Wellbeing in the Patrick Leahy Honors College | The Patrick Leahy Honors College | The University of Vermont(title)

PLHC Wellbeing Statement

Grounded in the values of the Patrick Leahy Honors College (PLHC), wellbeing programming and coaching is foundational to our architecture of community and student support. Our community wellbeing vision defines student support holistically and systemically and is central to our advising approach. Wellbeing efforts are led by Associate Director for Wellbeing, Martha Lance, nationally board-certified coaches, members of the advising team, and student leaders. 

The PLHC nurtures a community of care by centering the wellbeing of students, faculty, and staff, in the places where they live, work, and study. The Honors College provides a holistic vision of wellbeing and healthy habits for life-long thriving. Wellbeing in the Honors College is a rigorous intellectual, social, physical, and mental pursuit via an ecological approach to ensure flourishing at both the individual and community levels. PLHC identifies and attends to the specific and unique needs of underserved students. Fundamental to our efforts is an underlying ethic of care that unites learning, wholeness, resiliency, and wellbeing.

PLHC Wellbeing Values

  • Wellbeing defined holistically and systemically
  • Awareness of the social and environmental determinants of wellbeing 
  • Mutual care for the wellbeing of others
  • The encouragement of healthy habits 
  • Health viewed ecologically at both the individual and community levels
  • A conception of wellbeing as relationship based
  • Connecting learning and productivity to wellbeing
  • Recognizing that formal and informal networks of support contribute to wellbeing
  • Reliance on evidence based best practice and theories
  • Recognition that we as a community and as individuals are agents in promoting planetary health

According to the World Health Organization, health promotion focuses on “the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their health.” A community of care that promotes health focuses on both individual behavior and a range of arenas that include social and environmental conditions. We strive to proactively increase individual and community health and reduce factors that negatively impact us.

A guiding document for the PLHC wellbeing initiative is the Okanagan Charter (2015) and its declaration that “health promotion is not just the responsibility of the health sector, but must engage all sectors to take an explicit stance in favor of health, equity, social justice and sustainability for all, while recognizing that the well-being of people, places, and planet are interdependent.”

Guiding Principles of PLHC’s Wellbeing Initiative

  • Wellbeing is embedded into all aspects of the PLHC culture
  • Ethical Practice
  • Collaboration, inclusion, and evidence-based practices guide our programming and wellbeing coaching
  • Coaching for Wellbeing is student driven

Programming

Coaching for Wellbeing

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The PLHC offers coaching for wellbeing for all students. Our coaching approach addresses the sweet spot between advising and therapy. Utilizing the UVM Osher Center’s Wheel of Health, students interested in positive behavior change join nationally board-certified coaches to explore what is important to them. As participants in the program, students set realistic health goals for life-long healthy habits and thriving.  Health coaching supports positive lifestyle choices around sleep and rest, stress reduction, nutrition, work-life balance and mind-body connection. Our coaches are nationally certified through the Board for Health and Wellness Coaching (NBHWC). This certification is the highest professional credential for wellbeing coaching.

General Wellness Programming

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In collaboration with the Department of Culinary Medicine, the PLHC offers programming in setting up your dorm room with nature in mind, engaging with nature on campus and during the winter, creating herbal teas for stress reduction, flower arranging for creating a nature scape indoors, and science-based aromatherapy for creating a positive environment. Culinary Medicine and PLHC offer workshops on creating healthy snacks and opportunities for small groups of students to enjoy “back-to-the table” meals utilizing local produce. 

Other wellbeing programming includes journaling, mindfulness exercises, yoga, and fiber arts.  We continue to build our initiatives based on the needs articulated by students in the PLHC as we strive to creating an inclusive and healthy community that is student centered and complete. 

The Footsteps in Nature Project

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“Footsteps in Nature in Project” led by the PLHC Peer Mentors is a new program intended to increase accessibility to the outdoors for all students. We encourage students to explore natural spots on campus, including Centennial Woods and gardens.  Trips to local hiking trails and the Lake front bring students together for a healthy respite from the rigors of academic life.

Planetary Health

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Planetary health is another focus of the “Footsteps in Nature Project.” Climate concern is part of our current human condition. Hotter summers and warmer winters are impacting our local environments in Vermont. We are not immune to global warming, but there is always hope that our collective will and concern will mitigate the current harm so evident today. In collaboration with the UVM Osher Center for Integrative Health, the PLHC plans to sponsor teach-ins on planetary health and share UVM research and resources pertinent to this important topic.  A communal service project collecting climate stories invites students to record their own stories about the climate and collect the stories of seniors and recent immigrants to Vermont. 

Wellbeing and Belonging

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Wellbeing is essential to our DEI programming and integrated into our mission to create and maintain a relationship-rich environment in the PLHC. Our rich wellbeing programming serves to eliminate equity gaps by addressing students’ basic wellbeing needs as defined by them. Our wellbeing strategies prioritize social wellbeing and consider the social determinates of health in our diverse population. Creating a community of care weaves wellbeing and belonging into the fabric of the Patrick Leahy Honors College.

Meet the Coaches