Every other Monday, dozens of students line up around Kerckhoff Hall in anticipation of a chance to unwind.
Massage Mondays – an ongoing event hosted by ASUCLA and the Undergraduate Students Association Council’s Student Wellness Commission – provides students the opportunity to receive a free six-minute massage from a licensed massage therapist. Hannah Yip, USAC’s Student Wellness Commissioner, said the event is designed to alleviate students’ stress during the academic year.
Massage Mondays lasts three hours. It is also held multiple times throughout finals week to give students a chance to unwind.
UCLA Recreation, ASUCLA and the SWC contract three massage therapists for the event, who are paid $100 per hour by the SWC, an ASUCLA representative said in an emailed statement. It added in the statement that ASUCLA spends $850 on refreshments and venue rental costs per event and around an additional $100 for marketing costs and other programming expenses.
Ronen Wenderfer, a fourth-year political science student, said he attended the event because he tries to prioritize wellness – especially during the beginning of the school year, which can come with heightened academic pressure.
“Suddenly you have daily classes you have to be in, assignments that you have to get done,” he said. “Fall quarter is almost when it feels like the most pressure is there because it sets you up for the rest of the year.”
Ben Schyan, a massage therapist for UCLA Recreation, said the event is very popular among students and attracts both newcomers and returners. About 200 students lined up to receive massages last week, he added.
“Last week, we had a huge demand,” Schyan said. “We had to turn some away, unfortunately.”
Claire Shank, a second-year public affairs student, said she has been attending Massage Mondays since last year. Shank added that she believes events that promote student well-being – like Massage Mondays – allow her to improve her health and foster connections with peers.
“UCLA specifically does a lot of health and wellness events,” Shank said. “That’s a cute way to de-stress and also ensure that students are finding a way to either socially connect with other people or just have something fun or exciting,” she said.
Mary Romo, ASUCLA’s programming manager who coordinates Massage Mondays, said her main goal is to relieve students’ stress and provide them with opportunities to connect through events like Massage Mondays.
“The programs that I do is supposed to give students an experience they can take with them,” Romo said. “It’s to bring them together, to network and to meet people and have fun and do something that’s in between their studying, their lectures and their life.”
Yip, who works closely with Romo to plan the event, said that she prioritizes paying for the event with SWC’s quarterly budget because self-care activities like massages are often inaccessible to students due to high costs.
Yip said she currently plans on making Massage Mondays a recurring program throughout the academic year.
“As busy college students on a campus that always has things going on, it’s really important to take care of your own wellness and your own mental health,” she said. “Providing students with opportunities to do that is really important.”
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