Spelman Launches Wellness Revolution

When Sophia Packard and Harriet Giles, the founders of Spelman College, traveled through the South after the end of the Civil War, they found an illiterate community of former slaves in desperate need of education. Recognizing that a community of educated women could be transformational, they set a literacy revolution in motion when they opened their school in 1881.

Now, 131 years later, another literacy revolution is needed in the African-American community -- wellness literacy -- and a community of educated women can again be transformational.

The need is urgent, and it is our population -- young black women -- that is among the most at risk for negative health outcomes. Committed to educating the whole person, mind, body and spirit, we have an opportunity to change this epidemic. Ending intercollegiate participation may seem counterintuitive, given our focus on physical activity, but instead of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars transporting a small number of athletes to intercollegiate events, we will be investing those dollars in intramural programs and wellness activities that can be sustained for a lifetime  (excerpted from Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum's article, "Why Wellness," in Inside Spelman).