APPLETON, WIS. — Lawrence University has been named a national winner of the 2016 Healthy Campus Award, the only national recognition of its kind.
Lawrence was one of just six institutions in the country honored by Washington, D.C.-based Active Minds, the nation’s premier nonprofit organization for supporting the mental health of students, which announced the award Tuesday (8/23).
The award recognizes U.S. colleges and universities that demonstrate excellence in prioritizing and promoting the health and well-being of their students.
“I am very enthusiastic about this award as Lawrence has been working hard to investigate and understand wellness behaviors on campus for the last several years,” said President Mark Burstein. “Creating a safe campus culture, where students look out for each other and are empowered to make healthy choices, ensures that our students can be fully present in their educational pursuits.”
Now in its second year, the Healthy Campus Award involves an extensive application process as well as multiple endorsements and interviews. Each applicant is assessed across eight criteria, with winners chosen by a panel of prominent researchers and health and higher education experts.
“Lawrence University stands out because it invests in students’ physical and mental health on a comprehensive scale and for the long term,” said Alison Malmon, executive director and founder of Active Minds. “Lawrence is a model of what’s possible when a college prioritizes a campus culture of health, safety and well-being.”
In selecting Lawrence for the national honor, the award’s review panel cited several steps Lawrence instituted that they considered “best practices”:
• Campus-wide collaboration: Lawrence embarked on a more active role in the health and well-being of the campus eight years ago, resulting in changes to its mission statement and strategic plan. A president’s committee addressed everything from alcohol awareness and mental health resilience to sexual assault prevention. Enterprising efforts helped fund additional staff to support healthy campus goals.
• Integrated and centralized services: Lawrence integrated its counseling, health and recreation services into a Wellness Center, after which student use of health and wellness services increased by 300 percent. Alumni support allowed for the creation of an innovative Mind Spa Center that grams, offers biofeedback sessions that teach students how to understand and control the body and mind’s response to stress.
• Healthy balance statement: As part of an effort to change an achievement-oriented, competitive culture around workload and stress levels, Lawrence requires a healthy balance statement on all syllabi to reinforce the school’s expectation that students, staff and faculty consider wellness when making choices each day.
• Bystander training: Students worked with the administration to require that anyone hosting a party on campus complete a comprehensive bystander training program. Evaluations show the training makes students 92 percent more likely to notice a safety problem and 85 percent more likely to intervene.
According to Active Minds, students enrolled at schools that focus on campus health often find that the programs and services offered there are life changing.
“As a college athlete, mental and physical wellness is a huge part of my life,” said Max Edwards, a senior from Appleton, majoring in economics, and a standout on both the cross country and track teams. “Lawrence has helped me be my healthiest, happiest and most balanced self in the classroom and on the track. The wellness center’s biofeedback sessions helped me manage my pre-race nerves and other areas of my life. I reached an unprecedented level of calmness and focus before my track races and was attentive and cool during high pressure academic exams.”
Joining Lawrence as a 2016 Healthy Campus Award recipient were California State University, Long Beach; Jefferson College; Sacramento State University; School of the Art Institute of Chicago; and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
