campus news
SPHHP students feel comfort, connection through belonging initiative
Undergraduate exercise science students share a brown bag lunch during a "belonging" event in the Harriman Hall ballroom during finals week.
By TIMOTHY CHIPP
Published June 5, 2025
Looking to make new friends and connect with students and faculty, first-year exercise science student Dominick Currier wandered into the Harriman Hall ballroom during exam week unsure of what he’d find.
Stressed out over finals, Currier found some relief in the form of games, food and conversation.
“It gives me comfort,” Currier said. “Knowing people have finals, these activities are (appreciated).”
Aimed at both connecting students with each other and with their faculty, this stress relief event was just one of five for students in the undergraduate exercise science (ES) program during the past semester.
Heather Bieber, director of the program, led these events for ES. Her counterparts across the four other undergraduate programs in the School of Public Health and Health Professions did the same, thanks to special funding aimed at addressing various disconnects within the student experience.
In SPHHP’s undergraduate programs, students in their first two years spend much of their time on the North Campus. After completing their introductory courses and choosing their specialization, they move to the South Campus, which separates the two student groups, Bieber said. As well, faculty offices are on the South Campus, leaving a geographic gap between those younger students, like Currier, and their educators.
Bieber noted that “a lot of exercise science students — and our faculty — like to exercise.” So “belonging” events during the semester included Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, yoga, breakfast exercise programs and “Kettlebells and Coffee.”
“Each event had different faculty and different students,” Bieber said, “but they gave everyone a chance to enjoy different activities.”
Undergraduate exercise science students could play games, as well as share some food and conversation, during a "belonging" event during finals week.
Other SPHHP undergraduate programs opted for a less active route, gathering students and faculty just to “chat” — specifically, “Chat & Chew” events within the public health program and a “Fireside Chat” in rehabilitation science.
For the “Chat & Chew” events, Sarahmona Przybyla, undergraduate program director for the public health program, said there wasn’t much planning involved. Instead of dictating how students connected with each other, the program’s leadership opted to leave those decisions up to the students themselves, she said.
“We had such a short period of time to do our events with our students graduating and moving on,” Przybyla said. “So, we turned to the students and asked them what they wanted. It was nice because if we’d done what my team wanted, it wouldn’t have been what the students wanted, and we wouldn’t have had anywhere near the attendance.”
The result left everyone, both students and administrators, excited.
“I thought this was a great way for me to be able to connect with fellow peers as well as faculty members, some of whom I had passed by but never spoke to for the past few years,” said student Allesandra Yang. “Because of the Chat & Chew, I had the opportunity to have a conversation with them and get to know them outside of a classroom setting and in a more casual and relaxed setting.”
Input from students also led to a larger celebration, the inaugural Public Health Luncheon, to mark the end of the semester. And the final party also incorporated a special request from students: professional headshots for their LinkedIn profiles.
“We learned that a lot of our students hadn’t had headshots taken since they were in high school,” Przybyla said. “So, we found it most helpful to ask our students what they wanted.”
The effort was well-received by students.
“The luncheon was very lovely; it feels really nice to sit down with professors, students and advisers on a nonprofessional level and just vibe,” said Uchenna Obumneme-Akaneme. “The school should definitely host more of this next semester.”
For its part, Rehabilitation Science’s Fireside Chat aimed to bring students together with faculty — and each other.
“This gathering, which included undergraduate students (in the five-year BS/MS program in occupational therapy) and faculty, provided an opportunity for undergraduate students still taking classes primarily on the North Campus to meet OT faculty who are based on the South Campus,” said Christopher Stavisky, director of Rehabilitation Science’s MS program. “The gathering also provides an opportunity for undergraduate students interested in OT to meet, perhaps for the first time, and get to know potential future classmates with similar academic interests.”
Stavisky said the program also used funding to help broaden the graduate student Poster Presentation Day, which aimed to connect undergraduate students with each other, with graduate students and with faculty through research interests.