The Touch Grass Movement: Embracing Outdoor and Wellness
If someone tells you to touch grass, you’d probably think it’s an insult, but here we are, telling you to touch grass, literally. Did you notice the colorful deck chairs at Shaw Auditorium Outdoor Garden? Yes, that was our way to get you to touch some grass. We are happy to see many people taking the first step, and I hope you are one of them.
Touching Grass
Okay, but what’s so great about grass? Well, it’s not just about grass, it’s also about outdoor and nature, being around your friends and taking a break from work. Being outdoor is one of the best ways to reduce stress and anxiety and we want to activate beautiful places on campus to serve this purpose, Shaw was one of the first. While the deck chairs initially drew attention, it's heartwarming to see the grass being embraced even without their presence. Following the successful trial run, the chairs have now found another home on the LG7 lawn, expanding the outdoor oasis for our community to enjoy.
“The deck chairs added a wonderful pop of color to our campus”, student said, but we felt there were more we could do and what’s better to add to the vibe than music?
Music on Campus
With that in mind, we started looking for student performers who would like to busk around campus. We received an overwhelming number of applications, and it was truly amazing to uncover the talents our community can offer. We begin with a busking pop up in the evening called “Busking in the Afterglow”, harnessing the beautiful hour after sunset as our backdrop. One especially unforgettable moment was two students telling us they had a very hard day, and the event helped them a lot. It is precisely unquantifiable things like this that motivated us to do another. And that’s how “Marigold Hour” was created, a lunchtime busking event on the grass. Both of these sessions attracted quite a lot of attention from passersby who opted to stay and listen, creating wonderful moments of solace for those in need of a break.
Sea-rious Art Jam
Inspired by the impact of these events, we organized another gathering to offer a breath of fresh air to students before the impending rigors of final exams. The Sea-rious Art Jam event was held by our Green Team, which is comprised of students, staff, faculty, and residents. They are a big part of our sustainability initiatives as they experience this campus fully not just as a place for study or work, but also as their home. Picking the seafront was an obvious choice as it held a special place in our community’s heart, and for the first time ever, we are bringing a community event there for everyone to join. The event brought together music performances, dance jamming and chalk drawing on the seafront wall, using art to encourage wellness. It was a relaxing evening by the sea to create, distress, spread positivity, and make unforgettable memories together.
Prioritizing Wellbeing
For years, the concept of productivity was wrapped around creating something physical or producing quantitative results, but time has changed. We have all been given a wakeup call to notice that productivity is a collection of elements around us, they affect us and the things that we create.
These initiatives and events are all part of the effort to put taking care of one’s wellbeing at the forefront of people’s mind aside from work and study, a mindset shift created by an environment that replenishes rather than exhausts. Wellbeing should never be a luxury, but rather an essential backbone and reinforcement to empower ourselves for higher motivation and better resilience in our endeavors.
