Missouri Southern’s Wellness program will be hosting a new wellness series this semester called “The Truth About …” that will focus on various topics with six installments to help students get the facts about their health. The first session was over general wellness, with Heather Arnold, director of aquatics and wellness, as the speaker.

“Basically I wanted to try something new,” she said. “I kind of took feedback from people I’ve gotten over the last couple of years.

“I try to talk to students and say, ‘Hey, what do you think would go over well’ or ‘Would this interest you?”   

The program will be hosting a low or no cost Wellness Screening Fair for faculty, students, staff, retirees and their spouses.

The fair will be held Tuesday, Sept. 18, and provide testing for sexually transmitted disease, STD and sexually transmitted infection and STIs courtesy of the Wilcoxon Health Center.  

The fair will be from 7:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. on the third floor the Billingsly Student Center.

“Our thought process on that was there’s a lot of people [faculty and staff] who need testing periodically and they need it more than once a year, when we offer it in the spring,” Arnold said.

“There’s a lot of students on campus who don’t have insurance, or have very little and we want them to still be able to stay well,” she said.

The Student Wellness Awareness Group, also known as SWAG, will be working with the wellness department by hosting a “Health Hut” every Thursday beginning Sept. 6, from 10 a.m.–1 p.m.

The Hut will move to various locations on campus each week. The event will provide wellness give-aways, as well as large prizes for those who follow the group on Facebook and Twitter pages.

The biggest program offered this semester will be the Wellness Reward Program.

“All they have to do is sign in at different wellness events, we will keep track of how many points they get for going to that event,” Arnold said.

“At the end of April the faculty member with most points and the student with most points will be the winners.

The point system will be available on the website.

The events this semester will all be “come and go” to allow more students the chance to participate.

 Aqua massages and micro fit programs will also be available for both members and non-members.

More information can be found on Facebook, Twitter or the Web.