Dear Providence College Parents,

At Providence College, we are committed to creating a transforming environment where students can flourish in mind, heart, soul, and body. The physical wellness of every member of our campus community is of utmost importance to us. After all, as embodied beings, the wellness of our bodies plays a significant role in allowing us to develop intellectually, aesthetically, spiritually, and socially. Without physical and emotional well-being, we cannot fully embrace life and learning.

On a practical note, we also want our students to develop good health and wellness habits now, while they are on campus, and to keep those habits after graduation. To that end, we are currently engaged in three important initiatives.

First, the Student Health Center has upgraded its on-campus health services to embrace the nurse-practitioner/physician model--a model that has been adopted by most leading New England colleges and universities.  The change, which was effective March 12, brings the College in line with national best practices in the college health field. 

The center is now staffed with state-licensed nurse practitioners (NPs) who work in collaboration with our part-time physicians to provide immediate care of students through physical assessment, diagnoses, and treatments that can include prescribing and dispensing medication and ordering diagnostic tests. I am pleased to let you know that this staffing model has clearly enhanced the services provided to our students.

Second, as I explained to you in my last letter, we believe that the abuse of alcohol by PC students constitutes a health and wellness problem that often remains with students well after graduation.  I want you to know that the entire College community has begun its conversation on alcohol abuse. Currently, we are initiating meetings and public forums and continuing to research the most appropriate solutions for Providence College.

Third, as many of you know from reading Digest or from visiting campus, we are in the process of building a new 23,000-square-foot state-of-the-art fitness center that will enhance the health and wellness of the entire campus community.

In the last ten years, we have devoted extensive resources to building campus facilities that focused on the intellectual, artistic, spiritual, and social development of our students. During that time, we have helped our students achieve health and well-being through varsity, intramural, and club sports. However, we came to realize that sports programs alone do not reach enough students. Clearly, we need to provide physical exercise opportunities to all our students as well as our staff and faculty. As a regular user of our existing weight room, I know firsthand how badly we need to upgrade our fitness facilities. The new fitness center will fill a significant void in facilities that promote physical well-being at the College.

The $13 million center features a three-story glass atrium that will provide a common entrance for the fitness center, Peterson Recreation Center, Alumni Hall, and Slavin Center. The first and second levels of the 23,000 square-foot center will offer expansive areas with cardiovascular and aerobic exercise equipment for use by the entire PC community; free weights will be available on the second level.

William F. Concannon '77, vice chairman of CB Richard Ellis, a member of the College's Board of Trustees, and a PC parent, recently made a $2 million leadership gift to the fitness center, the largest gift in PC history for the support of an athletics and fitness initiative.  Bill, who said that his years at Providence College were among the best years of his life, believes that the center will be a major asset to the campus and will help focus greater attention on wellness for everyone. I agree.

It was my pleasure to walk Bill and his wife, Claudia, through the yet incomplete building. I invite any of you who are in the area to come to campus and take that walk. And, if you can't be here in person, I encourage you to visit the fitness center update posted on the home page of the College Web site at providence.edu.  I guarantee that you will be impressed and glad that your son or daughter will have the opportunity, starting in the fall of 2007, to use such a facility.

In closing, let me say that I believe that our state-of-the-art fitness center, our new "best-practice" health delivery system, and our efforts to end alcohol abuse and help those in trouble with alcohol will bring Providence to a new level of excellence in student wellness services.

Rev. Brian J. Shanley, O.P.