The fate of the Governors State University pool has been a hot topic this fall. As temperatures cool, a feasibility study may determine the facility’s future.
Many students might not know that GovState has an indoor swimming pool. It has been closed for over 18 months. Administrators told the Phoenix and the Student Senate that the delays are beyond the university’s control and that the cost of reopening the pool may exceed its value to the broader university community.
At the September Student Senate open meeting, a large group of students assembled to discuss the pool’s fate. A petition was passed around the room to gather support for making the campus pool accessible to students again.
“We know that these facilities are not being closed because of what the student body is saying,” Student Senate President Xavier Thomas said. “It is because the administration is saying that they are not being used.”
Many athletes were present at the meeting, and they expressed concerns about the pool and other campus facilities. One athlete said that the pool was included in the recruitment process, which convinced them to attend GovState, and that a lack of facilities on campus makes it difficult to perform at a high level.
At the October open meeting of the Student Senate, Paul McGuinness, the vice president Of Student Affairs And Enrollment, confirmed that the pool had been closed because of ongoing repairs in the locker rooms and bathrooms in the A-building.
“It may sound strange,” McGuiness told the Phoenix, “but we actually don’t control the construction on our campus.”
McGuinness explained that in the State of Illinois, there are different ways that universities get funded to make campus improvements or repairs. If the funding comes from the state, it has to go through an agency called the Capital Development Board (CDB).
Because the state funded the work in the A-building, GovState has little control over the process. The CDB selects the contractors and, for the most part, manages the project with minimal input from the university administration.
“What happened was that the general contractor that the State of Illinois hired basically stopped working on the job,” McGuinness said. “They stopped construction on different projects on multiple campuses.”
McGuinness said that the CDB now has to terminate that contractor from projects before it can hire a new general contractor to finish the work. The process does not involve GovState, but in the meantime, locker rooms required for the pool to be functional remain closed.
McGuinness explained that before the pool was closed and before the COVID-19 pandemic closed campus, students were not regularly using the pool. He said estimates for updating the pool and keeping it functional are at over $400,000 in the first year. This is separate from the work that the state is funding in the locker rooms and does not include the insurance required for operating a pool that is open to the public.
McGuinness has proposed a feasibility study to gather input from students, faculty, staff and the community. The study would consider the cost of maintaining the pool and also look into the student body’s support for converting the space into a multi-use gym that could be used for intramural sports like pickleball or indoor soccer.
While the cost to remove the pool and retrofit the building would likely be much higher than reopening the pool, McGuinness said it is hard to justify spending student fee money on something the students don’t engage with. Because Illinois has not been funding projects recently, he believes improvements to campus will likely require a new student fee that will be used for large improvement projects.
Some people feel like the decision to close the pool permanently already has been made without considering students’ perspectives.
“The Student Senate would like to see more collaboration with the students,” said student senator Imani Jackson. “We are deeply upset and concerned that the administration is making such a large decision like this without keeping us in mind, and we’re so passionate about keeping the pool because we recognize that if the pool is taken away from us now, we probably won’t see another one.”
Jackson noted that the GovState pool is the only pool accessible to University Park residents and an asset to an underserved community. The Student Senate has continued to gather student support for the pool.
McGuinness told the Phoenix that he is being objective about any facility changes and appreciates the passionate feedback from students. He realizes that the pool has value, but because of the limited use of the facility, he still wants to move forward with the feasibility study to determine if a new space would be better for the campus. “I still have to think about students first before the community,” he said.
A feasibility study will be conducted in the near future.
In a book that outlines GovState’s history, the author explains that recreational athletic facilities have been underused in the past. The university saw student and community engagement increase when it partnered with the YMCA in the late seventies.
The GovState athletic facilities were built in the university’s first years. At that point, there were no athletic teams. Racquetball courts are now weight rooms, and the gym is the only space used for intercollegiate sports on campus. Many spaces need to be improved for what the athletics programs have become.
The new Facilities Master Plan announced in 2022 shows that the university plans to make significant improvements across the campus, but funding remains sparse. The plan includes the pool and athletic fields, which have been another hot topic among student-athletes. Campus administrators have announced plans to construct soccer fields next year.