How long has your team been working as a collaborative Buckeye Wellness Innovator group?
Over four years.
Approximately how many people are in your department, unit, building, or college?
The College of Pharmacy has 236 employees.
Regarding your department or unit's wellness efforts, which of the nine dimensions of wellness has your team addressed?
- Physical
- Intellectual
- Social
- Environment
- Emotional
- Creative
- Financial
Describe one successful activity that your team has planned around the nine dimensions of wellness.
For the past two years we have planned wellness walks in conjunction with the Metro Parks’ Winter Hiking Series. By piggybacking on established events we are able to offer a larger offering of events with minimal effort. While this addresses physical wellness, it also gets people socializing among different working groups and outside and moving on some of the darkest days of the year. It’s amazing how that can brighten your winter!
In addition to faculty and staff, we invite our students to join us as well to promote the “family” atmosphere of our college.
Describe another successful activity that your team planned around the nine dimensions of wellness.
Our fresh fruit at the front desk has been hugely popular. Each week we bring in fresh fruit. Faculty, staff and students eagerly await to pick up their favorite fruit. This is fairly inexpensive and not only gives a healthy snack option, but visually shows anyone who visits the office that we support wellness in our college. This activity was established by a Buckeye Wellness Innovator Funding Award. Because of its success, Dean Mann continued the fruit in the first year following, and doubled the budget after that. The Innovator Grants are great because it allows us to try out new ideas to determine feasibility.
If your team has kept track of participation rates for your activities, what is your approximate average attendance?
We have kept track of participation rates since the 2014-2015 academic year with the following numbers: 2015 (446), 2016 (1,108), 2017 (1,551), 2018 (2,759). We call our numbers “touch points” because they are not all event-based activities. New for the coming 2018-2019 year, we will be conducting three-question surveys at each touch point in order to gain more insights on each event/activity.
How does your team communicate wellness events and resources to your colleagues?
We use a collaboration of emails, word of mouth, posting fliers in various locations and faculty/staff meetings and huddles. Additionally, we post on our wellness bulletin board, wellness team meetings and student organizations. We will be implementing some new tools this year in collaboration with our communications team. New initiatives include a texting reminder system, creating a wellness blog and linking it to the college's website, posting wellness events on the college calendar, digital screens and inclusion in the college e-News.
How has a direct manager or supervisor specifically done to show support for your role as a Buckeye Wellness Innovator?
Many of the members of our Leadership Team regularly participate in wellness events and/or help their unit conduct its own wellness events. This sends a strong message that we as a unit and a college value wellness for our employees. Two of our college leaders were chosen to receive the annual “Wellness Leadership Award” from the Buckeye Wellness Team in March 2018.
What has your lead administrator/dean/vice president/department chair specifically done to show support for your Buckeye Wellness Innovator team?
Dean Mann has been a huge part of making our wellness program successful. Every year he meets with the wellness team leaders to review the past year’s accomplishments and to discuss plans and ideas for the upcoming year. In this session, we discuss ideas and funding options, while also getting feedback from him on our ideas. Additionally, Dean Mann leads one to two wellness walks a year and participates in wellness events when possible. Leading by doing can send a strong message to the college that we support a culture of wellness.
Please share how your team has overcome barriers to engaging your colleagues and/or students in your wellness efforts.
Resources are always at a premium, especially the two big ones - time and money. To overcome time, we try to implement as many passive activities as possible such as the fresh fruit or the new filtered water drinking fountains that have a spot to refill your water bottle. To address budgets, we take advantage of existing resources such as biometric health screenings, health classes and the Metro Parks Winter Hikes. This enables us to offer a much larger variety of programming we would be unable to do on our own. We have made a considerable effort to engage our students in our Wellness Initiatives the last couple of years. We now have two PharmD students from each year of our graduate professional curriculum designated as “Class Wellness Officers." This has certainly helped us build a critical mass of individuals focused on wellness. We are planning to expand this effort to include the other educational programs here in the College of Pharmacy.
If you could accomplish anything as a Buckeye Wellness Innovator team, what would your dream be?
Our team LOVES to dream big! Each year we have a “wish list” in our proposal to the dean. Two years ago we asked for a meditation space. Due to renovations, this may be incorporated into planned future space updates. Next on our list? Using the space that used to be a greenhouse (closed in the 90’s) and converting it into a rooftop garden to create a relaxing green space.
College of Pharmacy
How long has your team been working as a collaborative Buckeye Wellness Innovator group?
Over four years.
Approximately how many people are in your department, unit, building, or college?
The College of Pharmacy has 236 employees.
Regarding your department or unit's wellness efforts, which of the nine dimensions of wellness has your team addressed?
- Physical
- Intellectual
- Social
- Environment
- Emotional
- Creative
- Financial
Describe one successful activity that your team has planned around the nine dimensions of wellness.
For the past two years we have planned wellness walks in conjunction with the Metro Parks’ Winter Hiking Series. By piggybacking on established events we are able to offer a larger offering of events with minimal effort. While this addresses physical wellness, it also gets people socializing among different working groups and outside and moving on some of the darkest days of the year. It’s amazing how that can brighten your winter!
In addition to faculty and staff, we invite our students to join us as well to promote the “family” atmosphere of our college.
Describe another successful activity that your team planned around the nine dimensions of wellness.
Our fresh fruit at the front desk has been hugely popular. Each week we bring in fresh fruit. Faculty, staff and students eagerly await to pick up their favorite fruit. This is fairly inexpensive and not only gives a healthy snack option, but visually shows anyone who visits the office that we support wellness in our college. This activity was established by a Buckeye Wellness Innovator Funding Award. Because of its success, Dean Mann continued the fruit in the first year following, and doubled the budget after that. The Innovator Grants are great because it allows us to try out new ideas to determine feasibility.
If your team has kept track of participation rates for your activities, what is your approximate average attendance?
We have kept track of participation rates since the 2014-2015 academic year with the following numbers: 2015 (446), 2016 (1,108), 2017 (1,551), 2018 (2,759). We call our numbers “touch points” because they are not all event-based activities. New for the coming 2018-2019 year, we will be conducting three-question surveys at each touch point in order to gain more insights on each event/activity.
How does your team communicate wellness events and resources to your colleagues?
We use a collaboration of emails, word of mouth, posting fliers in various locations and faculty/staff meetings and huddles. Additionally, we post on our wellness bulletin board, wellness team meetings and student organizations. We will be implementing some new tools this year in collaboration with our communications team. New initiatives include a texting reminder system, creating a wellness blog and linking it to the college's website, posting wellness events on the college calendar, digital screens and inclusion in the college e-News.
How has a direct manager or supervisor specifically done to show support for your role as a Buckeye Wellness Innovator?
Many of the members of our Leadership Team regularly participate in wellness events and/or help their unit conduct its own wellness events. This sends a strong message that we as a unit and a college value wellness for our employees. Two of our college leaders were chosen to receive the annual “Wellness Leadership Award” from the Buckeye Wellness Team in March 2018.
What has your lead administrator/dean/vice president/department chair specifically done to show support for your Buckeye Wellness Innovator team?
Dean Mann has been a huge part of making our wellness program successful. Every year he meets with the wellness team leaders to review the past year’s accomplishments and to discuss plans and ideas for the upcoming year. In this session, we discuss ideas and funding options, while also getting feedback from him on our ideas. Additionally, Dean Mann leads one to two wellness walks a year and participates in wellness events when possible. Leading by doing can send a strong message to the college that we support a culture of wellness.
Please share how your team has overcome barriers to engaging your colleagues and/or students in your wellness efforts.
Resources are always at a premium, especially the two big ones - time and money. To overcome time, we try to implement as many passive activities as possible such as the fresh fruit or the new filtered water drinking fountains that have a spot to refill your water bottle. To address budgets, we take advantage of existing resources such as biometric health screenings, health classes and the Metro Parks Winter Hikes. This enables us to offer a much larger variety of programming we would be unable to do on our own. We have made a considerable effort to engage our students in our Wellness Initiatives the last couple of years. We now have two PharmD students from each year of our graduate professional curriculum designated as “Class Wellness Officers." This has certainly helped us build a critical mass of individuals focused on wellness. We are planning to expand this effort to include the other educational programs here in the College of Pharmacy.
If you could accomplish anything as a Buckeye Wellness Innovator team, what would your dream be?
Our team LOVES to dream big! Each year we have a “wish list” in our proposal to the dean. Two years ago we asked for a meditation space. Due to renovations, this may be incorporated into planned future space updates. Next on our list? Using the space that used to be a greenhouse (closed in the 90’s) and converting it into a rooftop garden to create a relaxing green space.
