Health and Wellness Revamp Underway

In a Sept. 12 email to the student body, the College’s new Director of Health and Wellness Education, Barbara McCall, outlined her agenda for the year as she fills a position that had gone unfilled for two years.

McCall comes to Middlebury from Castleton State College in Castleton, VT, where she served as the Coordinator of Campus Wellness Education. She attended Mount Holyoke College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and holds a Masters degree in Public Health.

McCall plans to focus her energies on five areas: the establishment of an advocacy group for victims of sexual assault, implementation of recommendations from the 2011-2012 Task Force on Alcohol and Social Life, expansion of the PAWS (Pause, Assess, Worried?, Speak Up!) bystander intervention program, the “reinvigoration” of the Student Wellness Leader program, and the introduction of a Party Monitor program.

McCall is in the early stages of training an advocacy group for victims of sexual assault. The group, which does not have a name yet, includes students, faculty, and staff.

The 2011-2012 Task Force on Alcohol and Social Life, whose recommendations McCall plans to pursue, was created after the College received the results of a 2010 survey of students on drinking which brought to light high risk drinking behavior among many students. The Task Force’s report, dated May 4 2012, includes over 40 recommendations for changes to the regulations regarding alcohol consumption at the College. McCall said that she plans to facilitate a social norms campaign wherein her office will seek to educate the College community about both healthy behavior and behavioral norms at Middlebury in areas such as alcohol use and stress.

The College introduced the PAWS bystander intervention program last year when it briefed the class of 2016 and First-Year Counselors (FYCs) on the new program. McCall emphasized her interest in bystander intervention, stating that people with training in a program such as PAWS are far more likely to intervene in a risky situation than those without training. She hopes to expand the program, possibly during J-term, but conversations are ongoing with regard to the target audience of PAWS training. McCall stated that she plans to take a thoughtful approach “as I get to know Middlebury and Middlebury gets to know me.”

McCall also plans to “reinvigorate” the Student Wellness Leader program, which is meant to provide students with training in health issues related to alcohol use, sex, stress and sleep as well as public speaking and group facilitation. Participation in the program waned in the years during which the position of Director of Health and Wellness Education went unfilled. In an email, Student Wellness Leader Sierra Stites ’14 wrote, “since Jyoti Daniere [the former Director of Health and Wellness Education] left in the summer of 2011 and we were without a director, we have fallen off the map to a certain extent.”

McCall envisions a cohort of students who can provide informal yet well-informed advice to their peers on these sensitive topics. She said that “peer health really interests me as a vehicle for health and wellness education, and it is a good way to get reliable information into the community.”

McCall also plans to start a Party Monitor program based on initiatives at Dartmouth College, Haverford College, Swarthmore College and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. These students would attend registered parties as assistants to the party host and provide support if a guest required medical attention or the venue appeared to be overcrowded. They could also serve as liaisons between the Department of Public Safety and party hosts. The program is still in the developmental phases – McCall is in the process of reaching out to colleges with similar programs and soliciting their advice – but she envisions a start to the program occurring in the middle of the Fall semester. The model program at Dartmouth, known as the Green Team, is relatively popular, “Green Team is not a panacea, but every additional set of eyes helps” said Chase Weidner, a senior at Dartmouth.