Well Student

Primary medical care and counseling services are prominent among most colleges' health programs. Barnard College also offers Well-Woman, a peer awareness group dedicated to educating students about their health on a uniquely routine basis. While Well-Woman is appropriate for Barnard's all-female student body, Columbia should expand on the idea to introduce a similarly ubiquitous peer-education program for all of its students.

Well-Woman is composed of two professional staff members along with 18 peer educators—students who undergo a week-long training session in August, an additional training day before spring semester, and weekly meetings throughout the academic year. Through workshops, office hours, and overtly incorporating members of the student community, Well-Woman promotes healthy eating, stress reduction, and safe relationships with a goal of making wellness a constant rather than crisis- or illness-driven priority. One of the only Columbia programs that boasts peer educators is the Men's Peer Education Program, but it focuses mainly on male sexual violence. Go Ask Alice! provides general health information, but is described as an Internet resource. While providing information in a private setting, it does not offer the personal relationships that Well-Woman provides.

Columbia should reach out to the greater student body by including peer educators in its health-services program. While certain programs, such as workshops for eating-disorder prevention, may seem more relevant to women than men, they are no more relevant to women at Barnard than women at Columbia, and they should be available to men as well. By incorporating peer educators into its programs, Health Services at Columbia would be able to provide universally accessible information on general wellness in a casual, peer-to-peer setting. While some Columbia students run health-related programs, they are often narrow in scope or are geared toward students only in times of particular need—Stressbusters are most visible during finals, Alice! is largely an online service, and the Rape Crisis/Anti-Violence Support Center mainly offers programs for sexual violence. Columbia should implement a single, primarily student-staffed program under Health Services that incorporates all aspects of healthy living. In this way, the University can encourage positive habits rather than only gearing programs toward negative ones.

For many students, college is the first time they are living independently, and it is essential that they are able to use this time to learn how to do so healthfully. Columbia should learn from Well-Woman's informal health promotion service to teach students how to lead balanced lives on day-to-day basis.