New Duke Community Health and Wellness Initiative

TO:  Vice Presidents, Vice Provosts, Deans, Directors, Department Heads, and Managers
FROM:  A. Eugene Washington, Chancellor for Health Affairs, President & CEO, DUHS
Kyle Cavanaugh, Vice President, Administration
RE:  New Duke Community Health and Wellness Initiative

As managers, we need your support to make this cultural change. You can communicate the importance of this effort, model the type of change we want others to emulate, and promote the healthy resources and services available within our community.

Too often we take our health and wellness for granted until we have to deal with some issue that limits our ability to do everyday activities. Then we realize how central our health and wellbeing is to everything we hope to achieve in our personal, academic, and professional lives.

As we introduce this initiative, we are inviting all students, staff, and faculty to consider the reasons why their health and wellbeing are important and submit a photo that best reflects why as part of a photo contest. Submitted photos will be eligible to win one of several healthy prizes, including the grand prize of a trip for two to the Grove Park Inn & Spa in Ashville, N.C. Focusing on these reasons will help us remain focused on taking the necessary steps to sustain improvements in our health and quality of life.

You can learn more about this initiative and the photo contest at the Duke Healthy Campus website (http://sites.duke.edu/healthy). On behalf of the Duke Healthy Campus Steering Committee, we look forward to seeing your photos and sharing more information about this initiative soon.