Students design wellness solutions for North Carolina community
By Christine Tanner
Judges applaud after students present at the inaugural Health for the Future Student Design Competition. Photo credit: Simon Wheeler.
What happens when you give Cornell students a real-world health equity design challenge and one weekend to solve it?
In March, the Cornell Institute for Healthy Futures (CIHF), Cone Health and the Leland C. and Mary M. Pillsbury Institute for Hospitality Entrepreneurship brought together nine interdisciplinary teams of undergraduate and graduate students — including four visiting from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University — to compete in the inaugural Health for the Future Student Design Competition at Cornell University’s Statler Hall.
Their three-day challenge: Develop a more equitable and connected health and wellness ecosystem for the 31-acre Pyramids Village site in Greensboro, North Carolina. Students attended workshops on design thinking and health equity, and faculty from the Cornell Nolan School of Hotel Administration, the Cornell Brooks School of Public Policy and the Cornell Duffield College of Engineering were available to answer questions. Students dedicated their weekend to working in teams to research, ideate and design solutions.
“It’s challenging gathering all this information and distilling it down,” said Max Berry–Stoelzle ’27.
The nine teams presented their solutions to a panel of judges, and each presentation offered common themes and unique solutions to further community health outcomes, foster belonging and trust in the community, and guarantee equity and access.
“The students came up with some really great questions,” said Deno Adkins, senior vice president of ambulatory and consumer services at Cone Health. “Some things even our internal discussions over the past two years haven’t brought up.”
That’s exactly what Heather Kolakowski, executive director of CIHF, expected to see.
“Student-driven innovation is at the core of CIHF, the first academic center in the country to combine hospitality, environmental design, and health policy and management into a broad-based platform for improving service in health care, wellness and senior living,” Kolakowski said.
The institute develops and supports multidisciplinary educational programs and events; sponsors and disseminates research; and hosts conferences, roundtables, meetings and practicum projects.
A combined institute of Cornell Human Ecology and the Nolan School, CIHF provides a multidisciplinary platform for integrating hospitality, health management, health policy and design to enhance service excellence in health care, wellness, senior living and related industries.