Undergraduate students will have free summer access to the Athletics & Recreation Centre (ARC) beginning this year.
The update comes after years of work between the AMS, Athletics & Recreation (A&R), and the University Council on Athletics and Recreation (UCAR) to address student concerns about paying an extra summer fee despite lower costs for SGPS members.
The change will take effect this upcoming summer, granting all current AMS members free access until the fall term begins. Intramurals sports, program registrations, and other summer activities will continue to carry their usual fees, with policies and pricing remaining unchanged due to staffing levels and reduced operating hours.
For many undergraduates, the change addresses what felt like a long-standing gap. “I always thought it was weird that we paid more but got less time inside the ARC,” said Nathan Senior, Sci ’29 in an interview with The Journal.
Undergraduate students previously paid $357 for eight months of ARC access through the mandatory A&R student fee, whereas SGPS students paid $214.69 to receive 12 months of access. The AMS began reviewing the discrepancy last year after an audit confirmed that A&R was using student fees as intended, yet undergraduates continued to receive fewer months of access than SGPS members.
Current AMS President Jana Amer credited former AMS President Owen Rocchi, former AMS Secretariat Sylvie Garabedian, and A&R staff for laying the foundation for the change. Since the start of her term, the AMS has worked closely with A&R and the Student Activity Fee Review Committee to create a financially feasible model that wouldn’t require increasing student fees.
“We weren’t willing to allow an increase on our students,” Amer said. “It felt like an equity and fairness-to-access situation.”
Last year, A&R generated $166,718 in summer membership sales, a revenue stream that will be lost under the new model, according to Amer. A&R said they reviewed their budgets and programming to ensure the revenue could be replaced without passing costs on to students.
A&R ultimately agreed to absorb the $166,718 revenue loss. They determined their budget could make up the difference internally without raising fees.
UCAR approved the change after reviewing new financial models. The AMS president and an undergraduate senator both sit on UCAR and vote on A&R budgetary matters.
“All of us agreed it was important to make sure whatever we’re bringing to our students is safe and accessible for everybody,” she said.
For students possibly staying in Kingston over the summer, the update is welcome news. “It’s already expensive just being here,” Senior said.
“We’re really excited to see what this looks like for students,” Amer said. “A lot of students brought it up, and hearing that made us passionate about making sure it happened without increasing prices.”
Tags
A&R, AMS president, ARC, student fees, UCAR
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