New Fitness Center unveiled
By Cathy Wu, The Dartmouth Staff
Published on Thursday, April 20, 2006
The grand opening of the new Fitness Center took place Wednesday amidst much hype, including an address by College President James Wright.
The new Kresge Fitness Center opened its doors on Wednesday afternoon, one year after the start of construction and just in time for the first day of Dimensions.
The approximately 14,000 square-foot fitness center houses 64 cardio machines, new dumbbells, free weight stations and 42 circuit machines, among various other physical-fitness training equipment. It also contains new features such as a spinning room, televisions for over half of the cardio machines, a library of workout videos, and anatomy and training books.
The Center includes a mezzanine which overlooks the main fitness room and will serve as a workout and classroom area for physical education and FLIP classes.
The heavily advertised opening of the center was accompanied by short speeches from College President James Wright and Director of Athletics Josie Harper.
"Someone mentioned that the process seemed very smooth. I want you to know it's a little bit more like duck syndrome," Harper said in her speech, referring to the calm upper body ducks have while they paddle frantically underwater. "There were a lot of people that paddled awful hard to make this happen."
Wright also addressed the difficulty of the construction of the facility given its size.
"It's been a big project, taking this on. It's been a lot bigger project than some of us thought it would be in the beginning," Wright said. "Students for a number of years have identified the need for us to have here fuller, more extensive fitness facilities as one of their priorities. This is a wonderful facility, and we've waited a long time for it."
Students and faculty touring the new modern-looking facilities echoed Wright's sentiments.
"I have been waiting for this," Alison Riep '07 said. "I'll definitely be going to the gym every day now."
The fitness center also installed a new I.D. access system, requiring users to flash their Dartmouth I.D. cards when entering or exiting the center.
"We need to monitor control over an area like this," Harper said. "It gives us an idea of who and what time people are using [the space]."