WKU Topperwell Adviser Honored At Regional Conference

March 28, 2007

Bowling Green, Ky. -The adviser of TopperWell, Western Kentucky University’s student peer health educators, was honored at a regional conference March 23-24 in Saginaw, Mich.

Andrea Dudas, health educator with WKU Health Services, was named Adviser of the Year at The BACCHUS Network’s Area 7 Conference at Saginaw Valley State University. Area 7 includes more than 190 colleges and universities in Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan and Indiana.

TopperWell is a group of WKU students who are peer health educators and work together to promote wellness by increasing awareness of student health issues and encouraging positive lifestyle choices and decision-making skills through peer education.

Six members of the TopperWell group also attended the conference and made a presentation on suicide and how to deal with it on a college campus. The WKU group may make the presentation again at the organization’s national conference in November in Atlanta.
 
Allison Eoff, a nursing major from Nashville, Tenn., is the Area 7 representative on the national group’s 12-member Student Advisory Committee and was a co-organizer of the regional conference. She also will help organize the national conference.

Other WKU representatives at the Area 7 conference were Conrad Reed, a WKU Health Services intern from Atlanta; Christopher Cupp, a nutrition and exercise science major from Crestwood; Kyanna Coffee, a social work major from Caneyville; Amber Williams, a social work major from Henderson; and Manish Patel, a WKU Health Services intern from India.

The health and wellness activities offered by TopperWell include Sexual Responsibility Week, World AIDS Day, Alcohol Awareness Week, Take Back the Night, Knock Out Stress and Healthy Days. “We strive to help college students deal with issues such as drinking, drugs, sexual health, suicide, depression, stress, domestic abuse, violence, death and more,” Eoff said.

The TopperWell office is located on the second floor of WKU Health Service and is open 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. The group also is recruiting dedicated and hard working peer health educators for next year.
TopperWell is an affiliate of The BACCHUS Network, which has more than 40,000 members and is the largest student organization in the United States. For more on TopperWell, call (270) 745-5653 or visit http://www.wku.edu/healthservices/TopperWell.htm.

For more on The BACCHUS Network, visit http://www.bacchusnetwork.org/.
  
More WKU news is available at www.wku.edu. If you’d like to receive WKU news via e-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.

For information, contact Andrea Dudas at (270) 745-5653.