In November, Student Senate passed a resolution contingent on the elimination of the physical education (P.E.) requirement to fund student-led fitness classes after Campus Recreation received a $10,000 budget cut in that department. 

The November resolution pledged $20,000 to fund student certification to lead fitness classes, out of senate’s full budget of about $500,000, according to Ben Fleming ’19, senate director of financial strategy. No senate money can be used to pay wages, and classes will only be open to students. 

“Our hope is that it will benefit the student body in the sense that we’ll still have important programming in those fitness classes and also students will be able to get free accreditation to be instructors,” said Student Senate President Chris Jones ’19. 

Fitness classes are a branch of Campus Recreation, and $10,000 would be cut from the budget in this area regardless of the P.E. credit elimination, said Sean Ryan, associate director of Fraternity Life and Experiential Leadership Education. Had the requirement stayed, “I would still have a budget reduction… either way I was going to lose those $10,000. It was just a matter of what I was going to do to offset that,” he said.

“Certification is oftentimes the most expensive aspect of the fitness classes,” said Ryan.

Student Senate’s funding stipulations mean that outside contractors can’t be hired with that money. “My shift was essentially to move in-house anyways,” said Ryan, “I wanted to keep things as much internally as possible. One, because it’s cheaper but two, more importantly… because it give you all as students an opportunity to gain a certification and a skill to earn a little extra money on.” 

Ryan said funding for the fitness classes was dissimilar to the programs Student Senate usually funds and that “When they told me about the resolution I was actually shocked.”  

Senate’s resolution was written “so the money is used efficiently and we can maximize where it goes and what it can be used for without setting precedents one way or another that we can’t pull back if it needs to be rearranged,” said Fleming.

“We also think that the way funding would happen is very in line with things that senate already does,” said Jones, “so paying students to get the opportunity to get accredited and then for those students to teach classes seems very in line with the types of programming that happens through clubs,” senate’s usual purview. 

Two traditional fitness classes will be offered in fall 2019: yoga and spin class. Senate will fund the student instructors’ accreditation and Ryan will supplement a small stipend from his budget. “We’re still trying to figure out how many days we’re going to offer a week,” said Ryan.

Before the credit was eliminated, students had to attend at least 22 fitness classes in order to receive one block of P.E. credit. Now, “we’re anticipating a decline in attendance to fitness classes… because people [weren’t] necessarily going because they want to go, they were really only going… for the P.E. block.” 

Sports Clubs, however, have seen an uptick in participation since last year. “They’re growing, and they’re huge,” said Ryan, “and then we added about 5 or 6 sports clubs at least last year,” he said. 

“I think that we’re in a very unique time right now where we’re trying to figure out what best fits for college campuses,” said Ryan, “and the notion that more virtual fitness or online fitness or more personalized fitness is a huge concept right now. And that’s something that we’re moving to.”