Outdated Dominion College launches fill-in wellness courses

“Howdy school! Are you attending a convention, occurring trip, taking a sick day or wish to take a break out of your normal lecture? Think about having employees from the Recreation and Wellness Well being Promotion staff are available in and lead an interesting and academic presentation throughout your class time!”

So reads a circulating announcement from Outdated Dominion College’s Rec Properly employees, inviting professors to contemplate their guest-lecturer companies when conflicts with educating schedules come up.

What it’s: Well being educator Steven Gunzelman says that the brand new service—referred to as “Don’t Cancel That Class!”—can be obtainable to conflict-free professors who merely see worth in connecting their college students with key well being info they won’t in any other case get.

“One among our strategic cornerstones is well being and well-being, so we actually needed to develop one thing that may go into the lecture rooms and meet with college students in that form of setting, the place we are able to speak about these sorts of issues that they won’t be taught different methods, like feeling stress or sleep points,” he explains. “College students are right here to, after all, get their lecturers. However so as to have the ability to graduate and get these life abilities, they want well being and well-being. It’s a giant element of [student success], as properly.”

ODU follows the collective affect strategy to well-being, which means that no single division or workplace on campus owns this duty, or—to place it one other means—that everybody owns this duty. Rec Properly, for its half, affords packages all through campus on all kinds of matters. However the “Don’t Cancel That Class!” initiative permits professors to select a visitor speak from the next checklist of 5, beginning with one regarding using alcohol and different medicine:

• AOD & Me: Security With Substances
• Burn Vibrant, Not Out: Methods for Managing Stress
• Meals for Thought: Vitamin 101
• Play It Secure: The Lowdown on Secure Intercourse
• Zzz’s for a Higher You: A Sleep Hygiene Journey

The why and the way: Gunzelman says the checklist is knowledgeable, partially, by the highest 4 well being campus well being issues, based mostly on inner information gleaned from the American School Well being Affiliation’s Nationwide School Well being Evaluation: stress, anxiousness, despair and sleep.

This tracks with Inside Larger Ed’s personal Scholar Voice survey collection, which in 2024 discovered that just about all college students stated stress was impacting their capability to focus, be taught and carry out properly academically, both an amazing deal (43 p.c) or some (42 p.c), and fewer than half (42 p.c) rated their psychological well being as wonderful or good. And in one other 2023 Scholar Voice survey that requested about sleep, 60 p.c of respondents stated getting extra of it was a prime well being objective.

ODU professors inquisitive about scheduling a visitor lecture can fill out this type. Gunzelman says the primary to schedule a visitor lecture was a professor of engineering, who needed college students to be taught extra about managing stress. He expects this to be a very well-liked matter.

Whereas the present “Don’t Cancel That Class” employees is small, Gunzelman’s hope is that it is going to be in a position to accommodate as many requests as doable and probably develop matter choices with time. As for measuring affect, Gunzelman initially plans to solicit suggestions from college students concerning the usefulness of the data shared and the way doubtless it’s to affect their habits going ahead.

The coed suggestions may even assist employees members refine their strategy.

“Can we add in additional engagement, or can we add in additional matters which are extra geared towards college students?” he says, for instance. Gunzelman additionally means that professors encourage scholar participation, “whether or not or not it’s shock, whether or not or not it’s a plan, whether or not it’s constructed into the syllabus for credit score, or in the event that they wish to be a part of it and are nonetheless within the room with us.”

Don’t cancel that class: ODU is one in all a rising variety of establishments to supply a Don’t Cancel That Class–type initiative. The College of Minnesota at Morris, for instance, affords one that features workshops on skilled improvement and educational abilities equivalent to time administration, monetary literacy and résumé constructing.

Applications of that nature spotlight the connection between lecturers and different pillars of scholar success, equivalent to well being and wellness. However the common observe of discovering options to canceling course classes, particularly a number of course classes, can be thought of a finest observe in school work. The English division on the College of Louisville, for instance, suggests rescheduling classes (together with by way of synchronous on-line classes), asking a school colleague to fill in or assigning college students an unbiased studying train or asynchronous lesson.

Does your establishment have a special form of don’t-cancel-that-class initiative? Inform us about it.