Aging, undersized and overcrowded, Dartmouth's non-varsity athletic facilities lag behind those of most comparable institutions, but administrators say there is little prospect for significant improvement in the near future.
The College's Kresge Fitness Center, popular among students, faculty, staff and town residents alike, regularly meets or exceeds its intended capacity on weekday afternoons, while general space limitations and the recent loss of several tennis courts have created difficulties in scheduling many of the College's physical education programs.
"I've been to several other colleges, and they generally have much bigger gyms," one gym user, Vivek Menon '02, said. "I would definitely say that they need another 50 percent more of both space and machines."
The Fitness Center, part of the 16-year-old Berry Sports Center, is approximately 4,000 square feet in area, according to Assistant Athletics Facility Manager E.J. Kiefer, and contains 23 machines for aerobic fitness, in addition to free weights and other machines.
Despite the impressive array of equipment, Dartmouth's own center is dwarfed by those at similar or even smaller schools.
At 7,000 square feet, the Fitness Center at Middlebury College operates over 35 aerobic machines and is part of a decade-long building process that has seen the construction of a new ice rink, football stadium and track for the campus of 2,200 students.
"You'd be hard-pressed to find anybody not pleased with the options presented to them," said Middlebury's Special Advisor to the Athletic Director Mickey Heineken.
Dartmouth, by comparison, has a combined undergraduate and graduate enrollment of approximately 5,500.
Even Williams College, with a student population of barely 2,000, maintains a fitness center of 5,300 square feet -- which, according to Assistant Athletic Director Gary Guerin is still "too small" for existing demand.
At larger schools, the picture is much the same. Princeton's Stephens Fitness Center, opened just last winter, features a two-story facility of more than 8,000 square feet for about 6,200 students, plus faculty and staff, while Yale in 1998 opened a new 20,000-square-foot fitness center.
Matt Brzyski, Coordinator of Recreational Fitness and Wellness Programs at Princeton, said that already there is "a proposal to double the size of the fitness center," which he thought would prove inadequate once the college followed through with plans to increase the size of the undergraduate student body by 500.
Students who spoke with The Dartmouth were largely dissatisfied with many of the current facilities, particularly the fitness center.
Lindsay Brown '05 mentioned the high demand for the aerobic machines, which has necessitated a reservation list that gym-goers must sign as much as a day in advance.
"It would be nice just to come over and be able to use the machines -- the whole atmosphere right now is pretty cutthroat," she said.
Kevin Davis '04 spoke of a need to "improve the existing equipment," while Rob Bialas '04 complained that "if you want to go anytime before 8 p.m., you have to wait a long time to get on any of the machines."
Dartmouth's Associate Athletic Director for Physical Education and Recreational Sports Roger Demment felt that the space limitations of the campus represent the greatest obstacle to improving existing facilities.
"The equipment is very nice at Kresge; it's just that we have no space to put more," he said.
Demment said that the gym typically receives the heaviest use toward the beginning of each term, but he wondered if the decline in usage over time was due to increased workloads or whether "people simply get discouraged about having to wait and therefore don't come back."
He explained that the limitations of Alumni Gym -- built in 1909 -- present difficulties in scheduling all the various recreational activities that typically take place there.
One of the biggest problems, Demment said, is a "lack of flexibility: if you look at the second-floor gym, it's a wonderful open space, but that same openness makes it difficult, for example, to schedule a martial arts class at the same time as an aerobics class."
Alumni Gym's two swimming pools, while well-maintained, suffer from the same difficulty.
Michael Tanana '04, a member of Dartmouth's diving team, explained that lack of a separate diving well -- which most other schools possess -- often makes scheduling simultaneous pool activities a challenge.
"Last year, we would be sharing the pool with the FLIP club, a community water aerobics class," Tanana said. He also noted the difficulty in reconciling team practices with the large number of intramural and recreational activities offered by the College.
A recent spate of new construction on non-athletic buildings has also led to the loss of five tennis courts, which once were offered for campus use. The six indoor courts of the recently opened Alexis Boss Tennis Center have provided some compensation, but Demment said he remains hopeful that new outdoor courts might eventually be built as well.
While Kresge Fitness Center suffers from overcrowding, the nearby Manley Training Center and Manley Weight Room -- 2,800-square-foot areas for the use of varsity teams and the football team respectively -- remain off-limits to most students.
The policy of separate weight rooms for varsity athletes is a notion peculiar to Division I institutions: both Middlebury and Williams share their fitness centers with varsity teams.
Dartmouth's squash courts, which Demment described as "not adequate vis--vis the rest of the league," remain another deficiency, although the College does stand alone among Ivy League institutions in offering six excellent racquetball courts.
In recent years, plans have been submitted to the College for possible expansion of the athletic facilities, Kiefer said, but due to financial and spatial constraints, none of the proposals were approved.
Demment said that future athletic expansion plans hinge on the College's potential acquisition of Hanover High School, which sits on land adjacent to Memorial Field and "would give us the space to do a number of things to improve current facilities."
At present, however, prospects for any expansion seem dim.
"Overall, there's just not enough money or space," Kiefer said. "We'll just continue to do small renovations wherever we can."
Demment agreed. "There are no definitive plans for big expansions right now, but there's always hope that in the future possibilities may arise."
