Sophomore Casey Campellone used to find the gym boring.

When they first arrived on campus, the History major frequented the Bickman Fitness Center, Clark University’s gym, in the Kneller Athletics Center. But they often went alone, which made working out feel like something they “had to do.” When they started going to the gym with friends, Campellone found the experience far more “fun and engaging”.

“I actually look forward to going to the gym now,” Campellone said. Then they joked, “It gives me a reason to wake up early in the morning, too.”

However, Campellone noticed their female and nonbinary friends often expressed discomfort about exercising in the Bickman. The gym, Campellone says, can be a “male-dominated space,” and crowded during busier times, such as during the day, which can intimidate newcomers. Their friends mentioned feeling pressured to leave the gym because men were “taking up a lot of space” in front of the lifting areas and weight equipment. They said they felt shy and nervous about approaching them to ask for a turn. Others needed help spotting when lifting weights and were wary of asking a stranger to help them out. 

“I mean, I wouldn’t want to ask a random guy to spot me, either,” Campellone said. 

After having these conversations with their friends, Campellone started thinking about a way for these students to feel more comfortable at the Bickman. But it wasn’t until they took Exploring Power of Youth Knowledge with Professor Rae Stevenson in the Community, Youth, and Education Studies (CYES) department that they were pushed to make this dream a reality. 

The final project for Exploring Power of Youth Knowledge, Campellone explained, is to propose and implement a plan to “do local activism in the Worcester community.” It was this assignment that inspired Campellone to launch the Work Out With a Friend program, which pairs interested Clarkies to go to the Bickman together. 

To gauge interest, Campellone created the Instagram account @clark.wowaf. 

“Have you been stared at in the gym?” an April 25 post by @clark.wowaf on instagram reads. “Feel overwhelmed by the gym crowd? Do you feel judged or just straight up uncomfortable? Are you queer and feel unwelcome in the Kneller?”

“This is a group dedicated to providing a helping hand to people who want to go to the Kneller, but don’t feel comfortable for a variety of reasons,” the post continues. “Here, you can find a gym buddy or group to workout with you, helping make the Kneller more inviting for women, transgender and queer people.”

@clark.wowaf also has a Google Form for interested students to fill out. In its current state, the form asks exclusively about general availability, but Campellone hopes to further develop the form to measure skill level and interest, with the intent of pairing more experienced and less experienced students together. However, this will not be possible until more people sign up for the program, they said.

Campellone hopes that Work Out With a Friend will eventually be based out of a group chat, in which participants can fire off a quick message asking if anyone is available to work out and quickly be paired with a “buddy” for the day. To get enough people to enroll to make this goal a reality, Campellone plans on printing and distributing QR codes for the Google Form. 

As for how the workouts will actually look, Campellone said that doesn’t have to be structured, either.

“It’s not about doing all the exercises together, but just having someone there who knows their name and who they could go to for spotting,” Campellone explained. Campellone also said they have noticed students are looking for more detailed information on how to use some of the exercise machines in the Bickman, and pairs could help educate one another on safely operating these machines. 

One thing Campellone is firm about is that they do not want Work Out With a Friend to become a Registered Student Organization, or RSO. 

“I don’t want to have to worry about getting club spaces approved, or worry about funding,” they explained. “I want this to be something students do more informally.”

With finals looming around the corner, Campellone is using the rest of the semester to promote Work Out With a Friend and start connecting interested students. Campellone hopes to start the program when students return to campus for the 2025 semester in August. 

“Activism, at its core, is care put into action, and Casey’s project is a beautiful example of that,” Professor Stevenson wrote in a statement to The Scarlet. “[They] identified a problem that moved [them] to action, out of care for [their] fellow students.”

“One of the goals of my courses, especially Exploring the Power of Youth Knowledge and Activism, is to help students recognize that action is always possible,” Stevenson added. “Even small acts can ripple outward.”

Stevenson concluded, “These kinds of projects help cultivate engaged, empathetic, and impactful citizens who are more likely to continue investing in their communities long after the semester ends.”