Resilience. Resolve. Balance.

As I have long believed, women’s health must not be left to chance. This conviction is what drives me—and in large part, has propelled me throughout my medical career. Now, as Wellesley’s president, it lies at the heart of my deep commitment to expanding our focus on health and wellness at the College.

对于年轻女性，特别是健康和成功，成长和幸福之间的关系，是重要的，携带深刻的后果。我们准备满足来自陪伴的学生的需求至关重要。

In 2015, an estimated 3 million adolescents aged 12 to 17 in the United States (that’s nearly 13 percent) had at least one major depressive episode in the previous year, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. And a study by the United States Department of Health and Human Services found rates of depression among girls are more than double that of boys.

When students come to college, they remain at risk. In 2016, the American College Health Association found that 62 percent of undergraduates had felt “overwhelming anxiety” in the previous year.

Our students can only make the most of their intellectual strengths and fulfill their potential if they are as physically and emotionally strong as possible. We must help Wellesley students cultivate resilience, resolve, and emotional balance.

The Stone Center Counseling Service was founded in 1981 thanks to the foresight and generosity of the Stone family. With a remarkably forward-leaning mission for its day, the Stone Center committed to a three-pronged approach of research, clinical services, and prevention. Today, the College looks to honor, strengthen, and expand that vision.

We have recently expanded our resources to meet the increasingly diverse needs of our students. For example, we hired a student-care coordinator, a crucial new member of the team. As an in-house case manager, her duties will be wide-ranging and will free up our counselors to devote more of their time to supporting our students directly.

虽然石材中心咨询服务长期以来提供了在线自我评估工具，但我们已经增加了一个有效的新计划，称为Welltrack，帮助学生培养应对轻度抑郁和焦虑的技能，这是我们学生寻求咨询的两个原因。石材中心还推出了增强的在线调度系统，以改善学生对服务的访问。

We have ambitious goals for reimagining health and wellness at Wellesley that will bring together partners from across the campus and the greater community. Spearheaded by our new Vice President and Dean of Students Sheilah Horton, who is already bringing a galvanizing vision and energy to these areas, we will look to integrate counseling more directly with health services, recognizing the close connection between physical and emotional health. The creation of a wellness initiative will begin by exploring programs already in place on campus to understand their impact and potential scalability.

One model we will study is reflected in interdisciplinary, experiential courses like the first-year writing class co-taught by Connie Bauman, professor of the practice in the Department of Physical Education, Recreation, and Athletics, and Jeannine Johnson, senior lecturer and director of the Writing Program. The students practice mindfulness techniques, collect data about themselves, and write about the science behind wellness. I attended a class session and saw how students are learning about effective wellness habits, and how to manage stress and anxiety.

To fully understand what drives health and wellness on our campus, we are also embarking on a collaboration with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. We will work together to approach health and wellness on Wellesley’s campus as a public health initiative, which, of course, it is. We will learn about the most current research and evidence-based strategies to teach healthy behaviors such as learning better sleep habits, avoiding alcohol and other drugs, and preventing sexual assaults.

Wellesley既是一个严谨的学习机构，致力于最高标准的奖学金 - 以及致力于制定对健康社区的理解和创造的深刻理解的地方。通过这种方式，Wellesley准备改变我们如何接近年轻女性的健康和健康。我们这样做是因为它是对我们的学生做的最好的事情，因为这些同样的年轻女性和像你这样的校友是创造未来的最接近的方式。