The Wellness and Recreation Center pool has been closed for the entire semester, leaving many students confused about what is happening with the pool and when or if it will reopen.

The pool in previous semesters was open Monday through Friday, on average seven hours per day, with gaps in between for maintenance. 

Drew Bruton, the Director of the Wellness and Recreation, sent an email to the student body on Feb. 27.

“As most of you are aware, the indoor swimming pools at the WRC have been temporarily closed due to ongoing operational and maintenance issues,” Bruton said. “Georgia College & State University continues to work with internal and external partners to assess the problems and required repairs. We are considering all options as we assess the best path forward and will share more definitive information with you as soon as it becomes available.”

Allegedly, the conversation of the pool being shut down were in the works, with some students claiming that the decision was discussed during spring break.

“I heard reports from several sources that the SGA and school board were actively discussing and voting on the future of the pool,” said Ben Lowndes, a sophomore computer science major and the creator of a petition to keep the pool open.

The Student Government Association met on Friday, April 4 to debate the future of the pool, with the scuba team and some GCSU administration each attending the meeting. 

With rumors going around that the pool might be closing, Lowndes created the petition in an attempt to raise awareness and keep the pool open. Many students opted to not disclose their full name when signing the petition.

“I started the petition because the school has not done a good job of making this huge decision known to the student body as a whole,” Lowndes said. “So this was a way to raise awareness that the school was discussing shutting down such a unique and important facility both on campus and in the local community.”

The pool has been a part of GCSU for over a decade, with many classes and community members using the pool. 

Scuba certification used to take place in the WRC indoor pool. The depth of the pool allowed for scuba training in a safe and local facility, but unclear water conditions in the pool have caused problems.

As a result, the scuba teams have been driving to Macon this semester to use a scuba center there instead, according to Scott Stefano, a GCSU scuba instructor. Something that some argued in the SGA meeting is not sustainable long term. 

The pool also has a community option, where anyone may use the WRC and the pool for a $50 fee. Some older members of the community use the pool as a way to get physical therapy and exercise in without risk of injury.

“We need an indoor swimming pool for people of all ages with hip, knee, leg, back, body injuries that can recover in an indoor pool,” said Lisa, a student who signed the petition. 

Lisa is not the only one who used the pool for physical therapy; one participant in the petition said she would not have been able to walk if not for the pool.

“When I came back from an injury-based medical leave, I relied on the pool to continue my PT on my own so I could continue school and graduate,” said Kaitlin V. “Without this pool, I wouldn’t have been able to regain the strength to walk, let alone maintain my health and earn multiple degrees. Shutting down the pool would be a terrible loss for the community.”

Many sports also use the pool, like the water polo team that was not able to use the pool before it was closed until further notice.

“The water polo team was excited and we were really bummed that they closed it,” said Maeve Gallentine, a freshman management major and member of the water polo team. “I’m curious to see what they would turn it into, but I do not think taking away the pool is the right path.”

While many think the pool is closing permanently, GCSU administrative staff who attended the SGA senate meeting on Friday claim otherwise.

“It’s been claimed that we made a decision to shut the pool down,” said Dan Nadler, vice president for Student Life. “That is far from the truth. We are going through a process of collecting data and looking at how often the pool is used by the students, looking at how frequently it needs to be maintained.”

Nadler elaborated that after many years, the entire pool system needed to be replaced. The wrong filter system was chosen when the pool was originally built, leading to issues years down the line.

According to Bruton, the director of the WRC, the pool was open for the majority of Fall 2023 and checked into 454 times. 

Bruton explains that this is less than one percent of the check-ins for the WRC. Bruton said that it’s more realistic that it’s 20-30 students using it 3-4 times throughout the semester.

Bruton explained how the 454 check-ins were calculated, as the pool does not have a card swipe like the entrance to the WRC does, that the lifeguards were tracking when students come in. This number may not be as accurate as the number calculated for general WRC check-ins due to possible human error in counting compared to machine check-ins. 

Some students were confused about the survey conducted by the WRC, as it was being used to decide what should replace the pool, which was not made clear in the survey.

In the SGA meeting, GCSU administration said that possible replacements are a pickleball court or more fitness spaces and machines. Emily Jarvis,  assistant vice president for Student Health and Wellbeing, explained that more people use the fitness floor than the pool by a wide margin, but some students felt this was an unequal comparison.

“The fitness floor is open the entire time the WRC is open,” Westmoreland said. “The pool is open for only about 2-3 hours at a time before closing for multiple hours, just to reopen again for another 2 hours only. It makes it hard to use, as it’s often closed.”

Others felt similarly that the pool hours are shorter and harder to keep track of compared to the fitness floor, and general WRC was causing some of the low usage rates.

“I hate to see this asset done away with; it’s so valuable for the student staff and community,” Stefano said. “The pool hasn’t been functioning at times, which is why it hasn’t been used as much.”

Some students also expressed concern over the survey and its accuracy.

“I’d also like to point out that the great recommendations Jarvis pointed out about what to replace the pool with are from the survey,” said Kailin O’Brien, a senior nursing major. “ If the students knew it was replacing the pool when they filled in the blank, the answers wouldn’t be the same.”

Westmoreland felt similarly that a possible shutdown of the pool should have been included in the survey, as it could greatly affect student answers. 

“I would have answered that I want them to keep the pool open; if I had known that the pool being shut down permanently was even a possibility,” Westmoreland said.

Stefano brought up during the meeting that filling in the pool could also be costly, meaning that closing the pool might not be as cheap as originally perceived. 

“Maintaining a pool is more expensive than maintaining any other type of facility,” Jarvis said. “Over the last five years, we’ve spent about $100,000 a year on the pool. What a report from a building inspection years ago told us was that the projection to get the pool up to full functioning would be about $500,000. That would need to be invested in the next two years to make the pool fully functional and sustainable.”

Jarvis explained that over 10 years, the investment is nearly a million dollars.

“Closing the pool and filling it in would be a very expensive proposition; keeping the pool open and getting it to where it needs to be is an equally expensive proposition,” Jarvis said.

The WRC is still waiting for more information from the University System of Georgia about its options before continuing the decision process.

A vote will be held in the Fall of 2025 about the fate of the GCSU pool.

Students may also contact Nadler or Bruton about concerns about the pool, as they encourage students to have the opportunity to have this conversation about the WRC indoor pool.