Cloverdale students support fitness centre for their campus

There is solid student support for a proposed fitness centre at the Cloverdale campus, but a final decision by Kwantlen administration probably won’t come anytime soon.

According to the results of a petition drive in September and October, Cloverdale students were overwhelmingly in favour of a fitness centre for their campus, which would be placed in a currently under-used facilities room roughly the size of the Surrey campus gym.

The KSA has had meetings with Kwantlen administration, which were described as positive by KSA External Affairs Director Derek Robertson.

Although the KSA would ideally like to see gyms on all four campuses, Cloverdale was considered for the fitness centre for a number of reasons, according to John O’Brian of the Cloverdale KSA. Cloverdale is primarily a trades campus, and the physical nature of most skilled trades also require students to be physically fit.

The Cloverdale campus also already has enough potential space, unlike Richmond and Langley, the other two campuses lacking a fitness centre. Richmond has “zero space” for expansion, according to O’Brian, while Langley has relatively few students and is currently undergoing a revitalization of its campus.

The KSA is waiting until that is finished before deciding on a fitness centre there.

Although students are strongly behind the proposed fitness centre, talks are continuing with the higher levels of administration. Robertson declined to predict when it might become a reality. “By giving a time frame, it would be complete speculation,” he said.