A commentary by a 2006 graduate of the University of Victoria.
I am a five-time national champion, decade-long consultant on Canada’s Long-Term Athlete Development project, eight-year Chapter Chair for UVic Swim Team Alumni and, most recently, a member of the hiring committee to select the new Vikes swim coach to fill Peter Vizsolyi’s 41-year role of head coach for UVic Swimming.
I write as a parent.
My concerns surrounding the process and rationale of McKinnon Pool’s closure are vast.
Its closure goes against the university’s vision of providing diverse and intentional recreational programs in a safe, inclusive, and accessible environment, enhancing the social, mental and physical well-being of the entire university community; being committed to providing all individuals on campus with welcoming, accessible, and enjoyable physical recreation opportunities.
It goes against UVic’s signed 2023 Strategic Plan, to which consultation and disclosure was applied.
The plan to close McKinnon Pool is fundamentally flawed. What are we doing and who is deciding?
McKinnon Pool is an amenity that represents connectiveness and community. It represents accessibility, participation, and engagement for all ages and stages of physical activity, sport, health, wellness, and water safety.
McKinnon is where I trained to represent Canada, where I studied, where I napped, and where my child learned to swim when all other pools were at capacity.
It’s public knowledge UVic’s annual budget is $500 million with separately allocated departmental budgets.
We’ve spent $4.5 million on the bus loop, more than $2 million on the bike path, and $20 million on the Centre for Athletics, Recreation and Special Abilities (CARSA) parkade.
The Athletics Department has allocated $1 million to $1.5 million a decade to repair/replace the field hockey pitch, which serves a far more acute spectrum of the community.
Yet we are prepared to close our only pool without a temporary or long-term plan? To not honour L蓹k虛史蓹艐蓹n land earmarked in 2015 for a rebuild?
My questions:
• Why was I not informed of the closure until the end of June 2024’s hiring process for Vizsolyi’s role of head coach?
• Were the candidates aware they would be coaching at a campus without a pool?
• When were the student athletes told?
• Why was Sport for Life’s Framework part of the hiring guidelines for Vizsolyi’s 41-year tenure when the closure goes against every stage of Swimming Canada’s Long-Term Athlete Development Strategy?
• How do I facilitate the recruitment of future student athletes as we increase travel time by 1.5 hours a day, decrease study time, increase expenditures and remove campus culture?
My requests:
• The timeline for closure be extended until proper and publicly disclosed consultation is complete.
• Quotes released, revisited, and properly procured based on a temporary plan to refurbish with a long-term plan to build and maintain on allocated land.
• Budgets released and revised to include McKinnon Pool as a community amenity, allocated to UVic’s global budget.
By closing McKinnon Pool we are limiting accessibility across the board. We are creating a barrier while calling ourselves an inclusive and prestigious “destination” university.
A university surrounded by water within a high socio-economic status demographic. A university with the only Wellness, Recreation and Athletics Department in Canada. This is inauthentic.
This is not a monetary decision. This is intrinsic.
May we collaborate with future-forward thinking and the stewardship already in place to make McKinnon even more accessible, instructional, health, wellness, and student athlete- focused than ever before?
May we please do what we said we were going to do?
I ask that we try harder. So much harder. Let’s make change. Let’s lead.
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