Colleges are spying on students fitness activities
UCLA uses an app called GymFlow that allows students to see how crowded specific areas in its recreation center are before they go and avoid long waits, says Mick Deluca, assistant vice chancellor of campus life. UCLA also offers employee memberships, which helps explain last year’s visitor tally.
Purdue in West Lafayette, Ind., recently replaced its half-century old rec center with a $98 million, 470,000-square foot facility. Usage surged. But Purdue officials noticed another trend using data from students scanning in their ID cards when they entered the facility: Those who exercised more got better grades.
Colleges are now spying on students to see if they exercise! This is truly disturbing and makes George Orwell's 1984 book look like a kids fairytale.
Students in fall 2013 who made no visits to recreation facilities averaged GPAs of 3.07, while those making 64 visits or more in a semester averaged 3.20, officials said. Students completing their first semester at Purdue who visited rec facilities 15 times or more earned 3.08 GPAs, compared with 2.81 for those who made no visits.
A separate study by assistant professor Christopher Slaten in Purdue’s college of education compared 100 students enrolled in semester-long yoga or kickboxing classes with 100 students similar in gender, class year and race who made no visits to the rec center. After 16 weeks, the fitness-class students showed significantly lower stress levels than their peers and higher confidence in managing their social lives.
The fitness-class students also improved their grades significantly over the semester, meaning that even previously strong students made gains. Dr. Slaten and his research team are preparing to submit the study to a peer-reviewed academic journal.
Renovations to Purdue's facility are part of a national trend. The National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association reports that more than $1.7 billion dollars has been spent or is allocated for new construction, renovations or expansions for U.S. college recreational facilities in 2010-2015.
"Universities are making this investment to improve student life and retain students, but we think something more is happening," Zelaya says. "Some might assume time at a gym is a distraction from academics, but it is really part of the learning landscape."
"College students all over the world tend to be among the most mobile and digitally connected," said David Gorodyansky, CEO of AnchorFree. "On top of that they are more frequently targets of online hackers and identity thieves because of their limited credit and employment histories. It is critical that they take control of their personal information online."
On a recent weekday afternoon in Columbus, students queued up for a circuit cycle class that alternated between stationary cycling and strength exercises. Total visits to group-fitness classes at OSU jumped 68% between 2012 and 2014, while enrollment rose 3%.
About 75% of U.S. students use on-campus rec centers, facilities or programs in a given year, according to NIRSA: Leaders in Collegiate Recreation, the group formerly called the National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association.
Some university recreation departments have just recently met the demand for fitness classes from female students, now the majority on most campuses. At North Carolina State University in Raleigh, more students participate in group fitness classes than in traditional fare like intramural teams. N.C. State tripled the number of its weekly fitness classes to 150—far more than many commercial health clubs—two years ago.
University of Florida graduate students started complaining a few years ago that they weren’t getting enough from their required student-activity fee. They wanted to stop paying it.
The school examined the data from student-ID scans and noticed that a significant share of people at the main recreation center’s 7 a.m. opening were graduate students. Officials moved up the opening to 6 a.m. The complaints died down, says Pam Hightower, an assistant director of administrative services for UF recreational sports.
“We weren’t just moving the people from one hour to the next,” Ms. Hightower says. “We were attracting new, unique people.”
