The article I chose to critique was called Impact of College Recreation Centers on Enrollment. This article is unique because the author, Stephen Kampf, is with the Department of Recreation and Wellness at Bowling Green State University. The following article was published in the Recreational Sports Journal recently in 2010. Kampf’s study was broken up in to nine different categories that impact the building of recreation centers and student enrollment. The following categories were fitness and wellness needs, recruitment, funding, enrollment trends, past construction and enrollment, admission personnel discussions, recruitment and a new college recreation center, recruitment and an old recreation center, and limitations. Recreation centers became popular in the late 1970’s and early 80’s were considered an important part of the college campus. Although the centers were becoming popular, there was not nearly as much programs and state of the art facilities being built around the country as there are today. Colleges these days have realized this trend and are creating major funding to provide state-of the art facilities for students and incoming students. The focus of Kampf’s study is the impact student’s benefit from having increased wellness options, greater physical health, mental health, and the impact these facilities have on enrollment.
The article was very in depth and provides a range of information on the given topic. Kampf also provided an analysis based on enrollment numbers and interviews with college admissions personnel to determine if there is a relationship between having a new college recreation center and enrollment. This analysis showed that enrollment did increase when a new facility was built and numbers continued to increase over the years. In the recruitment part of the article, Kampf explains that by building these new recreation centers is a great way to entice future students to enroll. Although most colleges in Kampf’s study did benefit from rebuilding, some universities did not. Because funding these facilities are so expensive it is beneficial to discuss the pro’s and con’s of taking the risk to build. When rebuilding or creating a new building a portion of the funds come from student fees. With that being said, sometimes this can have a reverse affect and drive student enrollment away. Discussing the pro’s and con’s are very important when deciding to build.
Overall Kampf’s article was very informative and beneficial for recreation majors. I did not realize how much of an impact new building or rebuilding such as, recreation centers can impact a college. This explains why colleges take the risk of investing so much money into new building or rebuilding. In the long run it is beneficial for colleges to take risk of spending millions of dollars to build or rebuild because the effects are rewarding.
