EPHRAIM — Snow College leaders, students and family members gathered Monday to dedicate the college’s new wellness center, a facility they said will help students address mental health challenges and stay on track toward completing their education.

The center opened at 191 S. Main St. and includes a wing named for Ruth Delilah Jensen.

Snow College President Stacee McIff welcomed the crowd and said the project reflects years of work and broad support.

“We’re so grateful for this development,” McIff said, calling it “this beautiful opportunity, not just for our college students but for our Ephraim as a community.”

Snow College announced the new center in an April 16 news release, saying the building houses the college’s Wellness Center along with Revere Health Ephraim Family Medicine & Urgent Care. In that release, Bryan Moulton, director of Snow College’s Wellness Center, said, “This new space represents our commitment to supporting the whole student.”

During the ceremony, student body president Carson Headley said the college had responded to current student needs by creating a center that offers visible, regular support.

“I’ve come to just really recognize this year how much they prioritize student success and student wellness,” Headley said. He said the center is “something that students have had a need for,” and he praised campus wellness advocates, adding, “Truly they’re just a light on our campus.”

Cody Branch, Snow College’s vice president of Student Affairs and Enrollment Management, said the center will support both student well-being and retention.

“Oftentimes we’re trying to learn from our students, why is it that maybe some choose not to stay or they step away before achieving a credential here at Snow College,” Branch said. “One of the top things that we often hear is that they have to depart to take care of mental health challenges that they’re facing.”

He said the wellness center will play “a critical role” in helping students remain “mentally healthy and mentally well” while they are in school.

Mark Stoddard, a grandson of Ruth Delilah Jensen, spoke about his grandmother’s life in Ephraim and her years of service to Snow College students. He said her home once stood near where the Activity Center pool is now and described a life marked by hardship, work, and care for others.

“That’s my grandmother,” Stoddard said of the nearby area tied to her family history. “She was a dorm mother there and then moved from Fern Young over to Snow Hall.”

He said she helped students learn to sew, offered counseling and support, and later mended football uniforms when his father coached at the college.

“She was always engaged and busy,” he said.

Stoddard also described Jensen as someone who endured personal loss. He said she lost her husband in 1952 and had also lost four of her six children when they were young. Even so, he said, she kept serving others and remained active in quilting and crocheting for her family.

“If my grandmother can get through it, then each one of us can get through our difficulties each and every day,” he said.

McIff closed the program by tying Jensen’s example to the purpose of the building.

“She didn’t seek that recognition,” McIff said. “She just simply showed up again and again offering encouragement, reassurance of belief in her beloved students.”

McIff said the space should remind students “that they belong, that help is possible and that they can succeed.”

The ceremony ended with a ribbon cutting involving wellness advocates, staff members, family members, and college leaders.