STAFF EDITORIAL: Students need places to play

Penn's campus has far too few recreational facilities - and the school isn't doing enough to address the problem. It's enough to make you forget that Penn suffers from a terrible shortage of recreational facilities and playing fields. It shouldn't be. As Penn continues to create campus master plans and to renovate its residential buildings, the University must also turn its attention to a long-standing problem -- Penn students simply don't have enough places to play. To be sure, various proposals have been floated in recent years; a now-abandoned plan for a Harrison House exercise facility comes to mind. And there have been small improvements, of which the Katz Fitness Center is perhaps the best example. But on the whole, the problem isn't getting any better. Penn is long past its quasi-suburban days, when green space was plentiful on and about campus. Each new wave of construction leaves diminishing quantities of grass, and there is no reason to believe that will change in the future. Ten years ago, there were outdoor basketball courts on the corner of 38th and Walnut, where a parking garage now sits. Ten years from now, there will be dormitories on the field to the west of Hamilton House. And that means it is past time Penn faced up to a new recreational reality -- places for students to play must be consciously created. It is no longer enough to point students in the direction of Hill Field and similar patches of green that exist only because no one has gotten around to building there as yet. And it is no longer enough to expand existing recreational facilities. A 1996 external report on the state of campus recreation called for an additional 225,000 feet of recreational facilities space on campus. The Gimbel renovations will only provide for a fraction of that. And so, we applaud the UA's efforts to build outdoor basketball courts. But basketball courts are not a long-term fix. That will take time and money -- and it is high time Penn made an explicit commitment to providing both.