For Dr. Sheila Jones, Abilene Christian University’s Money Student Recreation and Wellness Center is more than just a state-of-the-art place for students to hit the weights, swim some laps or shoot hoops. The Money Center is also an innovative place to learn.
Jones, an assistant professor of kinesiology and nutrition and director of the Didactic Program in Dietetics, said the new facility affords students studying nutrition and kinesiology ample opportunities for hands-on learning.

Promoting total wellness

Jones says students can now have more involved cooking demonstrations, body composition tests and opportunities to work with students who have nutritional questions. For Jones, the Money Center is not just about exercise and play, but also about total wellness.
“We hope that it promotes wellness among the student body. If you treat your body as a temple you’ll be able to do better at everything,” she says. “You can serve God better in so many more ways if you feel good.”
Jones has seen ACU’s nutrition program change since she began teaching in 1997. She has played a role in developing many of the programs courses and saw the nutrition program merge with the exercise science program last year. The new facility is just another step forward.

The best of the best

“We’re on the crux with this new facility. They took some of the best things from other colleges’ facilities and put them here,” she says. “I don’t know of a facility of this quality at a university this size. It’s a meeting place, and I knew that the first day it opened.”
Though she enjoys spending time in the fancy new digs of the rec center, Jones is hoping to carry her message of nutrition around the globe. She and her husband plan to take students on medical missions around the world in the coming years.
“We’ve taken medical missions before, and it’s an invaluable experience for students,” Jones said. “It sets your character.”
Learn more about the Department of Kinesiology and Nutrition.