A 20-month-long renovation to the Wellness and Helfaer Recreation Center at Marquette University included a new six-lane, 25-yard pool to replace the school’s 50-year-old natatorium. The bold investment in student wellbeing includes advanced mechanical, pump, filtration and lighting systems, as well as transparency, wood-paneled ceilings, Golden Eagles branding, and ample space for competitive and recreational swimming.
“I want it to be packed from sun up to sun down, and I don’t think that is going to be an issue,” says Scott Anderegg, MU’s assistant director of campus recreation. “I think we’re in good shape with this pool.”
The physical improvements to the school’s aquatics offerings are matched by the technological upgrades. And while Anderegg still dreams of further increasing the digital toolbox for his 35-person aquatics staff, small changes have added up to a big impact.
Digital copies of emergency action plans, iPads for documentation, call boxes connected directly to the Marquette University Police Department, timing systems, and even screens in the natatorium for expanded programming have brought the campus rec pool into the 21st century of aquatics safety.
“This new facility has really caught us up a lot,” Anderegg says. “We have students from around the country who say, ‘My pool had this,’ or, ‘This is new, I’ve never done this before.’ ”
A similar story is unfolding at Indiana University’s Student Recreational Sports Center and Counsilman Billingsley Aquatic Center, where aquatics program director Kellen Edelbrock says that everyone is talking about how to better leverage technology for safety improvements in 2026.
“The trend in the industry right now is, How do you use tech and make [training] more realistic?” says Edelbrock. “We’re always on the lookout for that. It’s an exciting challenge and it is something that will never go away. It’s always in the back of our minds: How do we improve?”
Technology is enhancing safety at campus rec pools, but emergency response remains a human-centered job.
IU’s campus recreation aquatics staff members are all American Red Cross-certified, and Edelbrock notes that onboarding in his department includes “some level-setting” to be sure everyone’s skills are at a certain standard before their first shift and their first emergency situation.
Responding to an emergency
When lifeguards identify an emergency unfolding in the pool — or on the deck — the rescue process can look very similar from one college recreation facility to another.
The responding lifeguard blows their whistle, alerting the deck to the emergency. A secondary lifeguard will communicate to professional staff and first responders, assist in the rescue or guide first responders to the pool deck.
Technology is now poised to disrupt this familiar process.
At IU, every guard stand is currently equipped with electronic whistles. Edelbrock describes the ease of use, which removes the manufacturing inconsistency of traditional whistles. “You press a button and it sounds, which is great,” he says.
Lifeguards at CBAC, or any of IU’s three additional campus rec pools, know that when the whistle is activated, everyone will hear it.
A transition to digitizing emergency response is also present at Marquette, where Anderegg says, “We have two call boxes in the pool area, and it all ties into the digital security system at Marquette. When the button is pushed, an alarm will go off, even if for some reason it doesn’t come across the radio. It’s kind of like a backup that will alert [law enforcement] to an emergency in the pool area.”
These fail-safe measures are the first steps in enhancing emergency response, but everyone agreed that while technology can be a great added benefit, there’s no replacing the first-hand experience and practice that lifeguards bring to a situation.
Jacob Swisher is the founder of EZ-EAP, a software platform that transitions emergency action plans from paper to digital documentation. While he believes strongly in the need to combine technology with athletics and recreation risk management, Swisher is also quick to remind aquatics personnel that they “can talk about EAPs all day long. But if you’re not doing hands-on, real practice where you’re pulling a dummy or a person out of the pool and going through your whole emergency action plan, you’re going to fall short. It’s really important to practice, practice under stress, make it as real as possible. And that’s going to be one of the biggest things you can do for preparedness.”
Edelbrock brings a similar belief to lifeguard training at IU.
“There’s nothing that will ever prepare you more than just having one under your belt,” he says. “So really trying to replicate what it will feel like in those moments is what we’re on the lookout for at in-service training. It is really important to replicate how you’re going to feel in that moment. Your heart may be racing. You may have some anxiety if you’re in that response. So, we sprint 100 yards and then do CPR to get your heart rate elevated. You have to think straight while you’re out of breath.”
Kate Connell, senior manager of sales and strategic partnerships at HyrdoApps, a digital documentation platform built for aquatics professionals, sees the future of combining this hands-on experience with technology.
“How do we make a better decision based on the data?” asks Connell. “How do we pick better topics to train our lifeguards on based on that data? How do we harness it so we can share and talk about it?”
HydroApps keeps track of anything that would traditionally be in a binder on the pool deck or in an office, including pool tests, inspection forms, incident and accident reports, maintenance tickets, pump room features, national codes and emergency action plans.
Building an EAP
Before lifeguards and aquatics professionals can appropriately respond to an emergency, a strong emergency action plan must be in place. EAPs are evolving with the landscape, and what was once documentation that lived in a binder on a manager’s desk or beside lifeguard stands is now increasingly a digital asset.
“The National Athletic Trainers Association came out with a position statement in 2024, stating that the emergency action plan must be distributed, and it does denote that electronically counts,” Swisher says.
“We’ve moved toward having those [EAPs] available on iPads now,” adds IU’s Edelbrock. “We still have the binder, just in case, but we’ve moved that more toward digital.”
Digitization opens a new world of possibilities for managing and updating the EAP, truly making it a living document. EZ-EAP gives users access to a cloud-based app and desktop platform that automates a lot of the communication process.
“The piece of paper is really hard to update, which can lead to it being out of date, like having the wrong phone number,” says Swisher. “Once you get into using software, you can update that super easily. You don’t need to update a piece of paper; you don’t need to send an email out to anyone. It’s just automatically up to date on everyone’s app.”
At Marquette, Anderegg and his team had to start from scratch when writing the EAP for the newly renovated Wellness and Helfaer Recreation Center, which is now available to lifeguards both on iPads and in paper copies. It is a process that Anderegg says is “still ongoing.”
“Even though it’s been almost a year, we just keep learning stuff that we didn’t know,” he says. “We didn’t know what we didn’t know.”
Building the EAP at Marquette took buy-in from all stakeholders: the professional staff at the campus recreation center, the medical clinic and counseling center, as well as the Marquette University Police Department and the Milwaukee Police Department. Marquette’s director of environmental health and safety was also integral in building the plan. Dozens of people are involved in ensuring the accuracy of an EAP, which means dozens of phone numbers, emails, facility maps, and procedures for each department.
“When you have to manually reach out to all these contacts one by one, it’s really slow,” Swisher says. “You have to know where the piece of paper is. You need to reach out to people manually. There’s no way to ensure that everyone has access to it.”
Artificial (Aquatics) Intelligence
While the EAP is one of the most essential pieces of the safety puzzle to be enhanced by technology, it is far from the only digitized asset at campus rec pools. The campus rec pool is also joining the conversation about one of today’s hottest topics: artificial intelligence. AI may be the next frontier in preventing aquatics emergencies, aiding lifeguards in their rescues and teaching staff how to adapt in the aftermath.
“I’m on a data task force, so I’m looking at ways that we can use AI to analyze data on the types of accidents we have, where those are and the activity the user was doing,” explains IU’s Edelbrock. “There are some ways that we can use AI to analyze how and when accidents happen to evaluate those trends and recommend tweaking training, emergency action plans or staffing levels based on that.”
AI is now also a key piece of Edelbrock’s training process. He reports using AI tools to create in-service training agendas, brainstorming different scenarios to put the lifeguards through, and cross-referencing American Red Cross manuals to guarantee that his 75 lifeguards aren’t missing any key pieces of training information.
He’s also using AI to bring lifeguard training into the future. “We recently purchased VR goggles and we’ve been using those at in-service trainings,” Edelbrock says. “There’s a Red Cross app that we’ve been using that is a virtual reality game of scanning. You can scan a pool or a scenario, and the goal is to see how quickly you can identify that someone in the pool needs assistance. We track response times and make it a game where the employees can compete and see how they can improve.”
Beyond lifeguard training, AI is also advancing the workflows of the pro staff’s pool management. “Not having to sit in an office with checklists and Excel documents and manually go through to do that,” says Connell of the advantages AI can bring to campus rec pools and teams. “It’s not replacing the person who does that. They’re just able to do the next, higher-level stuff instead of the in-the-weeds stuff.”
It is this kind of enhanced workflow that has elevated the work environment at Marquette, where Anderegg says, “We used to have paper copies, sheets of chemical readings, incident reports and maintenance logs. That is all on iPads now. We went paperless, so lifeguards and Pro Staff can access that remotely if they need to look at it.”
That digital reporting allows Anderegg to check the status of the pool when he is on other parts of campus or even at home, where he can keep one eye on the safety of pool patrons and the functionality of the pumps without spending all day on the deck.
Security and privacy
As the aquatics space continues to dive deeper into technologies that enhance safety and security practices, the inevitable question of data privacy arises: How do campus rec pools keep EAPs and other security documentation safe from bad actors? How are assets password-protected? How do technology companies and administrators ensure that people’s information and data aren’t being shared? If users are on a shared device, how do logins work? Or tracking?
“We have a lot of new clients who will ask us those questions,” says HydroApps’ Connell, adding, “It’s accountability that aquatics directors really want.”
Questions of data security and privacy extend to the functions within an app or database, as well. Once campus rec aquatics personnel are assured that their data cannot be breached from the outside or misused by employees within the facility, stakeholders in the EAP may want to ensure the security and air-tightness of that plan.
For EZ-EAP, Swisher says, “You denote who has access to this EAP. Who is contacted when it gets activated? What are those phone numbers?”
That level of customization within a platform not only enhances user security and privacy, but accurate information also streamlines emergency response on the pool deck or in the water.
Photo courtesy of Indiana University
Funding
For campus rec aquatics staff looking for new ways to bring technology into their safety and security practices, funding is often another key consideration.
“There’s stuff we want to have, but then we have to get the funding, too, which is another issue,” says Marquette’s Anderegg. “I think in higher ed, it’s not that people don’t want to do it, it’s ‘Do we have the resources?’ ”
Many digital tools, apps and platforms today offer subscription models to ease the financial burden for customers. Rather than campaigning for thousands of dollars in up-front funding, aquatics directors or campus recreation professionals can add a digital tool’s fee to a monthly budget.
However, even approaching these expenses in smaller chunks may sometimes pose a barrier to accessibility.
“Get knowledgeable about what all is out there and start to dabble in it to see what could be applicable,” advises IU’s Edelbrock. “Maybe there are some free options or cheaper options. Maybe there are ways to collaborate with others in your community so that you’re sharing costs.”
At Indiana, for example, the lifeguard staff uses scheduling software for time sheets that is shared across all rec sports employees and even other departments to spread the associated costs across multiple budgets.
“I think anytime you can bring the safety component in, it is easier to sell to the administration,” Anderegg says. “They are more apt to fund things if it [mitigates] a safety risk.”
Not only can tech tools minimize safety risks around the pool deck, but they may also improve working conditions for the entire aquatics staff.
“Tech can maybe save you time or make it so you need fewer people to do a task,” Edlebrock says.
Adds Connell, “A tool can potentially improve the quality of life of the professionals who are using it, helping them to not be spread thin across so many areas.”
Regardless of how campus rec pools approach tech tools and digitization, the future of the space is clear, according to Connell. “Everyone agrees that the risk management piece is so important,” she says.
From digitizing EAPs and streamlining training with AI, to bringing documentation and people management online, aquatics has entered the digital age.
“It’s an exciting challenge,” says Edelbrock, acknowledging that while the conversation around technology on the pool deck is reaching a fever pitch, the priority must remain on quality staff training.
As EZ-EAP’s Swisher aptly says, “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.”
