Integrated wellbeing on campus: Oakland University shares promising practices

On behalf of NIRSA’s Health & Wellbeing Task Force, the Association is proud to share its first Promising Practice: Oakland University. 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.

Check out the two-minute video below to get a sense of how Oakland University’s initiative to become the “Healthiest Campus for Michigan” also made it the perfect choice to become NIRSA’s debut Promising Practice.

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 on campus,” says Darcie Burde, Senior Associate Director for Fitness & Wellness at the University of Florida, Health & Wellbeing Task Force Member, and co-chair of the Cross-Campus Integration Workgroup. “By providing an example of how one school built its framework and how the initiative can be informed by data-driven outcomes, we’re hoping to encourage other schools to lean-in to this work, because we believe it has the power to transform a campus community,” adds Josh Downing, Director of Recreation & Wellness at Butler University, Health & Wellbeing Task Force member, and co-chair of the Cross-Campus Integration Workgroup.

The Oakland University Promising Practices publication highlights the university’s initiative to become the “Healthiest Campus for Michigan.” Several years ago, Oakland University (OU) began its journey towards integrating wellbeing into the fabric of campus. The publication portion of the Promising Practices resource describes their unique approach to this work and it’s now available for download.

NIRSA offers this publication free to members at member institutional member schools because of the generous support of CannonDesign! Members at non-member schools can download the resource at the discounted rate of $25.

Join the July 27 roundtable discussion

Download and read NIRSA Promising Practices: Oakland University’s “Healthiest Campus for Michigan” Initiative, supported by CannonDesign, and then register for the July 27 live roundtable to discuss the initiative in-depth with members of the OU team.

“Our hope is that people watch the video and explore the downloadable resource ahead of the webinar, so that when we come together in a few weeks, we’re all ready to take a deep dive into the details of external partnerships and participation data usage,” says Darcie. Think of the opportunity like office hours for wellbeing!

The webinar is free for all NIRSA members and individual nonmembers at NIRSA member schools, again thanks to support from Cannon Design. The webinar is open to nonmembers for $25.

Thanks to our sponsor

NIRSA thanks CannonDesign for its support. Sponsors and corporate partners help NIRSA continue its role as a driving force in an integrated approach to health and wellbeing on campuses across North America.