To avoid those freshman or, in some cases, senior 15 pounds students often head to the new campus recreation center that opened last fall. However, this fall students arrived to see that the hours of the center had changed, especially on the weekends. A research study performed by the Campus Recreation Center led to these hour changes.

Originally the center opened up at 6 a.m. almost every day and closed at midnight.

But now, on the weekends the center opens up at 10 a.m. and closes at 10 p.m.  In order to enter the Campus Recreation Center students swipe their ID cards. The data from these swipes was used in order to determine high frequency and low frequency hours for the recreation center.

Data was collected over the course of approximately eight months, according to Jay Souza, director of Campus Recreation, and there was a trend that under a hundred students were coming in over the eight-month period at the earlier hours especially on the weekends.

“A lot of research went into this decision,” said Souza. “We even researched other universities and looked at their hours.” Souza says that it did not pay to have the center open during early hours such as 6 a.m. if there were only a handful of students there.

Students are technically paying for this center through fees and it does not make sense to have to have an abundant staff that needs to be paid. The data was discussed with the advisory board for the recreation center. The advisory board represents the student body and has numerous student representatives. The vote approved the new hours.

Unlike other campuses, the recreation center is open even during the holidays because of Stony Brook’s numerous international students that do not go home during this time. The center is closed for a few days of maintenance in May to work on ventilation but this is for the safety of the students.

According to Souza, a couple of students have complained about how the hours had changed when they came at 6 a.m. on a Saturday to work out and saw that it was closed. However, there has not been a large number of complaints.

Nearby universities such as Hofstra University have even fewer hours than Stony Brook. Current Stony Brook hours from Monday through Friday are 6 a.m. to midnight. Hofstra hours for Monday through Friday are 6 a.m. to 10:50 p.m.

This information was not kept from the public but can be found in the meeting minutes for the advisory board on the Campus Recreation website.