Community and Well-Being
Integrated support for health and wellness, with a culture that builds community and belonging
We're helping students flourish in their academic and personal lives by creating a culture that encourages compassionate care for self and others. Along with offering intentional opportunities to develop relationships and build inclusive communities, we're empowering students with knowledge and resources to help them promote, advocate for, and manage their personal health and well-being at Emory and beyond.
Caring for Self and Others
“The kindness of everyone on campus has helped me grow and figure out who I am and what I want to do. I feel I can take on new things and ask questions because I’m supported."
—Annika Urban 23C, Emory Women’s Cross Country All-American
Community and Well-Being Highlights
Reframes: Discovering the Possible
Part of Student Flourishing is learning to reframe life’s unexpected detours and own the positive and fulfilling changes these obstacles create. In 2024, Emory introduced “Reframes: Discovering the Possible,” a student-facing project seeking to ignite a campus-wide conversation about embracing the power of reframing unforeseen moments in life. The project highlights personal narratives from faculty, staff, and alumni, where they share moments of struggle and vulnerability through video vignettes and a portrait exhibition. Students are invited to share their own Reframes stories and build connection during Wonderful Wednesdays and the “Reframes: Dinner and Dialogue” event series.
Early Community Building
We’ve expanded our pre-orientation programs to enable more students to explore communities of interest and connect with faculty and peers, both across programs and the Oxford and Atlanta campuses. In 2022, more than 40 percent of the first-year class participated in pre-orientation programming—building community right from the start. Meanwhile, Emory Weeks of Welcome offers more intentional, large-scale programming on the Atlanta campus to create class-based traditions for both new and returning students. And Emory Athletics is enhancing the fan experience through new events programming and an Orientation Pep Rally to create camaraderie and school spirit for all Emory Eagles.
Flourishing Fellows Program
Designed to foster resilient, inclusive, relationship-based communities on campus, this program trains 20+ diverse student leaders in the work of community building and active peer engagement. Each Flourishing Fellow will commit to meeting 40 Emory students over the course of the year for friendly conversation. Whether it’s over coffee, walking home from the library or strolling through Lullwater, these conversations are intentional and emphasize presence and the p. with weekly team gatherings as well as regular guidance and supervision from mentors in the Office of Spiritual and Religious Life.
Wellbeing Coaching Program
Emory’s Center for Student Wellbeing launched a new well-being coaching program available to all undergraduate, graduate and professional students in September 2024. The program provides non-clinical individual coaching for students who would like to make changes in their lives through support, discussion, reflection, plan development and action. To support the initiative, the center hired two full-time coaches who will work with students to help them focus on achieving personally meaningful goals.
Student Characteristics Project
Since fall 2022, students have had the ability to opt to share identity-related information such as designated pronoun preferences, gender and sexuality, first-generation status, military-affiliated status, religious/spiritual identity, and ethnicity in Emory’s official student record system. The data supports more inclusive classrooms while helping the university better serve its diverse communities.
Celebrating Kindness
With the theme of "small acts of kindness can make a big difference," Campus Life organized a World Kindness Day celebration to encourage students to be more patient, grateful and kind in their daily lives. To recognize students' acts of kindness on campus, staff awarded "kindness coins" to students who were caught being kind, which they could then trade in for prizes at the event. The event included lunch and activities like assembling care packages for families at the Ronald McDonald House and writing inspirational messages for friends.
