WE students meditate

Wellness Environment: WE

An incentive based program focused on health promotion, illness prevention and behavioral change. The framework of WE is set-up to provide students with an environment to live and grow where making healthy choices is the norm, not the exception.

Campus-Wide Effort

Led by the determination of leaders at UVM College of Medicine, WE teaches students how their behavior affects their brain, and their subsequent thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. This knowledge is paired with accessible, health promoting resources to create an environment that incentivizes and reqards healthy decision making.

  • Students listen to lecture in HBHB

    Educational

    WE students are required to enroll in the 3-credit course COMU 001: Healthy Brains, Healthy Bodies developed by James Hudziak, M.D., UVM College of Medicine faculty and renowned expert in child and adolescent psychiatry. The course is taught by Dr. Hudziak and other UVM College of Medicine faculty, as well as experts from across the country, and explores wellbeing from a neuroscience perspective.

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Fitness

  • WE gives students more incentives to stay active in college
  • Students earn their fitness pass each time they use the in house fitness center
  • Each hall has 24/7 access to Peloton bikes and a TRX training system

Nutrition

  • WE partners with UVM Dining to create accessible and mindful nutrition options for students
  • WE students can take free cooking classes with chefs and nutritionists at UVM Dining right in their residence hall
  • Even the vending machines in our halls have nutrition forward options

Mindfulness

  • Regular mindfulness classes are available in the residence hall
  • In house yoga classes are offered daily in WE residence halls
  • Students learn about the neuroscience behind mindfulness in HBHB and practice at the beginning and end of every class

Relate

  • Promotes healthy, affirming relationships in a positive, judgment-free environment 
  • Mentors realize the impact that they can have on younger generations
  • Increases interpersonal skills, empathy, and assertiveness
WE Director lectures to students in HBHB

Letter from the Director

Born out of decades of research in genetics, neuroimaging, and the effect of the environmental influences on emotional behavioral health, I proposed a neuroscience inspired, incentive based health promotion behavioral change program to protect and promote the development of college age students’ brains.

In the same way that lifting weights can alter the structure and function of a person’s body, engaging in the four pillars of WE (Mindfulness, Fitness, Nutrition, and Relate), will influence the structure and function of an individual’s brain. Our motto is build a healthy brain and a healthy body will follow.

Jim Hudziak, MD
Director