Sajila Nudrat | Health Editor
Featured image courtesy of Pexels
York University held its second-ever Well-being Summit last Thursday. The event was created for staff, students, faculty, and community members to come together to hear a diverse array of voices, and in so doing, influence and contribute to how well-being is thought of, addressed, and infused into the campus culture.
Jennifer Myers, executive director of athletics and recreation, discussed how the Summit came to be, and the framework that has been developed so far. In 2015, York undertook the creation of a mental health strategic plan. In December 2017, the first Summit was held with over 75 individuals attending, from various areas of the university. The feedback and research from the Summit was used to contribute towards improving the conversation surrounding well-being.
This year, over 100 individuals took part in the three-hour Summit, which featured discussions about several topics related to well-being, as well as activities geared towards improving wellness. When asked about the importance of wellness and starting these conversations, Myers says: “Post-secondary education, and our lives in general, are more and more complex everyday. The notion of wanting everyone to thrive and be successful comes from your own well being. It’s so diverse it can be something like making sure you have access to food, ensuring you’re active, or that the policies on campus are designed for student access.
“It’s a critical conversation because we have an opportunity to impact students. We understand the current campus climate is complex and we’re looking for resolutions that resonate with the people,” adds Myers.
It’s imperative to establish a culture of well-being at York—something that is not a new concept. People are influenced by multiple environments, stressors, and circumstances that can have profound impacts on their physical, emotional, and mental states. Post-secondary institutions are struggling with challenges that are coming forth in regards to the rise in both stress and anxiety experienced by many staff and students on a daily basis. According to Myers, the well-being summit is a “conversation about how we can help everyone on this campus thrive, and have a highly-engaged community that you can take with you when you graduate.”
Lamisaa Mahmud, a first-year financial and business economy student, attended the conference for the first time to see how York conferences operate, and what was going to be said about mental health. “Mental health is really important, especially when you’re a first-year student because you’re trying to adjust to all these new scenarios, and it isn’t talked about in classrooms as much as it should be. I wanted to get a perspective on how mental health is addressed at York,” she says.
“The faculty is really involved in students’ mental health, it’s just not well-known among the students, but there are a lot of services offered from their end that need to be advertised around campus.” When asked about the activities she took part in during the Summit, Mahmud discussed breaking down mental health into different areas and “addressing concerns under classroom, physical activities, nutrition and communities to name a few. We jotted down problems in the area, and possible solutions we could undertake in these areas,” Mahmud adds.
Mahmud believes it’s important to be having these conversation and “if anybody is experiencing something, they should come forward and say something because there are people on campus willing to help.”
