The University is known for its 78 health and wellness programs and now faculty, staff and students wait to see if these programs will qualify as Centers of Excellence.

Associate Dean of College of Health and Human Services, Chris Dunn, said all 13 Universities in Ohio are identifying their Centers of Excellence as part of Gov. Ted Strickland and Chancellor Eric Fingerhut’s “Strategic Plan for Higher Education.” Health and Wellness across a Lifespan is one of four centers the University has considered for excellence.

Dunn said the Centers of Excellence is a first time thing for Ohio. He said Strickland wanted to adopt a structure called the Ohio University system, where each of the universities had their own programs they are known for and good at.

“Their reasoning was we can’t have every university in Ohio funded by the state be the same type of thing,” Dunn said.

Every university will still have their general education departments, such as English and science, but their Centers of Excellence will be their own distinguishing features.

This past June, the University had its first center approved which was the Center of Excellence in the Arts. This includes the College of Arts and Sciences.

The process of claiming these centers takes more than a couple of days. The provost, president and University Board of Trustees must all approve the centers. By spring 2009, each university should have reported their centers to the Chancellor for approval.

Linda Petrosino, dean of the College of Health and Human Services, presented the second center Health and Wellness across a Lifespan to the Board of Trustees. Now they wait for the board’s approval.

Milton Hakel, psychology professor, serves as a chair for the steering committee of the Center of Excellence for the University and he said the next meeting for the Board of Trustees is in February. However, he said they have a lot on their plate, so they may not even get to vote on the center then.

Hakel said he is not worried about it though.

“[The Board of Trustees] are very supportive of the directions of this University,” Hakel said.

It did not take just one program to form this Center of Excellence in health and wellness. Dunn said there are 78 different programs across campus, including Firelands, that deal with health-related issues not in the College of Health and Human Services.

“We believe that the aggregate of close to 80 programs, which involve over 100 faculty across the entire University who teach and conduct research in health and wellness areas, represent a tremendous existing strength that can be built on to become a national signature for BGSU,” Petrosino said

Some examples of these wellness programs are: The University’s own PRSSA’s Project U, which was led by Journalism Professor Terry Rentner, that was a state-wide competition for a tobacco reduction campaign on campus.

Another example is Healthier You Peer Education (HYPE), which is a group of students who have taken the HHS 440 class and present a variety of wellness topics such as nutrition, body image, alcohol and other drugs and sexual health.

These are just a couple programs offered here on campus that have a goal to increase health and wellness.

“We have nationally and internationally known scholars and researchers with strong interdisciplinary research programs,” Petrosino said. “We have a long tradition of community partnerships and in fact our partnerships are the fabric of many of our health and wellness programs.”

Hakel said he thinks the focus on health and wellness as a way of prevention to health issues is more important than what some other universities focus on.

He said the University of Toledo is well-known for its medical school.

“[It’s good] BGSU does not have a medical school because medical schools often tend to see more disease aspect,” Hakel said. “Of course when you have the flu you want to get rid of it, but here we look at ways to prevent it.”

Dunn also agrees that prevention is more important than treatment.

“There’s a huge mismatch between 97 percent of all the health care dollars in this country are spent on treatment and cures and 3 percent are spent on prevention and health promotion,” Dunn said. “Researchers have been able to demonstrate that there would be a huge cost savings if we just introduced a little bit more money into the prevention side of things.”

While the University awaits its second Center of Excellence, there are still two more to go through the process. One is called the 21st Century Organizations, which are programs focused on technology, psychology and others. The second center is focused on the University’s Education Program.

If the Chancellor does not approve BGSU’s wellness programs, the University will continue to educate students on health and wellness.

“We are well positioned to sharpen the BGSU focus in this area and to offer comprehensive, quality educational experiences for our students in health and wellness across the lifespan,” Petrosino said.