Students can count on one more option for staying healthy.

Eric Davidson, assistant director of Health Services, said HERC, the Health Education Resource Center, is a part of health services.

“Most of the time when people think of Health Services they think of doctors, nurses, labs and pharmacies … our part is really health enhancement, health education, health promotion and prevention,” Davidson said.

The center helps students live a healthy lifestyle, succeed academically, and helps prevent them from becoming sick or injured, he said.

The center encourages healthy and safe students who can go to class, who don’t have studies interrupted by sickness, who do not have unhealthy habits and hopefully reducing health related behaviors that may interfere with other students academic successes.

Some of the services offered at the center include preventing high risk alcohol use, online interactive programs, information on sexual health, and ways to drink in a healthy, more responsible fashion so it that doesn’t affect studies

In addition, the center also oversees the “condom club,” which trains students on the proper use and benefits as well as possible risks of condom use.

A group of students oversee the condom club and is currently working on a stress management program. The group, a mixture of students who do and do not consume alcohol, helps with presenting programs and planning events.

When students think of the group they think of “just say no,” Davidson said. “They are not your goody too shoes.” The group takes a “harm reduction approach,” he said.

The group of students’ approach promotes drinking in moderation and responsibly and targets a broad spectrum. The center has a nutrition education committee and offers smoking cessation services to help students quit smoking.

Davidson said that though there are very few charges, most of the of the services offered by the center are free and are part of the health services fee.

“We’re not just a place to go to for pamphlets and brochures,” Davidson said. HERC is located in the student services building on the third floor, room 5019.