It’s January, the season of New Year’s resolutions and striving, once again, to improve our health.

Across Grounds, new spaces for health and wellness are open and welcoming enthusiasts seeking ways to be mentally and physically fit.

Here are our top three:

For three years in a row—2026, 2025, 2024—UVA has been named #1 in Best Student Health Services by Princeton Review. So far, Student Health & Wellness is living up to its full potential to focus on student wellness, offering students primary care, mental health counseling, care and support, and disability services, as well as well-being programs like the Food Pantry and events in the Teaching Kitchen, Therapy Dog hours, and a variety of health-related workshops.

Made possible through private support and a lead gift from an anonymous benefactor, SHW opened in 2021. Today, 63,000 students each year visit the healthy space, which is the first higher education building in Virginia to earn two out of three stars certified by Fitwel Center for Active Design. Fitwel certification focuses on buildings that improve, enhance, and safeguard the health and well-being of their occupants.

This is good news for students, with 80% of UVA’s students agreeing that health and well-being are a priority at the University. Patient satisfaction surveys confirm students appreciate the care and staff, with responses like: “This comment is not just for my provider but everyone who makes up Student Health and Wellness. I genuinely feel cared for as a student and am grateful to have such a solid group of health professionals in my community.”

View the SHW tour to learn more.

After the happy yet stressful holidays, who couldn’t use more awareness, contemplation, and resilience? The new Contemplative Commons is a stunningly beautiful and healthy space designed to escape the stress and grind of daily life while attaining all three. Whether curated for students or the entire community, the Contemplative Sciences Center’s extensive list of events and activities offers something for almost every day of the week.

Examples of typical programming include Ashtanga Yoga, guided meditations, immersive live music experiences, salons—or monthly open dialogues led by researchers and experts—and research symposia open to the public like the fall 2025 SENSEmaking Symposium. The Contemplative Sciences Center hosts a number of academic classes and leadership opportunities for students and others as well.

“Our mission is to advance and deepen flourishing and contemplation through both research and practice. We essentially want to be a place of connection and engagement, and an interruption to the relentless pace, pressure, and uncertainty that is around us,” said Kelly Crace, executive director of the center.

Marianna Sherry (Col ’26) has been involved with the center for two years as a participant in center activities as well as belonging to a cohort of student support staff.

“I’ve had a great experience in the space. It’s been a getaway for me, if I need to center myself or get out of the daily humdrum,” Sherry said.

“As a student we are always going, going, going, so this was the first time I could do things just for the sake of doing them,” she said. “It’s really enriched my experience at UVA.”

Sherry also explored a variety of new experiences, like Capoeira and the Golden Hour immersive music event and even yoga. “Since participating, I’ve been able to create my own outlets for stress relief.”

As a resource for well-being, the center has also been responsive to emergent community needs, creating programming on the spot such as yoga for grief, and other facilitated sessions informed by center research.

During fall semester alone over 4,600 people, more than two thirds of them students, have taken part in center events. The Contemplative Commons has expanded its evening hours of operation this spring to 8 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays and 6 p.m. on Fridays.

The Contemplative Commons is funded in part by a $40 million lead gift from Paul Jones (Col ’76) and Sonia Jones, along with generous gifts from Jeffrey C. Walker (McIntire ’77), additional members of the CSC’s Advisory Board, and others.