The Health Promotions Office (HPO) puts out “Student 101”, an online magazine is slowly climbing to the top of readership, showing a substantial rise in the number of readers between this year and last.
Senior nursing major Wendy Huetten, gave a collegiate reflection on “Student 101.”“[‘Student 101’] is a forum that offers practical articles related to life and experiences you’re going to go through in college, kind of unique situations that we encounter so they’re more geared to what we’re going through,” Huetten said.
Lenny Shible, the health promotion specialist on campus, heavily encourages the reading of Student 101 with the hopes of reaching out to students that are looking for a good source for information related to health and wellness.“The university is constantly looking for ways we can make good, reliable health related information available to our students and staff, at their fingertips, basically,” Shible said.
“Student 101” is indeed at the fingertips of anyone with a laptop, tablet or smartphone. Freshman media production and new technology major Nathaniel Sykes, has been clicking on the emails that send him to the forum.
“When they’re in my emails, I generally take a gander at them because they’re easily accessible,” Sykes said.
Sykes became aware of Student 101 after a friend in an HP 200 class told him what they were about, which is not common knowledge to a majority of campus.
Students have access to reliable information about everything from relationships and internships to healthy eating habits and coping with stress through reading Student 101. The variety makes it easier to reach a larger audience because not everyone has the same problems. The large range of topics covered between the different issues hit home for junior social work major Caleb Grams.
“There was an article in March’s issue about cover letters and I’m currently getting ready to do one. The tips were super helpful,” Grams said.
Shible explains the topic variety is due to the influences that help keep Student 101 a service Northern is proud to support.
“Right now there are six university partners that are paying for this service from the subscription service and in return each partner pays a sixth of the cost for the project and gets one page in the newsletter,” Shible said. “There’s usually around 30 pages in every issue with an additional six locally generated pages from Public Safety, Dining Services, the Health Center, Health and Human Services, Intercollegiate Athletics and Rec Sports and Student Affairs program.”
Shible said he was pleased with the results that showed a spike in readers in September’s issue. Averaging between 1,200 and 1,300 views a month, September’s issue rose to 2,200.
Though the numbers did not hold true for the following months, enthusiasm for the possibility of reaching a larger audience has. With the introduction of “Student 101” in the HP 200 classes, roughly 1,000 more students are being reached. If nothing changes, this year’s readers will beat last year’s.
Feedback is readily accepted as to gain a larger understanding of what is helpful and what is not. According to feedback already received, 85 percent of readers use what they read. Likewise, 60 percent of readers use “Student 101” as a resource to find help.
As an incentive to read, a $1,000 drawing is done each month and is only offered to readers. Since issues come out every month between September and June, that means there are 10 opportunities a year to win.
This is, however, a nation-wide event so there is more competition than just those on campus.
To view “Student 101,” students can keep a look out for its arrival in their NMU email or by searching HPO on NMU’s home page. The HPO office is located in Room 1205 of the University Center.
