How can someone express gratitude in their daily life? UNI Student Wellness Services (SWS), works to help students express gratitude during the semester. One project they worked on was  the Gratitude Campaign from Nov. 12 to Nov. 18 which aimed to help students improve their mental health and stress levels by using gratitude. 

SWS Health Promotions Coordinator Megan Cahalan utilizes programs like the gratitude campaign to help students.

 “(The Gratitude Campaign)  was created by Student Wellness Services specifically for Student Wellness Services,” Calahan said. “ It is one of our campaigns and is solely about showing gratitude.’’ 

She continued, “SWS defined gratitude as an affirmation of goodness outside of ourselves. Gratitude is the readiness to show appreciation and to return kindness.”

 SWS works on expanding its wellness coaching access on campus to students who require a helping hand and aims to make its services widely available to students on campus.  

“It used to be a lot of flyers and hands-on things. “ Calahan said. “Now it’s gradually moving to social media. We’re trying to grab that physical piece back by meeting students face-to-face. That way we get interaction.”  

In addition to handling the gratitude campaign and wellness coaching with students, SWS hopes to partner up with other campus departments. 

“We don’t want to do it alone, “ Calahan said. “We want to give students all of the opportunities that UNI has to offer.” 

While being a newer addition to SWS, Calahan has seen first hand how the program is operated and how their services continue to grow.

“I see teamwork is huge,”  Calahan said. “ I know inside of Student Wellness Services teamwork is growing. The partnerships on campus are growing fast. I’m happy about that.’’  Calahan is one of many employees at SWS that  is dedicated to student wellness on UNI’s campus. 

Employees like Calahan positively work to help students reach their goals during the many coaching sessions they lead.  

“I have to be super broad with this with sessions, “ Calahan said. “ But during the first or second session when I’m talking to them about a struggle they may be having or the goals and strengths they have. When they figure out ‘Oh my gosh. I did all these awesome things. It is this mind-blowing picture.’’  

While the Gratitude Campaign only lasted one week, SWS does provide many other services to help students. De-stress days are provided by SWS right before finals during the fall and spring semesters in an effort to help students stress less and relax.