Northeastern Junior College now has a dedicated space on campus for students and staff who need to recharge. The college celebrated the grand opening of the new 40th Parallel Latitude Lounge on Monday, Nov. 9.
Located on the second floor of Knowles Hall in room 215, the space is designed to be a quiet, inclusive, designated space for everyone on campus to relax, reset, and re-regulate. It invites those who use it to restore balance, take a brief calming break to improve focus, and decompress their nervous system. Using the space can help reduce stress and anxiety, boost productivity, and encourage mindfulness and overall well-being.
The lounge was funded by a Senate Bill 22-181 Behavioral Health-Care Workforce grant, which expands access to behavioral health career pathways to support more Coloradans entering this vital field. It includes massage chairs, chaise lounges, fidget toys, a Japanese Zen garden, a steel tongue drum, coloring books, and more
The 40th Parallel was a passion project for Celeste Delgado-Pelton, chair of liberal arts and academic opportunity, and Jesse Quinlin, director of marketing.
“We’re really proud of it and really excited about the possibilities it can bring for campus. Hopefully we can get more funding later to build more because the faculty and staff need without it even being open yet has been tremendous,” Quinlin said.
Part of the inspiration for the project was survey results that Delgado-Pelton saw that showed that 85% of community college students in Colorado said that they had experienced a mental health crisis.
“That’s not like maybe suffered depression, it was worded like has suffered a crisis,” she said. “So, we’ve really focused a lot the last two years on bringing things to campus and services and resources that will help students with their behavioral health.”
The two also got inspiration when they attended a conference two years ago at Otero College on an unrelated subject and did a campus tour. As part of the tour they were able to see the relaxation room on campus and knew immediately they needed to bring something similar to NJC. So, when the behavioral grant funds became available they jumped on applying.
It was decided that the space should be located near Monahan Learning Center so that students could have as much access to it as possible. It will be open whenever the MLC is open.
The name of the lounge came when Delgado-Pelton found out that Sterling is really close to the 40th parallel and both she and Quinlin thought that would be a great name.
Along with the new lounge, Northeastern will also have some massage chairs that are less high-tech than the ones in the 40th Parallel inside of the academic buildings across campus and bags with fidget toys sitting next to them, so students can have a five-minute reset. Delago-Pelton said the plan is to have signs encouraging students to sit down and enjoy a massage and there will also be signs telling them to go to the 40th Parallel if they need more relaxation.