I would like to express my displeasure towards how the Olney-Margolies Athletic Center's schedule is relayed to recreational users. The OMAC administration must make a publicly accessible and regularly updated schedule for the Brown community at large.
Last week, I read over the only document listing the reserved times for the month of February at the OMAC front desk. This document is not posted in public view and is marked "Do Not Remove." With spring sports starting up, it is no surprise that the document shows the athletic center to be very busy. But reservations are listed in the schedule in a exceedingly confusing manner. For example, there are different entries for "Varsity Track" and "Track practice," which one might assume are the same thing. There is an ambiguous listing for "IM/Rec." These and other inconsistencies make other reservation listings untrustworthy. For example, teams like softball and baseball reserve all four courts and the track on most days, then are not listed as reserving all facilities on others. Compare, for instance, baseball's Feb. 16 and 21 reservations. These may be idiosyncrasies, but for a recreational user planning their visits ahead of time, reading the document is an exercise in interpreting the OMAC's unique form of bureaucratic language.
I spent nearly an hour writing down unreserved times, which I assume to be times when recreational users can use the track or the basketball courts. While some general patterns emerge — for example, the track and basketball courts are mostly free from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., Monday through Thursday — it is clear that this schedule, the only "detailed" schedule available, is an internal document for OMAC staff to keep track of team reservations, and probably only so that the teams themselves do not impinge on each other's practice time. It makes me wonder if this is how the OMAC staff sees its job more generally.
This document fails as a recreational schedule because it only lists reserved times; it does not explicitly state when athletic center facilities are available for open use. An internal document like the one at the front desk may make sense to OMAC staff, but a casual gym-goer has to do some mental gymnastics if he or she wants to know when the track or courts are available. Compounded by the fact that the OMAC's weekly web schedules have not been updated for at least two years, I feel the OMAC administration is doing a disservice to the community at large by not producing a comprehensible, publicly available and readily accessible schedule. It would be a great boon to the recreational community if the OMAC administration developed a schedule with recreational users in mind.
Such a schedule would have at least two characteristics. First, it would be updated weekly and available on the web. The only available web schedule outlines reserved times, but in broad strokes. Three or four years ago, specific reservation schedules for the upcoming week were available in a downloadable format. There is enough variation in the month of February alone to warrant a different weekly schedule being posted online. While calling the front desk each time we wish to use the facilities is an option — albeit a procrustean option — it makes far more sense for recreational users who wish to plan their exercise schedules in advance to have a document readily accessible for this purpose.
Second, a recreational schedule would explicitly state when facilities are "open." Only listing when the courts and track are reserved is not helpful. And it is irrelevant to a recreational user if lacrosse or softball has Court 2 reserved from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. I personally do not care if baseball or basket-weaving is using the courts from 10 p.m. to 11:59 p.m. — I only want to know when I can use them. A good model is the University of Rhode Island's weekly open recreation schedule. It clearly states when certain facilities are "open" and when they are "closed." A similar schedule for the OMAC would be ideal.
This is not the first time students have called for athletic center schedule reforms. Roughly one year ago, a friend of mine contacted Matthew Tsimikas, assistant athletic director of physical education, intramurals and club sports, with a similar complaint. Within a week, Tsimikas wrote back stating he agreed with my friend's complaints about the OMAC schedule and would bring them up at the next staff meeting. Needless to say, no new schedule was developed.
In short, I ask the OMAC administration to develop a schedule oriented towards recreational users. And I ask all you other recreational users to inspect the front desk document for yourselves, ask for your own copy and continue to petition for a real schedule.
Celso Villegas is a graduate student in sociology. Please don't ask him about his dissertation.
