The Division of Student Life fosters student success by creating and promoting inclusive educationally purposeful services and activities within and beyond the classroom. The departmental program review process empowers departments within the Division of Student Life to critically evaluate their work and their effect on the UI student experience through a lens of continuous improvement.

Student Wellness engaged in an American College Health Association (ACHA) Standards program review in February 2021. The process included a self-assessment review by staff members in Student Wellness. Reviewers included Tom Szigethy (from Duke University), Linda LaSalle (from Penn State University), and Mara Cheney (internal reviewer). They hosted meetings with staff members, stakeholders, and campus partners. Student Wellness created the following action plan in response to the program review team's recommendations.

Table of contents

Recommendations

  1. Holistic definition of holistic wellness
  2. Build capacity for universal prevention initiatives through partnerships
  3. Develop learning and behavioral outcomes
  4. Create dedicated wellness space
  5. Evolve assessment measures
  6. Align institutional resources
  7. Increase efforts to work with faculty
  8. Assess graduate and professional student needs
  9. Review messaging in programs
  10. Increase efforts related to diversity, equity and inclusion

Recommendation #1

Create a holistic definition of holistic wellness to be utilized in all areas of service across the institution.

Consider the following questions when defining holistic wellness:

  • What is wellness?
  • What are the dimensions (areas/aspects) of well-being?
  • Is wellness purely the absence of sickness or does it include emotional, spiritual, environmental, cultural, social aspects?
  • What is the goal of wellness/well-being? Is it self-care or is it about creating a community that promotes and fosters health and well-being?
  • How can non-western values shape the definition?
  • Does the definition and the dimensions include all people (atheists vs religious; eastern vs western cultural values; indigenous vs non-indigenous)
  • How do we measure the increase of well-being?
  • How can synergy between the definition of wellness and the Foundation for Growth Mindset be maximized?

Year 3 Plan

  • Continue work with Well-being & Mental Health Campus Collaborative

Success measures and updates

  • A draft definition of well-being was created by the Well-being Work Group. (spring 2021)
  • To advance the work around holistic well-being and support the Division of Student Life’s goals, several units/initiatives have been aligned under the Office of the Dean of Students under the Well-Being and Basic Needs umbrella, including Student Wellness. (summer 2021)
  • The Well-Being & Mental Health Campus Collaborative has been charged with outlining strategic priorities and a 3-year plan to meet our vision for the University of Iowa to embed well-being and mental health into all aspects of campus culture and, leverage research, collaboration, and action to improve the well-being of our campus, the state, and the world. The Collaborative consists of participants who oversee mutually reinforcing activities around health and well-being on campus or in the community. (fall 2021)
  • The University of Iowa released a draft strategic plan which has five goals, one of which is holistic well-being and success. The Well-Being and Mental Health Campus Collaborative has been charged with much of this work. (spring 2022)

Recommendation #2

Establish a faculty/student advisory committee to work in partnership with the Student Wellness office and build capacity for universal prevention initiatives.

  • Shift the responsibility for multiple indicated and selective activities to other departments to develop stronger capacity within SW to support institutional universal prevention strategies.
  • Heighten the contributions of other departments to student well-being by having them lead and plan wellness-focused events with consultation from Student Wellness.

Year 3 Plan

  • Continue work with Well-being & Mental Health Campus Collaborative Steering Team.
  • Consider additional shifts once we know more about which universal prevention strategies are indicated.
  • Create a faculty guide for classroom well-being and share with colleges.
  • Share NCHA data with colleges and departments and consult with them on programming/changes that can be implemented.

Success measures and updates

  • The Well-being and Mental Health Campus Collaborative Steering Team has been meeting regularly. Student Wellness Associate Director is a member. (spring 2022)
  • Eliminated body composition events and the 5K/10K Training Program. Fall 2021: Decided to discontinue the Student Health Fair. (spring 2022)
  • Mirage is co-chaired now with MISSE staff member. (summer 2021)
  • College Transition Workshops have new well-being class content with supplementary video. (fall 2021)
  • Decided to discontinue the Student Health Fair. Spring 2022: Training was provided to Center for Inclusive Academic Excellence coaches on how to have conversations with students about stress management, sleep, and nutrition. (fall 2021)
  • Collaborated with the Center for Inclusive Academic Excellence to host a Wellness Week for their students. (spring 2022 and spring 2023)
  • Purchase a one-year subscription of the eCHECKUP to GO Well-Being screening, which other departments can direct their students to take. (spring 2022)
  • The Well-being and Mental Health Campus Collaborative subcommittees started meeting. Associate Director is a co-chair of the Mental Health & Resilience subcommittee. Two Senior Behavioral Health Consultants are on the Substance Use and Food, Nutrition, and Movement subcommittees. (spring 2023)
  • Expanded College Transitions course content to College Success Seminar. (fall 2022)
  • Offered mini consultation for students in UI REACH. (fall 2022)
  • Created a faculty guide for classroom well-being. (fall 2022)

Recommendation #3

#3 Develop learning and behavioral outcomes for the campus community to determine the achievement of a well community.

  • Identify behaviors that demonstrate wellness based on the institution’s holistic definition of wellness
  • Identify behaviors that demonstrate wellness based on the institution’s holistic definition of wellness
  • Ensure that budget decisions align with learning and behavior outcomes

Year 3 Plan

  • Measure selected KPIs with data collection efforts according to the Well-being and Mental Health Campus Collaborative Steering Team’s plans.
  • Change programmatic assessments to include consistent well-being questions.
  • Explore new well-being assessment options, including WISHES and new Well-Being Assessment that will be under ACHA starting in fall 2023 (formerly Wake Forest).

Success measures and updates

  • Well-being & Mental Health Campus Collaborative Steering Team has started looking at existing data to develop priorities (spring 2022)
  • Associate Director joined the Well-being & Mental Health Evaluation Framework group for the Well-being & Mental Health Campus Collaborative. (spring 2023)
  • Change program/service assessments to include consistent well-being questions recommended by Well-being & Mental Health Campus Collaborative. (spring 2023)

Recommendation #4

Create a dedicated wellness space on campus that supports the mission and initiatives of a wellness community. Identify resources for a new student wellness facility (financial, space, and physical structure)

  • Utilize elements of WELL Building Standards, to the degree possible
  • Consider adding elements from nature within the building structure so that students and staff can experience wellness from each of their senses. Nature can add to the sense of well-being. Eastern thought often incorporates elements of wood, water, sound or color to represent well-being.
  • Utilize green building materials and design that are demonstrated to support well-being
  • Student Wellness should be on the entry level to promote visibility
  • Building should be designed to maximize sunshine
  • Space for meditation and relaxing should be visible and easily accessible
  • Develop wellness space to be inviting to students to encourage wellness promotion in their daily lives

Year 3 Plan

  • Continued advocating and planning for a new Well-Being Center in IMU.
  • Advocate new wellness space to include prominent natural light in employee space (in addition to student spaces) in DSL feedback sessions to support holistic well-being.

Success measures and updates

  • Construction of new facility
  • Board of Regents approved Well-Being Center (summer 2022)

Recommendation #5

Evolve assessment measures to be more effective and less labor intensive

  • Utilize standardized assessment tools to measure well-being outcomes across a group of programs; for example, use tools, such as the Flourishing Scale, to measure flourishing and/or resilience.
  • Administer assessment tools for program participants at a prescribed time once per semester; for example, select one month per semester when assessment tools will be implemented across multiple programs and services. Use this approach in lieu of conducting pre and post surveys for every program.
  • Utilize qualitative approaches to gather feedback from participating students about the impact of programming on their well-being.
  • Utilize faculty expertise to identify time and cost-effective approaches to assessment.
  • Administer the NCHA/ACHA to every other year, instead of annually.

Year 3 Plan

  • Will not administer NCHA in spring 2024.
  • Tie current programs' assessment to campus-wide KPIs, as appropriate, and ensure that our services are intending to make impact on KPIs. 
  • Change programmatic assessments to include consistent well-being questions.
  • Explore new well-being assessment options, including WISHES and the WBA.
  • Once campus-level key performance indicators are identified, incorporate into assessments as relevant.
  • Continue working with the College of Public Health faculty on e-cigarette and poly-substance use projects. 

Success measures and updates

  • Decided to administer the National College Health Assessment every other year, instead of annually. (spring 2021)
  • Decided to assess some programs for effectiveness only every other year. (spring 2021)
  • Decided to cut back on evaluations for the Healthy Hawk Challenge program, which has already demonstrated effectiveness. (spring 2021)
  • Created dashboard for NCHA data, which will reduce time spent analyzing data. (spring 2021)
  • Critically looked at the assessment of programs and made some changes to assessment questions. (summer 2021)
  • Made the second round of changes to existing assessments. (spring 2022)
  • Change program/service assessments to include consistent well-being questions recommended by Well-being & Mental Health Campus Collaborative. (summer 2023)
  • Started measuring flourishing and resilience through the new NCHA-III tool. (spring 2021)
  • Critically looked at the assessment of programs and made some minor adjustments. The Perceived Stress Scale is used as part of the Koru Mindfulness assessment. (summer 2021)
  • The Self-Compassion scale was used as part of the assessment for the new Connection & Resilience Workshop. (spring 2022)
  • Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) scale was added to Koru Mindfulness assessment. (fall 2022)
  • Decided to assess some programs for effectiveness only every other year. (spring 2021)
  • Critically looked at assessment of programs and added some additional questions to gather qualitative feedback. (summer 2021)
  • Developed and implemented assessment for two new programs (Quit Like a Woman book club and Connection & Resilience Workshop), with heavy emphasis on qualitative feedback. (spring 2022)
  • Associate Director has been attending roundtable discussions with different groups of graduate and professional students about mental health. (spring 2023)
  • Change program/service assessments to include consistent well-being questions recommended by Well-being & Mental Health Campus Collaborative, which includes a couple of new open-ended questions. (summer 2023)
  • College of Nursing faculty tested and provided feedback on the new sleep app, RISE. (fall 2022)

Recommendation #6

Align institutional resources to maximize universal approach to prevention

  • Support efforts that reinforce the concept that wellness is everyone’s responsibility, for ex; build wellness into the institutional strategic plan.
  • For a comprehensive wellness model ensure all voices are included in decision making process such as undergraduate students, grad/prof students, faculty and wellness staff.

Year 3 Plan

  • Continue work with Well-being & Mental Health Campus Collaborative including the identification and implementation of effective universal prevention approaches.
  • Connect with colleges and departments to share student data that helps them think about the needs of students and how they can incorporate strategies/initiatives to address those needs.

Success measures and updates

  • Associate Director attended the Collective Impact Action Summit. (spring 2021 & spring 2022)
  • Associate Director started attending regular meetings with other university and college department directors whose departments serve as the backbone under a Collective Impact model. (summer 2021)
  • Associate Director attended the International Health Promoting Campuses Symposium. (spring 2022)
  • The Well-being and Mental Health Campus Collaborative subcommittees started meeting. Associate Director is a co-chair of the Mental Health & Resilience subcommittee. Two Senior Behavioral Health Consultants are on the Substance Use and Food, Nutrition and Movement subcommittees. (summer 2022)
  • The Well-being and Mental Health Campus Collaborative subcommittees developed areas of priority to inform future strategies. (spring 2023)
  • The University of Iowa released a strategic plan which has five goals, one of which is holistic well-being and success. The Well-being and Mental Health Campus Collaborative is charged with much of this work. (spring 2022)
  • Well-being Collaboration hosted several focus groups with various staff and student stakeholders. (summer 2021 & fall 2021)

Recommendation #7

Increase efforts to work with faculty

Year 3 Plan

  • Connect with more colleges and departments to share student data that helps them think about the needs of students and how they can incorporate strategies/initiatives to address those needs.
  • Create a faculty guide for classroom well-being and share with colleges.
  • Meet with Center for Teaching to discuss potential ways to collaborate on training for faculty.

Success measures and updates

  • Reached out to College Transitions course coordinator to discuss how Student Wellness can help with wellness content (in process spring 2021)
  • College Transition Workshops have new well-being class content with supplementary video. (fall 2021)
  • Created National College Health Assessment reports for specific professional colleges (Medicine, Law, Pharmacy & Dentistry). (fall 2021)
  • Started offering in-person Koru retreats, which are open to faculty and staff (as well as students). (fall 2021)
  • Expanded College Transitions course content to College Success Seminar. (fall 2022)
  • Assisted with the implementation of a wellness coaching referral process for patients at UIHC and Student Health as part of the Exercise is Medicine initiative with the Department of Health & Human Physiology and liveWELL. At Student Health, students who are not meeting physical activity recommendations for health are referred to Student Wellness and given a list of local fitness resources. At UIHC, an automated referral process is used for patients who are not meeting recommendations; they are asked if they’d like free health coaching. If they are, they are directed to an interest form based on who they are - community members (HHP), students (SW) and faculty/staff (LW). (fall 2022)
  • Asked college of all students on the National College Health Assessment survey. Will share results with each college. (spring 2023)
  • Create a faculty guide for classroom well-being. (spring 2023)

Recommendation #8

Assess graduate and professional student needs and adjust/offer programming accordingly

Year 3 Plan

  • Adjust/offer services to meet grad & professional student needs.
  • Create tailored reports for colleges, with comparisons to graduate and professional student samples, and share the data with colleges.
  • Continue cooking workshops for graduate and professional student groups/colleges.

Success measures and updates

  • Associate Director co-chaired Division of Student Life Graduate & Professional Student Needs Assessment Work Group which included a survey of all graduate & professional students and eleven listening sessions. (summer & fall 2021)
  • Created National College Health Assessment reports for the Graduate College and specific professional colleges (Medicine, Law, Pharmacy & Dentistry). (fall 2021)
  • Reports from the Graduate and Professional Student Needs Assessment Work Group were disseminated and reported on. These included a general report, college reports, and Division of Student Life departments and units serving graduate & professional students. (spring 2022)
  • Associate Director started meeting weekly to discuss Graduate College mental health supports, including events and education. (spring 2022)
  • Offered a Koru Mindfulness Workshop available only to graduate and professional students. (summer 2022)
  • Offered an option on website for students to request appointments outside normal business hours. (summer 2022)
  • Offered two cooking workshops specifically for graduate/professional students (Carver College of Medicine & Neuroscience). (spring 2023)

Recommendation #9

Take a careful look at messaging in programs to ensure it fits spectrum of health behaviors and emphasizes care

Year 3 Plan

  • Employ and educate students & staff on person-first language, particularly when encountering people with substance use disorders.
  • Use inclusive communication guide to assist with outreach.

Success measures and updates

  • Programs and presentations were reviewed to ensure messaging fit the spectrum of health behaviors and emphasized care. (summer 2021)
  • Social media engagement is tracked on a monthly basis. (ongoing)
  • A section of the resource page on the Student Wellness website was added with health equity resources. (spring 2022)
  • Social media analysis was conducted and opportunities for improvement were identified. (spring 2022)
  • Ordered stickers with positive mental health and body image messages. (spring 2023)

Recommendation #10

Increase efforts related to diversity, equity, and inclusion

Year 3 Plan

  • Advocate for design standards that relate to well-being (e.g., green spaces, gender-inclusive restrooms) as new spaces are being explored (e.g., Cultural Neighborhood).
  • Explore idea of increasing programming on campus green spaces.

Success measures and updates

  • A meditation event was held in green space on campus as part of On Iowa. (fall 2021)
  • Created a document for staff called Notes for Inclusive Presentations and Communications that brings best practices together in one place. (fall 2021)
  • Black and Goal’d Remix tailgates were expanded to all but one home football game. (fall 2021)
  • A section of the resource page on the Student Wellness website was added with health equity resources. (spring 2022)
  • CIAE Wellness Week was offered for the first time, with plans to offer annually. (spring 2022)
  • Several staff meetings included professional development discussions on DEI-related topics (shared book or chapter readings, webinars, videos, museum tours, facilitated discussion with Inclusive Education & Strategic Initiatives staff, etc.). (ongoing)
  • Chairs were purchased for the CRWC and Westlawn to be more inclusive of larger bodies. (spring 2022 & spring 2023)
  • Dietitian co-led BUILD session on Weight Bias. (fall 2022 & spring 2023)
  • A comprehensive list of trainings were offered for Alcohol Awareness Month & Collegiate Recovery Day, including training for students and faculty/staff. (spring 2023)