It is always an exciting time when students return to campus for fall term and classes begin. In August, we worked with our new students through Orientation, getting to know them and watching their first steps toward degree completion. I think that every person including faculty, staff, administrators and students had a lot of fun last week ramping up for the start of the academic year which was officially kicked off at the Opening Convocation on Thursday, Aug. 27.
We also kicked off a new initiative on campus, The Individual Wellness through Community Engagement Initiative, a campus-wide program with the primary purpose of encouraging the Tusculum community—including students, faculty, staff and alumni—to lead and maintain a healthy and balanced lifestyle. Wellness is a lifelong pursuit and often requires encouragement. As such, our aim is to indoctrinate its importance and approaches on our campuses through continuous communal activities that reach our entire population and focus on Social, Physical, Intellectual, Emotional and/or Spiritual health. Additionally, we recognize that people succeed better if every aspect of their lives is attended to in a balanced way. This is the first of several campus wide events we have planned that we hope meets the needs of each member of the Tusculum Community. The first event, the Interfaith Prayer Service included remarks from a variety of spiritual leaders and proved to be a powerful, thoughtful and communal experience, as we focused on spiritual health.
Coming up this month is our Orange Rush celebration at our first block break, which includes Nettie Fowler McCormick Service Day, when all new students, and many of our returners, as well as faculty and staff will spend the day doing ‘good’ in our community. I hope you are getting good reports from your student(s). We certainly are enjoying getting to know them.
Best Regards,
Nancy B. Moody, PhD