DREW RYDER
News Reporter
Looking for a way to reward yourself with exercise can be tough. The “Take the Stairs!” challenge can be the perfect solution.
The Creighton University Employee Wellness Program and Facilities Management are working together to promote good health on campus for students and faculty by helping them become more physically active. The program will run Oct. 1-31.
The program’s goal is to try to focus on getting people to take the stairs instead of the elevator. Coordinator Dawn Obermiller and other members of the Wellness Center will put up signs with fun messages and facts near elevators and stairs in Criss, Rigge and Hixson-Lied. They will repaint the walls and make sure there is good lighting in the stairwells. They will also hand out magnets with the “Take the Stairs!” logo on them to get people to recognize the program.
“Many people believe in going green, and elevators use up a lot of unnecessary energy,” said junior Nursing student Annemarie Hengel. “I think if people know about that they would use the stairs more.”
Registration for the program is free, and everyone will receive a log via e-mail so they can keep track of all the flights of stairs they climb. During sign-up, participants will pick a group to join; for example, students may pick the student group.
“‘The Take the Stairs!’ challenge sounds like fun, and I actually sent an e-mail to my departmental colleagues encouraging participation,” said Dr. Erika Kirby, chair of Communication Studies.
The goal is to try to achieve “buildings” by the number of flights of stairs climbed. A flight is considered 10-12 stairs, and there are a total of 1032 flights of stairs to try to complete in one month.
“Once you accumulate the number of flights of stairs for one building, you move onto the next one,” Obermiller said. “This is to get people to think about being more physically active in their day.”
The stairs do not have to be on Creighton’s campus – any stairs can count toward the program.
“Taking the stairs is adding a little bit of extra exercise to your day,” Hengel said. “I think that it is a good program; it saves energy and helps people get exercise.”
At the end of the program, Obermiller will add up all the flights of stairs and then divide that number by the number of participants in the team to calculate the winner. The team that wins will get a free lunch provided by the Employee Wellness Program.
Students have the chance to participate in the drawings part of the program, where they are entered to win gift cards and other prizes.
The employees get points toward the Employee Wellness Program, which is available to anyone who works at Creighton and promotes good health. The points employees earn can also be used in the SimplyWell Program, an online site where employees can log on and keep track of the points they earn. Employees can then spend those points as dollars at an online rewards store.
“It’s meant to encourage fun and camaraderie and get people moving – that is just the main goal,” Obermiller said.
Almost 400 people have signed up for the challenge, which is probably the most they have ever had in any challenge, Obermiller said. Thirty-six participants are students, 273 are staff and 84 are faculty.
“It’s not just enough to get people to sign up; it’s to get people to finish,” Obermiller said. “It’s cool to have the 400, but it depends on how many will actually finish. If we can get at least 50 percent of the people to finish the program, that is a success. Actually, it is a success in the health promotion world.”
Obermiller said the challenge is to get good participation as well as completion.
“It’s a supple program, but it is a part of the whole initiative that we are trying to give a culture of health for the students as well as the employees,” Obermiller added. “Hopefully we can have some fun.”