For nearly 100 years, athletics has provided a rallying point for the WPI community. In 1911, WPI alumni came together to raise the necessary funds to build Alumni Gym. This beloved WPI landmark opened in 1916 and served as the university’s only athletics facility until 1968, when Harrington Auditorium was completed. At that time, Harrington was among the largest and best facilities of its kind.

Today, Alumni Gym and Harrington Auditorium are used daily by thousands of students, faculty, and staff, whose sport and fitness aspirations far outstrip the capacity of these venerable structures. The numbers alone tell an inspiring but sobering story. When Alumni Gym was constructed, WPI had 539 students, all men and almost all from Massachusetts and surrounding states. When Harrington Auditorium opened, the student body had risen to 1,649 and included the first class of women admitted to WPI. Today, these same two facilities must serve 3,736 undergraduate and graduate students—2,750 men and 986 women—who hail from 43 states and 44 nations.

Sport has become central to the WPI experience. Some 58 percent of WPI students participate in physical education classes; 26 percent participate in club activities; 47 percent in intramurals; and 18 percent compete in varsity athletics. WPI student-athletes play on 18 varsity and 32 club and intramural sports teams, from basketball, football, and crew to ballroom dance, fencing, and ice hockey.

The new Center will be a place that welcomes and encourages everyone on campus. I see it as more than a facilities improvement; it has an emotional component. It will sharpen our identity as a community and give students, faculty, and staff more opportunities to connect. It will increase our pride in WPI and amplify the university’s appeal to prospective students and student-athletes.
Chris Bartley, head men’s basketball coach and assistant to the athletic director

In the varsity arena, WPI has seen increasingly successful performances by athletes and coaches over the past several years: winning the Worcester College Cup for the top-performing athletic program among its local peers in four of the past six years, and enjoying a 20 percent increase overall in the percentage of wins. WPI’s student-athletes have performed exceptionally while waiting for facilities that meet the same world-class standards that they experience in their classrooms and labs.

WPI has teams competing and excelling at NCAA championships. Our athletes are performing impressively, and we’ve enjoyed banner years recently. To sustain this level of achievement, and to surpass it, we must have suitable facilities. If WPI students, alumni, and parents are pleased with what our teams have accomplished so far, I ask them to imagine what we can accomplish when our spaces match our abilities and our ambitions.

Dana Harmon, director of physical education, recreation, and athletics

WPI students are vocal about the vital role athletics play in the life of their community. In surveys over the past several years, students have consistently rated the improvement of athletic facilities as their number one priority for WPI. Recent graduating classes have earmarked their senior gifts to the university for this purpose. In October 2009, the undergraduate Student Government Association presented WPI with a check for $31,000 to support the new Sports and Recreation Center, and the Graduate Student Association contributed another $10,000. Impressed by this show of support, a WPI trustee, who wishes to remain anonymous, is matching the student contributions to this important facility.

Harrington is a fantastic auditorium for basketball, but there’s not enough time in a day for this one facility to provide all the opportunities students need and deserve. Alumni Gym is so small that 10 players on the court leave practically no room for spectators. And the weight room is fairly well equipped but not nearly equal to the demands on it.

I have strong feelings about the proposed center. Students have recognized the need for it for a long time. More than one class has graduated while still looking forward to it. It needs to happen. And the benefits to WPI will be unmistakable.
Ryan Cain ’07, recipient of the 2007 Jostens Trophy, which is awarded to the nation’s most outstanding Division III basketball student-athlete. Recipients are honored for their basketball ability, academic prowess, and community service.

A recent study of 33 selective and highly selective Division III schools found that between 20 and 40 percent of their students participate in athletics. In contrast, nearly 60 percent of WPI students are active in sports. This greater than average involvement in athletics co-exists at WPI with a demanding curriculum and rigorous academic standards. Students intensely focused on their studies welcome, and require, the counterbalance of physical activity and the collegiality of sport, and, at WPI, they are remarkably successful in managing the demands of both.

Unlike at many of our Division III peer institutions, participation in athletics at WPI corresponds to improved academic performance. Indeed, WPI athletes maintain higher grade point averages and graduate at a higher rate than non-athletes. In 2008, WPI athletes maintained their highest GPAs to date, while achieving the best winning percentage in school history.

Overwhelming numbers of WPI students recognize personal fitness as a major contributor to quality of life and are accustomed to including exercise in their regular routines. Whether or not they participate in organized sports, they view campus recreation programs, facilities, equipment, and training support as crucial to the quality of their WPI experience.

Despite the improvements in athletic facilities since I was at WPI, we have not been able to keep up with the huge advances that we’ve seen in recent years at many of our peer institutions and that we see routinely at the high schools of many of our prospective students. We can’t afford to lose talented student-athletes because of this gap between what they’re used to and what we can provide.
Peter Horstmann ’55, Trustee Emeritus and champion of WPI athletics, who passed away not long after he was interviewed about the Sports and Recreation Center

The new Sports and Recreation Center will continue a trend of athletic excellence designed to safeguard the university’s ability to attract and retain outstanding student-athletes and the coaches who mentor and inspire them. In 2007, WPI made significant enhancements to Alumni Field, including the installation of state-of-the-art turf, new bleachers, field lighting, press box and scoreboard, as well as the resurfacing of the track. Indeed, since the opening of Alumni Field, WPI athletics has had two of its strongest years, making competitive strides that have translated into improved visibility and recruiting.

Every institution in WPI’s athletic conference and among its closest competitors—Rensselaer, Union, Rochester, and Carnegie Mellon—has undertaken major improvements in athletic facilities during the past five years, often including the construction of comprehensive recreation centers. In most cases, they are replacing or renovating newer and better facilities than those currently in use at WPI.

These are the schools we compete with for outstanding students. We can’t afford to be left behind as the standard for facilities goes up all around us.
Dana Harmon, director of physical education, recreation, and athletics

Commitment, whether to an athletic team or to personal conditioning, requires self-discipline, consistency, and the ability to manage time and priorities—all qualities that are conducive to academic and professional achievement. Among the most important aims of the new Center is to provide every student access to an athletic experience that fosters greater self-confidence, the joy of working with others, and opportunities for achieving personal goals.

With the new Sports and Recreation Center, all WPI students, faculty, and staff will enjoy new opportunities for building strong, mutually supportive relationships with one another. Undergraduate students will exercise and train side-by-side with graduate students, for example, in the kind of recreational setting that inspires relaxed conversation and very often, new ideas. Whether in lunchtime soccer, basketball games, or aerobics, yoga, and other fitness classes, the WPI community will together pursue activities that foster mens sane in corpore sano, a healthy body in a healthy mind.

Successful WPI graduates today don’t work in isolation. They’re engaged, inventive, entrepreneurial, and collaborative. They work on teams, and communication is central to getting things done. Those with experience in athletics have an edge. In football and basketball, you can’t beat the other team alone. You need a shared strategy to win. Even in gymnastics and swimming, teams train together, learn from each other, develop camaraderie, bond around devotion to the sport. These experiences are invaluable in industry and nearly everywhere else in today’s work world.
Jamo Carr ‘74

Essential and long overdue, the new Sports and Recreation Center will at last bring WPI’s athletics facilities for women in line with those for men. Both Alumni Gym and Harrington Auditorium were designed prior to the admission of women, who now comprise a record-high 31 percent of the undergraduate student body. Unfortunately, locker rooms for today’s women athletes remain sparse or, in the case of some teams, nonexistent. In constant demand and heavily used by male varsity athletes, the weight room lacks the kind of equipment, such as elliptical machines, that women students and student-athletes often rely on for their training. The fitness center offers some of these options but in limited number and with insufficient space to expand its complement of machines.

Our female athletes participate in campus life in so many ways. Many are active in art, music, or theater, in addition to their studies and their sports. They become leaders on campus, adding to the vitality of student life. Think about the message we will send when sports facilities are brought up to the level women athletes need and deserve, when their locker rooms are large enough, good enough, and readily accessible to them. It will make clear that we value their presence and their contribution. And that message will extend to all women on campus – students, faculty, and staff – when we can offer more of the opportunities they look for in recreation, from swimming to weight training to yoga.
Cherise Galasso, head women’s basketball coach and associate athletic director

The Sports and Recreation Center has been designed with flexibility in mind. Its spaces will include the infrastructure to support many types of events and programming, from athletic contests to large-scale career fairs and campus celebrations. Among the many exciting options for the new and renovated auditoriums is their use as the site of robotics competitions.

The first university to offer a robotics undergraduate major, WPI supports an array of competitions for amateur roboticists, including the global program FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), created in 1989 by WPI alumnus Dean Kamen ’73, which provides high school students an opportunity to compete with one another in designing and building robots and achieving a novel function. Only the limits of current facilities have prevented WPI’s student and faculty roboticists from doing even more. With the space and advanced capabilities of the new Sports and Recreation Center, the university will have the ability to host a variety of exciting events, including the regional FIRST competitions for the first time.

What will this wonderful new facility look like? The centerpiece will boast a four-court 29,000-square foot gymnasium, ringed by a three-lane jogging track, for recreation, athletics, and special events. An 11,000-square foot fitness center will be devoted to cardio fitness and free weight training areas, as well as a separate circuit area for physical education classes. Specialized spaces, such as three convertible racquetball and squash courts and an eight-person rowing tank, along with multipurpose rooms, will occupy nearly 5,000 additional square feet.

The natatorium will feature a 25-meter competition swimming pool, varying in depth from 4 to 14 feet to accommodate a variety of aquatic activities, as well as seating for 250 spectators. The community will enjoy well-equipped locker rooms on several floors, informal lounge spaces, and a training and rehabilitation suite, featuring two hydrotherapy tanks, at field level. Athletes and spectators alike will find public restrooms accessible from the playing fields.

As important as the individual features, the building design will reflect the symbolic and practical importance of the Center as a unifying force for the WPI community. Notably, a 25-foot wide multi-level atrium will offer striking views of the west campus and the Bancroft Hills beyond. A glass-covered passageway will connect Harrington Auditorium with the new Center and link the pedestrian path from the west campus to the Quadrangle, providing handicapped access and expediting circulation around the center.

The new structure will provide a fourth face to the Quad, completing it on the west side with a handsome two-story brick and glass façade. From the west, it will present a highly visible and distinctive five-story elevation, providing a new WPI landmark along Park Avenue.

Two collateral changes will provide a beautiful domino effect. The first is the removal of the structure connecting Alumni Gym to Harrington, which will open access and views from the Quad to the Higgins House gardens behind the Campus Center. An interior renovation of Alumni Gym will bring new life to this venerable structure, converting it to academic use.

In later phases of the project, a parking garage for 500 vehicles will be constructed under a new turf field, eliminating the need for parking areas in the center of campus. The Quad, planted with grass and trees and bordered by pedestrian paths, will provide a natural crossroads and gathering place for the community.

For my teammates and me in women’s rugby, and for many other students in club sports like ours, the fields and indoor spaces in the new Center will make a huge difference. We belong to the New England Rugby Football Union, and in 2006 we made it to the national championship. Like all club teams, we compete for practice and playing times. In winter we can usually get in one or two indoor practices a week, at non-peak times, like 7 am. Otherwise, we practice off campus, at a local elementary school, three or four times a week.

We use the WPI softball and baseball fields for home games, so we were never able to have a spring game at home until this year. We got to practice on the new turf field once or twice a week in the spring and actually hosted our first home game. We won it 32-1. We’re hoping to have more experiences like that when the new Center gives us access to more space for games and practices.
Paige Bourne ’10

With the help of alumni, students, parents, and friends, the Sports and Recreation Center will stand as a testament to WPI’s commitment to excellence in the education of the whole person. It will inspire generations of WPI students, as Alumni Gym once did, with the knowledge that the university family believed in them and invested in their potential.

We invite you to invest in the lives of today’s WPI students and the generations who will follow them in the decades to come.

Please join us in building the Sports and Recreation Center at WPI.

Few colleges or universities can make the claims that WPI can make: We have a tremendously strong academic program anchored in science and technology; students can come to us and be prepared to make a real impact in the world in just the ways American industry needs most. At the same time, we have a beautiful campus with marvelous facilities that support the development of the whole individual in facets artistic, humanistic, academic, athletic, and practical. The Sports and Recreation Center will add another claim to our list. It will make us as well-equipped in athletics as any of the renowned New England liberal arts colleges. Adding the Center will be adding strength to strength. It will vastly improve our ability to support all our students in their athletic and recreational pursuits and by extension in their preparation for life. It is the one thing students mention every time I ask them what more I can do for WPI.
Dr. Dennis D. Berkey, president

There are many opportunities to suppport this important project. To discuss your options, contact Jo-Ann Alessandrini, associate vice president for development and campaign director, at alessandrini@wpi.edu or 508-831-6676.