Meet Colleen Daly: Tar Heel, YoPo enthusiast, eating disorders’ worst nightmare and Miss UNC 2012.
This Asheville, NC native won the coveted title last fall with Embody Carolina as her service project. Embody Carolina is UNC’s latest program dedicated to building student allies to those struggling with eating disorders.
Daly is a Jane of multiple trades – but that does not stop her from helping Embody reach its fullest potential.
With the help of the UNC Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders and co-founders Ben Barge, Savannah King and Cora Wilen, Daly has been able to propel Embody Carolina to new heights, and she does not expect its momentum to slow down anytime soon.
HC: How would you describe yourself in three words?
CD: Passionate, enthusiastic, [laughs] lehhgo, l-e-h-h-g-o!
HC: And why did you choose those words?
CD: Um, I am passionate because I do things because I care about them genuinely. I think I give myself wholly to things that I love, and I give myself fully because I believe strongly that in doing even just the small things that we’re capable of doing that we can truly make a big impact if we have the right intentions and we develop the skill sets we need to make a difference. So, I want to find the intersection where my passion meets the world’s needs, and that’s where I want to live. So, my passion drives me, my passion motivates me, my passion dictates what I do.
HC: And lehhgo?
CD: Lehhgo! If anybody’s been to my Zumba class, they’ve heard that about 20 million times. Um, lehhgo to me is just keep pushing and keep being positive. Like we can sit and just be upset about stuff. We can be bummed out about the horrible stigma that surrounds eating disorders. We can be bummed out that there are systems of poverty and inequality. Or we can say, ‘Lehhgo!’ Like let’s deal with this. We need to sit down, study the ramifications of the issues that are presented to us, make a well thought out plan and considerate plan and go. Like that’s what we’re called to do. Lehhgo!
HC: What do you like to do in your free time?
CD: [laughs] Free time? What’s that? I work four jobs. I work three of them at Campus Recreation. I am the director of community building for the Newman Center. I am the marketing and graphic design coordinator for Nourish UNC. And then Embody is obviously a big baby of mine. Um, and I just finished being a counselor with Carolina Kickoff – which just like breaks my heart. So, I do a lot of things, but my free time and the best time that I have is spent sitting in the Pit with my friends. That’s the most beautiful thing about Carolina to me. I just think it so speaks the passion and diversity of the school. Because you can sit for an hour with a friend and just see everything that Carolina has to offer – the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, the talented. You know? Just like everything. It’s just awesome. But there is no ugly. That’s the best part about it. There’s just good and occasional bad and beautiful and talented.
HC: So, what inspired you to run for Miss UNC then?
CD: When I was in high school, my best friend Grace Wallace was the star of everything. She was the president of our class, and I was the vice president of our class. She was Miss Asheville High, and I was runner-up. And Grace was the captain of the cheerleading team. She’s the most beautiful, wonderful, talented person. She was on So You Think You Can Dance. She’s amazing. And so I said some day, when I am not in the same school as Grace Wallace, I’m gonna win something. So I was like I can run for stuff now, right? But the real story is that I love this campus. I love Carolina. I love this student body. I love people, and I believe in Embody Carolina. I believe in what it is capable of. And so being able to connect, support Embody financially and giving it the publicity it needed to really kick off and kick off well and being able to represent a student body that I love so passionately, it was just the perfect intersection. And so I just went for it.
HC: And Embody Carolina? What is it all about?
CD: Embody Carolina is a training designed much like One Act, Haven, and Safe Zone in that it’s a three-hour training led by students with the presence of the Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders. But it’s a three-hour training dedicated to preparing students to serve as compassionate and effective allies to those struggling with eating disorders. Unfortunately, people often with the best of intentions can approach a friend in the wrong way simply because they’re uninformed about the complexities of the disorder and actually cause more harm than good. So what we want to do is really prepare students by providing them the knowledge and resources they need to really make a positive difference in the lives of a friend that might be struggling.
HC: How would you measure the success you’ve had so far with running and having your program come to fruition?
CD: The most beautiful thing about it is that Embody was going to happen whether or not I won. Embody was in the works well before homecoming. My homecoming campaign is a very, very small part of Embody – which is a much larger movement. But I think that the homecoming campaign was really crucial to getting it off the ground – as far as getting the students interested and excited about it and that was one of the strongest things that emerged from the Miss UNC campaign because we asked people when we signed up for the training. We said how did you find out about Embody and many of them said it was from the Miss UNC campaign. And so that was really, really powerful in that regard. I really think Miss UNC brought light to an issue that far too often faces a significant stigma.
HC: Where do you see Embody in five years?
CD: I see it as a training people get, like you should be Embody trained. I see it as something that is mandatory for residential advisors. I see it as something that’s mandatory for LFIT instructors. I see it as mandatory for staff and students that work in close proximity to populations where eating disorders are more likely. I see it as something that sororities and fraternities do. I see it as something that expands to universities across the country. I see it as a powerful voice against stigma, a powerful voice raising awareness, but also just as an educational tool again to really equip students the deal with extremely complicated and difficult situations. The beautiful thing about Embody is that the kinds of students who have been running it, the peer educators, that we have taken on are absolutely amazing and passionate and so thoughtful. Some people were like you know we should do trainings that are really specific to recreation. Or we should do a training that is very specific to one form of an eating disorder so that people that may have a friend with that’s struggling with that one can get more information on that particular disorder. So there’s all kinds of ideas that are out there and we’re really looking at what we can do with this. So the future is so open and so bright.
HC: And what about you? Where do you see yourself next?
CD: Well, the public will be interested to know that I actually accepted a one-year internship at UNC. So, I’ll be working here for the next year, and I really kind of want to take that year to think about what it is I really want to do. I’m kind of interested in public health, and I’m kind of interested in campus recreation type stuff, and I’m kind of interested in graphic design. It’s just one of those things where I think I’m going to take this next year and just enjoy being here and getting to work in an environment that is so positive for me and just really think about the next years.
Luckily for us, Daly will be around a little while longer. If you haven’t already done so, then schedule a YoPo date with her soon! Meeting this lively spirit may just be the highlight of your year.
All photos were courtesy of Colleen Daly and Embody Carolina’s Facebook.