DeKALB | The Anderson Hall pool is open to all students with an NIU OneCard during open swim hours. Some, however, have found the pool closed when it was scheduled to be open.

Problems with open swim

“25 percent of the time when me and my friends try to swim there, the pool is never open,” said senior industrial technology major John Boyadjian. “It would be nice for the pool to be open when they say it will be. It’s really frustrating.”

The frustration doesn’t end with students. NIU faculty members are also having a hard time finding a time to swim.

“I had one problem getting into the pool,” said associate geography professor Wei Luo. “I waited 30 minutes for the pool to open. There were a lot of people waiting with me. It eventually opened.”

A lifeguard finally arrived to open the pool, but did not have a key to unlock the door, Luo said. The lifeguard had to call the Campus Recreation Center for the proper key.

“There is only one key for Anderson Pool,” said Tara Terchin, a senior applied sociology major and pool manager. “If we don’t get a key from the last shift, some lifeguards are left without keys. The lifeguard would have to get the key from the Rec.”

Searching for a solution

One of the reasons so many students are having a hard time getting into the pool is because academic classes occur simultaneously in different areas of the building.

“This presents a challenge to open recreation users who may not be familiar with those buildings,” said director of Recreation Services Sandi Carlisle. “During evenings and weekends, those buildings may be closed, which means that not all the exterior entrances will be unlocked.”

Carlisle also said the pool doors may be locked at times because of other staff members.

“The door we unlock for open recreation sometimes is locked by other personnel who may be entering the building,” she said. “They may assume that the door should be locked in the evenings and weekends when classes are not in session.”

Recreation Services is working to improve communication so students know when the pool is available, Carlisle said.

“Staff will post open recreation flyers on all exterior pool locker room doors so that patrons know the hours,” Carlisle said. “Staff will post hours at any available bulletin boards that are closed to the pool entrance as well.”

There also will be occasional updates to the Web site to try and improve communication, Carlisle said.

“We were informed last week that the Web site had not been updated with the fall hours and corrected it that day,” she said. “This is not the way we want to serve students and we have developed staff procedures to ensure the Web site is updated two weeks in advance of hours changing.”

Jermaine Pigee is a Campus Reporter for the Northern Star.