USC Aiken Receives Microgrant for Campus Health

Aiken, SC (09/13/2022) — The American College of Sports Medicine Foundation awarded the USC Aiken Exercise is Medicine program and Mila Padgett a microgrant for $1,250 under the Barry & Linda Franklin Exercise is Medicine-On Campus microgrant program.

The Exercise is Medicine-On Campus (EIM-OC) program calls upon universities and colleges to promote physical activity as a vital sign of health. EIM-OC encourages faculty, staff and students to work toward improving the health and well-being of the campus community by:

1. Making movement a part of the daily campus culture
2. Assessing physical activity at every student health visit
3. Providing students with the tools necessary to strengthen healthy physical activity habits that can last a lifetime
4. Connecting university health care providers with university health fitness specialists to provide a referral system for exercise prescriptions.

The USC Aiken EIM-OC program is led by Mila Padgett, Director of USC Aiken's Campus Recreation and Wellness. Along with Padgett, students staff this program as peer EIM mentors. This program was awarded the Gold status for educational programming, a physical activity program for students, assessment of physical activity as a vital sign and referrals from the student health and counseling centers. The Gold status award was presented at an EIM-OC recognition at the American College of Sports Medicine Annual Meeting in San Diego on June 1.

"The collaborative environment at USC Aiken contributes to the success of the EIM-OC program," Padgett said. "In order to make a difference in the health and wellbeing of our community, it is vital that all departments share in a similar vision of what wellbeing means on campus. We work to have that culture at USC Aiken."

The Franklin Microgrant Program was developed to help campuses develop, execute and evaluate EIM On Campus programs. The USC Aiken program was awarded a Physical Activity Assessment and Referral Grant to evaluate the effectiveness of the campus health assessment and referral process and/or exercise prescription services.

"From my perspective as an exercise science faculty member and ACSM Certified Clinical Exercise Physiologist, this grant will improve the health of USC Aiken students, provide opportunities for exercise science students to gain valuable experience, and recognize the efforts of the USC Aiken Campus Recreation & Wellness staff on a national level," said Dr. Brian Parr, professor of Exercise and Sports Science at USC Aiken.

With the grant, USC Aiken will expand the EIM program to meet the needs of more students, establish a system to evaluate the effectiveness of the program and create a robust process of referrals from on-campus student centers.

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