Mission

The Student Health Advisory Board is a unique organization on Princeton’s Campus. Student run, it nonetheless conducts biannual, professional evaluations of University Health Services. Most other universities hire a service to complete this task.

Evaluations serve as just one example of SHAB’s overall mission: to serve as the link between UHS and the student body. To that end, SHAB also runs several health related events and campaigns each semester, depending on the interest of its members.

SHAB's goal is to ensure care at UHS is of the highest quality, and as student representatives, SHAB members work closely with the student body and the staff of UHS to improve and maintain our college health environment. SHAB members possess an intimate understanding of all university health services and policies. Our work with the students and staff is professional, confidential and impartial.

Members are selected in a rigorous, competitive interview process and are required to have excellent communication skills.

History

In the mid 1950's a "student committee" joined forces with a faculty advisory board from the Dept. of Health and the Religion and Sociology Departments.  Together, these groups started a marriage counseling course for University Students. This is the earliest evidence of Princeton students involving themselves in campus health policy.

In 1967, the Committee on UHS was organized.  It consisted of 6 students and 6 faculty members and was established after a student committee on Mental Health "had been organized in 1967 entirely on student initiative". The Heritage of Isabella McCosh: A History of the Health Services at Princeton University, by William K. Selden (p. 80). This serves as the origin of SHAB, though the name would not be coined for another 13 years, in 1980. SHAB has been in existence shaping health policy on campus for over 25 years.