Pritma (“Mickey”) Irizarry is the Director of the Health Promotion and Advocacy Center at American University in Washington D.C. She is from Montgomery Country, Maryland and received her undergraduate degree at University of Maryland College Park in Community Public Health. After she graduated from college, she worked at University of Maryland Baltimore County as a health educator while getting her master’s degree in Applied Sociology. Mickey came to AU in March of 2016.
I was fortunate to be able to schedule a meeting with Mickey to discuss her role as the director of the Health Promotion & Advocacy Center and why she thinks health and wellness for college students is important.
See our discussion below:
Q: What services does the Health Promotion and Advocacy Center provide that you wish more students knew about or utilized more?
A: All of them. I think OASIS is a pretty well utilized service, but I don’t know if all survivors or victims use our service. There’s a whole host of reasons why people might not come to OASIS and that’s okay. I would love for more students to realize that we are a good place for them to come talk about sexual health as well. We do contraceptive consultations and counseling around finding the method that would be best for you and where to get that method. I know that more students are on birth control or are interested in birth control than we see at this office, so I wish that was a more utilized service.
We’re starting to grow our services, outreach and education on all kinds of substance use. I’m hoping that over the next few years more and more students will see us as a go-to resource for education and prevention work around substance abuse, not just the people you have to go meet with after a transport. We’re a wellness office, and we’re here to make sure that you’re okay.
Q: What does being the director of HPAC entail? What kind of work do you participate in?
A: I support my staff in getting their jobs done and being successful in their different initiatives whether it’s advocacy work or awareness and education. A lot of these issues are not just things that my office can do alone, so we collaborate across campus with the Counseling Center or the Health Center or AU RecFit or with different advisors. My role is to help initiate those relationships and build them so that we can then do more collaborative work with each other.
Aside from the logistics of running the office, I am also here to think big picture about where else we could go in terms of our services and think strategically about how HPAC is represented in different meetings and different areas of campus and making sure that people remember the health and wellness impact for students. Our belief is that health is the foundation for being a person. Without good health, you can’t be a there for other people and you also can’t be there for your own studies and internships and your jobs. You won’t be able to have a successful career if you’re constantly unhealthy. Building good health practices now is really important for long term success. So, wherever I can feed in that message, whether it’s on the academic side, or the student development side, I think that’s my role.
Q: Why are you passionate about advocating for health and wellness for college students?
A: From my own personal experience, all the dimensions of health and wellness have to be taught in order for people to recognize the multiple places that negative health outcomes have an impact on your life.
The reason why I entered into this field was because I looked at the people that taught me about my health when I was in college and high school; they taught be about how to be better, how to be safer with drug use and with sex, how to access resources for mental health and how to recognize signs of an unhealthy relationship. Those were the people that really made a difference in my life, so I wanted to be able to give back and do the same for others.
If we’re making an impact with at least one or two students here or there; then I think we’ve done a good job. I want people to graduate and go out into the world feeling better about themselves and about their capabilities. The more you learn in college, the better off you’ll be down the road in terms of not making the same mistakes.
Q: What advice would you give to a student just starting to get involved in focusing on health and wellness?
A: Don’t do it all at once. Getting involved is wonderful, and it’s very important for academic success, but there is a balance that needs to be had. If you’re interested in health and wellness and you want to become a peer educator, wonderful! Try putting your coins in that bucket, but don’t put your coins in 50 buckets. If you want to become a peer health educator, don’t also get an internship and become an RA and be the president of a mental health initiative all at the same time. It would be impossible to maintain a work-life balance with that schedule, and you’re not really able to put your energy and passion into those areas because you’re being spread too thin. You can try it all at some point, but not all at the same time. One step at a time, not all at once.
Q: Who is your biggest female role mode and why?
A: I pick up a lot of things from multiple people. I really admire my mom for certain aspects of her life and her strength being a single parent and raising three successful daughters. But I also admire a lot of the female supervisors I’ve had over my career who have mentored me in different ways, and I’ve gained knowledge and strength from each of them in different ways. They all had something unique to pass on to me. I admire Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton for being leaders and for being role models in the bigger arena for women to be able to achieve and keep going. I also admire the everyday student who is making it work for them. I take from here and there, I don’t think that there’s one person that has it all. There are people who are good at different things and you can learn and pick up pieces from different people and different parts of their life that are commendable and what I look up to.
Q: What is your favorite way to de-stress during a busy week?
A: If I’m experiencing a really busy week or I know I’m going into a very busy week, I intentionally set aside some time at the end of it for me to decompress. What I like to do is to treat myself to something I like and binge-watch a show that I enjoy. Or, I will purposefully not have a busy weekend. If I know I’m going to have a back-to-back week, I need to save at least one full day of vegging out a home; being in pajamas, sleeping in and relaxing. But I have to schedule these things in- I have to be purposeful about making the time and making sure nobody else takes that from me to do what it is I need to do in order to relax.
Q: What is your favorite healthy snack?
A: An on the go healthy snack that I love is fruit. I also love pistachios and cashews.
Check out Mickey’s Staff Profile page here!
XOXO, Sophie
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