October 24, 2000 SELINSGROVE, Pa. - An exciting new look to Susquehanna University's athletic facilities will be unveiled this weekend as the next milestone in the $14 million renovation and expansion of the university's sports and fitness complex. On Saturday, October 28, at 12:30 p.m., the campus community and the general public are invited to the dedication of the Clyde H. Jacobs Fitness Center, slightly more than eight months following its February groundbreaking. The center is named in honor of Northumberland resident and retired ophthalmologist Clyde H. Jacobs, who will be present at the dedication with his wife, Alice Ann, a Susquehanna graduate and member of its board of directors. The 9,300-square-foot, two-story, glass-fronted addition to the brick gymnasium building both reflects the campus scene from its windows and provides a view onto campus for fitness enthusiasts using the new facility. The Jacobs Fitness Center will offer the campus community larger, more attractive and better-equipped space for fitness training, as well as additional space for social and recreational activity. The first floor houses selectorized weight-training machines, while the upper level houses three times the amount of aerobic fitness equipment currently in use, including treadmills, stair steppers, stationary bicycles and rowing machines. There will also be a new student lounge with café dining near the lobby. Dr. Jacobs is an avid tennis player, winning five senior world championships for doctors since 1980, and one national U.S. Tennis Association senior championship in 1992. His gift, which has made the new center possible, reflects his belief that education should include not only mental exercise, but physical exercise as well. A premedical student at the University of Illinois and graduate of Loyola University (Ill.) School of Medicine, Jacobs learned about Susquehanna University when investigating colleges with his son, the late Skip Jacobs. His son subsequently attended Susquehanna, graduating in 1965. Since that time, Jacobs said he has spent hundreds of hours on campus, most of them on SU's tennis courts, and has become a good friend of the university. Subsequent to his specialty training at Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia, Jacobs was director of the Department of Ophthalmology at Geisinger Medical Center for 14 years before opening his practice in Sunbury in 1954. He was also an ophthalmologist at Sunbury Community Hospital from 1954 to 1988. His wife, Alice Ann Patterson Jacobs, was president of the Educational Foundation of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) from 1993 to 1997 and now serves as a member of the President's Team of the AAUW Educational Foundation. In addition to serving on Susquehanna University's board of directors, she chaired the Leadership Development Program for the Susquehanna 2000: The Next Challenge capital campaign, which ended June 30, 2000. Components of Susquehanna University's new sports and fitness complex now completed include a new baseball field and Nicholas A. Lopardo Football and Track Stadium. Renovations to existing physical education facilities and construction of a new 51,000-square-foot field house are scheduled for completion the summer of 2001. A reception and dinner to celebrate the successful conclusion of the Susquehanna 2000 campaign will be held Saturday evening, October 28, in the Degenstein Campus Center. Contact: Betsy Robertson 570-372-4119 #br/584#