Penn

I thought I’d take a look at one of the Ivies this time to see what some of our oldest universities do. Before I looked, I thought to myself “The Ivies will probably focus more on academics” – and that is sort of true. And I thought, “recreation might be a bit of an afterthought” also sort of true, but the resources are better than I expected and the vibrancy of Philadelphia does show up.

My initial impression is that in terms of universities promoting recreation as a vital part of the health and belonging on campus, Penn probably falls in the middle to lower tier at first glance.

Let’s start with the university home page. No mention of recreation at all. Athletics is right on the home page, given equal sightline as the academics, student life, admissions, and research. Even at a school that is clearly an academic powerhouse, and does not really play big time football or basketball (sorry, it’s kinda true), athletics still is high priority. And certainly more of a priority than students exercising themselves.

One nice aspect is that when you click Athletics on the home page it does open up a page that says clearly and simply “Athletics and Recreation”. While the current hero image is super cool, it is not real welcoming for recreation folks – it’s a wrestler in the middle of a an throw – again, super cool, but not reflective of recreation.

Also interesting is the text on the page. As you can see, they have a description of what Athletics is – then a statement of what defines Campus Recreation – but then it also adds separate categories for Intramurals, Club Sports, Wellness and Fitness, and then unique to Penn, a special link to the world-famous Penn Relays. I am torn on this approach…on the one hand I like the call out to the unique programs in Campus Recreation, on the other hand it waters down the brand for Campus Recreation. This is not uncommon, and I am sure I’ll see it again in more sites.

Moving on to the Athletics site itself, the internal header has a separate section called Athletics which seems redundant to me. In the context of this review I get frustrated because this is where they could place a link to Campus Recreation. In this case though, the entire enterprise of Campus Recreation is under the Athletics banner and given the same priority as Internship Opportunities (to be fair this is also where they place a link back to the university home page). But you get the point. It’s buried just like other DI schools on the Athletics site itself. I’d suggest that instead of that section being called “Athletics” call it something like “About Us” or something else more clever and then put a link to Campus Recreation on the top level as its own section like Claremont McKenna does.

Let’s talk now about how recreation and movement is framed in the Health and Wellness section of the university. In this case, it’s not.

As you can see in their Health and Wellness section they reference the eight aspects of Wellness (including physical) but then only mention “two pillars that operate collaboratively to create a campus community centered on wellness” – Student Health and Counseling and Public Health and Wellbeing – on the Student Health and Counseling site - there is not really anything about the recreation center. A total missed opportunity.

This could be because of where Campus Recreation is housed organizationally. But either way, it is a missed opportunity to clearly communicate the exercise is vitally important to solving the health challenges facing the university and I’d love to see them take a page from Oakland University and put it in both Student Life and Healthy Campus.

In sum, it is about what I expected. It also continues the trend in DI at least of recreation departments that are organizationally in Athletics being buried on the Athletics website. In Penn’s case, I would still advocate to broaden the definition of their health services and add their recreation program as part of the solution to student’s mental and physical health needs.

In the overall ranking – new this week – I’d place the placement of Rec in regard to athletics in 6th out of 7. In terms of the university capitalizing on recreation as a tool to solve the health problems on campus, I’d also place them 6th out of 7.

If one were to rank how the websites are placing Campus Recreation in regards to Athletic and Health and Wellbeing -- here is where things stand:

1. Claremont McKenna

2. Colgate

3. Oakland

4. Boston College

5. St Thomas

6. Penn

7. New Mexico