A group of students started a club last semester to promote public health and wellness.
Riverhawks for Public Health faculty adviser Deborah Hammond said the club guides student members to “learn about needs in the community and help to address those,” as well as offering information about health sciences degree programs.
“It really is open to students of many disciplines,” Hammond, a public health and kinesiology professor, said. “You don’t have to be a public health student. Public health is all around us. It’s in the food we eat. It’s the air we breathe. It’s social justice. … It’s really, like, so many things going on in our communities.”
The club hosted two events last semester: a visit to the University of Maryland School of Public Health and an information session on food insecurity.
Club Vice President Nathan Villanueva, a second-year kinesiology student, said Riverhawks for Public Health is “a bridge to that goal” of making change on campus.
Villanueva said his main goal for the spring semester is to “focus on mental health” in the college community.
“People are not really communicating [about] their mental health,” Villanueva said. “So I want them to know that there is the Health and Wellness Center. There’s advisers, there’s counselors that can help with that.”