Dec. 4, 2018
CWU Announces Hiring of New Associate Dean of Health and Wellness
Shawnté Elbert is Central Washington University’s first-ever Associate Dean of Health and Wellness. In her new position, Elbert will oversee the university’s counseling services, student medical services, wellness center, and the recreation center.
She will begin her job on January 2, 2019.
“We’re looking forward to having Shawnté join our student success team,” noted William Schafer, Interim Dean of Student Success. “She is an experienced health and wellness administrator who helped establish the Office of Health and Wellness Promotion at her previous school, so we’re confident she can hit the ground running.
“The Associate Dean of Health and Wellness is a new position that will help us create a culture, at CWU, that values health and wellness as key components of success for our students during their time at Central and beyond,” Schafer added.
“Making health and wellness a higher priority for the institution not only establishes a foundation of student excellence, but also recognizes the increasingly important role health and wellness play in our students’ lives,” Schafer said. “We established this new post in order to consolidate our health and wellness departments and improve our abilities to promote healthy living options.”
Prior to coming to CWU, Elbert served as the first Director of the Office of Health and Wellness Promotion at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) and was an associate faculty member for the Fairbanks School of Public Health and School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI.
She earned a BS in Health Education & Promotion at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina and an MA in Wellness from Chatham University in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. She is currently writing her dissertation as a doctoral student in the Educational Leadership and Management program at St. Thomas University in Florida.
“It has been a privilege to work in higher education my entire career,” Elbert said. “I find it particularly gratifying to be able to help students, staff, and faculty integrate wellness into the campus culture and their personal lives.”
At Central, Elbert will supervise 55 full- and part-time staff members in addition to more than 170 student employees. Her duties will include providing strategic direction for health and wellness at CWU and developing and implementing a new collaborative integrated wellness model for the university.
Media contact: Richard Moreno, Department of Public Affairs, 509-963-2714, Richard.Moreno@cwu.edu.