The William Magee Center at the South Campus Recreation Center will host their annual student wellness fair, “Passport to Wellness,” on Tuesday, April 8 from 3-5 p.m. This event invites students to explore all things health and well-being. Upon arrival, students can grab a wellness passport and tote bag and go from booth to booth to enjoy fun giveaways, free samples, health screenings, free healthy snacks and smoothies and an interactive photo booth.
Assistant Director of the William Magee Center Shannon Richardson oversees all wellness education components including special events, educational outreach and marketing. Richardson explained how this event strives to provide students with an entertaining environment to learn more about wellness.
“This is the second year we’ve hosted this event under the current leadership, and the purpose is to provide students with a fun and interactive experience as they learn about holistic wellness; many students think of wellness as primarily physical, like exercise and nutrition, but there are actually nine dimensions that are important to consider to have equilibrium in wellness,” Richardson said. “If one area is off, your health can become imbalanced. This event is a visual representation and model for comprehensive wellness.”
“Passport to Wellness” is sponsored by the Chancellor’s GROVE Well-Being initiative. This initiative provides financial support for the event’s many moving parts.
“The Chancellor’s Grove Well-being Initiative plays a key role in supporting student health and wellness efforts at Ole Miss, particularly through its financial support of the Student Wellness Fair,” Richardson said. “This initiative, which focuses on promoting mental, physical and emotional well-being across campus, provides funding, resources and awareness to enhance wellness-related events.”
Junior journalism major Abby Fulmar, from Hattiesburg, Miss., has come to understand the importance of wellness education through her work at South Campus Recreation Center.
“Physical and mental wellbeing are instrumental in having a successful academic and social life. That’s why I feel events such as this one are so important,” Fulmar said. “Students can learn how to prioritize their own health while also meeting others and possibly joining communities with the same priorities.”
Alysia Lajune, the program manager, uses personal experiences with health and wellness to help students.
“When I learned about the program manager position with the WMC, I literally got goosebumps because it was the perfect marriage, if you will, between my passion for serving college students and my newfound passion for educating people about addiction. My addiction began when I was in college, so it feels like a divine calling to educate college students about AOD,” Lajune said.
A master’s student in the higher education program, Eric Coggins, from Greenville, S.C., is a practicum student working for the William Magee Center this semester. Coggins has been working with vendors for this event to ensure its success.
“We have a lot of great vendors on the list to attend who are bringing fun activities for the attendees to do as they learn about wellness, so I am very excited to see the engagement. We have put a lot of work into planning this event, and I am very excited to see the results,” Coggins said. “ I hope that we are able to help a lot of students learn about resources available to them, but even if we got important information to only one student who was in need of it, then the Wellness Fair would be a success to me.”
