Infectious Excitement

Recent physical therapy grad shares

her enthusiasm for life with

UND students through wellness programming

“You’d better wear your Depends, girl!”

That was the response of the University of North Dakota (UND)’s Assistant Vice President of Wellness Laurie Betting (BSPT ’98, MPT ’99, DPT ‘04) when this writer expressed her excitement at seeing the university’s newest addition. 

Laurie Betting (BSPT ‘98, MPT ‘99, DPT ‘04) serves as Assistant Vice President of Wellness at UND.

The UND Student Wellness Center, set to open with a

week-long series of events starting September 25, is causing of a wave of rising excitement on campus and Betting is leading the charge.

A Grand Forks, ND native, Betting has always found importance in wellness.  “It is all about having fun,” she says, admitting she is the silliest person at work.  It is this positive attitude that has allowed her to lead the building of a state-of-the-art university wellness program and facility for the students of UND while overcoming an “inconvenience” along the way.

An Inconvenience

In July 2004 Betting’s positive outlook was put to the test.  She was finishing up her Doctorate of Physical Therapy degree and in the middle of developing the new Student Wellness Center when she found a lump in one of her breasts.  Initially dismissed by her physician, she was persistent and was eventually diagnosed with breast cancer, had a mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation treatments.  Still, she continued to work.

“I tend to see the good in things, to look through a different lens,” she said.  “Really, I saw having cancer as an inconvenience.”   

“I would go in for radiation treatment at 7 a.m., right before work,” she explained.  “I saw the treatments as just something to get done before I could go to work.  There were others who, for them, the trip to get radiation was the only thing they had that day.  It was apparent that they were not nearly as well off as I was.  I had a building to finish!”

Physical Therapy outside the Clinic

Betting decided to earn her DPT degree from UND because “I was drawn to it by those who were doing it,” she said. 

“The program has high standards for their students,” she explained.  “They always call for more, but not the impossible.  It made me recognize that I had more in me than I had thought.”

“PTs are people doing the right things for the right reasons,” she said.  “I am not seeing patients in a clinic, but hopefully I am still touching lives.” 

Not Your Parent’s Gymnasium

For the students and by the students, the 107,000-square-foot UND Student Wellness Center is much more than a gym.

Even before its completion, it has been called “The

Engelstad of Wellness Centers,” and “The Best in the Nation,” with which it is easy to agree when Betting starts to explain the facility and the painstaking care she put into every detail.  Her face lights up.  She sits at the edge of her chair.  She explains all the aspects of the building as if she is reading a child a story about a wonderful fantasyland.  She gazes off as she describes facilities, architecture and resources. 

“I learned it was not a good idea to take pictures in the women’s room of an airport when I found some great faucets,” she remembered, laughing. 

She designed the facility, and her wellness programming, to be more than just a way to get fit.

“We are co-curricular,” she explains.  “We are part of the learning that takes place at the university.”

The new Student Wellness Center anticipates 300 student employee positions and internships will be available upon opening the new building.  More than just part-time jobs, Betting provides these students with a chance to develop professionally before they even leave college, offering regular performance evaluations, a network of previous wellness center employees and supervising positions.

She isn’t having any trouble finding students to fill these position or volunteers from the campus community. 

“Wellness is a magnet,” she explained.  “People are volunteering left and right, from physicians at the medical school to steam plant workers.”

Jon Allen, M.D. ’84, assistant dean of the medical school’s Northeast Campus, Grand Forks and Jonathan Geiger, Ph.D. (MS ’74, Ph.D. ’82), professor and chair of the Department of Pharmacology, Physiology and Therapeutics, are two of many members of the campus community who are lending their services to the new center.  They both will be leading spin, or stationary bike, classes. 

“We call them the spin doctors,” quipped Betting.

They will be biking in style, too.  The spinning room boasts 21 stationery bikes where bikers can virtually tour national parks and other natural attractions displayed via a large television screen at the front of the room. 

Around Seven Dimensions in Seven Days

Each day of the Student Wellness Center’s opening week will be themed around one of the seven dimensions of wellness.  Based on a model from the National Wellness Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, the seven dimensions of wellness are physical, intellectual, emotional, social, spiritual, environmental and occupational.

Starting with physical wellness, the grand opening will kick off on September 25 featuring nutrition and healthy cooking.  For the event, Betting is bringing back Grand Forks native Donald Hensrud, M.D., M.P.H. (’80, B.S. Med. ’82), chair of the Division of Preventive, Occupational, and Aerospace Medicine and associate professor of preventive medicine and nutrition at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. 

Hensrud served as editor-in-chief for “Mayo Clinic Healthy Weight for EveryBody,” a comprehensive and sensible approach to eating healthy, “The New Mayo Clinic Plan - 10 Essential Steps to a Better Body and Healthier Life,” and the award-winning “The New Mayo Clinic Cookbook.”  He also was instrumental in developing the Mayo Clinic Healthy Weight Food Pyramid.

“Because of my work, I am very aware of the importance of building this facility,” said Hensrud.  “Being an alumnus makes me very proud of UND for undertaking it. I’m very much looking forward to attending the Grand Opening of this exciting event.”

After giving a presentation during the opening ceremony, Hensrud will be doing a cooking demonstration in the center’s demonstration kitchen.

“The new Wellness Center at UND is the right thing to do for so many reasons,” said Hensrud.  “It will be great to see students come to UND from many places, obtain an excellent education while taking care of themselves in the process, and leave with the knowledge and tools they’ve acquired - for their mind and their body.  The UND Wellness Center is a progressive and visionary endeavor; its significance will become more and more apparent as time goes on.”

-Amanda Scurry

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