Five questions for the rec services director

Recreation services director Tony Dirth, who has been in the position since March 2023, talked with Inside about ISU's recreation facilities, the importance of staying ahead and what's in store for the future.

Tell readers about yourself and how you came to Iowa State.

I worked at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, for 13 years prior to coming to Iowa State. I grew up in Waterloo and, as I was looking at my next phase, I wanted to come back to Iowa and be closer to family. Iowa State is well known and respected in the recreation field and I view it as a top job in the country.

I work with an incredible staff. Our space is excellent both inside and outside, which really makes us leaders in the field. The quality field space we have allows us to support our intramurals and sport clubs, and our inside space -- to have Lied Recreation Center, State Gym and Beyer Hall -- we are lucky.

Why is it important for Iowa State to have strong recreation facilities?

For faculty and staff, it allows them to enhance their personal well-being in a fun environment. There are not a lot of gyms that encompass all the group exercise classes, pools and climbing wall that we have. When you have a membership to recreation services, you have access to all those spaces. If you were to try to have that in the community, it would cost you much more.

From a student perspective, we are a big stop during the prospective student tours and I know we are a big selling point to those students. Being able to offer the health benefits and community really helps them have a place to come during their time on campus. We will have almost a million student swipes into our facilities this year.

What would you like faculty and staff to know about rec services?

A lot of faculty and staff join to use one or two of our offerings, but there's more available they can take advantage of. Maybe it's the track in Lied or the pool for lap swimming. People often don't know about our e-gaming room in Beyer. And, especially on the weekends or in the summer, we get faculty and staff who get a membership for their children for when they bring them to campus.

How do you make sure rec services meets members' needs?

We look at our patron survey, study the mileage on our machines and use our student workers to count the users in each space every hour so we can identify our busiest spots and plan accordingly.

One of the fitness trends we have noticed is that cardio is down and strength training is up in a big way. At our peak times, there are lines for our [weight] machines, so we are intentional about how we manage our space to address that. We used to have dozens and dozens of elliptical machines, but we're down to six in each facility. 

A lot of the boutique fitness classes (spin, Pilates, yoga, etc.) also are very popular. They are led by certified student instructors and we want to continue to improve them to make them even more successful.

What's on the horizon for recreation services?

With a team from facilities planning and management, we are going through a facilities master planning process. It's supposed to be completed by the end of 2025. It will set us up for long-term success, looking ahead 15 years or more. We must always be planning ahead to see how we are using our spaces, what the trends are in the field, benchmarking against other institutions. We also need to be good stewards of the student fees we collect. 

We are doing this work in conjunction with Thielen Student Health Center because we want to make sure we are taking a holistic view of the well-being of our students.  We will get a final report and share the findings more broadly.