Syracuse Sun

Fall 2024 marks a five-year milestone since the grand opening of the Barnes Center at The Arch. A driving force behind the vision for the Barnes Center at The Arch’s physical space and its health and wellness team—comprising health care, counseling, health promotion, and recreation—is to enhance the student experience through a pioneering Integrated Health and Wellness Model. The physical space mirrors the model, which prioritizes increased communication across teams alongside increased student access to services, resources, and experiences that work together to encompass mind, body, spirit, and community.

The innovative work of implementing and assessing the Barnes Center at The Arch Integrated Health and Wellness Model has earned the team, Yanhong Liu, Ph.D., School of Education associate professor and Barnes Center Interdisciplinary Health and Wellness Research Consortium faculty affiliate, and campus partners their latest peer-reviewed publication, “An Integrated Health and Wellness Model in a College Setting: A Path Analysis Pilot Investigation,” in the Journal of College Student Mental Health (formerly the Journal of College Student Psychotherapy).

Helping to lead the health and wellness research team and this publication is Qingyi Yu, Ph.D., Barnes Center at The Arch associate director of health and wellness research.

"Possibly the first peer-reviewed research on an integrated wellness model in a college setting," said Yu. "Our study is participatory in nature, aiming to meet the needs of our university community and the wider academic community across various disciplines. The study presents empirical evidence demonstrating the significant impact of the Barnes Center at The Arch’s Integrated Health and Wellness Model on reducing depressive symptoms among college students. The article revealed that our integrated model encompasses various health and wellness components such as self-guided mindfulness (Crowley Family MindSpa), pet therapy (Deborah A. Barnes Pet Therapy Program), recreation, and counseling services."

Yu further commented on how this may support others nationally or globally: "We are proud that our Barnes Center Integrated Health and Wellness Model is unique and successful in college settings. While existing literature has some data on integrated health care in hospital settings, our study is likely the first to demonstrate its significance in college settings. We anticipate conducting more research to support college student well-being based on our model, providing more data-driven evidence to impact policies and resources for college student well-being nationally and even globally."

Regarding how these findings will enhance Syracuse University students' experience: "Our current research underscores the significance of an Integrated Health and Wellness Model in a college setting," Yu noted. "This model is a bridge connecting many domains of well-being including physical, mental, social, spiritual which allows the Barnes Center at The Arch team to provide holistic care for our students. We found that students seeking mental health services could also benefit greatly from engaging in other wellness activities such as incorporating physical exercise alongside mindfulness experiences like pet therapy or self-guided mindfulness practice through Crowley Family MindSpa in addition to counseling to enhance mental health outcomes. Taking these findings further," Yu added,"the Barnes Center has implemented a new referral system based on this model enabling our counseling healthcare providers to recommend students participate in physical exercises nutrition services pet therapy MindSpa."

The University community is invited to explore future opportunities for participating in research supporting student experience.

Interdisciplinary Health & Wellness Research Consortium: Involving faculty graduate students those interested participating research various disciplines; working establish Interdisciplinary Wellness Research Consortium group focus evidence-based health wellness research practitioner-researcher collaboration efforts incorporating practices such as counseling health promotion physical wellness more providing graduate students training mentorship opportunities data analysis research development publication information email Yu qyu105@syr.edu.

Student Health & Wellness Advisory Committee: Hosted 2024-25 academic year offers leadership opportunities students provide feedback health wellness initiatives programming services help inform application open Friday Sept 20 information application available Student Health & Wellness Advisory Committee Application webpage.