Gustavus students exercise in Lund Center. (Photo by Ashley Henningsgaard)
Robb Murray
The Free Press
Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter has made the Men’s Fitness Magazine list of the 25 fittest colleges in America.
Impressive? Absolutely.
Surprising? Hardly. Not after you stroll through their cafeteria, count the number of students involved in varsity and intramural sports, review the students’ financial commitments to top-quality facilities, and consider the institutional commitment to keeping such endeavors in the curriculum.
The magazine is on newsstands now. Gustavus came in sixth and was the only Minnesota school to make the list. Men’s Fitness ranked the colleges using data provided by the Princeton Review — an organization that conducts surveys on various areas of higher education, both serious and silly.
But Gustavus folk say their campus, with or without the stamp of approval from a men’s magazine, is a place where healthy choices are valued, especially during the last three or four years.
The easiest way to see it in action is to head to the cardio room in Lund Center. There are students using treadmills and elliptical machines all day long, especially around 4 p.m. or so.
“Every time I walk through there I’m amazed at how many people use this equipment,” says Al Molde, Gustavus’ athletic director and facilities manager for Lund Center, the heart of the Gustavus fitness world. “It’s been wildly popular. And 80 percent or more are women.”
Men’s Fitness
Among the things considered in the rankings are nutrition and dining choices, whether physical fitness is included in the curriculum, and availability of workout equipment. They also examined individual student responses to questions on topics such as alcohol consumption, tobacco use, fast-food indulgence and exercise habits.
Topping the list was Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, followed by Colgate University in New York, Boston College, Wheaton College in Illinois and the University of Vermont.
The precise methodology of the rankings, or how many students were surveyed, is unknown. What is known, however, are the things Gustavus has done to get healthy.
Student Tom Johnson, a member of the football team who also holds down a work-study job as a weight-room monitor, says he’s been impressed with the physical activity of his peers.
“I’m actually surprised at how many kids you see on treadmills,” says Johnson, a junior from Mankato.
Good eats
Placement of healthy foods, Gustavus has found, is crucial to their consumption.
When their new cafeteria went online a few years ago, students loved it. Gustavus, in fact, recently cracked the top 10 in a U.S. News and World Report survey on the best campus food in America.
What students weren’t wild about, or so it seemed, was the fresh fruit and vegetables available. So the dining service tried a different approach with the veggies. They bought a grocery rack and placed it near the check-out lanes. And like magic, student consumption of fresh fruit and veggies increased fivefold. At the same time, consumption of chips went down.
“We make it a priority to have as much fruits and vegetables as we can,” said Steve Kjellgren, Gustavus’ director of dining services.
Also, unlike the student union at many larger universities — including Minnesota State University — Gustavus has no fast-food franchises on campus. Gustavus does offer burgers and fries and mozzarella sticks (which happen to be very popular with freshmen the first few weeks of school), but they don’t come with the branding and marketing that a Pizza Hut or Taco Bell or McDonald’s would have.
Kjellgren said they’re also responsive to what students want, and they’ve even been known to whip up grandma’s famous recipe if a student brings it in.
Harald VanGaasbeek, a junior from Indiana, says that when he was touring colleges, he paid attention to things such as athletics and workout facilities and he liked what he saw at Gustavus. He also likes the food offerings. But, even though Gustavus works hard to make things healthy and to optimize the student dining experience as much as possible, he says he’d like to see a little more variety.
Long, fit history
In the 1880s, when Gustavus was a fledgling institution, the students became interested in adding a gymnasium to campus. They started a petition, gathered a few hundred signatures and took their case to the administration.
The administration approved it, but they appropriated no funding. So the students took it upon themselves to come up with the money. They solicited funds from their families, community members and even faculty. Eventually, they’d raised enough money to start construction on the college’s first gymnasium, which sat roughly where today’s student union sits.
Today, students at colleges all across the country pay fees to fund campus recreation. And it’s still happening at Gustavus. But at Gustavus, it always seems to come with unusual student initiative.
Three years ago the Student Senate worked to add workout equipment to the fitness offerings in the Lund Center. They eventually passed a one-time student fee levy that was prorated — freshmen paid more than seniors — and a quarter-million dollars was raised. This allowed for the construction of the Lund Center cardio room, one of the busiest places on campus in the late afternoon.
Administrative help
To help the growing demand for fitness opportunities, Gustavus’ department of Health and Exercise Science has continually added to and updated the courses students can take to fulfill their required three credits of “phy ed.”
Instead of just offering courses in swimming or golf, Gustavus students can take yoga, pilates, winter camping, canoeing and many other courses that, a decade ago, would have been laughed out of the course catalog.
“The whole idea is to get kids physically involved,” says Aaron Banks, an assistant professor in Health and Exercise Science. “A majority of the students enjoy the classes. It gives them a chance to get out of the classroom.”
Molde says that, in his mind, the comments of senior cross country runner Hailey Harren last weekend after a meet speak volumes about the way students feel.
“She said that, for her, winning isn’t the object of running. Running is stress relief. I think that’s the way it is for a lot of students,” Molde said. “Physical vigor, the good feeling you get from doing something physical, helps you sit down and study.”