The University of Michigan’s Arts Initiative, Wolverine Wellness and other campus partners have joined forces to center personal and community well-being in the 2024-25 academic year with a focus on the theme Take Care.
Take Care explores the power of art and art making to help people process the current moment: caring for oneself and others during challenging times; personal and community healing as a means of collective resilience; and how artistic expression can help create a world everyone wants to live in.
TAKE Care highlights
Take Care programs will include exhibitions, concerts, performances, workshops and more.
“This is such a fantastic opportunity to highlight the importance of both art and well-being in our daily lives,” said Mary Jo Desprez, director of health promotion and Wolverine Wellness.
“When someone engages in a creative practice, however small, they experience an immediate improvement in their overall well-being. Partnering with the Arts Initiative on this theme is a perfect fit for Wolverine Wellness’ work.”
Wolverine Wellness has long served as the health promotion hub for the Ann Arbor campus, offering wellness coaching, sessions with therapy dogs, free safer sex supplies and other wellness supplies, and many other programs and resources that focus on both the individual student and the community at large.
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The Arts Initiative shares much of the same mission in its efforts to strengthen connection, community and equity through the arts. The launch of the Take Care theme recognizes that well-being may look and feel different for each person, much like artistic expression.
“More than 3,000 studies summarized by the World Health Organization show that the arts can contribute positively to mental health and well-being,” said Mark Clague, executive director of the Arts Initiative.
“I hope staff, faculty, and students alike will take some time out of the hectic fall semester to make and experience the arts and thus to Take Care of themselves, their friends and neighbors, our democracy, and our world. Challenging times make the arts even more important.”
