Elon University is set to sign the Okanagan Charter Oct. 29, taking a step forward in campus wellness.
This charter is the outcome of a 2015 international health conference on the promotion of health in universities and colleges. To support that mission more broadly, the U.S. Health Promoting Campuses Network serves as a support network meant to help campuses define what it means to be a “health promoting campus.”
Within that effort, the Okanagan Charter acts as a guiding document to help universities and colleges embed health into campus culture, across administration, operations and academics.
Anya Bratić, the student government association president, will also be speaking at the signing event. She said she hopes the charter will continue to push Elon’s wellness goals forward.
“I see Elon as an institution that doesn’t just talk about wellness and well-being in name,” Bratić said. “They’re actively trying to implement elements of it in every aspect of life.”
Bratić said adopting this charter will help further advance HealthEU’s goals.
“Why I’m really proud that we adopted it, is because it has those same kind of principles of implementing wellness into all aspects of life and not just seeking out wellness when you’re at that like lowpoint or weakest moment, that this is a constant practice, a habitual practice that we should be implementing into our lives every single day,” Bratić said.
Elon launched HealthEU in 2022, which is an initiative to integrate the six-dimensions of well-being into student and faculty’s daily lives. Signing the Okanagan Charter will be the latest effort in Elon’s stated commitment to well-being.
Anu Räisänen, the director of HealthEU, wrote in an email statement to Elon News Network that she first brought up the idea of Elon signing the charter.
“I brought up the idea of adopting the charter with Provost Kohn soon after joining Elon in fall 2024. Following her recommendation, I presented the idea to the HealthEU Council. As the council was supportive of this, I presented to several university stakeholder groups collecting feedback on the idea of Elon adopting the Charter,” Räisänen wrote.
Elon has already seen change since the adoption of HealthEU according to Jana Lynn Patterson, the dean of student health and well-being.
“With our robust usage and health services and counseling services, as well as students willing to seek services and really open up about their struggles,” Patterson said. “That’s a pretty profound cultural change we’ve had.”
For Räisänen adopting the charter was the natural next step since key principles of the charter had already been taken into consideration as priorities for the HealthEU initiatives were made.
“The change we will see is our work in HealthEU initiatives expanding to analyzing how our settings and systems influence the health and well-being of our students, faculty and staff and creating change where it’s needed,” Räisänen said.
Beyond implementing more analysis on the well-being of students and staff on campus, both HealthEU and the Okanagan Charter call for wellness initiatives to become a part of community collaboration and outreach.
“The Okanagan Charter really emphasizes the individual elements of what it means to be healthy, but also that when we’re healthy, we live better, we lead better, we do better in our communities,” Bratić said. “It really emphasizes that part about being good stewards of community, being good stewards of like engagement civically.”
Elon will be joining University of Michigan, University of California Berkeley and Cornell University as well as 40 others who have signed onto this charter.
“We will emerge as a leader in that group. We should be the first university in the state to sign the charter,” Patterson said.