Ball Gymnasium has been experiencing more student traffic since summer school started, mostly due in part to the $90 fee required for membership that the Student Recreation and Wellness Center requires.
The recreational fee was imposed at the beginning of Fall 2010 when the new rec center opened for the first time and did not exist with the Irving Gym, said Jason Adamowicz, associate director of Recreation Services.
"Before the rec center was built, there were no recreational fees," he said. "The recreational fee, just like it is in the fall and the spring, is assessed for the building and operations of the rec center."
Ball Gymnasium doesn't have such a fee.
"Well I'm not going to be here all summer so I can't really complain that that's free but I was here last summer and I worked for the school and they were still like 'no, you gotta pay 90 dollars' so I think it kind of sucks but I guess they kind of give you a B option, I guess," said Sarah McInerney, a junior organizational communications study major and former Daily News staffer. "I miss the rec center."
McInerney said she uses the rec center year round and understands why she is unable to use it during the summer.
"[It's] because I'm not taking physical on-campus classes," she said. "I think it's kind of unfair that they don't let online students do that though because my sister is taking two online classes and you still have to pay so I think that kind of stinks."
Adamowicz said the fees are assessed to try to make it adequate and fair to students who are taking summer classes and assessed the recreation fee.
Unlike the new rec center, Ball Gymnasium does not require a fee because it is already completely funded.
"That funding has been in existence. You just need to think of it as two separate facilities," he said. "The existing facilities were already funded over the years and then the recreational fee is for the rec center only because it's a new building project."
Technically, the rec center is partially paid for and the recreational fee is helping to pay off the building, said Bernard M. Hannon, associate vice president and business affairs treasurer.
Although Ball Gymnasium is available to students at all times without any fee, Hannon said the main reason behind having a fee at the rec center is so the university can pay off the debt of the new building.
"I think it's a 20- or 25-year-old bond, and at that point I guess we'll make a determination on whether the fee should go away or whether we'll build something else new or different," Hannon said.
Hannon said paying off the rec center with a recreational fee was partially an idea brought up by students.
"The sort of discussion was we just couldn't afford to build a new rec center unless there was some source of revenue to pay for it and students overwhelmingly said 'we will pay an additional fee if we can get a new nice rec center' and that was the sort of genesis of the project," he said.
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