Zero students attended the Rec Forum that the Student Association held Thursday night at the Student Recreation Center.

Michael Potjeau, a junior political science major and chair of the SA services committee, said they had hoped to discuss the possibility of extending the Rec’s hours, get a student analysis of the facility and see how they felt about the reopening of the fieldhouse next year.

Allison Thompson, a junior journalism major and SA director of public affairs, and Craig Marcus, a junior business management major and SA director of athletics and recreational services, moderated the forum.

Potjeau said the services committee began talking about the issue in August and wanted see what concerns students had about the Rec.

The senators had planned on handing out surveys in which students would rate the quality of various aspects of the Rec on a scale of 1 (very poor) to 10 (excellent). Questions included, “How would you rate the overall quality of the OCR?” and “How would you rate your ability to gain time and access to the OCR’s facility as a whole?”

The purpose of the survey, Potjeau said, was to see what level students’ concerns were at. He said they got the idea to extend the Rec’s hours because of his own and fellow senators’ concerns, as well as from speaking with other students.

Potjeau said they looked into extending the Rec’s hours from 6 a.m. to midnight Monday to Thursday for the spring semester. Currently, the Rec’s hours are 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Potjeau and Thompson met with John Sweeney, the director of the Office of Campus Recreation, who thought it was a good idea but said there were too many reasons why they couldn’t extend the hours.

A main reason is that people who maintain the Rec are contractual, and the OCR would have to change their contracts in order to extend their hours. Potjeau said these workers are the caretakers of the facility and are the only ones who have keys because they open and close the facility.

Another issue is that about 150 students work at the Rec, so they would need the money to pay them for those extra hours, Marcus said. He said students can’t work more than 20 hours per week, so that would be an issue as well.

Potjeau said they never got an exact estimate of how much it would cost to extend the Rec’s hours, but he did say it would be about an 8 to 11 percent increase, which would amount to $6,000 to $8,000, but possibly more.

The SA could pass a bill to allocate the funds necessary to extend the Rec’s hours, Potjeau said, but the only way it would work is if the Rec works with them.

He also said students seem to think it’s a good idea, but whether they would use the extra hours is unknown.

“We don’t want to allocate funds that won’t be used,” he said.

The SA also wanted to get feedback on the opening of the fieldhouse and see what students expected from it.

Marcus said the renovated fieldhouse will have two additional basketball courts, two floor hockey/indoor soccer courts, and a 3,000-square-foot cardio room.

Although the senators were discouraged by the poor turnout, they said they have been discouraged before.

“We are student advocates,” Potjeau said. “Sometimes when you get discouraged you just have to come back.”

Potjeau said it could be another two to three years before this issue is considered again, but he said they would leave notes for future committees.