Mississippi State University is creating a new culture around health on campus through the creation of the new faculty positions related to health services and a series of campus-wide initiatives.
Jeremy Baham, MSU student affairs assistant vice president for student support and well-being, said his position was specifically created by Regina Hyatt, vice president of student affairs, approximately a year and a half ago in order to create an atmosphere for healthy living on campus.
Baham said the goal of his position is to encourage healthy choices in all areas of life, and this is accomplished by the overseeing of various health programs and other initiatives on campus.
“Based on what we know from organizations like the CDC, Mississippi is unhealthy. We want to help students learn how to make healthy choices while on campus,” Baham said. “We want to change the idea of what the college experience is about and help people make healthy choices, so they take those choices with them in life. We want to teach a new normal.”
Over recent years, MSU implemented various health initiatives on campus including GAIN, an alcohol addiction prevention and education programs, and the ‘Health Hut’ on the drill field, a program designed to increase understanding of healthy living and awareness of health-related campus resources available to students and faculty.
MSU also began sending spirit groups to local elementary schools so Bully and MSU cheerleaders can encourage students to make healthy choices and teach them how to properly exercise.
Starting last year, orientation invited health promotion services to host a health and well-being panel with members from health promotion and wellness, disability support services, recreation/sports and campus police. This panel discussed healthy behavior, how to become involved with positive outlets on campus and the resources provided by the university in regard to healthy living. Baham said a physical outlet is a great way to build on the college experience without it involving alcohol or other drugs.
“We are interested in everyone making healthy choices, and embracing the current college culture is not a healthy choice,” Baham said. “We want to provide options so that you can explore college without it being tied to alcohol or drugs.”
Before the creation of his position, Baham said there were many individual initiatives at MSU working for a healthier campus, but each group was working separately. Now, the different programs are connected and working for a bigger picture.
One of the pieces to this puzzle includes the Collegiate Recovery Community, a support program created in the Fall of 2013 for MSU students recovering from addiction.
The CRC currently has 12 regular members, and offers recovery support services such as anonymous meetings, sober tailgates at every home football game, travel opportunities and scholarships for its members.
Blake Schneider, head of the CRC, described the CRC as all of student and academic affairs encapsulated in-house, so it can be a one-stop support system for students who want to stay sober and make positive choices on campus. Schneider said the overarching mission is to let everyone on campus know they can stay sober in college and still have a wonderful experience.
“Outside of spreading that message, we aim to provide a broad continuum of care, including counseling connections, academic advising, career planning, sober housing, career services and support meetings,” Schneider said.
Schneider has been in his position since the summer of 2015, and has had approximately 16 students graduate as members of the CRC while he has been at MSU. Schneider has found members of the CRC not only have higher retention rates, but their GPAs are higher than the campus average.
Since working with the CRC at MSU, Schneider said he has felt immense support from all areas of the campus and the community, especially since the positive results of the CRC are statistically proven.
“We have had a lot of support on-campus and off-campus with the CRC. I met with President Keenum about a year ago, and he was really supportive and led me in a good direction for fundraising and outreach,” Schneider said. “We also have a strong support network outside the university.”
MSU’s administration works to develop groups like the CRC and provide support for departments on campus which house these services, such as health promotion and wellness for MSU health services.
Leah Pylate, director of health promotion and wellness for MSU Health Services, has worked at MSU since 2011, and has been in her current position since 2017. Pylate said she is pleased with the development of health promotion on campus during her time working at the university.
“I have seen a great transition over the years that I have been working here. Health and wellness is not only important to the students, but to the staff and the whole MSU community,” Pylate said. “It has really been exciting to be in the work of prevention and health promotion because we have seen a lot of changes in the university around a number of different areas.”
Pylate said she believes the university is moving in the right direction of creating a healthier environment for the students’ physical, mental and emotional well-being. She accredits these changes to the administration’s dedication to health on campus.
“I think that you could really give kudos to our administration for promoting health and wellness,” Pylate said. “Having support from the administration, students, faculty and staff has been instrumental in driving these initiatives forward.”
Pylate said she believes it is these positive attitudes around health which led to the creation of MSU on the Move’s Healthy Dawgs program, a healthy living initiative in place since 2015 currently sponsored by Blue Cross Blue Shield.
Baham said many of the key figures in health promotion on campus, such as Schneider and Pylate, are new to their roles and many important initiatives are still relatively new. Baham said he believes this is both positive and negative since there is a lot of exciting energy and ideas among the group, but it is hard to determine how to measure the success and see if an impact is being made.
“We have heard positive feedback and people say positive things, but at the same time, it is all anecdotal, so we are still trying to determine how to measure our impact, and see if the programs we are implementing are actually working,” Baham said.
However, Baham said he believes these changes are making a positive impact and how tying all of these initiatives together will build a culture of making healthy choices at MSU.
Pylate said Mississippi has an embedded culture of unhealthy living, but believes MSU will be a catalyst in changing the culture because of their extensive efforts and time devoted to health promotion and wellness.
“We live in Mississippi. We typically rank the lowest on a lot of health indicators,” Pylate said. “However, when you look at MSU and the work being done around health promotion and wellness, it is noticeably a priority, and I believe it will continue to be a priority.”