Featuring a new presentation on sexuality and informed decision-making, a talk on the psychology of happiness and a TEDx conference, the sixth annual Wellness Week aims to inform students about health and well-being.
This year’s Wellness Week program will feature new speakers Sabrina Weil, former Editor in Chief of “Seventeen,” who will discuss sexuality and making informed choices, and Scott Crabtree ’84, head of an organization that studies the science of happiness known as “Happy Brain Science,” who will present on the psychology of happiness, according to Carlos Hoyt, Wellness Week Coordinator and Associate Dean of Students.
Wellness Week begins on Monday. Students will attend one-hour long Wellness Week classes on Monday, Tuesday and Friday.
On Wednesday for the Wellness Week All-School-Meeting program, James Maas, a social psychologist and professor at Cornell University, will talk about science in relation to wellness and the importance of getting enough sleep.
In order to make space for Wellness Week workshops during the day, class schedules will be adjusted, with students having one meeting of each of the seven class periods off next week.
On some days next week, students will meet as a class to hear a joint, required presentation. For the other days of the week, students were asked to select a workshop from a list of available options, ranging from a salsa dance class to a workshop on hard drugs.
All Lowers will attend the sexuality and decision-making program facilitated by Weil, and Juniors will attend courses run by Freedom from Chemical Dependence, a substance-use education program based in Newton, Mass.
“[Weil] has gotten a lot of letters from kids about sex and health, and she’s developed a great program to speak candidly with kids about [making] good choices,” said Hoyt.
“With Lowers, we want to concentrate on their decision-making within the increased freedom they are given. They have more opportunities, freedom and responsibilities now that they are no longer in freshmen dorms, and we want to find speakers who will spark good conversations and enrich students on those topics,” he added.
To make the required program more relevant to Uppers, Hoyt decided to bring in Crabtree to lead a program titled “The Psychology of Happiness and Coping with Upper Year Challenges” this year.
“[Crabtree is] really psyched to come here, and he hopes that he can provide whatever he can to the Uppers and talk about what is the legendary Upper year at Andover,” said Hoyt.
Seniors will focus on more college-related issues, an approach which has worked well in the past and has received a lot of positive feedback from students, according to Hoyt.
On Monday, Seniors will participate in a program called “Tell Me Something I Don’t Know,” presented by Scott Mikulecky, the chief lawyer for the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), according to Hoyt.
Mikulecky, who has participated in previous Wellness Week programs, will lead discussions based on a lawsuit that was filed against the fraternity in 1997 after a freshman at MIT died of alcohol poisoning, according to Hoyt.
“Part of the settlement required the fraternity to make funds available for Mikulecky to go around and lead this discussion. He engages students in some positively provocative discussions about the potential liabilities of using alcohol in college,” said Hoyt.
“The title of the program was made to indicate that even though you think you may know everything about alcohol consumption, you don’t,” Hoyt added.
On Friday, Seniors will have the opportunity to engage in candid discussions with some of the teaching fellows and three recent Andover graduates, college students Anna Fang ’10, Evan Hoyt ’11 and Miranda Haymon ’12, in a program called “Sex, Drugs and Alcohol: How to Have Fun and Stay Safe in College.” This program has been one of the most popular required programs for Seniors in past years, according to Hoyt.
“It’s not the time for Teaching Fellows and the graduates to talk about their personal lives in college, but they try to give a realistic picture of what college is like,” said Hoyt. “Part of the intent of the program is to show students that there are many ways to go through college …We want them to be wise about their decisions and find a sense of integrity that they can live up to.”
“Students are also so appreciative of seeing their Teaching Fellows be clear, candid and loving about giving advice and of seeing some of the students that they probably knew come back to talk about college,” continued Hoyt.
Juniors, as in past years, will attend substance abuse classes run by Freedom from Chemical Dependency (FCD), a nonprofit provider of substance abuse prevention services for students, according to the FCD website.
New additions to some of the elective programs include pilates, ImprovBoston improvisational performances on bullying, harassment and hazing and TEDxPA presentations by teachers and students.
Coordinated by MJ Engel ’13 and Hoyt, TEDxPA will feature three teachers and two students talking about risk avoidance and health promotion.
TEDxPA is part of the larger TEDx program, an offshoot of TED. TED is a global set of conferences that addresses “ideas worth spreading” by bringing together people from technology, entertainment and design, according to the TED website. The TEDx program aims to give local communities the TED experience and stimulate dialogue through independently planned and coordinated events.
“I always like the idea of TEDx, even outside the context of Wellness Week. We have so much talent, interest and expertise on campus between students and teachers. [Engel and I] wanted to do that, and Wellness Week provided a time for that,” said Hoyt.
Wellness Week was established in 2007. Before then, various programs on risk avoidance and health promotion were dispersed throughout the school year and organized by class. As they currently do during Wellness Week, Juniors typically attended substance-abuse courses run by FCD. Uppers took programs on date rape in the spring, according to Hoyt.
In 2007, the school developed an official structure to consolidate these sessions into one week, according to Hoyt.
“Obviously, at Andover we don’t have a required health and wellness course, so we try to achieve as much as we can through wellness week, PACE [Personal and Community Education] and through P.E. classes. That’s the constellation of the Academy’s effort to try to divide health and wellness education for the students, and then Wellness Week is our biggest visible show of ‘let’s slow down for a minute and focus on health and wellness,’” said Hoyt.
Last year, the Wellness Week Committee surveyed students to see if they would prefer the consolidation of all programs into one day, rather than having them span an entire week. One hundred and ten out of 125 students who took the survey were against the one-day model, according to Hoyt.
“Keeping [Wellness Week] separated throughout the week helps to emphasize wellness overall for the whole week, not just for one day,” wrote one student in the survey.
This year’s Wellness Week Committee was comprised of Frank Tipton, Instructor in History and Dean of West Quad North Cluster, Dr. Amy Patel, Medical Director, Jennifer Elliott, Instructor in History and Dean of Abbot Cluster, Reverend Anne Gardner, Director of Spiritual and Religious Life, Rebecca Sykes, Associate Head of School, Vimala Mohammed, Administrative Assistant in the Dean of Students office, and Hoyt.
