Jackrabbits take home top prize for excellent video
Now in its second year, the Exercise is Medicine® On Campus (EIM-OC) Mascot Challenge has named South Dakota State University as its champion and Shenandoah University as the winner of the fan favorite category.
Launched in October of 2017, the EIM-OC Mascot Challenge focuses on the celebration of EIM On Campus Month. Each registered campus is invited to submit a creative video of its mascot demonstrating campus efforts to activate the vision of Exercise is Medicine and increase physical activity among students, faculty and staff on campus. This year, 16 campus programs submitted entries.
The videos were judged by a panel of seven Exercise is Medicine Advisory Board members, and were scored on several aspects, including clear communication of the EIM-OC mission, originality and overall entertainment value.
As the winner, SDSU will be awarded a $1,000 grant to be used toward the development of an EIM-OC event or program on campus.
Runners-up in the judging will also receive monetary awards. The judging panel awarded second place to Iowa State University and third place to Jacksonville University. All three winning videos will be featured on the Exercise is Medicine website.
In addition to the panel of judges, all 16 videos were eligible for the Fan Favorite award. The winner was determined through a voting system on YouTube, where all videos were uploaded into a single playlist on the American College of Sports Medicine channel.
The winner of the Fan Favorite award, with 427 votes, was Shenandoah University. In second place was West Chester University of Pennsylvania, and Iowa State University was named the third-place winner. All three of these schools were also awarded small grants for their EIM-OC programs.
All sixteen video submissions are available for viewing on YouTube.
About Exercise is Medicine On Campus: Exercise is Medicine® On Campus (EIM-OC) calls upon universities and colleges to promote physical activity as a vital sign of health. EIM-OC encourages faculty, staff and students to work together toward improving the health and well-being of the campus community by:
- Making movement a part of the daily campus culture
- Assessing physical activity at every student health visit
- Providing students with the tools necessary to strengthen healthy physical activity habits that can last a lifetime
- Connecting university health care providers with university health fitness specialists to provide a referral system for exercise prescription.