The expansion of the Eastside Athletic Annex facilities brings the introduction of new student opportunities and employment positions with the addition of fall 2026 openings in the Sports Medicine and Strength and Conditioning departments.
The Sports Medicine department has hosted many student employees, who assist in working with student-athletes and in the well-being of the teams on campus.
The openings of athletic training facilities will offer a new wave of assistant jobs and positions.
Samantha Powell, head athletic trainer and NCAA compliance officer, has played a large part in the education and employment of these students.
“We’ll have to add more student workers to be able to manage those spaces,” Powell said. “I already have a handful downstairs, so we’ll have to get more to be over there.”
These new paid positions work well for students aiming to continue their progress in the exercise science program and within graduate degree pathways such as athletic training, physical therapy, sports science and occupational therapy.
The space will be used for a mix of roles for the athletic trainers.
“We might use that space as more of a recovery space and a pre-practice space for baseball, softball and wrestling,” Powell said.
The exercise science department will also find boosts with the expansion of the academic offerings at Eastside. The new facilities will offer larger spaces for the new human performance laboratory, adding onto the current facilities located in the Campbell Memorial Chapel. As well, new connections to graduate programs will increase interprofessional communication between students.
“This really opens up the capabilities and opportunities for our students,” Edsall said.
New areas are being constructed with the aim of helping drive student research and opening routes for progress and involvement. The integration of one-credit clinical placements in order to expand the student experience is being worked on as well.
“Have a baseball player go over to the bullpens that are there to see what the biomechanics of what it looks like to see a baseball pitch,” Edsall said about the ability for students to work alongside student-athletes in the new facilities.
Within the exercise science program, Associate Professor and Head Strength and Conditioning Coach Charles Jasper has been a part of Chatham Athletics for a few years, acting as the strength and conditioning coach for many of the teams across campus.
Jasper’s “excited to move over there. It is a great opportunity just to have more space, so we can offer more training times,” he said.
The new facilities have opened up the opportunity for him to bring in students to assist in the training of student-athletes. The staff currently holds three interns.
Jasper wants his employees to be involved in “an opportunity to work with one or two teams on their own and then assist so they can program for that team [and] they can get to build relationships as the head coach.”
The goal for Jasper is to increase his coaching staff with the aim of bringing in up to four graduate assistants and three undergraduate student employees.
Even if all of the positions are illed, there are opportunities for students to still gain experience and work toward their goals through internships and volunteer opportunities with Jasper and his coaching staff.
“And anyone that wants to intern with me, I’m willing to take them,” Jasper said. Interested students can contact Jasper at [email protected].