Jordan: Hey there Dukes, thanks for tuning in for Season 2 of the Well Dukes Podcast! I am Jordan McCann, I use she/her pronouns and I am the Assistant Director for Sexual and Relationship Health. I am very excited to be back, recording and having you all listen! Today I have MaryGrace Johnson, MaryGrace will you introduce yourself?

MG: Yes, of course! I am super thrilled to be a part of the podcast this year. I am a College Student Personnel student, so I am pursuing my Master’s to hopefully do something just like Jordan, working on a college campus. But like Jordan said, my name is MaryGrace, I use she/her pronouns and I am the Graduate Student for Health Promotion this year. Last year I also worked on campus, you might have seen me around. I worked in the Student Activities and Involvement Office and I even started Thursday Crafternoon which was a really fun program happening every week where we got to do crafts and such. But I am excited to move forward with this position and focus on Wellness Programming for our students. 

Jordan: Awesome! And you will be hearing a lot more from MaryGrace as she will be pretty much taking over the hosting for the podcast this year. So we are kicking off this school year with some big changes, so we wanted to do our first episode to share what those changes are, and some updates that we have had over the summer. So whether you are tuning in to the podcast for the first time, or you have listened to us before, this is some great stuff and we are excited about all these changes! So MaryGrace why don't you start it off with what is for sure the biggest and most exciting change for us over here in Health Promotion.

MG: So Health Promotion is now at UREC!  Wooo!

Jordan: Yeah so that is certainly the biggest change, if you’ve listened to us before you know we talked a lot about The Well. WELL, The Well no longer exists. RIP. We were the Office of Health Promotion and Wellbeing and The Well was the physical space that we had named at the Student Success Center and the staff in the Office of Health Promotion and Wellbeing has moved to UREC. So we have moved and we are fully integrated at UREC and are no longer with the University Health Center. UREC stands for University Recreation, it is over on East Campus. We are very excited to be here and this is mostly exciting because this means that the programs and services we offer are going to be so much more visible to JMU students. 

MG: Yes, exactly! And those services will continue to be offered… safer sex supplies, educational programs, one-on-one coaching and 21st birthday.    

Jordan: Yeah, one thing to note is a service that used to be provided by The Well and the Health Center is Survivor Advocacy. This is one of the things that are not continuing here, however that is available still to students. That service is now called Victim Advocacy and it is a part of the Counseling Center. So if students ever need to visit with a Victim Advocate, they can access that office on the third floor of the Student Success Center and we will have more information on that in a link to their page in our episode description so you can check that out there.  

So let's explain those services you said, MaryGrace, with a little bit more detail and go over some of the updates and changes with them as well. 

MG: Alright! So starting with our Safer Sex Supplies, we have some new locations for our Safer Sex Stations. Since we are now at UREC, of course, we had to put one here. The Safer Sex Station will be located in the Wellness Center which is on the second floor right in front of the atrium stairs, so easy access for everyone.

Jordan: Yes, love that easy access. Another new change is since what used to be the Well is now CMSS, we have removed the Safer Sex Station that used to be there and it is now located outside of that space, but still in the Student Success Center. So it is on the first floor of the Student Success Center and it’s going to be on the right of the pharmacy and it is going to be a little hidden from view, but just follow the signs and you can easily find that, again near the pharmacy on the first floor of the Student Success Center and we are excited about that location because it will be available for students to obtain Safer Sex Supplies late into the evening as well as on weekends. You can also access Safer Sex Supplies at our other locations that are remaining the same and that includes the Student Learning Initiatives Office that is in Huffman Hall that is a part of The Village Residence Halls, we also will continue to have one at The Pantry which is located in Taylor Down Under in Madison Union and then there is still one in the Health Center for any students who are there visiting with an appointment. 

MG: We are also continuing our Safer Sex Supplies Online Ordering service. We found that the students really enjoyed and took advantage of this service last year and our pick up locations will be in SLI and UREC. There will also be a link listed in our episode description if you want to check that one out as well. 

Jordan: Yeah, we are super excited to continue that. We found, MaryGrace as you said, a lot of students enjoyed it because it offers some privacy when it comes to picking out safer sex supplies and it really allows students to “shop” and customize whatever they want their order to be… Next let’s talk more about the topics we provide education on

MG: So this is another big change, the student group “The Well Peers” also no longer exists. Instead students now have the opportunity to become a paid Wellness Instructor at UREC. We are excited to have Luke, Carly and Kate back with us this year and you’ll hear from them on this podcast throughout the year. As Wellness Instructors they will facilitate our 21st birthday programming so you will know that you are talking to another student on campus whenever you are having that consultation and just a little bit more comfortability there. We also have evening programming for the Wellness Passport opportunities so all those first year students out there looking to get their passport checked, head on over to those. And then they are also trained to educate on things like safe alcohol consumption, STI prevention, Sexual and Reproductive Health, Healthy Relationships, Body Image and so much more!

Jordan: Yeah, another program or service we offer too is Green Dot. And so Green Dot has been around for a few years, and we are excited to be re-launching that just since we really now have 2 classes of students who haven’t had the opportunity to experience Green Dot yet. So Green Dot is our bystander intervention program that focuses on reducing power-based personal violence. Be on the lookout for more things about Green Dot. We have action days, and green out days so those are days once per semester when we have tabling and activities, just to promote Green Dot, teach students what it is. We also have overview sessions, that students can volunteer to attend or they might have it as a part of training for any club or organization that goes over some basic skills of being a bystander and why it is important to intervene as an active bystander when we see something happening. And again, if you want to learn more about that or find out how you can get involved with an overview talk or a training session you can check out our episode description as well as UREC’s web page. 

Our last major change or update is Wellness Coaching. This is a service that we have already provided, but you may have heard it as Reflections or Sexual Health Coaching. UREC now has Wellness Coaching so that is the name for these services. Students can schedule a 1:1 meeting for concerns in the areas of Substance Misuse like with alcohol or cannabis or with Sexual Health. I serve as a Sexual Health Coach here, and we have 2 other great facilitators that talk about alcohol and cannabis use. These sessions are free, non judgemental, and really are an opportunity to explore the relationship that these things are playing in your life, perhaps. Or also provide just some clarification or answer some questions students may have. 

MG: Yes exactly, and all the things we have talked about are FREE to all JMU students so you can check out UREC’s website to learn more about all the things we have discussed thus far

Jordan: Well, MaryGrace, I think that covers it all. Even though that may not seem like a lot, these are really big changes for us and it is really exciting for us to be able to offer JMU students this year and just exciting to have students back and having the opportunity to engage in these opportunities. So I know I am very excited to see how students like them and are receptive to us being here at UREC because we are very happy to be here 

Since our listeners will be hearing from you a lot more this year, I just want to take a minute to get to know you. So something we like to do on this podcast is ask some questions SO, my question for you… If you were a key, what would you unlock?

MG: So if I were a key, I would unlock the ice cream store… because I am super sweet and it is basically the key to everyone’s heart so that is the most beneficial way for me to create relationships and give some free ice cream out and… also get some ice cream myself

Jordan: Yeah.. okay, yeah for a second when you said that I thought “sure,  you get to make a lot of people happy holding the key to all the ice cream”

MG: Okay Jordan, since my question was kinda weird and my answer was a little weird, I am going to ask you… what kind of ice cream would you be then? Because, ya know, fitting the theme here 

Jordan: Oh gosh… I want to just say my favorite but I feel like it should have a little bit more meaning behind it. I would say, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. With that 1. I do enjoy cookie dough ice cream but because your base is typically vanilla and it’s your main, your go-to, kinda simple but then you got your chunks of cookie dough and chocolate chips so with me too, it would be like my personality, pretty steady and try to keep things simple but every now and then you’ve got some additional fun, mixed in there too I guess

MG: No, I definitely agree, yeah everyone likes cookie dough!

Jordan: And part of me.. Yeah, a lot of people like cookie dough so why wouldn't I want to be liked too, right? That says something about my personality as well

MG: I mean that is definitely my favorite kind of ice cream but I will definitely say you have a lot more fun and weird questions to look forward to throughout the semester. Jordan and I will definitely be thinking of them. But a few of the things that we will have in the upcoming episodes will be focusing on cannabis and maybe what that means now that it has changed with the laws in Virginia. That might be something our students might be interested in. We also will be focusing on wellness as a college student and so working with UREC and really getting to be a part of that this year. We are hoping that will bring us a little bit of extra education and opportunity to provide for you all on that front as well

And if you’re not already, please be sure to follow us on Instagram and Tiktok, you'll see some of our stuff there as well

Jordan: Yeah, so we hope everyone has a great start to the semester at the time we are recording this, it is just a few days before classes start and there is excitement on campus. So really happy to see it. 

And always remember, be Well Dukes