February 8, 2019
Located in Davis Residence Hall, the Dawg-Zen Room is providing a relaxing area for the UMW community. As the space grows in popularity, collaborators are continually looking for ways to improve and promote the rooms.
The Dawg-Zen Room offers both a day and a night room. The day room is painted light blue and when people enter it they are met with aromatherapy and find themselves in a very intentional space.
The furniture is low-setting, giving the area a feeling of being grounded. There are Legos, Play-Dough, coloring books and yoga mats; all of which can be utilized by students, staff, and faculty at Montana Western. The day room also serves as a counseling space.
The night room currently offers a state-of-the-art massage chair that is very popular, especially among the student athletes. A rocking chair and fish-tank can also be found in the room, which is painted dark blue to give the essence of a night sky.
Montana Western’s immersive approach to education, coupled with their smaller student to faculty ratio, allows students to feel like an integral part of the campus. The input from students contributes to the innovation behind the Dawg-Zen Room. A suggestion box is kept in the day room where students can write down their ideas for the rooms.
“The suggestion box is so encouraging because we know students are using it,” said Heidi Gjefle, a counselor at Montana Western.
Making the Dawg-Zen Room a reality has been a collaborative effort between Counseling Services, Resident Life, and Facilities. UMW’s Art Club joined in to help paint the rooms.
Gjefle looks forward to reading the student suggestions every morning when she opens up the rooms. Counseling services provide UMW students with helpful tools to successfully navigate college and Gjefle expressed that the Dawg-Zen Room is a “Bulldog community space that helps promote self-resilience.”
For more information about the Dawg-Zen Room, please email [email protected].
Please visit UMW’s Counseling Services website for more information on the services they provide.
