NIRSA Promising Practices: University of Minnesota Twin Cities

On behalf of NIRSA’s Health & Wellbeing Task Force and the Promising Practices Work Group, the Association is proud to share its sixth Promising Practice—University of Minnesota Twin Cities (UMN). Promising Practices are collaborative or integrated wellbeing initiatives and campus-wide efforts that—driven and realized by the efforts of campus recreation staff and leaders—support the campus community.

UMN’s UBelong initiative harnesses the transformative power of challenging systems and structures to move the needle with regards to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) and wellbeing. Explore the lessons learned and the impact of this Promising Practice, which recognizes the vast spectrum of communities, cultures, identities, and individuals at UMN, and discover how these principles can be applied to your own institution.

“We believe in taking a public health approach to health and wellbeing by considering the policies, systems, practices, and the environment that create the conditions for health and wellbeing for everyone.”  – Lisa Stephenson, RecWell’s Associate Director for Wellness

Download the publication

The Promising Practices concept is intended to be a three-part, multimodal learning experience that supports the pursuit of collaborative and integrated approaches towards holistic wellbeing. “By providing an example of how one school built its framework and how their campus came together on their initiative, we’re hoping to encourage other schools to lean into this work, because we believe it has the power to transform a campus community,” adds Josh Downing, Associate Director of Programming at Indiana University and co-chair of the NIRSA Health & Wellbeing Task Force.

NIRSA is proud to offer this publication for free so that members and their colleagues across campus can learn from the significant, systems-change efforts at UMN.

Register for the June 5 webinar

After downloading the publication, register to join the webinar on Wednesday, June 5 at 12:00pm Eastern/9:00am Pacific. Join representatives from the University of Minnesota to learn more about the UBelong initiative and RecWell’s commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion and wellbeing. The webinar is free for all NIRSA members and individual nonmembers at NIRSA member schools thanks to sponsorship from University of Minnesota Recreation and Wellness.