Mills holds annual Health Fair in Haas

Halie Johnson

Last Wednesday, the Mills College Health Fair was held at lunchtime in the Haas Pavilion. A health fair has been held early in the fall semester at Mills for many years. This is the seventh year Health Services director, Cynthia Turner, has helped plan the Health Fair.

“Planning this Health Fair is a joint effort between the Health department here at Mills, the Division of Student Life, HMDS and Public Safety,” said Turner. “Everyone’s done something to get this together and everyone’s here to give information to the students. The pre-nursing program really stood up and helped this year, too, and I love that. I love that these women that want to help people are here and looking at what’s already being done to help, how they can contribute.”

“I think it’s really important for freshwomen to learn how to take care of themselves,” said Turner. “A lot of new students are coming here from their parent’s house and they’ve never had to do that before.” Most of the over 50 tables at the Health Fair were very clearly meant to help the new college student.

Representatives from the UC Berkeley Tang Center and two women specifically from the department of Sexual Health at Tang Center had booths at the Fair.

“The Tang Center is for Mills students,” said one of the Tang Center representatives. “We wanted to come and introduce the services the Tang Center offers, so students know what to expect and feel comfortable when they need to come.”

“If a student has a question about sex, or is coming in for annual testing,” said one of the women from the department of Sexual Health, “they’re going to come to us, so I think it’s important for them to know who they’ll be talking to. We’re just girls. We’re all on the same level. It doesn’t have to be scary.”

Mills campus services also hosted booths at the fair, including the massage class, psychological services, the Wellness Freshwomen LLC and the Athletic department.

“I think it’s great that all these young women get to see a lot of examples of women really doing something. Women in medicine, in community service, running their own businesses, things like that,” said Turner. “The women in this room are great examples of what women can do.”