Mental and physical health intersect in new Student Wellness Center

This semester, there’s a new building on campus bustling with activity. Inside, climbers harness up, lifters rack their weights, students fill prescriptions and seek life-improving services. This fall marks the grand opening of MSU’s long-awaited Student Wellness Center (SWC). Whether it’s cardio or counseling, the highly anticipated locale is designed to uplift the spirit, body and mind of our student body, bringing all forms of wellness together under a single roof.

After the roof of the South and North domes of the Marga Hosaeus Fitness Center collapsed in the winter of 2019, MSU has been utilizing the North Dome as a fitness center while long-term decisions were made about how the University should move forward, according to the MSU website. The Associated Students of Montana State University introduced a bill back in 2020 that proposed a new student health center – an idea that was initially brought up in 2014. The demolition of the old Fitness Center marked an opportunity for this kind of growth.

The wait is now over – the new SWC officially opened its doors on Aug. 19. The new space, located on campus at 950 W. Grant Street, is equipped with a large variety of different wellness amenities inside. Not only does the SWC focus on student fun and fitness, but also on mental health and life-enhancing resources. These include Counseling and Psychological Services, the Office of Health Advancement and Student Health Services.

Associate Vice President of Student Wellness Amber Long said the SWC is “MSU’s new one-stop shop for all things health and well-being.” According to Long, the goal of creating this centralized building for MSU’s health and wellness is to break down barriers to staying healthy in college. “For me, that access point of making it easier to do the thing is really, really important,” she said.

Long said that one of the ways to break down these barriers is awareness. The SWC is not just a gym or a recreation center, but contains doctor’s offices, counseling services and even a dietician. The idea behind having all these different services housed in the same place is to increase access and awareness for students who otherwise would not have gone to the doctor or a dietician but would go to the gym or a lap pool.

“A student might come into the facility because they’re really excited about using the climbing wall, but by being in the same place as, say, the dental services area, they become aware that we have this service they didn’t know we had,” she said.

According to Long, the SWC wants to emphasize a holistic approach to health. By having various health-enhancing services in the same building, her hope is that the culture of the campus begins to shift towards a more centralized way of thinking about wellness. Long said she recognizes that this will take time. For now balancing the student body’s desire to have a campus recreation center with her office’s vision of overall student wellness is the SWC’s current focus. Long acknowledged that wellness isn’t just fitness, but the main use of the SWC would be for campus recreation and fitness.

“I’m a big proponent of whole-person well-being, and I believe that to do your best at a university, you need to be engaging physically as well as mentally,” Ben Montgomery, the climbing wall

|coordinator, said. “Not only is it a de-stressor, but I’ve found in my personal experience that taking the time to exercise helps me focus better in class and on assignments when I normally may be restless or stressed about the work I was doing.”

“I think it’s really, really nice. I did not think it was gonna be this big,” MSU freshman Talan Shine explained.

Shine expressed appreciation for the new recreation amenities, his only complaint being a reported shortage in weightlifting equipment. “There could definitely be more benches and squat racks. I feel like I go in there every time I try to lift and end up having to go to my hall’s tiny gym in the basement because there is just not enough squat racks and benches and it’s just packed,” he said.

William Bransford, also a freshman at MSU, echoed these sentiments. “I love the place. Little light on the gym equipment, for sure. But, I mean, they do really have everything,” he said.

In the short term, Long said the SWC is working on smoothing out the process for students who want to come and work out or access other services. One step that has already been taken to make the student experience more positive is ordering more strength training equipment, which has been a sore point for some students since the opening of the SWC.

Over the next five years, Long said she hopes that the culture of health on campus will be redefined in terms of a holistic approach to wellness as opposed to the previously isolated nature of mental well-being, personal health and fitness.

Long said that a key fact about the new SWC is that it is paid for by student fees. “I want to make it real clear: student fees have paid for this; you should come use it,” she said.

So, whether you’re drawn in by one of the different yoga studios, the areas to play table tennis or the lap pool, get on top of your health and wellbeing this semester and enjoy the advantages of a centralized location for wellness.