NIRSA Promising Practices: UC Berkeley’s Exercise is Medicine program

On behalf of NIRSA’s Health & Wellbeing Task Force and the Promising Practices Work Group, the Association is proud to share its seventh Promising Practice—University of California, Berkeley. 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.

UC Berkeley’s Exercise is Medicine On Campus (EIM) initiative transcends traditional wellness programs by embedding holistic health into the campus culture. This initiative enhances physical health and integrates mental, emotional, and social wellness, creating a multi-dimensional approach to student health. Furthermore, unlike many institutions that primarily focus on individual health improvements, UC Berkeley employs a systemic approach that includes multiple campus stakeholders. This elevates their EIM program to a model of comprehensive, community-focused wellbeing.

Click on the video below to learn more about UC Berkeley’s unique approach to Exercise is Medicine and the program’s impact on their campus.

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 UC Berkeley.

Register for the October 3 webinar

After downloading the publication, register to join the webinar on Thursday, October 3 at 2:00pm Eastern/11:00am Pacific. Join representatives from the University of California, Berkeley to learn more about the Exercise is Medicine program and their integration of health into the fabric of campus life.

Continuing Education Credits

Participants who attend this webinar will be eligible to receive one Continuing Education (CE) credit in either the Core Student Affairs Educator Certification (CSAEd™) or the Certified Student Affairs Educator-Campus Recreation (CSAEd-CR™) certification. NIRSA is solely responsible for all aspects of this program.

This webinar is eligible for one credit in the domain encompassing Student Learning, Development, and Success. This credit can be applied to the Core certification, or to the Campus Rec Specialty certification. Attendees of this webinar will need to submit a post-webinar evaluation and indicate their preference for credit type. They will then be awarded a certificate of completion.