Events
Wellness Initiatives
The Office of Student Affairs (OSA) and the Student Wellness and Resilience Committee (SWRC) collaborate closely to offer a variety of programming to UICOM students. Here is a sampling of some previous events. Please join the Slack channel #sig-studentwellness-c to stay updated.
- Fitness Challenge – fall and spring fitness challenge that engages over 100 students, staff and faculty and builds community and promotes fitness during covid-19
- Meditation Lunches led by Dr. Maureen Gecht from the Department of Family Medicine where students can practice guided meditation. We have explored the work of several influential meditation instructors and different techniques that students can use to manage stress and help with focus.
- Skills-based lunches, including plant-based nutrition, sleep and mental hygiene, coping with burnout. The UIC Counseling Center regularly helps facilitate these skills sessions
- The UIC yoga club began in January 2019 when a group of students in the class of 2022 decided to share their skills as certified yoga instructors with their peers. The club works closely with OSA and SWRC and offers virtual and in-person classes for students. Join #sig-yoga-c on slack to stay updated
- Socials: ice cream, hot chocolate – opportunities to engage in conversation, build community and take a break between classes
- Chai chats: Dr. Memoona Hasnain has always been invested in medical student wellness and opens her apartment in the graduate student housing building to students once a month for community discussion. She serves chai and snacks and encourages medical students to share their thoughts about issues in the community and how it affects their personal lives. During virtual learning, we have built this community through Zoom sessions. Students leave feeling full of goodies and supported by their peers and professors.
- Peer-led medical student mental health panels to reduce the stigma of mental health in medical training
- Student-led Latin fusion Dance classes to let loose, enjoy and pick up a new hobby with your classmates
- Student-led self defense training to learn a new fitness-oriented skill
- Compassion-Based Cognitive Therapy classes
- Online-group Netflix movie parties and trivia nights
In addition, in the last few years, we have focused on a few longitudinal policy and student life projects:
- Involvement with the Wellness Curriculum: When UIC introduced a new medical student curriculum in 2017, wellness class sessions became an integrated part of students’ schedules. SWRC represents the interests of students to the faculty committee that designs these class sessions.
- Advocacy for student health at University and Chicago Campus medical student governments and with Chicago campus Deans meetings. OSA and SWRC also discuss some of the higher-level changes affecting student wellbeing
- Navigating health care and insurance is difficult for medical students, particularly when they are concerned about privacy when seeking care where professors who may grade them work. SWRC has coordinated with OSA, the Campus Care student health benefits program and the Department of Family Medicine to develop a Medical Student Health Care Guide to explain this process to empower students to understand their coverage.
- Medical Student Healthcare Guide – a 35 page summary of resources on how to access healthcare as a medical student at University of Illinois College of Medicine
- Medical Student Healthcare Guide – a 35 page summary of resources on how to access healthcare as a medical student at University of Illinois College of Medicine
- We also assess students’ health care needs and advocate for changes in coverage of the Student Health Fee and Campus Care. For example, advocacy for LARCS, reproductive health coverage at UIC Trustee Meetings and other administrative avenues
- Collaborations with University Medical Student Council (UMSC) to author resolutions promoting wellness and student health
- Advised and promoted the development of the new Medical Student Resiliency Center, providing confidential counseling and medication management services
Please see samples of SWRC’s newsletter and calendar below
Wellness Newsletter- April 2020.pdf
November 2019 Wellness Calendar.png
UIC Campus Wide Events
UIC Campus Recreation offers state-of-the-art- facilities focused on providing our university community a complete recreational experience.
Center for Student Involvement
The Center for Student Involvement’s mission is to build a foundation for holistic development through educational, social, leadership, and cultural programming for UIC students.
The mission of the Pop-Up Pantry is to combat food insecurity amongst students at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Students at UIC come from a variety of backgrounds, and our aim is to assist those who are facing hardship. Food is a basic human right, and we must never forget the importance of it.