Freshmen and sophomores, you’d better appreciate the SERF while you still can: After next year, you won’t see it again before you graduate.
The major renovations on the Southeast Recreational Facility are a necessary process. The antiquated building is unattractive, dilapidated and too small to support UW-Madison’s ever-growing student population. The new facility, set to open in 2019, will be gorgeous, spacious and high-tech. Objectively speaking, these changes needed to come in order to improve the quality of life of future generations of students.
The issue with the whole process is that the decision to closedown the facility, however necessary it may be, will create huge obstacles that impede our physical health as a whole student body. While various exercise machines are likely to be moved to Ogg while construction is being done, the basketball courts, weight equipment, squash and racquetball facilities, swimming pool, indoor track and other amenities won’t be replaced in any way.
The SERF is already too small and resource-deprived to accommodate the residents and employees of the school’s southeast neighborhood. Closing the facility altogether, without presenting a reasonable alternative fitness option for students, does nothing but exacerbate this issue. More students will have to make the arduous pilgrimage to the Natatorium—which is also too small to begin with, and will become saturated with students. The Nat itself will also undergo a major reconstruction after the SERF has been finished, with the facility expected to be completed by 2021. This will ensure that the strain on students to find adequate facilities to exercise in will continue for the next half-decade.
The only beneficiaries of this situation are private gyms such as Anytime Fitness, but even they will struggle to meet the needs of the thousands of students who will suddenly have no sufficient facilities in which to exercise.
Of course, many buildings—most notably Memorial Union—go under construction in order to improve the quality of the campus, and students have to learn to deal with it. But taking away our exercise facilities is worse than taking away the beautiful Terrace on which to eat ice cream and drink beer or a building full of classrooms, because it’s endangering our health.
Another big issue with the entire process is the way in which the plans were approved. To the university’s credit, the renovations were put to a vote, allowing students to decide whether or not to implement the $223 million upgrades. This vote, however, happened in March 2014. The upgrades were, understandably, approved—because none of the students voting were going to be negatively impacted by the changes. Today’s juniors and seniors were there for the vote, but they will still be able to enjoy the SERF’s last year and graduate before it closes.
The decision by students two years ago to revamp the SERF and Nat was one that will admittedly pay big dividends in the future. The new buildings will be big selling points and provide top-notch amenities for decades. As a result, the referendum on whether or not to affect these changes was passed—the students at the time objectively wanted campus to be improved and for their own children to be able to workout in pristine facilities. They, however, didn’t have to suffer as a result of the closings, knowing they would be gone by the time any changes took place. The issue is that the decision made in 2014, although irrefutably beneficial for future students, leaves current ones at a huge disadvantage, having had no say in whether or not the renovations occur.
Naturally, any student body would be irked to have their ability to exercise be snatched away from them, and delaying the renovations would leave future students in the same situation. What we need is an adequate backup plan. We were never given the opportunity to have a say in whether or not the buildings would close for a large segment of our college careers. The sacrifice we have to make must in some way be repaid. Being presented with no sufficient backup plan is not only unfair; it poses a serious threat to our collective health.
The changes coming to the SERF and Nat are, in the long-term, boons for the campus and community as a whole. Given the condition they’re currently in, the changes were inevitable and necessary. But depriving a massive portion of campus the right to workout easily and affordably for several years, and giving them practically no say in the matter to begin with, is simply unjust.
Sebastian is a freshman studying environmental studies and history. What are your thoughts on the upcoming renovations to the SERF? Are you excited, or annoyed by the inconvenience of the closure? Let us know at opinion@dailycardinal.com.
