{"id":165431,"date":"2024-09-16T12:06:59","date_gmt":"2024-09-16T16:06:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/intranet\/?p=165431"},"modified":"2025-11-13T15:18:44","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T20:18:44","slug":"room-to-relax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/intranet\/news\/room-to-relax\/","title":{"rendered":"Room to Relax"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s important to take care of yourself, even on the job. After all, healthy, happy employees do better work. That\u2019s why <\/span>April Shaeffer, a research specialist with the Department of Animal Science<\/a> in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at NC State University, spearheaded the creation of the department\u2019s Wellness Room in Polk Hall.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always thought that having a quiet space where you can just go and decompress is valuable, and so that\u2019s why I pushed our department to do that,\u201d Shaeffer says.<\/span><\/p>\n

The space, which includes a deluxe massage chair, quiet music, a bean bag for lounging and a faux fireplace, is designed to give faculty, staff and graduate students a private place to go for a few minutes to themselves during the course of their day.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The room has been a passion project for Shaeffer, who has had close family impacted by serious mental health issues. As efforts have ramped up in recent years to provide more mental health support to students, she wanted to make sure the department supported its faculty and staff as well.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"April<\/a>
April Shaeffer in the Animal Science Wellness Room<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI thought this is one thing we could do for our department and boost morale,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n

The idea gained momentum a few years ago after Shaeffer presented the concept to the university\u2019s Council on the Status of Women. From there Department Head Todd See, Professor Matt Poore and CALS Dean Garey Fox, among others, became advocates for the project.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a team effort,\u201d says Shaeffer of bringing the space to fruition.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since the Wellness Room opened in March about 40 different people in the department have signed up to use it, with many revisiting the relaxing space. And the room has garnered more use since the fall semester began.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

NC State offers mental health support to all of its employees through the <\/span>Faculty and Staff Assistance Program<\/span><\/a>, which includes<\/span> a no-cost counseling service that can help employees address stress and mental health concerns. Additional resources for faculty and staff are available through the <\/span>CALS Wellness webpage<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Shaeffer hopes the room will serve as inspiration for other departments and across the college and university as a whole. \u201cThe idea of a mental health and wellness room for faculty and staff could have positive impacts not only in the Department of Animal Science, but throughout campus as well.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false,"raw":"It\u2019s important to take care of yourself, even on the job. After all, healthy, happy employees do better work. That\u2019s why <\/span>April Shaeffer, a research specialist with the Department of Animal Science<\/a> in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at NC State University, spearheaded the creation of the department\u2019s Wellness Room in Polk Hall.<\/span>\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019ve always thought that having a quiet space where you can just go and decompress is valuable, and so that\u2019s why I pushed our department to do that,\u201d Shaeffer says.<\/span>\r\n\r\nThe space, which includes a deluxe massage chair, quiet music, a bean bag for lounging and a faux fireplace, is designed to give faculty, staff and graduate students a private place to go for a few minutes to themselves during the course of their day.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nThe room has been a passion project for Shaeffer, who has had close family impacted by serious mental health issues. As efforts have ramped up in recent years to provide more mental health support to students, she wanted to make sure the department supported its faculty and staff as well.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_165435\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\"]\"April<\/a> April Shaeffer in the Animal Science Wellness Room[\/caption]\r\n\r\n\u201cI thought this is one thing we could do for our department and boost morale,\u201d she says.<\/span>\r\n\r\nThe idea gained momentum a few years ago after Shaeffer presented the concept to the university\u2019s Council on the Status of Women. From there Department Head Todd See, Professor Matt Poore and CALS Dean Garey Fox, among others, became advocates for the project.<\/span>\r\n\r\n\u201cIt was a team effort,\u201d says Shaeffer of bringing the space to fruition.<\/span>\r\n\r\nSince the Wellness Room opened in March about 40 different people in the department have signed up to use it, with many revisiting the relaxing space. And the room has garnered more use since the fall semester began.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nNC State offers mental health support to all of its employees through the <\/span>Faculty and Staff Assistance Program<\/span><\/a>, which includes<\/span> a no-cost counseling service that can help employees address stress and mental health concerns. Additional resources for faculty and staff are available through the <\/span>CALS Wellness webpage<\/span><\/a>.<\/span>\r\n\r\nShaeffer hopes the room will serve as inspiration for other departments and across the college and university as a whole. \u201cThe idea of a mental health and wellness room for faculty and staff could have positive impacts not only in the Department of Animal Science, but throughout campus as well.\u201d <\/span>\r\n\r\n "},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Department of Animal Science’s Wellness Room in Polk Hall offers offers faculty, staff and graduate students in the department a quiet place to rest and recharge during the day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4259,"featured_media":165436,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[8,5,536],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-165431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-announcements","category-staff","category-well-being"],"displayCategory":null,"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/intranet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/intranet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/intranet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/intranet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4259"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/intranet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165431"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/intranet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":197147,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/intranet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165431\/revisions\/197147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/intranet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/intranet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/intranet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/intranet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}