LEFRAK FOUNDATION CENTER FOR WELL-BEING

The mission of the Francine A. LeFrak Foundation Center for Well-Being is to unite initiatives that address the key dimensions of health and wellness, using holistic well-being support to propel success throughout the Barnard community.

Announced in fall 2020, the Francine LeFrak Center serves as a hub for wellness-related initiatives across campus and supports a 360-degree perspective of personal wellbeing: physical, mental, and financial. The centrality of the Francine LeFrak Center’s physical location in Barnard Hall will ensure that it will become a signature space on campus and will amplify the importance of holistic well-being, especially for girls and women.

The Francine LeFrak Center is setting the new standard for well-being in higher education — and education at all levels and in all settings — by applying a wide lens that includes multiple dimensions of well-being: physical, mental, and financial, using a framework that is inclusive of all members of the community, and creating scaffolding that establishes the knowledge, skills, and behaviors necessary for well-being throughout that individual’s life.

The first floor of the LeFrak Center in Barnard Hall will be the home of a new 4,000-squarefoot fitness center, a mental well-being support space, and a financial well-being meeting space, a healthy food vending space, an open Wellness Commons for casual seating, and seminar rooms. There will also be a multi-purpose, 225seat theatre/classroom/ event space on the lower level and the mezzanine level will have a new locker room, a lounge for women athletes, a low stimulation room and the Alcohol and Substance Awareness Program meeting room, and theatre support space.

We are pleased to provide innovative programming to support wellness before the doors of the LeFrak Center open in Barnard Hall in 2024. We are busily putting together a full calendar of programming for this coming year and will release it later in August. Programs offered this past year included monthly weekend Wellness Walk and Talks in Riverside Park on topics including understanding credit, accessing mental health resources, understanding the role of hormones, exploring mental health support in the Asian American/ Pacific Islander community, introducing the College’s Public Health Response Team, and an ask-me-anything conversation with Dr. Marina Catallozzi, Vice President for Health and Wellness, Chief Health Officer, and Leslie Grinage, Vice President for Student Experience and Dean of the College. We also offered Friday Lunch and Learn financial literacy programming throughout the year with a special focus on Access Barnard students and a student book group. At the end of each semester we instituted a Wellness Where You Are pop up space on campus during Midnight Breakfast, and throughout reading weeks which we provided wellness snacks and selfcare products.

We have a remarkable corps of LeFrak Student Health and Wellness Ambassadors on staff to help promote all of our programming and we look forward to introducing them to you. Our office is located in Milbank 115, just down the hall from Access Barnard. Please come by to say hello to Dr. Catallozzi!