A commentary by a retired senior lab instructor at the University of Victoria and a long-time swimmer in the McKinnon Pool.
Many years ago, as a UVic student, I started swimming in the McKinnon Pool. I found that I loved it, and it became a life-long passion. Would I have tried swimming if I had to go off campus? Definitely not.
It was only because it was on campus, where I was, that I started swimming. I find it very short-sighted not to have a pool for future students to discover the joy and health benefits of swimming.
When I was considering academic positions, the availability of a campus swimming pool was a definite requirement for me. The presence of a swimming pool may well be an important recruitment incentive for other potential new faculty or staff.
As a UVic employee, I swam as many as seven days a week. And even in retirement I still swam five days a week at UVic until the COVID shutdown. Post COVID the pool has been open more limited hours, so I only swim three days a week currently.
The original notice about the closure talked about limited recreational use by employees and students. If numbers are lower than pre-COVID, this is partly because of the limited hours it is open.
To accommodate the many different schedules of UVic students and employees, the pool needs to provide more ready access.
The COVID requirement to pre-register (long since ended by other swimming pools but continued by UVic) takes away from the spontaneity of just dropping in — especially for first-time pool users. So there are things that can be done to increase the number of UVic members who use the pool.
But is it really “low recreational use by students, faculty and staff”? In comparison with what?
Whenever I am there, I see more swimmers than I see people shooting hoops on the McKinnon basketball courts, for example. (Not counting classes or teams here — just recreational users, to be a fair comparison with the swimming claim. And I’m not trying to pick on basketball.)
One of the great things about recreational swimming at UVic is that it is available (or was) to all, regardless of ability, from beginners to Olympians, and regardless of age or academic level or subject area.
Students regularly swim in the same lane as professors and staff. At least two of the recent UVic presidents have been frequent users of the McKinnon pool, swimming right alongside students.
Having a swimming pool at UVic is very important to me personally and to all those current and future students, staff, and faculty who will be deprived of this important benefit of UVic life if the closure goes ahead.
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