Students returning to Rose Hill for the fall semester soon found the campus with one less fitness facility. Ram Archives

By Michael Cavanaugh

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Students returning to Rose Hill for the fall semester soon found the campus with one less fitness facility.

As a result of renovations that began during the Spring 2014 semester, the two-room facility located on the second floor of the Lombardi Center was closed indefinitely.

The now-defunct fitness center, formerly a popular fitness hub for a large number of students, was marked for renovation by the administration. The heavily-used equipment was sold to a fitness company in late July.

While renovations to aging facilities are typically welcomed, the student body voiced negative feedback upon learning that the old weight room is closed.

“It’s a real shame because sometimes the Ram Fit Center gets overcrowded and the upstairs gym was a good escape with a lot of room and free weights,” Martin McCormack, FCRH ’15, said. “Plus that’s where I worked out a lot with my friends.”

McCormack’s sentiments are shared by many students, whether they regularly used the Lombardi fitness facilities or preferred the more modern, flashy aesthetics of the Ram Fit Center, which first opened its doors in October 2012.

The main concern held in regard to the new fitness center is the inadequate space allotted for free weights, an integral part of many resistance training regimens.

Even in off-peak hours, students have difficulty finding open benches, of which the Ram Fit Center only has a handful. Couple this with just two power lifting racks, an angled leg press, a rack for barbells and an obscurely-placed seated calf raise machine, all placed within a relatively short, narrow hallway, and you have a recipe for a facility that will seem overcrowded with just half a dozen students.

The mirror-lined room does contain an adequate number of dumbbells, but the layout of the area places them in the path of the fire exit, prohibiting individuals from placing benches in front of the rack. Those who do so are scolded by the security guard on duty and instructed to return the bench to the adjacent narrow hallway.

David Roach, director of Intercollegiate Athletics at Fordham University, admits that the space for free weight exercises is not as big as the department would like it to be, but he cited student safety as a primary reason for the gym’s elimination.

“Once we had the new fitness center, with the old one not really supervised, we really wanted a place where the students are supervised for safety reasons,” he said.

Roach also mentioned that the allocation of funds to expand the women’s basketball office was part of the reasoning behind the decision to get rid of the older fitness center.

The A-10 Champion team’s office has since been expanded into what was once the aerobic space of the facility. In addition, plans to renovate the Lombardi Center bathrooms have allegedly caused some of the upstairs space to be shifted around.

Despite this, Roach was sympathetic toward the frustration of the students, faculty and staff members who frequent the university’s fitness center.

“I would say that if the Ram Fit area becomes too overcrowded, then we will figure out a way to come up with an auxiliary space,” he said, though he did not expand on specifics.

Nevin Kulangara, president of United Student Government, GSB’15, is attempting to seize the opportunity to figure out solutions regarding a potential gym overflow.

“Many students have expressed their frustration with the limited free weights space in the Ram Fit Center,” Kulangara said in a USG statement. “This is a great opportunity for USG to meet its purpose: to listen to the student body and work with the administration to explore ways to alleviate the concerns of the students using this space.”

It remains unclear if the administration will respond if students continue to voice complaints about the new arrangement.

Kris Venezia contributed reporting.

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Michael Cavanaugh is the Assistant News Editor for The Fordham Ram.