The organization, Samford HEALTH, is a newcomer to campus this semester. Samford HEALTH is an organization that combines multiple majors within the Department of Public Health and is dedicated to supporting its members and the health of the Samford Community.
Bethany Tyre, senior Health Administration Major and a member of Samford HEALTH’s admin team, discussed how the organization was founded.
“Samford HEALTH was kind of created through a dream that our professors had. We had a couple of professors approach us within the Healthcare Administration Department,” Tyre said. “They had a dream to create an organization that involves everyone within the school of public health that isn’t so subjective to each major. They wanted to combine everyone and make an organization.”
Another member of the admin team, Stephanie Bodin, shared the reaction of her and her fellow students.
“It was the healthcare administration students, one nutrition major, and two public health majors. They came to us and asked us if we’d be willing to help us start this, and we were like, ‘of course, let’s do this right now.’ We didn’t want to wait. We jumped in and did it,” Bodin said.
Tyre said that she was excited to work with other majors within the school of public health that she normally wouldn’t interact with.
“The school of public health is already not the biggest school within the college of health sciences, but it has a lot of different majors.” Tyre said. “I think it culminates in a lot of different personalities and passions. It’s really helpful because we’re all going to be working together some day within the healthcare field.”
Although Samford HEALTH wants to create professional opportunities and research opportunities for its members, it’s primary goal is to be advocates for promoting public health on Samford’s campus by participating in Public Health Week and creating a community service group for Samford Gives Back.
“We have a couple of exciting things planned for public health week in April. Just some exciting things to enforce the importance of good health, protecting each other and being safe,” Tyre said. “Especially during COVID, I think the world has seen the importance of public health, and has really seen the importance of hand washing, and how that can all help in bettering the health of our society in preventing COVID.”
Bodin said the group plans to impact multiple areas of campus.
“It was made for the students of public health, but we really didn’t want to stop there, we wanted to support Samford’s campus and promote health and everything that goes with it,” Bodin added.
For more information about Samford HEALTH, visit the organization’s Instagram, @samfordthisishealth, or their page on Bulldog Central.
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