Resilience and Planning for Health and Wellness on Campus

Resilience and Planning for Health and Wellness on Campus 37th Annual SCUP North Atlantic Regional Conference, 2022

― Panelists Vanessa Britto, MD, MSc, FACP Associate Vice President of Campus Life and Student Services, and Executive Director of Health and Wellness Brown University Michelle D. Bowdler, MSPH Associate Dean of Student Affairs, Health, Wellness and Counseling Bentley University Thomas Cordonnier Head of Global Wellbeing for Faculty and Staff Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico

― Moderator Yanel de Angel, FAIA, NOMA Principal, Managing Director Perkins&Will

Through a culture of wellness and intentional, practical strategies the campus can become an ecosystem for caring and mental wellbeing.

The panel session explored the intersection between holistic campus health and wellness and built environments that support resilience and wellbeing for students, staff, and faculty.

Through the conversation, a spatial framework and intentional plan for creating healthier environments and promoting diverse respite activities was uncovered, enabling health educators to advance services and programs that support wellbeing on campus.

Meet the speakers

Vanessa Britto

Michelle D. Bowdler

Thomas Cordonnier

Associate Vice President of Campus Life and Student Services, and Executive Director of Health and Wellness Brown University

Associate Dean of Student Affairs, Health, Wellness and Counseling Bentley University

Former Head of Global Wellbeing for Faculty and Staff Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico

Michelle Bowdler is the Associate

Prior to his role as Head of Global

Dr. Vanessa Britto is a board-certified

Dean of Student Affairs for Health,

Wellbeing for Faculty and Staff at

Internal Medicine physician and

Counseling and Wellness at Bentley

Tecnológico de Monterrey, Thomas

an Assistant Professor of Medicine

University. Prior to this role, she served

was Head of Global Housing & TEC

at the Alpert Medical School at

as the Executive Director of Health

Hospitality, as well as Operations &

Brown University where she serves

and Wellness at Tufts University. She

Student Experience Manager. While

as the Associate Vice President of

is a public health professional whose

focused on the student experience,

Campus Life and Executive Director

areas of expertise include substance

these roles allowed him to understand

of Health and Wellness. At Brown, she

abuse, sexual assault prevention and

how critical the wellbeing of faculty

oversees the areas of Health Services,

treatment, violence prevention, LGBTQ

and staff are in creating a healthy

Counseling and Psychological Services

health, student health, mental health

environment for students. With

(CAPS), BWell Health Promotion,

and development. Bowdler is also the

a background in management,

Student Accessibility Services (SAS)

author of Is Rape a Crime: A Memoir

operations and hospitality, Thomas

and Emergency Medical Services

and Investigation and a Manifesto,

brings a unique lens to implementing

(EMS) – a combined team of over 200

nominated for the National Book

wellbeing programs, informed by

staff and students serving a student

Award for Nonfiction (2020). Her debut

strategic planning. He believes that

body of 10,000. Dr. Britto has held

book focuses on the impact of sex

when faculty and staff are well at a

leadership roles in the field of college

crimes and the ways in which our soci-

personal and professional level, that

health at the local, regional, and

ety too often minimizes our response to

positive energy transfers to students

national levels and has been a student

victims/survivors and makes a call for

too. Thomas recently retired from TEC

affairs professional and administrator

change. Her writing on this topic has

to concentrate efforts in his hospitality

since 2001. She has a Masters of

been published in two anthologies, the

family business.

Science from Brown University and is

New York Times, Ms. Magazine, Psy-

a Fellow in the American College of

chology Today, the American Medical

Physicians. Dr. Britto lectures nationally

Association’s Journal of Ethics, and a

and internationally on health care

number of literary journals.

disparities, women’s health, and healthy team development.

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Yanel de Angel ― Moderator Principal, Managing Director Perkins&Will

Passionate about community resilience, environmental stewardship, and the student experience, Yanel de Angel has been instrumental in the development of Perkins&Will Higher Education practice.

A former member of the Firm’s Diversity Council, a devoted mentor and fierce advocate, Yanel volunteers her time to organizations that advance women and under-represented talent in the design profession. She believes inclusive and authentic engagements during the design process translate into spaces that embody community values leading to student empowerment and success. For three years she co-hosted a live and weekly radio show titled ‘NAMI Latino y La Comunidad,’ a program focused on destigmatizing mental health, educating the community, and promoting wellness.

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What is wellbeing?

― Thomas Cordonnier Wellbeing is not only about physical activities and mental health. It is evolving and holistic. It is affected by our experience and our culture. Wellness is also about the balance of eight dimensions in our lives: emotional, financial, environmental, intellectual, social, occupational, physical, and spiritual. It is not one solution for everyone, it is very personal. ― Vanessa Britto There isn’t a single definition to describe it, but wellness is a sense of fulfillment, a sense of peace and calm, and a sense of connectedness within yourself.

It’s more than just not being ill. It’s about finding respite, delay, a pause, or an extension.

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Resilience and Planning for Health and Wellness on Campus

How does your institution assess health and wellness campus priorities given the institutional challenges, and how do you establish priorities? ― Michelle D. Bowdler Colleges and universities often consider academics, academic and residential buildings, first, but the services we provide are even more essential to the support of health and wellness on campus. Every institution should consider the experience of the students first. This means listening to students and providing an environment that is safe and inviting. To make it impactful, this environment should integrate holistic health and counseling services. ― Vanessa Britto Our goal is to give students the kind of experience that will support them to fully engage. We try to create the types of spaces that will allow them to grow and fulfill their educational aspirations. Some students are at risk. To begin to address this on our campus health and counseling services are in colocated spaces. ― Thomas Cordonnier Each human is different. We need to understand that, so that we can create physical spaces and programs to reflect the individual needs of students, faculty, and staff. We rely on surveys and assessments which guide our holistic planning efforts of not just health and wellness services considering the entire campus.

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Could you share practical ways to go about mapping spaces that align with programs and services offered on campus? Understanding demographics and that everyone is different, how do you choreograph the student experience? ― Thomas Cordonnier The question is not only about buildings – the entire campus needs to be a wellbeing place. It starts with holistic planning. The mix of spaces and buildings is supported by a robust program of services – we train faculty and staff, including custodial staff, to be able to provide emergency response if someone is in crisis. We also have a bi-lingual 24/7 hotline available to students, faculty, and staff. The counselors are trained to provide assistance not only with mental health services but with financial, and personal advice.

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Resilience and Planning for Health and Wellness on Campus

― Vanessa Britto We have had to re-imagine health and wellness services at Brown University.

It was an institutional priority, and we thought intentionally about it. Our new residence hall, Sternlicht Commons, brings together several programs instrumental to the student’s physical and emotional wellbeing. This was an extraordinary opportunity to be innovative. The center creates a campus-wide environment that guides students as they learn how to best care for themselves physically and emotionally. We focused on micro- and macro-adjacencies helping us to de-stigmatize mental health. ― Michelle D. Bowdler Residential life and dining spaces are very important. Students gather around the table; this is where important experiences are shared. These should be multi-functional facilities that serve large groups of people, but also need to work well for people in solitude, people who need to feel less alone.

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Why is a gap analysis critical to establish a health and wellness framework plan? How do you identify gaps and inconsistencies in respite spaces to strategize about an intentional framework plan? ― Vanessa Britto Students are so over-programmed: they need a blank canvas, they need to be able to get away from being over-committed - respite spaces on campus are much needed. Planning spaces and services that support the student experience, and making sure these places are uplifting and give you a sense of healing is a long process. ― Michelle D. Bowdler Fundraising for health and wellness is a priority. This is so important for the campus community. Focus on services and if space is a constraint, turn to modular space capsules. ― Thomas Cordonnier The campus is a wellbeing space, not only for us, but for the local community.

We have also incorporated a reflection space – Punto Blanco, as we want to prioritize the practice of silence, reflection, and meditation to promote a sense of development in a spiritual dimension. Our goal is to provide comprehensive education with a focus on people and their mental health.

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Resilience and Planning for Health and Wellness on Campus

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Yanel de Angel Principal, Managing Director yanel.deangel@perkinswill.com +16174063425

225 Franklin Street Suite 1100 Boston, MA 02110