Staff Excellence: Recreation & Wellness

Step through the doors of the France A. Córdova Recreational Sports Center (CoRec) on any given day and you’ll likely cross paths with hundreds of Boilermakers. Some are bouncing down the stairs on their way to class, while others are making their way toward one of the countless fitness spaces and multiactivity courts housed within the 355,562-square-foot facility.

But look a little closer and you’ll find Recreation & Wellness (RecWell) staff members dotted among the bustling crowd, working hard to ensure that the approximately 55,000 Purdue students who access the building each week are consistently met with a clean, safe and friendly environment — a place where they can thrive.

“We’re not just a gym or a place to work out,” says Melanie Red Elk, associate director of engagement for RecWell. “We consider ourselves the front door of well-being and every piece of what we do involves social connection, inclusivity and belonging. It’s a community here.”

RecWell operates like a small city, comprising 17 different areas led by senior director Mike Warren and staffed by more than 50 full-time employees who are charged with managing, maintaining and improving the CoRec, the Turf Recreation Exercise Center, the Aquatic Center and the 89 acres of land surrounding them.

Through every season, RecWell’s operations and maintenance teams can often be seen outside the facilities, whether they’re mowing, landscaping and striping the two 35-acre field complexes during the summer months or salting sidewalks and shoveling snow in the wintertime. Their work brings them inside too, where they’re responsible for cleaning and performing repairs and preventative maintenance on all equipment. Supporting them is the audio visual/information technology team, which ensures all technology is operating smoothly, giving visitors the ability to enter the facility with the tap of their smartwatch or phone.

The aquatics team manages both the CoRec’s recreation pool and the Morgan J. Burke Aquatics Center. This team is responsible for the supervision of over 90 lifeguards, administration of all safety certification and instructional swim programming for the department, as well as the operations and maintenance of both pools, which serve not only students, but athletes and community groups.

Meanwhile, individuals on RecWell’s wellness, fitness and sports programs teams are busy curating and connecting students with a variety of resources like coaching services, light therapy and cooking demonstrations; coordinating and curating personal training services and more than 100 group fitness classes each week; and managing the Intramural Sports and Club Sports programs, which each offer experiences in more than 35 different sports.

Other staff areas include the marketing and outreach team — which fielded over 800 requests this semester to feature activities on its social media accounts and the digital displays scattered across the facility — along with the financial wellness, climbing and challenge, and Boiler Financial Track teams.

Although these employee groups form the backbone of the team, as the second-largest student employer on campus, RecWell’s work couldn’t be complete without the help of the 800 student employees who fill an array of positions that support the countless recreation and wellness opportunities available to the campus community.

“Our staff care so much about our students,” Red Elk says. “We’re championing them to be leaders, and we pour into them any way we can. We always advocate for them to pursue different professional development opportunities. There’s just so much camaraderie. It’s never just another day at the office.”

Working closest with the students are RecWell’s assistant directors, who are dedicated to pairing them with endless opportunities for development. Across all student employment areas — from the front desk workers in Member Services to the lifeguards in Aquatics and the officials in Intramural Sports — RecWell has maintained a 90% student retention rate. That achievement shouldn’t be surprising though, considering RecWell’s consistent commitment to recognizing and uplifting student workers with end-of-year celebrations, monthly employee spotlights and weekly birthday shoutouts.

And while they’re continuously looking for new ways to champion their student workforce, RecWell staff members are also always seeking out opportunities to improve its offerings, even when programs are performing exceptionally well. For example, last year the equipment desk checked out basketballs 46,000 times. That, coupled with the waitlist to join RecWell’s intramural basketball league — one of the largest intramural communities in the country — helps the team gauge its effectiveness and adjust accordingly.

“Waitlists tell us two things: that we’re doing awesome and that we need to create more space to serve students,” Red Elk says. “It shows that we have so much interest, but it also indicates how much more impact we could have.”

The team’s impact can be felt across the campus community, with student organizations, university departments and faculty and staff often relying on the group to support a variety of programming. This semester, RecWell’s Reservations team has reserved space in its facilities for more than 1,300 events, ranging from career fairs and vaccination clinics to end-of-year celebrations and the annual Purdue University Dance Marathon. RecWell staff also play a key role in organizing Boiler Kids Camp, an annual seven-week event that gives more than 1,000 children in grades K-6 a glimpse into the opportunities that might await them at Purdue.

Recwell’s work routinely extends beyond the boundaries of the West Lafayette campus. This year, as part of its annual rent-a-rower fundraiser, RecWell’s Purdue Crew team served dozens of community members and donors by pairing them with student-athletes who volunteered to perform around-the-house jobs like painting, raking leaves and cleaning windows. The group’s community-focused efforts will continue in the spring when it donates half of its row-a-thon fundraiser proceeds to the Lafayette Urban Ministry.

RecWell is continuing to grow and expand its facilities — inside and out — as much as it can to impact as many students as possible. Last July, the team transformed a lower gym into a 14,000-square-foot strength-training space. In August, it opened the Alienware Purdue Gaming Lounge, a 2,000-square-foot esports space for gamers and innovators. And just recently, after listening to student feedback, RecWell relied on the talents of its internal maintenance team to create more space for pickleball — now one of the most popular activities offered at the CoRec.

“Outdoor pickleball courts are what students wanted, and we said, ‘We hear you,’” Red Elk says. “That’s something we do really well. We listen to our students, and we care about their success. That’s what we want to see — that level of impact.”

Big goals are on the horizon for the RecWell team, as outlined in its outdoor master plan — a bold framework that aims to transform the CoRec’s grounds into a variety of outdoor spaces that meet the needs of Purdue’s student population. It’s a challenge these staff members are more than ready to tackle, but of course, not without first gaining student insight on the project.

The countless diverse, innovative and inclusive programs, activities and facilities available to the campus community simply couldn’t exist without the daily efforts of RecWell staff members, whose big ideas always lay the foundation for outstanding outcomes, forever shaping the success of the CoRec and the lives of those who enter it. 

“Our RecWell team is deeply passionate about student well-being in all its dimensions,” Red Elk says. “We believe that well-being is rooted in creating social connections, cultivating inclusion and creating a true sense of belonging. Every day, we pour our hearts into supporting our students — those we proudly employ and those who walk through our doors. They are the heartbeat of our efforts and the inspiration behind everything we do.”