The Fisk HBCU Wellness Project has afforded an opportunity for Fisk University to maintain its reputation and legacy of “town and gown”. Through this partnership, Fisk have been able to integrate its student body with the local community around issues that really matter…their health. The Project has empowered Fisk students with opportunity, and has encouraged them to become translators and disseminators of vital information in hopes of modifying behaviors to eventually eradicate health disparities along racial lines. 

The Lane HBCU Wellness Project has enabled Lane College (LC) to actively assist in finding better solutions for community residents to gain better access to health care. The project has provided free educational literature and brochures, educational workshops, health activities, testing/screenings, health fairs, and information about access to healthcare agencies and healthcare professionals. These critical factors permit LC to be a vehicle through which the community learns about health disparities, how to prevent them, and how to maintain one’s health once diagnosed. 

Lane’s Student Health Ambassadors (SHA) have partnered with community leaders and healthcare organizations to offer educational workshops and confidential screenings for citizens. They also gather surveys, analyze data, and track participants’ health knowledge. At least one major activity is sponsored each month by SHAs. 

The Project has also assisted the target community and Lane College students in community-based service learning, developing effective intervention programs, and assisting the college to better prepare its students for graduate school and/or careers in the healthcare professions.

The LeMoyne-Owen (LOC) HBCU Wellness Project efforts have benefited LOC in a variety of ways. Not only has LOC’s infrastructure expanded resulting in increased personnel thus increasing the local workforce, but it has also expanded technologically. As a result of the Project, LOC has gained a state-of-the-art videoconferencing center which not only enables them to interface with the HBCU Wellness network, but it has also provided opportunity for their SHAs to conference with other entities, community partnerships and healthcare organizations.

The Project's emphasis on community outreach and the formation of partnerships has resulted in the development of relationships with more than 100 agencies in the Mid-South region. These agencies have not only supported the SHAs’ health projects, but they have also been accessible to the College at large. As a result, additional partnerships have been formed. For example, the LOC HBCU Wellness Project fostered a relationship with the Memphis Health Center (MHC) that predated the PATH asthma study’s partnership with the same medical facility. It was the Project's success with MHC that allowed for an expanded relationship with the PATH asthma research study.

Campus update will be posted soon.