Our Staff Spotlight for the month of October is Arianna Camel, Director of the Center for Health Education and Promotion. Prior to becoming a new professional for Millersville University as the Director of CHEP a year ago, Ari was a part of the department for five years while she earned degrees in Social Work and Emergency Management, acting as a peer educator for student athletes during her time as an undergrad and continuing her work for CHEP as a Grad Assistant.
Being an avid social media user made the transition to working with students virtually easy for Ari and her young office. Through their use of Instagram, Zoom, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook, there have now been over 70,000 interactions from students engaging in CHEP’s virtual events, surveys, videos, webinars and reading materials, with a winner chosen each week from the students who engaged in the live social media events.
When asked what she loves most about her job, Ari responded, “Staying connected with students! Being a young director definitely has its perks. I don’t have to try and figure out the new slang and students feel extremely comfortable holding intense and sometimes strange conversations with me. Each day I look forward to the chaos of overseeing 30+ people, who are continuously searching for their purpose, struggling to get through one more assignment, and questioning society’s norms. I have never been more thankful to live in the craziest of times.”
“As a department we’ve come to the conclusion that this is not the ‘new normal’,” continued Ari. “What I love about our department and the students that lead is that we are very real about feelings. We have adjusted for the time being, but are looking forward to when things do get back to normal outside of the pandemic. The social justice unrest has lit a fire under these students and the wellness programming that is to come from it is going to be amazing. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the tremendous work that the students have done over the last 6 months. I’m truly amazed by their resilience and optimism.”
From all of us at SAEM, we send a big Thank You to Ari for all that she does for our students!