New gym for grad students to open before KREC closes its doors
The Kinross Recreation Center in the Kinross Building will close on January 1. (Daily Bruin file photo)
By Evolet Chiu
July 6, 2016 6:45 p.m.
Graduate students can visit a new gym that will open by the time the Kinross Recreation Center closes on Jan. 1.
Michael Skiles, president of the Graduate Students Association, said the new gym will offer all the same amenities and local convenience that the current graduate student gym offers for five to 10 years until a permanent, equally convenient location can be established.
The Kinross Recreation Center is a fitness and social space for graduate students that was built in 2012 on Kinross Avenue with $2 million in student service fees. KREC shares its building with temporary offices for the Fowler Museum and other enterprises.
Officials are relocating KREC to accommodate the Geffen Academy at UCLA, a secondary school for middle and low-income Los Angeles students and children of UCLA faculty members. The Academy is scheduled to open fall 2017.
About 6,000 graduate students used KREC more than 25 times last year, Skiles said. He thinks opening a new gym before KREC closes will prevent overcrowding at the John Wooden Center.
Skiles has convened the Save KREC Task Force, a group composed of more than 70 graduate students, which will offer feedback to UCLA administrators on how to best serve graduate students’ fitness needs.
“We are hoping (for) improvements like more squat racks, elliptical machines, punching bags and a couple other amenities,” Skiles said.
He added the new gym, which will be used as both a fitness and social space, will be a standalone building with slightly more square footage.
Skiles said he thinks UCLA administrators will regularly consult the task force about improvements for the new gym.
Pranshu Bansal, a graduate student in electrical engineering and member of the Save KREC Task Force, said he thinks administration should be more transparent and incorporate students into conversations about accepting large donations that would affect student services.
“I’m very happy (the administrators have) made progress and are open to talking to (graduate students),” Bansal said. “I hope they stick to their word and don’t close the old gym before the new one opens.”
The administration has not publicly disclosed the exact location of the new gym.
