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IMPLEMENTING A COMMUNITY COLLEGE WELLNESS PROGRAM ON A SHOESTRING

You find yourself at your college president's traditional autumn party, a rite intended to kick otf the new
academic year. Moving through the crowd, shaking hands, smiling, and taking an occasional sip from your
drink, you eventually find yourself facing the president. He notifies you that he is appointing you to chair
the school’s Wellness Committee—effective the next day. You are honvured and contused: honored because
you've been asked to direct a significant new program at the college, but confused because you don’t know
why you were chosen or what a wellness committee does.

What next? The following day you begin researching the characteristics of a wellness program. You
phone a colleague at another institution, who answers your plea tor names, statistics, demographics,
quotations, and examples of other programs. You visit the library and find out that the term wellness was
coined in the 1950s by a Southern physician named Halbert Dunn. You learn that wellness is yenerally
defined as "the maintenance of balance between the energy fields of the body, the mind, and the spirit as
they move through a continuum of change in the energy field of our environment." You're informed that
wellness has five major characteristics: (1) it is concerned with the whole person, (2) it considers human
beings to be perfectible and willing to take responsibility for their own condition, (3) it is a process rather
than a product, (4) itis dynamic and concerned with positive well-being instead of the mere absence of
disease, and (5) it is participatory and democratic.

Despite having this new information, you convene the first meeting of the Wellness Committee with
trepidation, Fortunately, however, the other members of the group turn out to be creative, motivated, and
knowledgeable. Together, you decide that your activities in the year ahead will proceed according to a
systematic eight-part plan:

|. Defining the purpose of the wellness program

2. Establishing short- and long-term goals and objectives

3. Deciding on a target population

4. Developing and maintaining administrative support

5. Conducting an assessment of interests and needs

6. Identifying methods of publicity

7. Acquiring financial support, facilities, and human resources

8. Executing the program and evaluating its resulls on an ongoing basis

Now you encounter your first big obstacle: a scarcity of money. The president tells you you have $700 in
your budget for the whole year, which isn’t a lot. Immediately you realize that whatever your committee
does must be as efficient and purposeful as possible to take full advantage of its limited funds. Fortunately,
you have the full moral support of your administration.
The Interest Inventory

The wellness committee's first economy-minded project is to administer a written interest inventory to its
lirst year’s target population: all the school’s faculty, staff, and administrators. This inventory yields a
profile of how people on campus currently spend their time and of other activities they would be willing to
explore. It also becomes the basis for all the subsequent plans of the Wellness Committee.
The Fall Fitness Fair

You hold a Fall Fitness Fair on the floor of the college's conference center in conjunction with numerous
community health and safety organizations. The Red Cross, Socieiy for the Prevention of Blindness,
American Cancer Society, County Health Office, American Heart Association, and many other agencies set
up booths at the fair with elaborate equipment and lots of free educational handouts. Their representatives
discuss health issues with passers-by and conduct medical tests which would otherwise cost several times
the $10 fee charged at the fair.

The Fitness Fair drives home the point early on that employees who pay timely attention to their physical
condition are apt to be happier, absent from work less frequently, and more capable of contributing to the

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KOK Community College Leadership Program| The University of Texas at Austin, EDB 348, Austin, Texas 78712

 

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