Well-being Summit
Thank you to everyone who attended and contributed to the success of the inaugural Towson University Well-Being Summit.
Hosted by the Towson University Well-Being Collective, a cross-campus leadership group guided by the Okanagan Charter, the summit brought together faculty, staff, students, and university leadership for a collaborative half-day experience focused on advancing well-being across campus. Attendees heard directly from university leadership about Towson’s commitment to advancing health and well-being as an institutional priority. Representatives from the President's office, Student Affairs, Academic Affairs, and Operations reinforced the university’s shared responsibility for creating a culture of well-being across campus.
Guest speakers shared compelling personal narratives, research insights, and practical strategies for supporting both individual and community well-being. The summit also marked the campus-wide introduction of the Tigers Thrive initiative, establishing a shared framework for promoting and advancing well-being among students, faculty, and staff.
Thank You to Our Breakout Session Presenters
- Jasmine C. Williams with: "Just a Little Spark: This is Not a Drill!"
- Campus Recreation with: Train Smarter: Experience Tech Enabled Strength & Recovery
- Human Resources with: Beyond EAP
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Well-being Research Presentation from Diana Emanuel, PhD: From Conversation to Action: How Heath Professions Faculty Can Use Research and Public Speaking to Address Occupational Stress, Burnout, and Resilience Building in Their Professions
- Well-being Research Presentation from Matthew Burger, Clinical Assistant Professor, Occupational Therapy and Occupational Science: Balanced Minds: An Anxiety Reduction Program for Autistic Adults Navigating Employment
- Stephanie Duque-Honors College, Psychology major with: Investigating the effects of single-tasking, multitasking, and multitasking with a stress reducing intervention in college students on both physiological and perceived stress
Thank You to Our Community Partners that Attended The Summit
Please visit this link to view our community partners.
Looking Forward
“ The Well-Being Summit marked an important step in strengthening our campus-wide commitment to well-being. We look forward to advancing a more coordinated, systems-based approach through expanded collaboration and future initiatives that build on this momentum. ”
“ This inaugural well-being summit left me grateful for the meaningful work TU has done in prioritizing well-being. Receiving thoughtful insights from the participants not only reinforced the impact of this work but also inspired a sense of optimism and excitement for where TU will be in the future. ”
Key Takeaways
Well-being is a shared institutional priority. University leadership demonstrated a unified commitment to supporting the health, success, and overall well-being of the campus community. The summit reinforced that fostering well-being requires engagement across all areas of the university. Emphasizing the importance of moving from siloed efforts, the summit moved TU toward a more collaborative and coordinated approach.
Well-being at TU is not confined to one area. All departments, offices, colleges, and individuals have a part to play in this commitment. This summit empowered the attendees to challenge what once was siloed, to a collaborative approach towards well-being. Working together brings all of Towson closer to thriving together.
The Tigers Thrive brand has launched. The TU community is invited and encouraged to begin utilizing the Tigers Thrive brand marks and messaging. This brand is not owned by any single area or department, but is the banner over how well-being is promoted, spoken about, and elevated at Towson.
The Four Pillars of Well-being are here. The Four Pillars framework - Mind, Body, Community, and Purpose - will help guide and organize well-being efforts across campus. By using Mind, Body, Community, and Purpose as a central framework for well-being, Towson students, staff, and faculty can focus and learn about specific aspects of their well-being while at TU. See more about the Four Pillars.
Impact
The Well-Being Summit served as more than a celebratory event; it was a catalyst for continued collaboration, institutional alignment, and future action. This summit was a rallying moment to elevate the work already being done, and kickstart new initiatives to further drive well-being for our campus community.
Collaborations were already happening with departments across campus, and this summit has added to that momentum. Areas are beginning to discover where well-being work is happening in their spaces and being able to tie that back to the institutional priority of making Towson a well-being centric campus. Moving forward, departments across the university will continue identifying opportunities to collaborate through a shared commitment to student, faculty, and staff well-being.
About the Speakers
Keynote Speaker: Bernadette Melnyk
Bernadette Melnyk, PhD, APRN-CNP, EBP-C, FAANP, FNAP, FAAN is an inspirational speaker, author, leader, innovator, entrepreneur and recognized expert in evidence-based practice, mental health, population health and well-being, intervention research and organizational culture change.
Bern is CEO and founder of COPE2Thrive, LLC. and president and co-founder of EBPSolutions, LLC. For 13 years, she served as Vice President for Health Promotion and Chief Wellness Officer at The Ohio State University, the first at an institution of higher learning in the nation.
She is editor of 10 books, has more than 600 publications and over $36 million dollars of sponsored funding from NIH, AHRQ and foundations as a principal investigator. She is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Nursing that has recognized her three times as an Edge Runner, the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academies of Practice, and the American Association of Nurse Practitioners.
Dr. Melnyk is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Nursing that has recognized her three times as an Edge Runner, the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academies of Practice, and the American Association of Nurse Practitioners.
She served a four-year term on the United States Preventive Services Task Force, the National Advisory Council for the National Institute for Nursing Research, and the Behavioral Health Standing Committee of the National Quality Forum. In addition, she served as dean of The Ohio State University College of Nursing and Arizona State University’s College of Nursing and Health Innovation where she led the colleges to top “U.S. News and World Report” and NIH research funding rankings.
Dr. Melnyk is editor-in-chief of Sigma’s top ranked journal “Worldviews on Evidence-based Nursing.” She was appointed to the National Academy of Medicine’s Action Collaborative on Clinician Well-being and Resilience in 2017 on which she still continues to serve, on the advisory board for the ANA’s Healthy Nurse Healthy Nation initiative and is the founder and past president of the National Consortium for Building Healthy Academic Communities.
Fireside Chat Speaker: Jasmine Williams
After an unexpected loss her freshman year of college, Jasmine Williams hit rock bottom. With no clear roadmap to cope, she struggled to get her mental health back on track.
Now as an Adversity + Resilience Speaker, Jasmine Williams teaches audiences how failure and adversity can help them grow. Using her firsthand experiences, Jasmine helps audiences support classmates and colleagues through grief, anxiety and other difficult experiences.
Jasmine also works as a public speaking coach to teach others how to deliver a polished message with confidence. She graduated from High Point University with her B.A. in communication and a minor in psychology.