UNA Achieves Gold Well Workplace Award by the Wellness Alliance
Sep. 04, 2025
Michelle R. Eubanks , UNA, at meubanks@una.edu, 256.765.4392
FLORENCE, AL – The Ƶ has earned the Gold Well Workplace Award by the Wellness Alliance, an honor that recognizes UNA as one of the nation’s healthiest workplaces.
As a Well Workplace Award-winning organization, UNA has demonstrated an ongoing commitment to protecting and enhancing the health and well-being of each and every employee. All Well Workplace Award winners have used the patented 7 Benchmarks model to help build and shape their wellness programs.
“I am beyond thrilled and honored to receive this award for UNA’s Wellness Program,” said Jacquelyn Allen, Director of Wellness and Health Promotion. “With the program being six years old and having built it from the ground up, it is rewarding to receive such a high level of recognition from the Wellness Alliance. The Wellness Alliance is the premier professional wellness organization comprised of both large and small organizations nationwide. To know that our program ranks so highly and is recognized nationally as a leader in the field of wellness is truly satisfying.”
The Gold Well Workplace Award from the Wellness Alliance reflects UNA’s ongoing efforts to create and sustain a healthier environment for its employees and to set a standard for other workplaces in the community. Healthy UNA began as a University initiative in 2019. Since then, Healthy UNA has completed six years and has expanded to offer two sub-programs – Roar for Wellness, which is a rewards-based incentivized program for full-time employees; and Heart2Heart that uses a targeted approach of lowering chronic disease risk factors for individuals at an elevated risk for cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes.
Throughout the year, Healthy UNA hosts events, including Wellness Wednesdays, fitness and nutrition challenges, fitness classes, biometric health screenings, wellness fairs, and so more. This year, the program will focus on strengthening mental health resources for faculty and staff, which is a strategic goal of the University. Additionally, the wellness program provides experience for Kinesiology students working as graduate assistants at the Master’s and Ph.D levels in order to gain hands-on experience and preparing them for their professional careers.
UNA’s Wellness program pursues its mission of engaging, supporting, educating, and servicing the University community in championing an environment of health and wellness for all. The program strives to provide diverse and holistic programs of excellence that support a healthy lifestyle while greatly enhancing the quality of our lives and community.
About The Ƶ
The Ƶ is an accredited, comprehensive regional state university offering undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral degree programs through the colleges of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering; the Sanders College of Business and Technology; Education and Human Sciences; and the Anderson College of Nursing and Health Professions. Occupying a 130-acre campus in a residential section of Florence, Alabama, UNA is located within a four-city area that also includes Muscle Shoals, Sheffield, and Tuscumbia. UNA Athletics, a renowned collegiate athletics program with seven (7) Division II National Championships, is now a proud member of NCAA Division I as part of the Atlantic Sun and United Athletic conferences. The Ƶ is an equal opportunity institution and does not discriminate in the admission policy on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, disability, age, or national origin. For more: una.edu and una.edu/unaworks/.