Center for Wellness and Lifelong Learning

The Center for Wellness and Lifelong Learning provides an intentional co-curriculum of workshops and learning experiences that encourage students to develop a well-rounded and balanced life. The Center helps students develop multiple ways of knowing the self, others and the world, empowers students to actively engage in life’s challenges by making ethical and fulfilling choices grounded in a rich sense of identity, positive dispositions and healthy habits over a lifetime.  We do this by offering workshops that encompass one or more of the eight wellness dimensions.  The  dimensions and the intentional learning goals for each dimension are explained below.

In order to receive a baccalaureate degree, students must fulfill co-curricular wellness requirements, in addition to curricular requirements.  Each student needs to complete a workshop from each of the eight wellness dimensions noted below.  While some workshops will focus solely on a single wellness dimension, many workshops will cover multiple dimensions.  Most students can satisfy the requirements with 4-5 workshops.

Transfer students are also required to complete all 8 Wellness dimension requirements in order to satisfy degree requirements at Northland College.  Transfers and non-traditional students may complete up to 2 dimensions via the prior life experience petition.  Petitions must be approved by Co-curricular Council.  Any student may complete up to 2 dimensions through Council pre-approved advanced study or Attending a Professional Conference options. 

Ecological Wellness: An awareness of the complex relationships of humans to the built and natural environments around them, emphasizing natural systems that enable environmentally sustainable choices.

• Participates in sustainable living practices
• Understands one’s systemic relationship to energy, food, waste, water, and air
• Develops a rich sense of place
• Understands the myriad effects that humans exact upon the natural world
• Recognizes the effect of the environment on humans
• Appreciates the beauty and wonder of the natural world

Spiritual Wellness: An examined and integrating set of beliefs that provides meaning and purpose which includes a sense of mystery, wonder and hope.

• Exposure to a variety of religious and spiritual traditions
• Explores evocative experiences of wonder and awe
• Practices the art of silent reflection and contemplation
• Seeks a sense of meaning in the creation of a purposeful life
• Develops a deeper sense of transcendent and imminent connection

Physical Wellness: A commitment to making positive choices and creating healthy habits that amplify awareness, appreciation, and acceptance of the strength of one’s body holistically throughout the various stages of life.

• Demonstrates positive self care including healthy diet, sleep, physical activity, sexuality, safety, and informed use of health care services
• Creates and implements a personal wellness plan
• Understands the essential connections between personal health and the quality of the human, natural, and campus environments
• Able to explain the relationship between health and one’s capacity to meet personal, academic, and long-term goals
• Recognizes the effects and consequences of alcohol, drugs, and addictive substances

Emotional Wellness: The ability to respond resiliently to the emotional states of self and others which leads to appropriate expressions and communication, and to develop and maintain interdependent relationships built on trust, commitment and respect. 

• Takes responsibility for personal behavior
• Balances self-reliant behaviors with healthy forms of dependency
• Recognizes and identifies a range of emotions
• Is able to be intimate and discerning
• Grows from critical examination of emotional highs and lows
• Humble self-acceptance

Intellectual Wellness: A lifelong curiosity cultivated through a creative engagement with complex ideas; the practice of critical thinking; a nurtured imagination; and a liberal disposition to the ideas and values of others. 

• Understands the components of critical and creative thinking
• Demonstrates an openness to ideas different from one’s own
• Experiences multiple and diverse modes of expression
• Demonstrates an intrinsic motivation to learn

Social Wellness: An on-going commitment to the common good and social justice fostered by positive relationships with others, encouraging mutual respect, welcoming and appreciating difference, the capacity to trust, and a willingness to listen and speak honestly. 

• Understands the dynamics of conflict
• Articulates the advantages and challenges of a diverse society
• Understands one’s own identity and culture
• Practices effective interpersonal and group communication
• Works toward creating healthy living environments
• Experiences the interdependent relationship of self and world

Economic Wellness: The ability to make informed choices about finances and consumption commensurate with a socially responsible quality of life, including the awareness of the relationship of personal economics to the whole of one’s life.

• Manages debt and credit
• Understands auto, life, home, and health insurance options
• Manages personal finances
• Practices wise and ethical consumption
• Understands ethical investment and long-range financial planning

Vocational Wellness: A developed self-knowledge of values, talents, goals and interests, and the ability to balance work and recreation in order to find ongoing fulfillment in life.

• Connects personal values to vocational activities
• Knows the steps of job search
• Understands lifelong career development
• Identifies personal skills and abilities related to career choice
• Engages in volunteer activities
• Nurtures interests complimentary to one’s world of work
• Understands the difference between making a living and making a life