Oge starts as Health Promotions Director

Vladimir Oge recently joined the Tech community as the director of Health Promotion with a vision to use health awareness to enable students to be successful and happy both in and out of the classroom during their college experience.

Oge officially started in his new role Oct. 23. He previously held a similar position at the University of Florida prior to arriving at Tech.

"We're looking at getting a comprehensive health agenda for the school and working with students to help foster a healthy environment which will help to contribute to students' academic success. What's different about college health from community health or any other form is that we really focus on working with the students to make sure they can succeed academically. A number of health issues can prevent them from doing that, and stress is definitely one of those things that's very high on that list," Oge said.

He cited another important issue for college students in general as being their adjustment to living on their own for the first time, as most college students are, including their nutrition and consumption of alcohol and/or other drugs. An additional priority is sexual health and prevention, an area in which Oge previously specialized while at the University of Florida.

Having so recently arrived on campus, Oge is still working on laying the foundation for future efforts and working on familiarizing himself with the student population he'll be working with and what specific needs Tech's campus will have.

According to Oge, what is important at any college is to focus on the issues that are pertinent to that campus, because some things might not be applicable to different campuses.

"My main priority right now is to arrange the new staff and build up a team. Part of it is going to be looking at the data and fortunately the staff that was here previously left a lot of resources and information relating to the health behavior data here for the students at Tech.

"We will start to develop programming and activities for students that will impact their health behavior and help them to make better and healthier choices in their day-to-day activities, which will hopefully in turn make them better students," Oge said.

According to Oge, they will also look at whatever other health issues are maybe not necessarily affecting their [physical] health but instead affecting their mental well-being and overall satisfaction and happiness when they're in school or away from school.

Students, especially those who are from other towns or areas, can suffer with issues such as transition, relationship difficulties, how to live on your own and time management, which goes hand-in-hand with stress management.

"So I think we're going try to develop a very comprehensive plan that will look at all the major issues and also those things that go under the radar a little bit and aren't seen as well. My vision is to work with the students themselves to shape what goes on with our programs and what will be effective, and there comes a point in time where you need to have student involvement in any activity that you do, especially if it's geared towards other students," Oge said.

These activities and services will only work if they reach the students and if the students know the services are here.

"There are a number of great resources that are available, and every year the students coming in probably don't know what's available. Part of our strategy will be to provide better access and more information so that more students can be aware what services are already available in addition to where there is a need for additional services," Oge said, citing the Counseling Center, the support services of the Dean of Students, the Women's Resource Center and campus health initiatives including the offerings within Health Services as being important resources that students should take advantage.

"It is really important for students to take active concern about their health. Sometimes younger students and young people in general tend to overlook and think of health as an issue that they don't need to worry about now but we as college health professionals know that a lot of the behaviors that students develop in these key years of their life from ages 18-24 are the behaviors that they most likely adopt for the rest of their lives," Oge said.

According to Oge, it is important now that the Health Center able to give students this information whatever background they are coming from and whatever pre-existing knowledge they had about health and what it means to them.

"It's important to help people make conscious health decisions and to be savvy and to understand the benefits and consequences to knowing or not knowing about your health. Hopefully we can get students excited and enthused about looking at their health behaviors and ways they can continue to be healthy or healthier," Oge said.