NIRSA Health and Wellbeing Task Force

2019-2021 NIRSA Health & Wellbeing Task Force

Description: One of the four strategic priorities of NIRSA’s 2018-2021 Strategic Plan states that NIRSA will be a driving force in an integrated approach to health and wellbeing.

NIRSA member input into the strategic plan process made clear how integral health and wellbeing are to student success and a thriving campus community. Campuses that practice a culture of wellbeing advance not only higher learning but also the core purpose of higher education: to prepare students to lead healthy, flourishing, and productive lives so they in turn contribute to a positive, vibrant, sustainable, civically engaged, and global society.

By 2021 NIRSA aims to act—and empower members to act—as a driving force in health and wellbeing. That means being proactive innovators in this space while acknowledging that no one “owns” wellbeing. Integration will be our priority; we all have a shared responsibility to weave wellbeing into the fabric of all the ways we live, learn, work, and play within our communities.

With this significant goal in mind,  the NIRSA Board approved the creation of a Health & Wellbeing Task Force to lead this work.

• Disseminate documents, resources, and education to help articulate the ‘why’ behind the importance of this work, campus recreation’s role in it, its alignment with institutional missions, and its impact on student success.
• Determine a baseline of where the membership is at now, so that we can use it to measure progress in three years’ time.
• Develop resources aimed at fostering both top-down and bottom-up support on campus, at building foundational knowledge to enable effective cross-campus collaborations, and at sharing promising practices for implementation and growth.
• Assure the work of health and wellbeing is not siloed; it crosses into and can benefit other priorities and initiatives within the Association.
• Engage others through work with other associations and work with other campus partners.