UVM’s Wellness Environment has again attracted national news attention. An Associated Press story on the program was picked up widely around the country this week.
Stories were published in media that included ABC News, The Washington Post, US News & World Report, The Boston Globe, Fox News, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Seattle Times, The Houston Chronicle, USA Today, MSN and Yahoo News.
“Pledges by college students to eschew drugs and alcohol are old hat,” the story opens. “Now they’re meditating, working out, practicing yoga, eating healthfully, and at least one school, the University of Vermont, it has become a bona fide lifestyle.
In UVM’s Wellness Environment, known as WE, students live in a substance-free dorm, take a required neuroscience course taught by Larner College Medicine faculty and are given incentives to stay healthy, such as access to a free gym membership, nutrition and fitness coaches and an app that tracks their activities.
WE’s enrollment has grown from 120 when the program launched in 2015 to over 1,200 today. With WE’s grownth, nearly one-quarter of UVM’s undergraduate on-campus population live in substance-free housing.
WE has also been featured in a front page story in the Boston Globe, on CBS News and on National Public Radio.
Source: UVM News