PVCC Puma Press: March 2005

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	(Photo by Dan Quigley)
	Michael Ho wants to impact the lives of students, especially in the area of wellness.
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In the Student Life Center in the middle of the KSC-Building there is a room tucked away in the corner that doesn’t share in the fish-bowl openness of the rest of the center.

Upon initial approach to the room, one might think he or she is headed to a closet to find someone’s dark secret until they are greeted by the subtle, welcoming smile of PVCC Student Life’s Program Advisor Michael Ho. This cozy niche is his office, but if you haven’t been able to find him there yet, it’s because Ho has been very busy since he started at PVCC last September, and the still-virtually-bare walls of his office attest to that.

One of Ho’s main tasks at PVCC is to help coordinate and promote the Student Wellness. Ho has experience and training in this area, having coordinated wellness programs at schools while in pursuit of his master’s degree. “My goal here is to try to develop a student-led effort (to educate) their peers in the area of wellness.”

This year, Ho said, he will mostly be laying a foundation for his goal by just trying to grasp what the students are looking for. He said, “ Whether it be diet or exercise or spiritual well-being, I’m still trying to gauge what that might be.” So far, he said he sees the same wellness issues at PVCC that institutions and communities face nationwide.

Ho’s goals by next year are to inventory PVCC students’ wellness needs and to create a program that involves students in addressing those needs. Ho believes the needs of the students will be revealed to him by his being directly involved with the student body. He stresses that he is looking for helpful suggestions from students or other members of the community.

Ho said the community college is an ideal place to educate people about wellness because many of the students spend a large portion of time on campus. He said PVCC is especially ideal because of how open the environment is to new ideas and innovations and how proactive the community is in facing challenges. Ho said there is an overall feeling “that no idea is a bad idea.” Ho also remarked that as his first experience in a community college, PVCC has astonished him by how willing everyone is to learn. He likes the fact that even as an employee he is expected to further his education.

Ho, a native of the San Francisco Bay area. He came to PVCC from Rhode Island where he worked for three years as software engineer. Although Ho took a pay cut to change professions, he said the fulfillment he receives from his success at PVCC is a genuine “step-up” from any of his previous jobs. As his master’s degree is in Education Administration, he says he’s in the field where he belongs.

Ho says software was a great career, but education is his calling. He says he loves coming to work each day, and that he has personally improved in the wellness area since he hasn’t been sitting in front of a computer 40 hours per week.

He said Arizona is the perfect place for him, his wife and their two children because of the lower cost of living.

“In the Boston-Rhode Island area it’s a little too expensive,” Ho said. “You really couldn’t make a living on an education salary alone.”

Ho said if he is doing the same job in five or 10 years he will not be disappointed. He also hopes to have the walls of his office decorated within that period of time.