Counseling Center Expands in New Location, Increases Emphasis on Wellbeing

The University Counseling Center has changed its location and its name to accommodate expanding resources and more accurately reflect its evolving mission.

The newly renamed Counseling and Wellbeing Center is located in Room 636, Fisher Hall.

While the Counseling and Wellbeing Center offers all of the same services as before, it has added an interfaith meditation room and workshops on general wellbeing. The meditation room is open to all faiths and has numerous icons representative of Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism throughout the room, prayer beads and rugs, meditation benches and large floor pillows. Designed to be an inviting space where one can find solitude and solace regardless of religious background, the interfaith meditation room is the most obvious addition to the center’s offerings.

Less obvious to the casual observer but still important to the center’s mission, is the emphasis on general wellbeing. Dr. Ian Edwards, director of the center, explained, “We want to help the Duquesne community be proactive about personal wellbeing. We offer programs that will cross-train mind, body and spirit to find happiness through a life of intentionality and purpose.”

The concept of wellbeing promoted by the Counseling and Wellbeing center comes from Aristotle’s Eudaimonic wellbeing. According to this philosophy, happiness is not sought solely through that which is pleasurable, but is rather the product of living a life based on meaning, intentionality and purpose.

“In keeping with the Spiritan mission of the University, both the interfaith meditation room and the wellbeing programs offer students, faculty and staff the opportunity to find happiness by realizing their role in the larger world around them,” said Edwards, who is teaching a core course on philosophical ethics based on the philosophy that drives the  Counseling and Wellbeing Center.