Wellness as Part of the Wolverine Way

By Jessica Priola

The aftershocks of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to be felt in very real ways in the world of education and youth development. A quick Google search turns up hundreds of new scholarly journal articles studying a wide array of impacts including increased anxiety, poor mental health, increased behavioral challenges, significant learning gaps, struggles with absenteeism, and a myriad of other challenges. Bridgton Academy, like many schools, has seen some of these realities first-hand as we work with young men who are emerging from this time.

In the spring of 2022, faculty member Matt Burgess ’88 was announced as the Academy’s newest Laferriere Chair for Excellence in Teaching. This funded professional development award allows a teacher to explore a proposed project over the three-year period for which they serve as chair. Matt’s proposal could not have been timelier, as the entirety of his work is focused on the assessment and better understanding of student wellness and its role in the Bridgton Academy experience.

“Academic and athletic success are well documented during the postgraduate experience and reported back to the Academy both anecdotally from alumni and qualitatively via survey and other data collection methods,” shares Matt. “The third part of this experience is your wellness, wellbeing, spirit, however you want to describe it. At Bridgton Academy, this important aspect of our program has been the least-often studied and addressed.

My goal through the Laferriere Chair is to develop a well-rounded Postgraduate Seminar for students that is supported by a team of caring adults. The Postgraduate Seminar will address topics that may be otherwise missing in our already welldeveloped academic and athletic programs, paying particular attention to student wellbeing. The use of technology to track wellness biometrics will be a key piece of this program, providing insight for follow up and assessment.”

Matt, whose background combines teaching, coaching, and wellness, is uniquely suited to lead this effort. His Laferriere Chair program will take place in three phases over three years, each building upon the prior year, allowing Matt to further modify and expand the Postgraduate Seminar. The first phase, which rolled out this fall, is a trial phase that incorporates a small number of faculty and students. To date, four faculty members have been selected to participate in the program along with twenty students. The students and staff in this beta group have been given a wearable biometric wristband that Matt selected to best gather baseline wellness information. As they go about their day, the wristband collects data related to heart rate, sleep, exertion, and nutrition. Students can input additional information as they choose and journal privately with regards to their wellness choices on a particular day. The biometric data for all participants is uploaded to a dashboard that allows Matt to track how the beta group is performing overall.

One of the earliest themes that Matt has seen from this data collection is related to sleep. “The average hours of sleep have been a bit surprising for program participants. The low end for us is five hours and forty-five minutes; at the high end, we are averaging seven hours and forty-five minutes. So, it’s not necessarily the three or four hours that students may tell us. That said, the tool that we are using also measures the quality of sleep, which has been really eye-opening, for lack of a better expression. We only have one person participating in the program that currently has a high-ranking sleep quality score; everyone else is fair at best. Thinking about the important part that rest plays in our health and wellness has been a teaching moment for a number of the students already.”

Head Strength and Conditioning Coach, Brad West, is one of the early faculty participants in this program and already sees the real time wellness benefits for himself personally, as well as the students he works with. “I have experienced firsthand how factors such as screen time, dinner choices, and sleep hygiene play a big part in determining my sleep efficiency. I sleep about as much as I thought, but now I know that if screens are on when I’m sleeping, or if I eat an unhealthy meal close to bed, that my sleep efficiency will be much lower than normal, and this impacts how I am feeling the following day.”

West goes on to share that the extra focus on wellness through Matt’s Laferriere Chair project has certainly added a new layer of insight for himself and the students with whom he works. “I believe that this program is an excellent first step in leveling up our performance program with studentathletes,” Brad shares. “The students participating in the program generally seem interested, and often learn about their biometric data on their own before I even ask. I think this data is helping studentathletes to understand their bodies more, and learning how certain stressors can affect them. In my own life, this program has helped me exponentially in managing stress. It’s easy for me to pinpoint the days of the week that are most challenging, allowing me to build my schedule out better to better position myself for success. Studying my own biometrics has also helped me to realize when I need to slow down, which I can find tough to do on my own at times.”

In the weight room, Brad is using the biometric data to study recovery for participating students, finding that it gives

Laferriere Chair

The James “Jake” Laferriere Chair for Excellence in Teaching is an endowed professional development fund that is presented on a triennial basis to a faculty member who embodies the very qualities that Jake possessed as a faculty leader at Bridgton Academy. It is presented to a faculty member whose classroom teaching consistently demonstrates excellence in teaching, the ability to inspire students, exceptional leadership skills, a commitment to pedagogical innovation, a strong sense of justice, and a reverence for learning. The Laferriere Chair provides a faculty salary stipend, as well as significant funds to implement professional development programming for both the chairholder, as well as the faculty at large.

him an added layer of understanding as he works with them. “If a student who is part of the wellness program is having an off-week, it’s generally much easier for me to figure out why this may be happening, and see that play out in the data as well. It’s usually a result of insufficient quality sleep, excess stress, or inadequate calorie intake. These are things I can then talk to the student about and try to address.”

Lorenzo Almonte is one of the students that has been wearing the biometric tracker since day one this academic year. As a member of the basketball team, he is actively juggling all the requirements that come with being a student-athlete at Bridgton Academy. “I definitely feel like this program has positively impacted my school year to date,” shared Lorenzo. “One thing I’ve learned right away is that I don’t go to bed early enough or get enough quality sleep. As a student-athlete, I know that my recovery is important, especially in-season given the number of games we play. I’ve learned that quality sleep has a big impact on my recovery, and I’m trying to make changes, like going to bed earlier, to make sure I am helping myself.”

Beth Chagrasulis, another faculty member in the beta phase of the program, has found that the information from the biometrics collected has a natural tie-in to the Nutrition course she taught this fall. “I do refer to these metrics fairly often in my classes now. I try to share with students that data like this is another tool that they can use as they work towards goals of being healthier.”

The first semester of Matt’s program has been an interesting journey into data collection and baseline development in order to better understand where students currently are. Moving forward, Matt will continue to expand upon this effort, with a goal of having fifty percent of the student body participating in the program by year two. The use of surveys and data comparison will allow Matt and others at the Academy to determine how students within the program are performing compared to those who are not in areas such as attendance, grade point average, and overall wellness. By the third year, the entire student body will be invited to participate, taking the key indicators discovered in the first two years to further help students navigate their way to improved wellbeing.

The ultimate goal: to foster healthy students with enhanced awareness of how their wellbeing affects all aspects of life.

“The mission of my Laferriere Chair is to enhance the postgraduate experience through a holistic process of assessment, individual program design, and follow up that demonstrates improvement—adding value to the Bridgton experience for the entire community,” shares Matt. “There is no shortage of post-pandemic evidence that shows young people are in need of this type of support. You can have all the education, training, athletic prowess, and talent in the world—but it will do you no good if you are not keeping your mind, body, and spirit in balance.”