NIRSA: Leaders in Collegiate Recreation knows that exceptional recreation facilities play an invaluable role on college campuses. They promote student development, are drivers for recruitment and retention, and serve as hubs for community connection. Noteworthy facilities ensure that students flourish on campus and then graduate to live healthy, meaningful lives. The Bowers Center for Sports, Fitness and Well-Being at Elizabethtown College is one such facility; it was honored with a NIRSA Outstanding Facilities Award in 2022.
The Bowers Center—located in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania—is a game-changing facility that serves as a beacon for student health and wellbeing. It has filled a critical campus need since prior to its opening, most students had to travel off campus to find recreation and wellness opportunities. In addition, it has become a must-stop on campus tours, helping Etown better recruit new students, student-athletes, and employees. “We’ve had numerous students tell us the Bowers Center is a key reason they chose to come here,” says Director Whitney Crull.
About the Bowers Center for Sports, Fitness and Well-Being
At 82,000 square feet, the multidimensional Bowers Center is the largest building on Elizabethtown’s campus and expands upon the college’s proud history and commitment to student wellness. The Bowers Center directly ties in with Elizabethtown College’s strategic plan of fostering a genuine sense of belonging by creating spaces to support physical and mental wellbeing through its ever-evolving education and programming. In its first semester open, the building welcomed roughly 45,000 patrons, students, and guests to the small rural campus facility.
The center has been a lightning bolt of energy for Etown’s recreation, athletics, intramurals, and wellness programs. It has allowed the intramural and group fitness program to more than double their offerings and provide a wider selection of sports and fitness classes due to the increase in space. Today, the building welcomes essentially 25% of the student population (450 of the 1,800 students on campus) each day.
Moreover, the building is forging exciting new connections. As Whitney explains, “Since the Bowers Center opened, we’ve had nutrition and biology classes use the demonstration kitchen. We’ve had biomechanics hold events in the fitness areas. Our diversity and inclusion team has had cultural nights via food, fitness, and fun. People want to come to the Bowers Center, and it’s surfacing new possibilities on numerous fronts.”
The Bowers Center is purposely located amidst numerous sports and athletic fields to create an indelible hub for physical fitness and competition on campus. Incredibly, the Bowers Center is able to bolster campus recreation, athletics, student wellness, health education, and academics for students. Building off an already strong health education program, the Bowers Center creates exciting new programming opportunities around nutrition, mental health, exercise science, and more. For example, the Health Promotion program has been able to diversify their offerings to include all eight dimensions of wellness (emotional, physical, occupational, intellectual, financial, social, environmental, and spiritual).
“The Bowers Center is a true campus hub and a place everyone wants to be on campus,” explains Whitney. “It has elevated our health and wellness even more to the forefront of the Etown experience. And, it has recharged our athletics programs with new spaces for training. It’s an amazing facility many of our peer institutions simply don’t have.”
The Bowers Center expands programming for the college and as a result empowers Etown to hire more students to work in the facility. The college previously lacked a dedicated recreation space, so the center is a new source for student employment. This makes it even more of a positive asset for Elizabethtown College.
Key spaces in the building include:
- Three multi-use recreation courts
- A 180-meter, Mondo surface track
- Demonstration kitchen
- Two lounges complete with fireplaces
- Expansive cardio and weight-training spaces
- A multi-purpose room for group fitness
- Multiple athletic team locker rooms
- A relaxation room
- Athletic training areas
- Office spaces
- Cafe and study spaces
- Work spaces for peer educators and educational workshops
- Outdoor community space with a fire pit
- Human Performance Lab
- Intentional administrative zones
The result of an expansive, multi-year planning effort, the Bowers Center is informed by extensive campus engagement. It brings diverse new spaces and programs to the campus and those who use it each week. There is no denying the remarkable impact the Bowers Center has had for Etown students, employees, and future classes.
“We love this building so much,” says Whitney Crull. “It’s more than a fitness center by numerous measures. It’s all-encompassing health and wellness. There are so many reasons to come to the Bowers Center beyond fitness and recreation. Students come to study in front of the fireplace, meet friends, grab lunch, and hang out. It has transformed our campus and student experience.”
State-of-the-art and committed to sustainability
The Bowers Center is infused with state-of-the-art technology to empower remarkable student and employee experiences. All new fitness equipment, most with interactive touch screens, was purchased to fill the building and provide the best possible experience for all building users. Tech is woven throughout the facility and focuses on benefitting participants and employees and reducing costs by operating the facility with smart technology. Advanced controlled building systems include HVAC, daylightings, electrical/lighting, plumbing, and water use. All the systems work in coordination to ensure the most efficient and effective control from financial and comfort perspectives.
Etown learned its Bowers Center had achieved LEED certification in Spring 2021. The certification is made possible thanks to design strategies that prioritized sustainable site development, both water and energy efficiency and savings, sustainable material selection, and indoor environmental quality.
The building utilizes SageGlass windows that dynamically tint in response to the sun to provide ever-unobstructed campus views and enhanced comfort for students and employees. The windows provide exceptional control of daylight, glare, and energy use without the need for traditional solutions like blinds, shades, or low-e glass. The center’s partial glass facade helps make scenes from inside the building visible from the outside, further inspiring students of all fitness levels to step inside and use the building.
The building’s interior design is also careful to reduce intimidation and promote inclusivity. A vibrant program in environmental graphics inspires students and staff while further instilling the Etown brand and culture.
“One thing I hope is not lost is this building is intentionally designed for inclusion and all students. We brought great focus to creating an environment that reduces intimidation and promotes inclusivity. We also helped Elizabethtown infuse a vibrant environmental graphics program that inspires students and staff while further instilling the school’s brand and culture,” says Colleen McKenna, Director of Sports, Rec and Wellness at CannonDesign.
“Being a recipient of the 2022 NIRSA Outstanding Facilities Award was not only an honor but a testament to the countless hours and hard work our student workers, professional staff, and other campus partners dedicate to ensure the Bowers Center met and continues to meet the wellness needs of our campus community. From the development of the blueprints to our current programming and daily operations, it has truly been a labor of love. The acknowledgement of our efforts is very special and a motivating force to be a leader in collegiate recreation & wellness,” says Joni Eisenhauer, Assistant Director of Health Promotion at Elizabethtown College.
About the lead architect
CannonDesign, a NIRSA Bronze Partner and associate member, helps the world’s most ambitious organizations and communities transform and achieve next-level impact. Their design practice lives at the nexus of strategy, experience, architecture, engineering, and social impact. They imagine, create, and implement solutions that advance human vitality, further equity, optimize business, and protect our planet all at once.
“It’s always wonderful to design a space or building that vaults an institution to a new level—and we really believe that’s what we’ve achieved with the Bowers Center at Etown,” says Ritsaart Marcelis, AIA and project designer at CannonDesign. “They came to us seeking a solution that would forge new possibilities for students, staff and the school at large. To hear them talk about how all of that is happening is just deeply rewarding,” Ritsaart adds.
With the Bowers Center for Sports, Fitness and Well-Being, the design team at CannonDesign ensured that recreation staff would have wonderful site lines, benefit from operational efficiencies in the building, and be able to pursue and achieve their own wellness.
“The sheer reach and impact of this facility is truly incredible,” says Colleen. “Really, all at once, it’s bolstering the school’s campus rec, athletics, student wellness, health education and academics. It creates new programming opportunities, offers new features—it’s so rewarding to see it achieve all its goals for Etown,” she adds.
About NIRSA’s Outstanding Facilities Awards
The annual NIRSA Outstanding Facilities Awards recognize the innovative designs of new, renovated, or expanded collegiate recreational facilities of NIRSA member institutions. Winning facilities are considered a standard by which other campus recreation facilities should be measured, and from which others can benefit.
Applications for the NIRSA Outstanding Facilities Award recipients are open during the fall. Eligibility guidelines, selection criteria, and entry fee details can be found on the NIRSA website.
- For more information, contact NIRSA Member Engagement Manager Natasha Fischer.
