In this assignment we chose to take a closer look at the campus recreation agency Oasis. Oasis is located in the Illini Union, and is a center where students can relax, rejuvenate, and refresh their health. Oasis is a part of McKinley Health Center, and serves as an extended service for them. It opened about 10 years ago to offer students a mind-body-soul alternative in addition to the other recreation services on campus. The services Oasis offers are mostly free to students, however, some of them requires a scheduled appointment or inquiry from McKinley Health Center.
Oasis offers five different services, Health Resource Center, BodyWork Associates, McKinley SportWell Center, Exercise Space as well as rooms for various purposes. The Health Resource Center provides students with self care products like condoms, home pregnancy test kit, cold care products and wound care packages, as well as providing a range of health information handouts. BodyWork Associates is an independent massage therapy company that offer discounted massage services for students, faculty and staff. The McKinley SportWell Center provides comprehensive services in athletic injury prevention and treatment, fitness, nutrition and physical therapy. They have an athletic trainer, a physical therapist, a registered dietitian and an exercise specialist. The Exercise Space is a fitness area available for all students, which have private changing rooms, and health-related patient information hand-outs. It also includes a private exercise area. Lastly, there are the various rooms, which consist of a relaxation room, a reflection room and a multipurpose room. The relaxation room is a room where you can enjoy progressive muscle relaxation a totally quiet room, while watching images of natural scenery. The reflection room is a quiet room as well, but it can also be used for religious purposes. The multipurpose room can be used to a lot of different things, as the name suggests, like yoga, tai chi, pilates and tango, and it also has a Nintendo Wii that students can use.
Some of the more obvious competencies for having a job at the Oasis would be to have a professional degree of some sort, and to have a care for other peoples well-being. The dietitian, physical therapist, and athletic trainer all went to school specifically for the job that are currently working, and since everyday they work with people to increase their well-being, the lack of a desire to help others would make this job quite miserable. In order to successfully run the Oasis, its workers must be able to accommodate for all kinds of people. For a while, a relaxation room with a 20 minute video aimed at relaxing someone, was the only thing available for stressed students. The Oasis then realized that different people relaxed differently, so they added a reflection room meant for peace and quietness, that has just a few pillows in it.
There are different employment opportunities and forms at Oasis. They have a professional staff that includes a dietitian, a physical therapist and an athletic trainer. In order to seek a job in one of these fields you must do a number of things. First you must go to through different programs in college and receive a bachelors degree. After you receive your degree you have to find entry level employment and observe at different medical facilities for at least 45 to 100 hours. We interviewed the physical Therapist at Oasis and found out many interesting things. His journey to becoming a physical was in fact a random decision. He said that he used to work in a loan office and grew tired of his job. He wanted something different and saw an ad in the paper for a physical therapist. He went back to school and got a degree and the rest was history. He advises anyone who wants a career here to build a good solid resume because it is a very competitive market. He has been a physical therapist for 16 years and his only goal is to make sure whomever comes through his door feel better.
Like all therapeutic recreation agencies, the Oasis has it’s positive and negative trends. All too often, students would come into the Oasis expecting emergency care for sprained ankles or things of the sort. The Oasis has a tight nit schedule that is often booked, and students must make an appointment far in advance to get the desired care. This supposedly happens at least once a week, and the workers cannot seem to get it across to the students that it is not an emergency room. On the other hand, students have consistently been utilizing the complementary cold packs, contraceptives, condoms, and more, from the Health Resource Center in the Oasis.
From looking at the programs offered at the Oasis, one could see that the agency believes very strongly in defining leisure as consisting of physical activity, and at the same time, relaxation. It seems that the agency understands that different people always have different views on leisure, and they try their hardest to accommodate for everyone. After talking to one of the managers of the Oasis, we found that her personal belief in what leisure was, was that it is something that, “makes you feel good”. Coincidentally, this happens to be the main benefit that the agency provides to its customers; they help to make people feel better. They care about balancing our body, mind and spirit, and see this as essential in treating people, and just being there for people.
Patrick Heddins, Eric Walker, Christine Pederson, Andre Vertiz, Roderic Navar
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