On behalf of NIRSA’s Health & Wellbeing Task Force and the Promising Practices Work Group, the Association is proud to share its third Promising Practice: University of Colorado, Colorado Springs (UCCS). 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 video below to get a sense of how UCCS has worked to become an innovative leader, with a fully integrated wellness model that prioritizes the holistic wellbeing of each student.

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,” says Darcie Burde, Senior Associate Director for Fitness & Wellness at the University of Florida and co-chair of the Health & Wellbeing Task Force. “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-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 and co-chair of the NIRSA Health & Wellbeing Task Force.

UCCS’s Promising Practice highlights the long and winding road to building an integrated model that thrives through academic and cross-campus partnerships and interdisciplinary collaboration. It offers an in-depth look at several of their peer-led programs, including Fitness Buddies, Peer Health Coaching, and Happiness curriculum.

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

Join the August 3 virtual event

Download and read the publication about UCCS’s journey to integrated wellbeing, and then register to join us August 3 at 10amPT/1pm ET to discuss the initiative in-depth with members of the UCCS team.

“The goal for Promising Practices is to bring both content and experts to the members. In doing so, we want members to watch the video and read the downloadable resource ahead of the roundtable. Much like preparing for a meeting or class, attendees come ready to interact with the experts and ask detailed questions to help leverage similar practices on their campus,” says Darcie. Think of the opportunity like office hours for wellbeing!

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

Thanks to our sponsor

NIRSA thanks the generosity of donors to the NIRSA Foundation for their support. Philanthropic support helps NIRSA continue its role as a driving force in an integrated approach to health and wellbeing on campuses across North America.

Director of Advocacy & Strategic Partnerships at | NIRSA Profile

Erin O'Sullivan is currently the Director of Advocacy & Strategic Partnerships at NIRSA.