(The Beacon)
By Philippe Boutros, Staff Writer -- boutros14@up.edu
On April 9, the Peer Health Educator (PHE) program at the University of Portland won the Outstanding PHE Program of the Year award at a conference in Cheney, Wash. at Eastern Washington University.
"Funny story, we actually had no idea we were going to be receiving an award, or even that we were nominated," Elizabeth Sykes, junior and University of Portland PHE, said in an email. "It came as a complete shock. We were all sitting together at a table, and then they announced ‘The University of Portland' and Carly Parish, Bessie D'Amelia-Bidleman and I all looked at each other with confused faces."
"We were so shocked we barely knew what to say," Sykes said.
The award is given to the Peer Health Educators who enact the best campus-wide program, according to Fr. Pat Hannon, C.S.C., adviser to the Peer Health Educators.
"They came in first place because of a program they organized that had to do with cancer awareness," Hannon said. "The competition included Peer Health Educator programs from throughout the Pacific Northwest. We went up against schools like Gonzaga, the University of Washington, Seattle University and the University of Oregon."
At the University of Portland, Peer Health Educators live together in the same building in Tyson Hall, but are each assigned to a different dorm. They assist hall staff, particularly in programming to advance a sense of health awareness. They work together as a team to identify particular issues and topics that generate campus-wide attention.
"I think the reason why they won definitely has to do with the Peer Health Educators as a group that's highly motivated, work together well as a team, highly organized," Hannon said. "I think that they were able to pinpoint a particular issue that they thought would attract a good number of students who would be interested in attending the program and organized it in incredible detail, and they did their homework."
