As my time at Iowa State draws to a close, It has dawned on me that the university often goes about things the wrong way.

We have a mediocre football team, so what do we do? Jack up ticket prices and criticize students who choose not to attend. What do we do about low student attendance for men’s basketball games? Criticize students more, and threaten to take away student tickets. And when we have an overcrowded Lied Recreation Athletic Center? We build an expensive and vaguely detailed expansion that most of us will never see.

Although I can’t improve our football team (and God only knows how I could make it worse) or our basketball team (which I probably could make worse), and the administration seems willfully deaf to the students’ ideas and complaints about Veishea, someone call the regents, because I know how we can avoid building an addition to the Rec.

It’s pretty simple, really. We don’t have enough space. Instead of building more, however, we can just let fewer people into the space we already have. I have compiled a list of guidelines, based of my frequenting of the Rec, that should assist in limiting admission, thereby avoiding the need to spend millions on an addition and give the administration a chance to fritter the money away in some other useless way.

The majority of these admission guidelines are gender-neutral. Some, however, are gender-specific, much as they are at any nightclub or similar establishment with admission criteria. Although these guidelines may seem arbitrary and/or punitive, it seems to me that they would move Lied back to its intended purpose – that of a gym. If you commit any of the following acts, you will immediately be denied admission to or expelled from the Lied Recreation Athletic Center.

1. Wearing makeup and/or accessories.

I realize that some of you girls are at the gym to snag a fit mate, but between the waves of perfume and the shiny accessories I can’t tell if I’m at the gym or Welch.

2. The cost of your workout attire exceeds the cost of your textbooks for the year.

I know you’re proud of your Hollister/Abercrombie/Nike/American Eagle/whatever, but seriously, it’s a gym, not a fashion show.

3. Stretching and/or working out in the flow of traffic.

This is just a common sense issue. Grab your matt/dumbbells and take four or five steps – just move away from the rack so the rest of us can access the equipment.

4. Spending more time leaning on the machine talking to someone than you do actually using it for its intended purpose.

Again, common sense. There are lots of fairly comfortable seats next to the giant TV in the lobby where you can sit and talk/flirt to your heart’s content.

5. Spending more time flexing in front of the mirrors than actually lifting weights.

I know the wall of mirrors is nice, and we’re all very impressed with how well your sleeveless T-shirt shows of your muscles, but really?

6. Talking on your cell phone while using the elliptical, treadmill, stationary bike or the track.

If you can carry on a coherent conversation, then you’re clearly not actually exercising, and if the call is that important, then you clearly shouldn’t be at the gym. I mean, who knew that Sarah was dating Bryan, because he and Brooke were so totally all over each other on Welch Ave. last night.

7. Letting the dumbbells drop from your grip after cranking out a set.

This is already a posted rule at the Rec, so I’m really just suggesting its enforcement. Again, we’re all very impressed with how much weight you can lift in a straight line directly above your chest, but if you can’t maintain the control to lower it to the floor, then don’t lift it above you in the first place.

This concludes my list of suggested rules to decrease crowding at the Rec. I feel they are tough, but they are fair. This list is by no means exhaustive, nor complete; however, I feel even this partial criteria will go far in reducing over-crowding in our recreation center.

– Quincy Miller is a senior in English from Altoona.