Students paint canvases at a previous art therapy event provided by the Student Wellness Center. Credit: Jordan Helcbergier
The Student Wellness Center and the Ohio Union Activities Board will host Wellness Wednesday: Art Therapy for Self Care, Wednesday for graduate and professional students at Ohio State to provide students a space to decompress.
Wellness Wednesday will run from 11 a.m to 2 p.m., featuring a presentation from Jordan Helcbergier, a wellness coordinator at the Student Wellness Center. Magnets, Legos, looms, Play-Doh, modeling clay and paint are just a few of the art activities students can participate in, Helcbergier said. According to the Office of Student Life, topics covered in the session will align with the 10 dimensions of wellness — such as career, digital and emotional wellness. Lunch will be provided to participants.
Helcbergier said health and wellness is a subject she is passionate about and acknowledges being a student is stressful and challenging. She said oftentimes wellness is put on the backburner with so many other things on a student’s to-do list.
“The Student Wellness Center really aligned with my value of building in health and wellness into our day and practicing self-care and that work-life balance,” Helcbergier said. “Being able to provide this free resource to students to really engage and support them however I can has been really wonderful.”
Helcbergier said she is working to give graduate and professional students — whose wellness, she said, is often less focused on — equivalent resources as undergraduate students for their well-being.
“I want it to be accessible to all of our students on campus, regardless of their class standing,” Helcbergier said.
Although Wednesday’s event focuses on the graduate and professional student population, Helcbergier said anyone can request an art therapy session through the Student Wellness Center.
“While this event is specifically on that focused population of graduate and professional students, in our office we do have art therapy that can be requested for different organizations,” Helcbergier said. “If you’re in a student organization, you can reach out, and we can facilitate that.”
Krystal Vielman-Diaz, assistant director of OUAB, said she and Helcbergier strategically placed this Wellness Wednesday around midterms, a time when students experience heightened levels of stress.
“This is just a good opportunity to decompress, even if you decide to show up, and you don’t want to do anything creative. The space is an open room,” Vielman-Diaz said. “You can just sit down and relax and not have to worry about work during that time.”
Aside from art therapy, past Wellness Wednesdays have featured subjects — like homeownership, administering opioid overdose reversal Narcan, relationships and body image — Vielman-Diaz said.
Vielman-Diaz and Helcbergier have worked together in the past to facilitate and plan Wellness Wednesdays held weekly at the Ohio Union.
“We’ve received so much positive feedback,” Helcbergier said. “It is a really great space. I’m really happy with the way that this program has really taken off.”
