Assignment 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQyjHGj66qc

Campus Recreation Center East

The main goal/purpose of CRCE is to provide an activity for all students, faculty, and members. The main focus is students while it also provides recreation for families and the elderly who reside in Champaign and Urbana. It also focuses on strengthening the community as a whole. CRCE gives students a variety of opportunities for recreation and leisure.

Along with the ARC, Campus Recreation Center East is funded by the students who pay tuition to the University. Aside from students, funding can come from those who pay membership to use the facility. The center is thirdly funded by the fees students and faculty pay to participate in the classes offered at the facility.

Campus Recreation Center East serves the community of the University of Illinois. It also serves residents of Champaign and Urbana. CRCE is considered more family oriented and serve families who reside in the area because of the aquatic center equipped with a water slide, fountains, etc.

Campus Recreation Center East has a variety of programs offered at the facility. The facility is has incline hockey that can also act as an indoor soccer field. The CRCE is also equipped with a sun deck. The facility also has an indoor track and the aquatic center offers swim lessons for all ages. Lastly, a popular element this facility has is its hot tub and 12 person spa.

There are three student jobs within this agency. First is facility assistant. This person's duties include swiping in students at the front, cleaning equipment, and walking around the facility to make sure everything is okay. Next is customer service assistant. These are the people who stand behind the desk and hand out sports equipment and deal with customers questions and concerns. Lastly is facility manager. This is the highest student job available. These people oversee all the duties and are the ones who open and close the facility daily. Some jobs for the aquatic center include lifeguards, aquatic student coordinator who provide guidance to lifeguards, and learn to swim instructors. There are also adults who work there who are in charge of equipment, membership, hiring, media etc. All these positions work together and help each other out. If one employee doesn't know the answer to a question the next person most likely knows. By working together they fulfill their duty to provide campus recreation.

One big strength of CRCE is that it is most of the time less crowded than the ARC, allowing more accessibility to equipment and activity rooms. The facility is also family oriented which attracts residing families to obtain memberships. The location of CRCE is easier for students living in the PAR, FAR, LAR, Allen and Busey Evans Residence halls. Lastly, CRCE is pretty new with being built around 5 years ago. One weakness of CRCE however is that the guest pass cost is high. The cost is $10 a day for a visitor and if a student is bringing a friend. According to CRCE faculty, visitors who come for the day usually end up leaving after hearing that cost and if it was lowered more people would be willing to pay the amount and the facility would make more money. Another weakness is the lack of variety the facility offers compared to the ARC.

Yes, Campus Recreation Center East fulfills its purpose because you see people in their everyday using the equipment. Not only do students come in but elderly people are there in the mornings and families come in throughout the day to use the aquatics and other equipment. CRCE provides a place for everyone to fulfill their leisure and recreation needs.

Assignment 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5jq98xrMKQ

Activities and Recreation Center

According to Robyn Deterding, Director of campus recreation, the main goal of campus recreation is to provide something for everyone-whether it is a sport, a program, a job, a place to study etc. Our main focus is on students first, faculty/staff next then their spouses, significant other and families. Last focus is on community. We have a strategic plan that focuses specifically on six areas: student and staff development, sustainability, wellness, fiscal responsibility, collaborative efforts, and diversity.

The agency is funded primarily through student fees and any income we can generate. Other incomes can include private memberships for those who are not students i.e. residents of Champaign and Urbana. The agency also receives funding through the extra classes that the facility provides such as yoga, zumba, and cardio classes. They receive very little state funding.

This agency serves all students and faculty in the University of Illinois community. It also serves the residents of the Champaign and Urbana areas. It can extend outside the local area to those willing to pay non resident and membership fees.

The Activities and Recreation Center is multi-faceted. It has a variety of classes that are free for every student the first couple weeks of each semester. The ARC also has Wellness Wednesdays in the basement at the Wellness Center. At this center they provide workshops about stress, nutrition, etc. There are also cooking classes, aerobic classes, and team practices at the ARC. The 35-foot rock wall located in the ARC offers clinics for beginners and experienced climbers. These are just of the many key programs that the ARC offers students and faculty.

The ARC has a full-time staff of close to 75 people. Their jobs focus on business operations, field maintenance/operation, aquatics, intramurals, sport clubs, risk management, human resources, wellness, strength and conditioning, ice arena, reservation, staff development, adventure recreation, and member services. The ice arena is part of campus recreation but is not located at the ARC. They have close to 700 student employees who also assist in the areas listed above. The competencies required for any of these positions are friendly, responsible, hard working, and respectable staff. All employees work as a unit and rely on each other to provide sustainable recreation services.

The ARC has many strengths such as that they are very passionate about what they do and work hard to do it well. They serve over 88% of the student population. They are also very flexible in operation so they could be serving the students with all they need while providing the Provost Office space for a reception and RSO hosting a late night dance elsewhere. They are much like a chameleon in their variety of services. However there are some weaknesses in the ARC. Obviously the economy is a weakness for many agencies right now and they are waiting to see if that affects them. Since they depend on student enrollment, for a portion of their budget, then they must always be able to adjust without it affecting their mission. Sometimes a challenge but if they are creative, then it is more of a behind the scenes weakness than visible.

The ARC absolutely fulfills its purpose as a recreation service. With their 6 strategic foci, this year they already noted 24 pages of accomplishments. In terms of student users, they are seeing more participations than they have ever experienced in the last 40 years of existence.