Created in 2007, Working Well, now known as Engagement, Wellbeing and Culture, began on Ball State University’s campus, intending to help Ball State employees reach the best version of themselves.
The office is run by a three-person team consisting of Executive Director Rhonda Wilson, Assistant Director Jenni Flanagan, and Assistant Director of Organizing Learning and Development Charity Coffman.
Wilson said working in the office is “the best job on campus.”
“We truly feel blessed to be able to get to work as a team of three and then together with all variety of [Ball State] employees,” she said.
When the office was first developed it was located in the Health Center and was intended only to address the physical well-being of Ball State employees. The office offered screenings for cholesterol and blood pressure, alongside other health assessments and intakes.
Now, Flanagan said their office has pivoted to a focus on employees' overall well-being.
“We still focus on the individual, but we're also in a space where we're focusing on the environment and the culture and the department — the team as a whole. We've expanded our view of well-being to be more about career, social, financial, of course physical, but also community [well-being],” Flanagan said.
This new setup allows for Wilson, Flanagan and Coffman to cater to every need of employees on campus. In the long term, this benefits everyone on campus, from students to community members.
“We are here to serve students, but we have to take care of the people who are here to do that,” Flanagan said.
Each week, the office holds different sessions focusing on wellness for employees across campus with partnered businesses or community members. The office also heads out and holds sessions by themselves frequently.
All three members of the office are certified in the Gallup Cliftonstrengths program. Using this, the office helps employees identify, and then learn, how they can use their strengths to work better within their respective departments.
The office also helps coordinate the annual Cardinal Day of Wellbeing and Benefits Fair for faculty which took place Oct. 29. According to the event's website, they offer programming surrounding the five pillars of well-being: financial, community, physical, social and career.
Wilson said the office has begun implementing and teaching learning and development programs over the past two years and brought Coffman in last summer to help facilitate that.
Coffman said her role is to provide opportunity, and she does so with professional development for all employees, from dining hall workers to administrative coordinators.
“My passion is, ‘What do people need?’ and ‘How can I help develop people?’ to help them learn and grow and help them engage and lead meaningful lives,” she said. “It is really what the [university] president's mission is [and] what our mission is here in our office.”
While each office member works together to better their peers’ wellness, the Ball State Alumna each originally had different ideas of where their professional careers would take them.
After working in schools for almost two decades, Coffman started working on Ball State’s campus with the Digital Core, later transitioning to the Entrepreneurial Leadership Institute. With her extensive background in student-based work, she said taking the position at Engagement, Wellbeing and Culture offered her a new, exciting challenge.
While she’s stepped away from the student side of educating, she said working with their educators affects them more directly than she imagined.
“I really believe that if we have a happy workforce, then we will have happier students, which will lead to a happier society in the end … The effect of me working with employees is going to be greater than me just going in one classroom and working with students throughout the day,” Coffman said.
Flanagan started working in Engagement, Wellbeing and Culture in 2008 as a part-time health coach but was employed by an outside company. In 2014 she became an official Ball State employee in the same office.
Wilson played on the Cardinal's women's volleyball team while obtaining her degree in exercise science before returning to the college for a master's degree. With her experience and studies being centered around physical wellness, she said her passion for what Ball State stands for led her to her current position.
Though Wilson always focused more on the physical side of things, she said she has always worked toward bettering herself and others as a whole.
“I've always had a passion for being the best version of yourself,” Wilson said. “… Just understanding how people grow and develop and what people's needs are as they progress through their profession has really allowed me to grow as an individual, and this job has afforded that opportunity in several different ways for personal and professional satisfaction.”
Although they each have different backgrounds, they said their work at the office and the connections they’ve made across campus have brought them together.
The team wants people around the university to know they’re here to help and are passionate about doing so.
“We want to see [students] grow … but we want the same thing for our employees here at Ball State,” Coffman said. “We want to see them really thrive in the workplace.”
For more information about the Office of Engagement, Wellbeing and Culture you can head to its website at bsu.edu. Information about the office and what it offers specifically for Ball State faculty and staff are also available online.
Contact Trinity Rea via email at trinity.rea@bsu.edu or on X @thetrinityrea.
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