Healthy Minds, Healthy Bodies

By Cynthia Rutz, Director of Faculty Development, CITAL

Half-way through the semester, both you and your students can start to feel run-down and overworked. Yet some faculty are unaware of the many resources at Valpo for mental, physical, and spiritual health. Here is an annotated list of the resources available both for you and your students. Consider trying out at least one of these before the semester is over.

Healthy Resources For You

Free Counseling Services for Faculty/Staff: You and each of your family members are entitled to up to five sessions with a counselor per year. You can also talk to experienced professionals about legal issues, estate planning, budgeting, child and elder care, moving, car buying, college planning, and more. Call 1-888-628-4824 or click here to learn more: EmployeeConnect.

The Faculty Study: Christopher Center Suite 400 is your home away from home. Available for your use are a Keurig coffee maker, computers, storage lockers, and comfy chairs. You can read by the fire, grade papers, or meet a colleague for a private chat. Come by anytime or, to reserve the space for a meeting, email me at cynthia.rutz@valpo.edu. 

Your Chapel and Chaplains:  

  1. Your Space: The Chapel is not just for formal worship. It is open to all from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. So why not take a short walk through it on your way across campus? You can enter either from the lower doors (near Kretzmann Hall) or from the upper front entrance. Slow your pace and take in the lovely stained-glass windows. If you have a few minutes, you can just sit in a pew and enjoy the silence. If you are lucky, there may be an organ student practicing!
  2. Morning Prayer: No meetings or classes are scheduled during daily chapel break so you are free to attend the short morning prayer service any day of the week. Each day has a different style of worship, just 20 minutes long (10:10-10:30 a.m.)
  3. #ValpoResetRefresh: The Division of Calling & Spiritual Life invites you to use this daily break in the class schedule to reset and refresh by putting down your phone, turning off your devices, and stepping away from your work. Join this campus-wide initiative toward increased wellness and community.
  4. Your Pastors: The Chapel staff are there to help, regardless of your religious tradition — even if you don’t consider yourself  “religious.” Pastor Jim and Pastor Kate are available to meet and talk with you about any issue or situation. They’ll help you clarify the issue, reflect on your own beliefs, and think through your options with kindness and grace. You can make an appointment with either of them here: Our Pastors

Center for Innovation in Teaching, Assessment, and Learning: It is literally our job at CITAL to support faculty, and that includes mental health.  So feel free to meet up with us over a cup of coffee–real or virtual– to talk about anything from work/life balance to issues with students. To set up a meeting, just email one of us at cynthia.rutz@valpo.edu, gina.rue@valpo.edu, or ed.finn@valpo.edu. 

Valpo’s Health Clinic: Marathon Health is Valparaiso’s near-site clinic provider. Services and prescriptions provided at the clinic are free to you and to covered family members (ages 6 and older) as part of the Valparaiso Health Plan. Services include:

  • Personal primary care
  • Preventive screening (physicals, skin cancer, Pap, etc.)
  • Onsite medications (over 80 generic prescriptions available)
  • Personal Health Coaching
  • Chronic condition management
  • Value-based referrals
  • Onsite Lab
  • Online Employer Health Portal

To request an appointment either call 866-434-3255 or visit my.marathon-health.com/sign_in

Counseling Services:

  • Therapy Assistant Online (TAO): Open to All: Want to feel and function better? TAO  has over 150 brief, effective, educational sessions covering mental health, wellness, and substance use issues. There are interactive sessions, mindfulness exercises, and practice tools. Complete them any time and at your own pace.
  • How to Recognize a Distressed Student

Healthy Resources for Your Students

A short list of campus resources for your students is located on the CITAL website: Student Support

But here is an even shorter annotated list of the resources most conducive to your students’ mental and physical health:

Care & Concerns Committee: If you have a student who is really struggling, this group can help. They work with students in challenging situations before the situation becomes a crisis. This includes students who may have suffered a significant loss, relationship crisis, illness, injury, hospitalization, personal or family situation, or resource insecurity that affects their access to housing, food, academic books/supplies, or other basic needs.

Career and Alumni Network: Sometimes your students are stressed out because they can’t figure out what to do with their life or they desperately need a summer job or internship. The Network helps students with:

  • Career and major exploration
  • Obtaining an Internship
  • Networking and job search strategies
  • Writing a résumé or cover letter 
  • Interviewing skills

Starfish Kudos: You probably already use Starfish to raise “flags” when your students are having academic issues. But how about also celebrating student success?  Use the “kudos” feature to send an encouraging message to those who are doing well. Kudos help boost your students’ confidence, which has been shown to further increase their academic success. 

Access and Accommodations Resource Center: The ARC helps faculty and staff to provide appropriate academic adjustments and/or reasonable accommodations to qualified students with properly documented disabilities. This includes students with a physical or mental impairment that limits one or more of life’s major activities (continuous or temporary), as well as pregnant students in need of academic support. ARC: Frequently Asked Questions by Faculty

Academic Success Center: Do you have a student who is struggling academically in your class or others? The ASC can help connect your student with the academic support resources available on campus. They also offer peer tutoring, supplemental instruction, and GS-100: Strategies for Academic Success, a one-credit college success skills course.