According to their website, the Student Wellness organization will continue to work towards their goal of creating a campus culture of wellbeing and academic success so all students can “innovate at Iowa State.”

“Student Wellness’ focus is to help transform ISU into a health promoting university which is a university that embeds health and wellbeing into everything that we do,” said Brian Vanderheyden, director of Student Wellness.

Vanderheyden said that in order to accomplish this goal, Student Wellness must shift the focus to health promotion and prevention to be proactive with supporting student wellbeing and make it part of the university foundation.

According to Vanderheyden, Student Wellness is one of the four departments that make up Student Health and Wellness at Iowa State. He said that the other departments include Student Counseling Services, Thielen Student Center and Recreation Services.

The Student Wellenss mission statement is to enhance the holistic health, wellbeing and safety for all students through prevention and health promotion strategies that support academic success, promote student development and achieve health equity.

In order to achieve this mission, Vanderheyden said that Student Wellness offers a range of services, resources and programs for almost every health and wellbeing area that impacts college students. These resources cover the topics of sleep, substance use, mental health, sexual violence, nutrition, physical activity, body image, disordered eating, illness/injury care and more.

The Student Wellness website emphasizes the importance of taking care of your wellbeing because research shows that student health and wellbeing is inextricably linked to academic success, retention and persistence to graduation. The website also states that students who are not physically, mentally, emotionally and socially well are more likely to leave the institution, have poor academic performance and engage in risky behaviors that can affect them legally, socially and personally.

The easiest ways to contact Student Wellness, according to Vanderheyden, is to email, call or walk to their office in A37 Friley Hall. Student Counseling Services is located on the third floor of the Student Services Building. Recreation Services has multiple locations and facilities including State Gym, Lied Recreation and Beyer Hall (in addition to the outdoor complexes) and Thielen Student Health Center is located across from State Gym.