Trekking up a gravel hill in Costa Rica during a week of study abroad, Chloe Harves, an engineering student, tripped, injuring her foot. This moment, though painful, unexpectedly marked the beginning of a journey that would connect her education to her future career.
When she returned to campus, she visited the health center in Gosiger Hall. The medical team was compassionate and attentive, but the building itself showed its age. The X‑ray equipment was outdated and the images weren’t clear enough to determine whether her foot was broken. She was referred off campus for basic imaging, an inconvenience she later learned was common for students.
Her experience at the health center made one thing clear: UD needed a facility that matched the excellence of its people.
“My experience, and I’m not alone in this, illustrates exactly why the transformation happening on campus is so vital,” Harves said.
That transformation arrives this fall with the opening of the new Health and Wellbeing Center, which will allow students, counselors, nurses, physicians, faculty and staff a space designed to better meet the demands of modern care.
The new center’s first floor focuses on mental health, with counseling offices, group‑therapy rooms and a calming tranquility lobby that connects directly to the RecPlex.
Upstairs, visitors will find modern medical exam rooms, specialty care spaces and a new X‑ray suite, along with a 5,300‑square‑foot dance studio designed for a high‑quality mind‑body experience. Built on its own concrete slab and wrapped in double drywall, the dance studio keeps noise from reaching clinical areas, an example of how the entire facility was designed to support health and wellbeing.
What Harves didn’t expect on that gravel hill in Costa Rica was that she would help build the new center. With the help of academic advisors and the co-op office in UD’s School of Engineering, she secured a co-op position with Danis Construction, a general contracting company that previously renovated UD Arena and the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception.
“I was beyond nervous, but one detail kept me calm and excited,” she shared. “I was placed at the one and only UD Student Health and Wellbeing Center.”
Her responsibilities ranged from requests for information to tracking concrete tours, documenting Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) requirements, assisting with labor audits and filing field reports. Through each task, she saw how much coordination and care go into every system of a building, especially one meant to support the wellbeing of an entire campus community.
“I’m grateful UD introduced me to such an amazing opportunity to gain hands-on experience with a building that will serve our campus for generations,” she said. “Through this, I didn’t just launch a career path. I discovered who I am called to be. I’ve grown as a student, a woman in engineering and a leader.”