Wellness is important on any college campus. This year Guilford College created a brand-new position to strengthen wellness education efforts to help students make healthier choices.

Former Community Director Kristie Wyatt ‘08 has been selected for the position of wellness education coordinator, in which she will focus full-time on educating students about sexual assault and harassment among other wellness issues.

Wyatt got involved in sexual health and peer education as an undergraduate at Guilford, participating in groups such as PRIDE, SASSA, CAAP, and Community Senate.

“I first came here in 2003 as a first-year student,” Wyatt said. “It just kind of snowballed and when I graduated I just picked up the work through public safety and campus life and now eleven years later I’ve never left.”

This direct experience with Guilford students has earned Kristie a strong reputation for being very easy to talk to and informed on issues where she truly wants to make a difference.

“Kristie had been a full-time community director for several years, but last year, because Mary Hobbs was closed for renovation, her job as a Community Director became part-time and she picked up wellness education as part of her job,” said Gaither Terrell, the director of student counseling at Guilford.

“We knew we wanted that wellness education position to be a full-time one, so this year we were able to say ‘Let’s move you over from Residence Life and change the funding and let you do this wellness education job full-time.’”

This year, Kristie will be able to put all of her focus on educating students about important wellness issues like sexual assault and sexual harassment.

“We’re looking to create an integrative health organization which is student-led, and I have a few students taking that head on this semester,” said Wyatt. “We’re hoping to roll that out in the spring and I’m really excited about that.” 

It is Kristie’s goal to make it as easy and simple as possible for students to get the help they need from her.

“We’re working together as a team to refer people to me,” said Wyatt. “So your RA, your community director, anyone in Campus Life, the counseling center and a lot of faculty and staff too will be able to funnel people into my office, which is located in Campus Life. I live on campus so people see me around a lot and I’m always happy to be approached.”

She is also exempt from mandatory reporting, providing a confidential outlet for the personal concerns of students.

“I could not think of a person more suited to lead the sexual violence prevention efforts than Kristie,” said student body president junior Molly Anne Marcotte who was Kristie’s intern last year.

This year, Wyatt hopes to bring the importance of sexual issues to the forefront of everyone’s minds.

“Figuring out all of these sexual assault issues is going on at every college in the country,” said Terrell. “There’s a lot of push on these issues. It’s a good thing. It’s making people take this more seriously, and making our students more educated about these things and safer in the long run.”