Faculty and staff concerns about unaffordable on-campus recreation may soon be quelled by the $75-per semester recreation fee, $2-per use option recommended yesterday by an advisory committee.
Richard Burton, chair of the committee and a professor at the Fuqua School of Business, explained at Thursday's Academic Council meeting that the newest recommendation for the recreation fee is significantly more flexible than the one currently in effect. Instead of a $100 semester fee for both facilities, this version suggests a $75-per semester charge, or $25 per semester if a user only wants access to the Brodie Recreation Center on East Campus.
Executive Vice President Tallman Trask said the suggested fee seemed to be an improvement over the current structure and that he would look into whether the proposal would significantly dent operating costs.
When the Wilson Recreation Center opened this fall, the $200 annual fee-reduced from the Athletic Department's suggested $420 charge-went into effect, causing an uproar among faculty and staff about the potentially prohibitive cost. "We managed to step into the recreation fee issue quite awkwardly this summer...," Trask said.
Athletic Director Joe Alleva could not be reached for comment Thursday evening.
The new $75 number was chosen because it is equivalent to what undergraduates pay, Burton said. "Among those that believe faculty and staff should be sharing the cost with the students," he said, "we're trying to make the fee structure commensurate with other fees charged to students and still at the same time not make it a burden for the Duke community, especially for those with modest incomes."
But at the Academic Council meeting, committee member and Associate Professor of History Janet Ewald expressed concern about the suggestion that students, faculty and employees pay the same amount.
"There's a real difference in the University community between the people who work at a place and people who pay to come," she said. "Something that might be fair for one group of people might not be fair for others."
Answering the concerns of fee opponents who argued that they do not use the gym facilities regularly enough to warrant a sum fee, the committee also suggested that the University offer a $2-per use option.
"A very occasional user... could just swipe their DukeCard for a user fee," said committee member and Professor of Political Science Thomas Spragens, noting that many professors had been concerned about a potential loss of out-of-classroom interaction with their students. "This would accommodate that valid objection, and try to allow those kind of interactions."
Some employees who had been concerned about the introduction of the fee structure this fall said they were satisfied with the committee's proposal.
"Twenty-five dollars for Brodie seems especially appealing because I live off East...," said Andrew Weiman, an information services specialist at the Center for Aging and Human Development. "It sounds like they seriously considered the suggestions that members of the University community put forth."
Bruce Burchett, a research associate in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, only reluctantly praised the committee's proposal. "East Campus was a place where all elements of the community-employees and their bosses-were there mingling and socializing...," Burchett said. "Bringing in the whole fee thing was kind of a misguided effort. It seems like they tried to rectify it to some extent."
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