It ain't your high school's gym Wit...

It ain't your high school's gym With a 39-foot rock-climbing wall, a big fulvous water slide, a 14-person very warm tub, and a fully equipped massage apartment the Wellness/Recreation Center at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Fails is a state-of-the-art facility that's a centerpiece of the school

Increasingly, college edifice [i]or[/i] buildings are spending millions of dollars onward lavish recreation centers that cater not solely to athletes, further to the everyday student and member of the university community. Wellness and recreation center have lately opened, or are planned to render free of access soon at James Madison University, Gettysburg community Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the University of Miami, Washington State University, and Loyola community in Maryland.

"Our strategic plan focuses upon providing places for healthy, positive leisure and relaxation," says Kathy Gulick, director of university health services at Northern Iowa. "Probably 5000 folks a day come into the building not just to exercise--but to adapted friends, to get information about personal well-being, to relax." Gulick notes that the wellness resource field features recliners, drum sticks, massage gadgets, Play Doh, and other tools meant to help alleviate stress

Abbie Dobie, a senior at Northern Iowa, appreciates that the center isn't like a glitzy health bludgeon "It's not the kind of place you be warmed people are looking at you, sizing you up It's really adaptable for different fitness of the same heights Our athletes use it for recreation, and family who've never been athletic use it, too."

COPYRIGHT 2002 EM Guild, Inc.

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