Even the approach to Rensselaer’s new East Campus Athletic Village is major league.

By Jane Gottlieb

The suspended walkway that crisscrosses the west wall is slow-building and wide. The views are generous: of the Harkness Track and Field, the Renwyck Field, the Houston Field House, and the expanse of cities and hills beyond. It is easy to envision the procession of fans who make this climb together on a big game day in red face paint and oversize Engineers jerseys.

But this day, a quiet Wednesday morning, the impact on arriving at the top of the 5,200-seat stadium is no less eye-popping. From this height a viewer takes in 120-by-90 yards of dark green FieldTurf emblazoned with the red “RPI” emblem at the 50-yard line, cushioned by red seating and a glass wall. A lone athlete is doing a series of timed sprints, crossing in and out of faint mist for the better part of an hour. This might well be a motivational video for Rensselaer and the expansive experience it provides its students. But it is instead varsity soccer center midfielder Cate Harvey, working out in the grandest of settings.

“I usually go there every morning. It’s a stress reliever, to tell you the truth. I go there and leave everything else behind,” says Harvey, a sophomore chemistry major who has maintained a 4.0 GPA. “It is really dramatic to be on a field this big and new. You feel like you are packing down brand-new turf.”

This is the East Campus Athletic Village, which officially opened Oct. 3, the latest stage in Rensselaer’s transformation into a university whose students can realize their full potential in and outside the classroom.

The $92 million facility brings an unprecedented level of quality to Rensselaer athletics, and promises to have a major impact on the student experience almost overnight. With the refurbished Houston Field House hockey arena and the glass and steel East Campus stadium as its anchors, the East Campus Athletic Village (ECAV) is an elaborate but comfortable complex that also includes three turf fields, two basketball gyms, deluxe locker rooms for 10 varsity teams, locker rooms for recreational users, a café, an Athletic Hall of Fame, athletics offices, two VIP areas, and two floors of press seating. Add to that professional-class training facilities with a sports medicine suite and a 4,800-square-foot strength and conditioning center.

But the implications spread well beyond its sunken hydrotherapy tub and aerated locker rooms with teaching walls.

The ECAV is an engine driving change across the community. With it, Rensselaer can welcome home more alumni, strengthen recruitment of promising students and student athletes, and enrich Troy and its environs.

Most of all, ECAV will leave a profound mark on the vast majority of Rensselaer students who already take part in sports, ranging from the Division I hockey player to the occasional jogger.

“It is often said that it is on the playing fields—and in other athletic venues—that leaders are made,” said President Shirley Ann Jackson in her grand-opening remarks. “But at Rensselaer, athletics are only part of the equation, because Rensselaer already attracts students who have demonstrated leadership potential. Rensselaer develops that potential through the totality of the student experience, so that our graduates are prepared to become leaders in technologically rooted fields. This is our Rensselaer heritage. This is who we are.

“With this addition to the Troy campus, we continue to transform the student experience, to go beyond the standard, to excel—across the board, in all endeavors—and to do even more to create leaders. At the same time, with the initiation of the village concept, we bring our Rensselaer community together in a new way. Our goal—as with all that we are doing to transform Rensselaer for the 21st century—is to create a unique residential undergraduate college, within a world-class technological research university.”

“The East Campus will transform the athletic experience for all of our students as well as the staff and faculty and everyone else involved with Rensselaer,” says Athletics Director James Knowlton. “It gives outstanding intercollegiate athletes more field time and superior facilities, but also opens up space for our intramurals and club athletes and provides open recreation for the entire student body.”