Clark University takes pledge to become a ‘Healthy Campus’

Clark University has taken the American College Health Association’s Healthy Campus Pledge and has committed to campus-wide health promotion and prevention services across the administration, operations and academics.

To date, Clark is the only Massachusetts school that has signed on as a Healthy Campus 2020 Partner.

Healthy Campus 2020 is a national movement to create healthier campuses. The initiative provides a framework to tackle students’ health impediments to academic performance such as stress, anxiety, and illness, and offers a strategy for improving the well-being of faculty and staff in areas including, but not limited to, nutrition/weight loss, physical activity/fitness, and stress management.

Keegan Daugherty ’19, a psychology major concentrating in public health, discovered the initiative at the 2017 National Collegiate EMS Foundation conference and encouraged Clark to participate.

“This presentation sparked my interest in connecting my passion for public health and experience as an EMT with Clark University Rapid Response,” Daugherty says. Daugherty is now outreach coordinator for Clark University Rapid Response (CURR) and leads prevention-related activities. Last summer, she interned with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Washington.

With the support of Clark President David Angel and Timothy St. John, assistant dean for campus life, Daugherty and the CURR Outreach Committee are working to establish a coalition of all health-related clubs and organizations on campus.

“Our hope for this project moving forward is to organize opportunities for each of these groups to meet and discuss the health topics that are most relevant to our community,” Daugherty says. “Clark has numerous resources that aim to help students and faculty manage their health, and increasing communication between health organizations will provide a space for groups to discuss their goals and quickly distribute important information to the Clark community.”

Healthy Campus 2020 is the companion framework to Healthy People 2020, the federal government’s health promotion and disease prevention initiative for achieving better health across the United States.

A complete list of other Healthy Campus 2020 Partners is available online.