Guided by the Wellbeing Strategic Framework priority areas and targets, 120 senior leaders from both campuses gathered to consider ways to meaningfully embed wellbeing into their portfolios at a system-level, during the President's Leadership Forum in October 2019. Through facilitated discussions, our goal was to steer the conversation towards portfolio-level commitments.

Secondary commitments included unit, university-wide, and external communities. At the end of the conversation, leaders made actionable commitments to embedding wellbeing, with 46 unique, whole-system commitments made across the six priority areas. 

Read President's Leadership Report

 “I am proud of UBC and our partner universities for taking steps to strengthen our communities, both on and off campus” says Professor Santa J. Ono.

In October 2016, UBC proudly became one of the first post-secondary institutions in the world to make a formal commitment to embedding wellbeing on our campuses by adopting the Okanagan Charter, jointly signing alongside five other Canadian institutions.

It was a move that has since sparked numerous commitments here at UBC, and across Canada. Today, 22 Canadian post-secondary institutions have followed suit, adopting the Okanagan Charter and making formal commitments to become health and wellbeing-promoting institutions. 

As a co-chair of the Canadian Health Promoting Campuses Network, UBC is committed to supporting other institutions in this process, and is proud to share resources and best practices, collaborate and to work towards changing campus systems to prioritize wellbeing for all.  

University is an exciting time, filled with independence, growth, and new experiences. But student life can also be very challenging, with many factors that impact wellbeing. Recognizing the need to help students thrive and achieve their full potential at UBC, the Vice President Student's Office and Development and Alumnae partnered to launch the Student Wellbeing Fund, which directly supports initiatives that impact student wellbeing—from relieving food insecurity, to providing mental health literacy resources. 

The fund launched with “Change Starts at Breakfast” during Thrive month in November. Alumni donated $10, with half going towards purchasing a student a surprise breakfast (served by President Santa Ono and VP of Students Ainsley Carry!), and the other half going directly into the fund for future projects to support student wellbeing.

Aside from being a great way to kick off a wonderful new donor initiative, the event left many students smiling, satiated, and knowing that their alumni community cares about them! 

Donate to the Student Wellbeing Fund 

From deepening our understanding of food security on our campuses, to providing recommendations for the UBC Drinks Tap Water campaign, to evaluating our smoke and vape-free precincts,  the SEEDS Sustainability Program has been instrumental to UBC Wellbeing's exploration of our wellbeing commitments. 

The program, takes a "campus as a living lab" approach to tackling real-life operational sustainability problems, creating applied research and interdisciplinary partnerships between students, faculty, staff and community partners. 

This year 263 UBC Vancouver students undertook student-led research through SEEDS to help support our wellbeing commitments and advance our vision of becoming a  health and wellbeing promoting university. 

See SEEDS Library

“We know that university is an academic institution and that it focuses on transmitting knowledge and generating knowledge, but we believe in order to achieve that, we also need to address people’s wellbeing.” says  Michael Lee, Faculty member in the Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy. 

Over the past three years, a TLEF-funded research project Building Academic Tenacity in Students for Improved Wellbeing, Deeper Learning and Increased Success  has sought to do just that. Supported by Health Promotion and Education, the project has engaged 15 faculty member collaborators from 10 different Faculties and schools in implementing teaching practices to promote student wellbeing and improve their ability to thrive a stressful academic environment. 

Now in its final year, the project is sharing its findings with the UBC community. Eight tool kits highlighting tangible strategies and featuring faculty stories were developed, to help other faculty members who are interested in creating a health-promoting learning environment. Strategies include creating connections through office hours, to taking learning outdoors, to embedding mental health literacy and more. 

Wellbeing in Learning Environments 

Fostering Academic Tenacity Toolkits

Across our campuses, departments and units are collaborating to help advance UBC’s commitments to the Okanagan Charter. To support these projects and initiatives, the UBC Wellbeing Strategic Initiatives Fund was established, granting up to $5,000 to projects in our six wellbeing priority areas. 

Last year, $90,000 was granted to 24 capacity-building projects to support health and wellbeing at UBC—from the Musqueum Multisport Physical Literacy Program developed by UBC Kinesiology, to Acadia Park’s Embracing Motherhood support group, to community kitchens at the UBC Farm and more. 

Wellbeing Strategic Initiative Projects 

UBC celebrated the 10-year anniversary of Thrive  with an entire month of events and initiatives aimed at fostering and maintaining mental health.  and providing an avenue to enables students, faculty, and staff to explore resources, clubs, and activities dedicated to exploring their pathway to mental health.

From "doggy day" pop-up events, to mental health workshops and training, to cooking classes, 113 campus partners coordinated 240 + Thrive month events and workshops, sparking important conversations about mental health and ways to support it. This year, the campaign focused on the Thrive 5—research-informed ways to support mental health—which include social connection, physical activity, healthy eating, helping others, and sleeping well. 

Thrive originated at UBC as a way to reduce stigma around mental health and as of this year, has been adopted by eighteen other campuses across Canada. 

Learn more about Thrive

Explore the Thrive 5 

Move More, Move Well, Keep Moving. With that mantra in mind, the 4th annual Move UBC campaign kicked off in February, bringing a month of physical fun to UBC Vancouver and UBC Okanagan. 

Move UBC is an annual campaign dedicated to increasing physical activity and reducing sedentary behaviour for our entire community- faculty, staff, and students. Working in classrooms, labs, and offices, attending meetings, and using computers all equal less time on our feet and more time sitting. That's why Move UBC committed to creating an environment where movement is championed and supported. 

A number of new initiatives were piloted during the campaign. A "Move UBC Makeover"  of the Neville Scarfe building, that incorporated visual prompts throughout the building to encourage people to be active. The Move U Off-Campus Pass gave students the chance to try something new with free classes at studios all over the Lower Mainland. And the Move UBC Research roundtable brought together researchers from seven different disciplines to share their research on physical activity and discuss ways to support health promoting campuses. 

Throughout the month, 90+ Move UBC events encouraged faculty, staff, and students to move more and try something new. 71% of survey respondents discovered new ways to be physically active during Move UBC, with 64% planning on continuing to move more. 

Learn about Move UBC

Research shows that moving more can help improve learning outcomes, boost mood and mental health,and reduce stress.  For Move More, Learn More participant Scarlett Wu, the program help show that small changes can add up to big impacts when it comes to physical and mental health. 

"I did almost no physical exercise on a regular basis, which has changed a lot since the program" says Wu. "I knew exercise was good for mental wellbeing,  but it actually never had such effect on myself.  After I tried for about a month, I can feel that my mood goes up after exercise. This is also one thing that I am thankful to this program and makes me want to keep the habit of exercise."

Move More, Learn More is an 8-week program designed for Asian female students who want to improve their health and fitness. The program takes a holistic, integrated approach to student wellbeing, and includes two scheduled weekly sessions with a different health learning topic, such as nutrition or mindfulness, and a private group physical activity session. 

"With regard to our Monday classes, like 50% of the information was new to me so it enhanced my understanding of how one can work on well-being, which pushed me to take them into actions" says Wu. "I grew up as someone that was neither good at nor liked to exercise or play sports. My mindset has also changed since the program. I enjoyed many of the recreation programs I tried. Now I know physical exercise can be fun and I have a positive attitude towards it when I exercise." 

Move More, Learn More SEEDS project

Sugar sweetened beverages are the single-largest contributor of added sugar in the diet, and can have huge public health implications.

Recognizing this, the Food and Nutrition committee and all major food-provider stakeholders worked together with students, staff and faculty across the university to implement a number of interventions to support our target of reducing sugar sweetened beverages on our campuses through three key actions: 

Action 1: Encourage drinking water 

• The launch of the UBC Drinks Tap Water campaign in March 2019 encouraged community members to take to the tap instead of sugary bottled beverages. The campaign ran for three weeks and promoted the safety and quality of BC's world-class tap water with a fun, tongue-in cheek approach. 
• 57% of survey respondents said they are now more likely to drink tap water.
• UBC Drinks Tap Water also spurred a number of SEEDS projects. Student-led research groups collaborated on helping UBC Wellbeing better understand how to promote tap water to international student, a demographic that was noted to be less likely to drink tap water, due to perceived lack of safety of tap water. 

SEEDS Projects:

• Nudging the Tap Open 
• Promoting Tap Water Among International Students
• Effectiveness of Posters to Promote Tap Water

Action 2: Promote healthier beverage choices with our community.

• At UBC Okanagan, healthy beverage choices were promoted for meetings and catered events, with 68% of catering orders provided with Healthy Beverage Initiative options. 
• Sugar sweetened beverages were taken off the menu at a number of large campus events, including the Faculty and Staff Back to School BBQ and replaced with healthier choices such as flavoured waters. 

Action 3: Modify our environment to support healthier beverage consumption.

A healthier environment helps inspire healthier choices. Over the past year, food service providers have focused on making meaningful changes to the beverage environment to make it easier to make healthier beverage choices. 

• 25% of vending machines at UBC Vancouver were converted to comply with the provincial Healthier Choices in Vending Machines Policy, which sets minimum nutrient standards for prepackaged food and beverages so a range of healthier options are available in public buildings.
• Sugar sweetened beverages were removed from select residence dining halls and retail outlets and replaced with sugar-free options. Postdoctoral fellow Katie Di Sebastiano spent several month evaluating the impacts of the removal, including sales and student perception and a paper titled The University of British Columbia healthy beverage initiative: changing the beverage landscape on a large post-secondary campus has been published. 

Healthy Beverage Initiative

Food insecurity is a major issue on college campuses across Canada, and UBC is no exception—recent data shows that 37% of undergrad students at UBC Vancouver, and 42% at UBC Okanagan experience some degree of food insecurity. 

In Spring 2019, SEEDS and UBC Wellbeing hosted a Food Security Action Symposium, bringing together stakeholders to share student-led research, identify gaps in our knowledge and data, and collaborate on actions to better address campus-based food insecurity. A Food insecurity Action Team (FIAT), was formed to work on research and community outreach, support existing campus initiatives, and drive new opportunities. 

Building off of this collaboration, and with support from the Board of Governors, the Food Security Initiative launched in February 2020 as an interdisciplinary partnership between UBC Wellbeing and the UBC Food Systems Project, taking a holistic, university-wide, and systems-based approach to increasing food security.

Food Security Initiative 

In direct response to increased awareness of food insecurity at UBC Vancouver, UBC Food Services launched FOOOOD, a "pay what you can" cafe, located in the Earth Sciences Building.

FOOOOD offers nutritious, wholesome meals, prepared by UBC's Red Seal Apprentice chefs. Purchase a meal at FOOOOD and you'll be asked to choose from a tiered payment system. $5 provides a meal partially subsidized by UBC Food Services and donors, $10 covers costs, and $15 pays it forward by providing funds to help subsidize meals for others. 

While discounting food is not a long-term solution to food insecurity, Fooood Cafe is one small, exploratory step in UBC's efforts to better understand food insecurity on our campuses. 

Learn more about FOOOOD

Fueling an entire campus is no easy task–but for UBC Okanagan Food Services, making sure our faculty,staff, and students have access to nutritious choices is one way to support the important work happening in our classrooms, workplaces, and research labs. 

Following in the footsteps of UBC Vancouver, UBC Okanagan Food Services transitioned to an in-house food services model, prioritizing healthy, local food, and sustainable choices. You'll now find 100% Oceanwise fish and seafood, lots of plant-based options, and plenty of Fairtrade products, available on campus. 

Learn More

Every day, approximately 80,000 trips are made to and from UBC Vancouver via public transit, with over 1,000 buses along15 routes arriving on campus each day.  Better connecting UBC to the rest of the Lower Mainland is a key to supporting regional prosperity and innovation, affordability and sustainability. 

In November 2019, UBC joined with the City of Vancouver and the Musqueum, Squamish, and Tsleil-Watuth Development Corporation to sign a memorandum of understanding to advocate for rapid transit to UBC. This included a commitment to working collaboratively towards securing support and approvals to make this project happen. 

Learn about the Project

C+CP Transportation 

Creating a physical environment that supports health and wellbeing is key to activating the Okanagan Charter at UBC. 

Led by Campus + Community Planning, UBC Wellbeing, and Vancouver Coastal Health, a number of departments and stakeholders, collaborated to implement smoke and vape-free areas in the "health precinct" (where UBC Hospital and many other health-discipline buildings are situated), and Library Garden, furthering UBC’s commitment to wellbeing of our people and places. 

Learn More

Campus + Community Planning is committed to making cycling a viable, accessible, and enjoyable way of commuting. Not only does cycling help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and support the Community Energy and Emissions Plan, but it also supports physical and mental wellbeing. 

To make cycling more accessible, C+CP partnered with the HOPR bike-share program to bring over 200 bikes to campus. Have to rush between classes at MOA and Forestry? Need to get over to Wesbrook Village for a meeting? By signing up for a HOPR membership, community members can hop on a bike and head to their destination quickly and easily whenever they need to. 

And for those not quite sure if they're ready to commit to riding on two wheels instead of four, C+CP piloted a "try an e-bike" program, which allowed faculty and staff to test drive electric bikes before buying. 

Ready to make the switch and give cycling a go? Be sure to register your bike with Project 529, another C+CP partnership to help tackle bike theft on campus. 

Over 800 faculty, staff, students and community members joined together to celebrate the 6th annual Harvest Feastival.

The annual long-table dinner has quickly become a cherished campus tradition and a much-anticipated way to bring the community together to celebrate a night of food, friends, and arts and culture. Chefs from UBC Food Services prepared an incredible three-course dinner, while talents like UBC Opera students, the Thunderbird Marching Band, and more kept guests entertained between bites. 

After dinner, guests enjoyed access to a range of arts and culture programming— from improv shows, to exhibits at MOA, to interactive displays at the Belkin Art Gallery, and more. 

Led by C+CP's Community Development unit, Harvest Feastival brings together numerous campus units under a common goal of building a supportive, more connected campus community by bringing people together. 

Graduate school can be an exciting and challenging time. Some students may experience wellbeing challenges, including managing stress, navigating support, finding time for self-care, and balancing personal and academic responsibilities.  Research shows that peer support can be an important tool in helping students thrive academically, socially and emotionally—that’s where the Graduate Student Wellbeing Ambassador program comes in! 

Developed by Health Promotion and Education, and supported through UBC Wellbeing Strategic Initiatives Funds, the GSWA is a great example of how UBC's community members are our greatest asset in achieving our vision to be a health and wellbeing promoting institution. 

In its pilot year, 24 graduate students across 20 departments participated, in the Graduate Wellbeing Ambassador Program, helping to build capacity, build connections, and share knowledge and supports to enhance graduate student wellbeing. 

Learn more