Wellness & Rec Wellness & Rec

MESSIAH'S PLAN FOR CAMPUS FITNESS

WRITTEN

BY ETHAN DYRLI DESIGNED BY AMBER SWAISGOOD

Getting involved with student programming relating to wellness, exercise, and mental health may look different for students next year. Starting next semester, Wellness and Rec, the executive organization aimed at providing programming for wellness of mind, body, and soul on campus, will no longer exist as we know it.

But what does that mean in practice? Well, for those concerned, the programming formerly provided by Wellness and Rec is not going anywhere. Instead, the club is splitting up into independent clubs instead of continuing as one executive organization.

This change comes shortly after the Wellness and Rec’s formation. Created in 2022, the organization was formed by students to combine a number of independent clubs focused on wellness: Minds Matter, Outdoors Club, Intramural Sports, and certain aspects of the Fitness Center.

According to Kris Hansen-Kieffer, Vice Provost for Student Success and Engagement, these changes came due to a restructuring of positions as Messiah implements part of the current University strategic plan related to community wellness designed to bring in revenue and provide experiential learning opportunities for students. This initiative has two main outputs: the development of community engagement in the fitness center and the launching of PREP - Preventative Rehabilitative Exercise Programs.

Hansen-Kieffer, who received a Master’s in degree in Exercise Science from South Dakota State University, will transition from her role as Vice Provost to the newly created role - Director of PREP.

“The whole concept of PREP is, people are covered by their insurance from a certain point, and then they are kind of dropped from their insurance and don’t know where to go to continue their rehab, exercise,” Hansen-Kieffer said.

Kevin Ogden, Director of Community Wellness Initiatives and Campus Recreation, is excited for PREP’s ability to provide a home for those who find themselves between the care they received during billable coverage and expensive paid-out-ofpocket service.

“I think there’s some individuals who don’t feel comfortable in either,” Ogden said. “They don’t feel comfortable in the gym, they don’t have the money to pay me $100 per session for physical training, or it just doesn’t fit with them, they don’t want that.”

This program will allow for both internal and external clients to use Messiah’s facilities while following an individualized exercise plan designed to be completed in the fitness center. It will also provide opportunities for students from the department of Health, Nutrition, and Exercise Science to pursue internships within PREP, as well as opportunities for Occupational and Physical Therapy students to work with clients with Parkinson’s.

In addition, the Fitness Center will continue to provide community members access to the Falcon Fitness Center, much like they would with any other gym membership.

“You can imagine, some of those populations can come when the fitness center’s not being used as much,” Hansen-Kieffer said. “We have these big gaps where nobody is up there.”

In this restructuring, the duties of professionals within the fitness center were shifted to accommodate the new initiatives. This included Ogden’s role, which previously was responsible for advising Wellness and Rec. According to institutional policies implemented by SGA, in order for an executive organization to remain executive, its advisor must be a member of the COE with their advisor responsibilities written into their job description.

“To hit certain strategic initiatives, it was no longer in my job description to advise the executive org. Wellness and Recreation.” Ogden said. “It’s a significant part of my job description, so being able to find someone else on campus that they would be able to write in that significant of a job duty, it was just impossible to find.”

Without an advisor, Wellness and Rec was faced with the difficult news that it would not be possible for Wellness and Rec to continue as an executive organization.

According to Kate Kreiger, president of Wellness and Rec, the news that Wellness and Rec would have to change course didn’t come easy at first.

“Initially, there was a bit of shock because we didn’t see it coming when we were first told,” Kreiger said. “But once you sit in it, it’s kind of out of anyone’s control.”

After deliberating with each other, with their teams and with their advisors, they decided that the best option was for Wellness and Rec as a title to cease as an executive organization while allowing each club to continue independently. Minds Matter will pursue executive status again, Outdoors Club is reverting back to a chartered club, and student wellness will be handled by the Student Wellness Executive, a new position under SAB.

Other programming is being continued by different offices on campus, such as Intramural Sports, which will continue to operate under the Office of Student Engagement.

According to Faith Swarner, President of Minds Matter, the Wellness and Rec team is confident in each of their club’s future. Still, seeing Wellness and Rec go so soon isn’t easy.

“We’ve just done so much and we’ve grown a lot with each other and with our leader this year, Swarner said. “And it was just really sad to hear that that would be ending and we wouldn’t be able to grow it into the future that we were seeing it go towards.”

As an executive organization, Wellness and Rec received a larger portion of funding, including funding that allows for certain leaders within their club to be paid through a Leadership Grant, designed to compensate student leaders for the time they spend on programming. Executive status also includes more support and interaction from other executive organizations and professional development opportunities.

While Minds Matter is likely to continue as an executive organization next semester, Outdoors Club, which was chartered prior to coming under Wellness and Rec, is committed to pivoting back to chartership. However, losing that financial and institutional support isn’t something that concerns Lauren Parrish, current President of Outdoors Club.

“I think the more time goes on and the more I am in dialogue about what comes next for the Outdoors Club… I am less and less concerned,” said Parrish. “There isn’t anything we can’t do on our own.”

“Executive status sounds like the best thing possible on paper, but I think sometimes, when you look at your individual club and the needs of your team and of the student body, you can actually function just as well.”

The sudden change in the clubs future raises questions about how much of a club’s future depends on them maintaining an advisor in their position. According to Hansen-Kieffer, if a club’s advisor were to retire or stop holding that position, the process of deciding how to fill that role would fall to the Dean, the Provost.

“There would be a process of the Dean and the Provost, and whoever is deciding, ‘Hey, the next person we hire, are we going to give some loading,” Hansen-Kiefer said. “It would have to be this weighing of all the things to decide if they would do that… that would be a big conversation.”

On the other hand, Hansen-Kieffer explained that while restructuring of roles or losing an advisor could impact the future of executive organizations and clubs, the input of students also plays a major role.

“It’s true that reorganization could impact it, it’s also true that students could decide, 'That's not an executive organization anymore,’ or ‘We’re not going to give money to that anymore,’” Hansen-Kieffer said.

As for the present situation facing Wellness and Rec, Student Body President Pauline Deutchue Tchouako sees this as a learning moment in providing students with the opportunities to voice their opinions on changes to student programming in the future.

“From the club perspective, I’m wondering if this will discourage people from trying to be executive clubs,” Deutcheu said. “Because this is a new executive, they all came together, formed something, and then it fell apart very quickly even though the student leaders were working very hard to keep it together.”

“From the university standpoint, we’ve given a lot of feedback and should something like this happen again, we’ve already been assured that their way of handling it will be very different, because a big part of it was this lack of communication. Everything happened very quickly, and it was just hard from the student’s perspective.”

Going forward, the Wellness and Rec team are working with their advisors and teams to look towards the future and carry on with the forward momentum they worked to establish this year.

“Even though things are changing, we’re trying to move forward in another direction that will move just as well,” Swarner said.

For Swarner, being a part of Wellness and Rec will give Minds Matter a new perspective on holistic wellness that she hopes will carry into next year.

“I’m really confident that our new advisor and our new staff will be able to work with what we have and what we’ve learned from working with well and rec to make just a really good Minds Matter and to positively impact the campus,” Swarner said.

Despite undergoing so much change, the Wellness and Rec team remains confident in their plans and in the fact that no student programming will be dropped.

“Outdoors Club and Minds Matter will still have programming, it might look a little different, and student wellness will still have its own programming as well,” Kreiger said. “But it will still be there, so that’s what matters.”