{"id":1140,"date":"2025-11-14T08:55:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T08:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/2025\/11\/14\/2025-11-14-mitchell-lives-healthfully\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T23:07:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T23:07:19","slug":"2025-11-14-mitchell-lives-healthfully","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/2025\/11\/14\/2025-11-14-mitchell-lives-healthfully\/","title":{"rendered":"Mitchell lives\u00a0healthfully"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Madelyn Braho<\/a> · Staff Writer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Andrew Mitchell, professor of history at the college, has an interest in what it means to live well that goes far beyond his chapel lecture the first week of November: For the last year and a half, he has been working on an update to the one-credit Healthful Living course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Mitchell was interviewed in January 2025, he indicated that the prospective class would have been more than just a new version of the basic health and wellness class. Instead, it would be something unique to the college.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe idea is that we be able to have activities to combine at the same time physical growth and health, and spiritual growth or nourishment,\u201d Mitchell explained. The class would meet once a week in person to learn about different habits that form us as people. This might range from stretching and exercising to praying for each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Creating this class is a solo project for Mitchell, however.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In April of 2024, the Provost asked him to make something out of \u201cat least two years\u2019 worth of multiple committee meetings.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat led me over the next several months to talk to people on campus, off campus \u2026 to try to come up with something that would be holistic, practical and attractive to the students,\u201d Mitchell said in an interview in November. He discussed the project with professors from other educational institutions, including West Point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he met with the Curriculum and Instructional Committee last spring, the consensus was that the class would not be offered in the upcoming academic year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet even though the class was not accepted, it was not the end of the idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere were enough students who were enthusiastic about the idea that we informally did something over the course of the spring semester,\u201d Mitchell recounted. Eleven students took part in the program, and according to Mitchell, some of the practices learned then are still followed by the students who took part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This semester, Mitchell ran the \u201cHabits of Wholeness\u201d series, two 50-minute classes that followed the principles he had established with the class and that would \u201cbring together faculty and students in a common exercise.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first class on Oct. 6 focused on breathing, incorporating Scripture and writings from both modern Christians and those of \u201cwise pagans.\u201d More recently, the Nov. 10 class emphasized healthy stretching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mitchell has been working on this project for over a year, and despite the disappointments, his enthusiasm for it has not died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe thing that has kept me going with the project has been the fact that students, all the time, seem to be excited by it,\u201d Mitchell said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Mitchell, the Healthful Living course is not perfunctory, but full of potential. In an email about the Habits of Wholeness series, he asked, \u201cHow can our embodied selves develop meaningful, healthy trajectories at Grove City today?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The aim of the project is more than a curriculum overhaul and instead focuses on examining \u201cthe holistic nature of what it means to be human,\u201d Mitchell expressed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Andrew Mitchell, professor of history at the college, has an interest in what it means to live well that goes far beyond his chapel lecture the first week of November: For<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[211],"tags":[19,66,39],"class_list":["post-1140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-people","tag-community","tag-madelyn-braho","tag-issue-2025-11-14"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Ian Schartner","author_link":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/author\/schartnerij23\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Dr. Andrew Mitchell, professor of history at the college, has an interest in what it means to live well that goes far beyond his chapel lecture the first week of November: For","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1140"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1873,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1140\/revisions\/1873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}