would “certainly be inconsistent” with access policies at some peer schools he researched on the internet.
Recreation fees at some of Pitt’s peer and neighboring institutions include:
Carnegie Mellon University: The Jared L. Cohon Center offers fitness equipment; gym, squash and racquetball courts; studio space; and lane and diving pools that all are “available for use by the entire campus community,” its website information indicates, along with additional facilities at the Tepper School of Business Fitness Center and several outdoor recreation areas. A valid CMU ID is required for access.
Penn State University: Faculty, staff and retirees are eligible for $50 monthly memberships, $95 per semester, or $230 annually.
Temple University: Full-time regular employees can have a monthly $10 campus recreation access fee deduction withdrawn from their paychecks.
West Virginia University: Faculty and staff can pay $340 yearly, $45 monthly, or other amounts for intervals of three, six and nine months. Payroll deduction is accommodated.
Ohio State University: Faculty and staff can pay $178 per semester, $534 annually or $45 monthly.
University of North Carolina: $240 annually
Indiana University: $22.91 monthly
Purdue University: $45 monthly
University of Minnesota: $17.20 monthly with payroll deduction
In 2019, Penn State held an open house for faculty and staff members interested in learning more about campus recreation memberships. Employees were invited to tour four University Park facilities accommodating fitness equipment; pools; basketball, racquetball, and squash courts; a bouldering wall, and more than 100 drop-in fitness classes, which are included with a membership.
Earlier this year, Penn State offered a free two-week membership trial to all University Park campus faculty and staff, allowing access to all Campus Recreation-maintained facilities and amenities.
Driving employees away
At Pitt, Amy Wagner, professor in the Department of Neuroscience, said reduced or eliminated pool hours at Trees and Bellefield halls this past summer negatively affected her swimming and fitness routines, along with that of many colleagues.
“While there may be reasons to decommission the pool at Bellefield, it served a significant number of people who felt more comfortable in a shallow pool,” she said.
This was unlike the “small pool” at Trees, where faculty and staff/students “were mostly relegated,” and reduced demand for the “already crowded” Trees pool facilities during what were very “restrictive time windows” to swim, she added.
With community groups, children’s camps and swim teams competing for use of Trees’ small pool, Wagner said the six lanes of the large pool were alternatively “overcrowded and underused.”
“This state of affairs was further complicated/disrupted by frequently being asked by guards to ‘move pools’ part way through the rec swim to accommodate these outside users. This last piece got so bad this summer that I think people just gave up coming during the last couple of weeks of summer before closure in July,” she noted.
Weekday evening open swims in the large pool also became less available to faculty and staff because of use by secondary school swim teams and offerings such as lifesaving classes.
‘Free and good access’
Although a statement on the Recreation and Wellness Center web page said data showed that “fewer than 3% of eligible faculty and staff” used Trees and Bellefield facilities in the past year, Wagner attributed this drop to the circumstances she describes.
“These limitations, taken together, are the major contributors to why ‘only 3% of eligible users’ utilize the pool facilities,” she said. “Simply put, access and equity are major barriers that suppress utilization …”
She expressed concern that Trees could become a full-time “pay to play” facility where only sports teams and community teams that pay fees to swim there will have access.
“Overall, it is my impression that many regular pool-goers, and potential pool-goers, have felt disenfranchised for many years by the pool facility environment I have described,” she said. “I believe this current state of affairs, which will undoubtedly further reduce capacity and access, will likely just fuel that sentiment.”
Patrick Hughes, interim director of the National Consortium for Teaching About Asia Pittsburgh National Coordinating Site in the University Center for International Studies, said he went from swimming at least three days a week at Bellefield Hall to not swimming at all for months since both facilities closed.
“There are multiple problematic aspects of closing Bellefield and Trees (that) absolutely belie Pitt’s continual messaging about how much they value faculty and staff and our health and wellness,” he said, noting he also used the facilities to shower after biking to work each day. “With (Bellefield and Trees) being closed during the summer, there was no indication from (Pitt Campus Recreation) as to other showering facilities that would be available to faculty/staff.”
Leaving employees with no access to shower facilities, he added, “also discourages active commuting or exercising during lunch breaks. I doubt that this has even been a consideration in all of these decisions.”
Hughes, who also lost access to the locker he rented in Bellefield to store his swimming and showering items, said he finds it odd that his only campus fitness option going forward is to pay a membership fee to use the new Recreation and Wellness Center.
“So basically something that I previously got for free — access to a pool — I might now be charged for, and something that was a special service — renting a locker — that I didn’t mind paying, will now no longer be an option,” he explained.
Calling the change “disheartening,” Hughes said it makes Pitt “look stingy,” alienates and antagonizes staff and faculty, and “shows us that they do not value our input.”
Affiliated with Pitt as a graduate student or staff member for 25 years, Hughes said he suspects the membership fee is ultimately meant to discourage faculty and staff from using the Rec and Wellness Center, “because the new center will not have the capacity to accommodate everyone who wants to use it.”
That it is “already October” and faculty and staff still do not have access to a pool or exercise facilities, he added, is “bordering on the absurd.”
For Tomas Matza, employees having “convenient and free access” to fitness and recreation facilities is more important than ever, given recent changes and growing trends at the University.
“As many of us faculty and staff will tell you, having free and good access to Pitt’s great facilities is so important to our well-being,” he said. “Particularly as the University is asking more and more of us in the context of hiring freezes, growing student enrollments, and intensifying service demands.”
Shannon Wells is a University Times reporter. Reach him at [email protected].
Have a story idea or news to share? Share it with the University Times.
Follow the University Times on Twitter and Facebook.
link