Temple is canceling classes Friday for students to focus on their wellness, a growing push across universities

Temple University senior Maggie Dunleavy and her boyfriend plan to drive across the state for a camping trip, “a fun, carefree weekend,” as she sees it.

But the psychology major from Warrington, Bucks County, says she likely wouldn’t have planned the adventure if the university hadn’t canceled classes and assignments Friday as part of a “Wellness Day” for students and faculty to focus on their well-being.

Although the university offered an impromptu two days off during the height of COVID-19, this is the first that was planned and incorporated into the calendar, said Dan Berman, vice provost for undergraduate studies. It’s a pilot year, but officials hope just the first of an annual event, helping to deepen the focus on mental health and overall self-care at the North Philadelphia university, enrolling more than 33,600 students.

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“It gave me the inspiration to do something with my life,” Dunleavy, 21, said earlier this week, sitting at a table off Liacouras Walk on a sun-splashed afternoon. “It’s a good break mentally for everybody.”

Temple’s day, which came out of a group discussion on ways that academic policies affect student anxiety, is part of a growing effort by college campuses to focus on wellness that was prompted well before the collective trauma brought on by COVID-19. Visits to campus counseling centers nationally have been climbing for more than a decade, but COVID has made the need to address student anxiety all the more urgent, officials said.

“We’ve been seeing absolutely an increase in requests for programming, students popping into the office, wanting to just kind of talk about mental health, stress management techniques, resources that are available to them, much more than we saw before COVID,” said Liz Zadnik, associate director of Temple’s Wellness Resource Center.

Along with wellness days, more universities, including the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel, have appointed chief wellness officers to put a new focus on campus well-being. La Salle University for years has hosted “Wellness Wednesdays,” offering programming at the student center and via Zoom. More recently, in 2020, La Salle received a $1 million gift from alumnus Francis X. “Frank” Stanton to expand services in its wellness services department.

Pennsylvania State University had wellness days during COVID-19, but now incorporates wellness throughout its calendar, said spokesperson Lisa Powers. Activities listed for this month include: yoga and meditation, intuitive eating workshop, forest bathing, Well-Being Wednesdays, family and friends peer support group, and a Love Your Body Week keynote.

And at Ursinus College this week, new president Robyn E. Hannigan announced as part of her inaugural events that the school would sign the Okanagan Charter, an international pledge to infuse health and wellness in every aspect of campus life and promote their efforts locally and globally. The work is aimed at more than mental health and self-care. It also includes caring for others and the planet and building resiliency among students — letting them know it’s normal to have feelings of stress and showing them how to cope.

» READ MORE: As need for mental-health services rises for college students, suburban Pa. campuses face lack of psychiatric providers

“It really is a reflection of the integration of human well-being and planetary well-being, and there is no more important role, I think, that higher education has to play in ensuring that people and place are respected and that they are healthy,” said Hannigan, who became president of the 1,500-student liberal arts college in Collegeville this summer.

The University of Delaware too is among 17 U.S. colleges that have have signed the charter, launched in 2015 at the International Conference on Health Promoting Universities and Colleges on the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus in Canada. Drexel, Rowan, and Rutgers are among other local universities that belong to the network, though they haven’t signed the charter.

Marla Gold, Drexel’s senior vice provost for community health and chief wellness officer, said Drexel already is doing the work of the charter’s pledge. The school soon plans to roll out an online hub of all its health and wellness efforts, including its commitment to antiracism. Still, Gold said she hopes to do a formal signing in the near future.

Ursinus, which created a health and wellness division last year, is looking at changing policies that could improve student wellness, Hannigan said.

“We know that students don’t perform well academically at 8 in the morning,” she said. “So why do we have classes at 8 in the morning?

“We know that our athletes when they get off the bus after doing travel, they need to be able to eat a healthy meal. Why is our dining hall closed at 8 at night?”

The school has added mental health counselors and has plans for more recreational activities but will spend this semester in focus groups discussing what else is needed, said Laura Moliken, Ursinus’ vice president of health and wellness.

Wellness Day at Temple comes at a particularly stressful time, amid midterms and due papers — and unlike some colleges, Temple goes straight from Labor Day to Thanksgiving week without a break. Gianni Quattrocchi, president of student government, which has been asking for a wellness day, noted that students also have been managing worries about public safety, with a rash of robberies and shootings near campus, despite Temple’s strong efforts to keep the area secure. There was a shooting in the block behind his apartment building, Oxford Village, earlier this week.

“You could have a thousand cops and a million streetlights and security cameras everywhere, it’s still not going to stop crime in its entirety and it still presents a concern for students,” he said.

Anxiety also stems from concern about climate change and social inequities and racism and life in general, said Zadnik, the wellness center associate director.

Although it’s up to students how they spend Wellness Day, they are being encouraged not to do schoolwork. The university will offer activities on main campus and the Ambler campus, which doubles as an arboretum and has serene gardens and a ropes course. Ambler will host an outside brunch, Zadnik said.

On main campus in the afternoon, students can drop by for activity kits, such as “how to keep a plant alive” or a “make and take” snack, or grab a plush animal, and head home or find a nice patch of grass to relax, she said.

“We are framing it as a ‘create your own wellness day,’” she said.

Jeffrey Doshna, president of the faculty union, didn’t have strong feelings about the merits of Wellness Day and has not heard much chatter from faculty.

But students said that they favored it, that they wished there were more.

“I feel like one isn’t enough,” said Carter Miller, 22, a supply-chain management major from Warminster. “They like to overwork us.”

Carter, who finds serenity in farm settings, plans to go apple-picking and then bake.

Aminata Gackou, 24, a junior global studies major from Senegal, West Africa, said she will check on friends she hasn’t talked to in a while.

Olivia Sulewski, 21, a junior human resources major from Bucks County, envisions she will “barely turn on my laptop.” She may do a little internship work and then head into Center City for some fun.

The day is especially meaningful to Kierra West, 22, a junior communications studies major from Philadelphia. It’s her 23rd birthday.

“I was thinking about going to Six Flags,” she said. “I’ve never been.”