The Staff and Faculty Well-Being Committee is hosting its second annual April Walking Challenge with the goal of reaching 28 million collective steps amongst all participating staff and faculty. The challenge aims to fulfill the physical well-being pillar of wellness philosophy and foster greater connectivity amongst staff and faculty members.
Staff and faculty can participate by downloading the StepUp app and joining the St. Olaf team. The app tracks a user’s steps, and the Staff and Faculty Well-Being Committee will calculate the cumulative total at the end of each week between April 1 through April 30. If someone wishes to use a different step-tracking app, they can self-report their steps with a Google Form available on the Staff and Faculty Well-Being Committee’s website.
The Staff and Faculty Well-Being Committee decided to run the challenge again due to its previous popularity — over 100 staff and faculty members participated last year.
“There was a lot of chatter that happened about it on campus,” said Administrative Assistant and Staff and Faculty Well-Being Committee Member Kristin Kivell. “You can also see in the app who is on the top of the leaderboard, so it got a little competitive. I think it created some more community on campus.”
The committee chose the goal of 28 million total steps based on information from last year’s event. “Since we were still 3.5 million steps away from reaching our goal of 30 million last year, we felt that 28 million steps would be a more attainable number,” said Assistant Director of Recreation and Staff and Faculty Well-Being Committee Member Grant Herfindahl.
All staff and faculty members are encouraged to participate in the challenge.
“I think what I like about it is that it encourages people to get outside,” Kivell said. “In April, we’re finally having weather where we want to be outside, so it encourages people to start getting out, to start getting active again.”
