By Joshua Williams
Evergreen Administration will suspend all open and lap swimming until early 2020. The pool website provides more details about the decision, saying, “Current resources, both fiscal and personnel, informed the difficult decision to suspend all open and lap swimming for the next twelve months.” Summer camps, new or current contracted rentals, and community partnerships are unaffected by this decision.
In a Greener Commons post from Jan. 10, Recreation and Aquatics Coordinator Samuel Hensold “acknowledges the interest and concern regarding the recent announcement about the Evergreen pool” while providing limited information.
Stephen Nicholson, a former student lifeguard for the aquatics program, gave some insights as to the process from an employee perspective and how the changes affected him. “I had a pretty good idea it was coming, we [the lifeguards] received a text at the beginning of winter quarter with our schedule(s) and told administration was still debating the final hours of the facility.”
Some community members worry that the closure puts at risk the health and well-being of students. Senior at Evergreen, Drake Eastman is concerned about the school limiting access to one of the only indoor pools available in the area. “It’s not possible to swim outside at this time of the year, it’s cold and could be dangerous if someone attempted it,” they said.
Indeed, swimming outdoors is a risky choice, no matter the season. Rarely does the temperature in Washington’s waters rise above 50 degrees. “That’s what makes our waters dangerous. It’s not something you can tread water in for hours,” noted Derek VanDyke, Education Coordinator for the state Parks and Recreation Commission’s recreational-boating program. “Bottom line is, it’s cold,” he said.
“This is an agenda item on the January 23rd GSU Assembly Meeting and we hope to see broad student participation to help guide the future of sustainable aquatics at Evergreen over the next 12 months and beyond,” Hensold stated in his post. He finished the post with a link to the pool website, and a reminder that “open swimming is funded with Student Services and Activities (S&A) fee money, which is managed by the nine-student S&A board and cannot be used for other campus costs.”
On Jan. 11, a follow-up text was sent out to pool staff, saying the process of deciding new hours was being sped up, along with a call for an “emergency meeting” scheduled for 5 p.m. Sunday evening. The stated purpose of this meeting was to “discuss logistics and to hear your perspective.” The text ended, “don’t panic, I will triple up or quadruple up any of the shifts available.”
Nicholson said the next day all the lifeguards were sent an email by Ray Finn, Assistant Director of the Costantino Recreation Center. The email provided the new “week one” hours of operation, informed the employees that schedules would adjust accordingly, and talked about some “significant changes planned for the pool” which would impact aquatics hours for the remainder of the quarter.
In the email, Finn also pushes the aforementioned “emergency meeting” until the evening of the ninth. He informed the lifeguards, “It will be an opportunity for you to share concerns and provide feedback.” The email also informed the lifeguards that the final pool schedule would be going out to the Evergreen community and recreation center members by the end of their meeting day.
“It was chaos, nobody showed up to work, we didn’t know who was supposed to be working when,” said Nicholson. “I had to turn away a regular, because we didn’t have sufficient staffing. It really sucked because she had already paid and it was her birthday and I had to tell her to get out.” Other lifeguards said that they were kept in the dark about this decision and that it was made without their input.
The Student Affairs Mission Statement says that Student Affairs Office responsibilities include ensuring “that students have input into decisions that directly affect their lives,” and community members feel that this duty was not carried out.
“For an institution that preaches transparency and equal power between students and employees, them making this decision without any input from us is incredibly disrespectful and frankly a bit dehumanizing — to put this [job loss] on us at the beginning of the quarter,” said Nicholson.
Lack of student consultation leading up to the pool closure may set a precedent for revoking services, even for which fees have already been paid. Last year, the Services and Activities budget was raised 2.2%, and a 4% increase was approved by the Board of Trustees for the 2018-2019 year. Each student is paying $649 towards the Services and Activities fund this year.
