The effort to build a university that places people and their holistic development at the center continues to move forward at the Industrial University of Santander. As part of this initiative, the Academic Council reviewed the progress made on the proposal to create the Office of the Vice President for Well-being, an initiative that seeks to strengthen the coordination of institutional strategies and expand their impact throughout the university community.
The project is the result of a process that began with the formulation of the well-being policy in 2023 and, since last year, has incorporated a review of experiences from other institutions of higher education.
This was explained by Alejandra Cortés Aguilar, Director of Planning at UIS, who highlighted the participation of various members of the university community in the development of this proposal.
“The creation of the Office of the Vice President for Student Well-being has been underway since we developed the well-being policy in 2023. But since last year, we have also been reviewing similar offices at other institutions of higher education—public and private, both national and international.”
Based on this process, the University organized working groups with students, faculty, and administrative staff, which enabled us to draft an initial version of the proposal. Subsequently, the community’s feedback and recommendations were addressed through new co-creation workshops and meetings at the various campuses, schools, and departments.
“This year, in response to various reactions we received from the university community and the input they provided, we held new co-creation workshops, revisiting that discussion and incorporating the recommendations we had received. As a result of all this co-creation work and our visits to the university’s various campuses, colleges, and departments, we presented a proposal today to the Academic Council, which we hope will receive feedback from the Council members so that we can, of course, take it to the Governing Council,” said Cortés Aguilar.
Coordinating Efforts to Reach More People
One of the initiative’s central goals is to integrate the well-being strategies currently being developed by various departments so that they can work in a coordinated manner and expand their reach.
The proposal aims to ensure that institutional actions are not scattered but rather find a space within a single organizational structure to coordinate efforts, share best practices, and respond more comprehensively to the needs of the university community.
“Specifically, what we’re doing is seeking to coordinate the various activities we already carry out to promote the well-being of our university community. However, these efforts have been carried out separately—by students on one hand, and by staff, faculty, and administrators on the other— and what we want is for the various strategies to be coordinated—so they aren’t fragmented across different departments but are brought together under a single organization, which in this case would be the Office of the Vice Rector for Well-being—and for us to adopt and replicate the best practices found at other institutions,” explained the Director of Planning.
This coordination also aims to expand access to programs promoting health and prevention, mental health, culture, and sports participation, so that a greater number of people can benefit from the initiatives offered by the University.
In this regard, Cortés Aguilar emphasized the importance of ensuring that these initiatives reach the entire community, regardless of whether or not its members pay for the health services provided by the institution.
“The most important thing is that we want to reach a larger portion of the university community—so that the actions we take, for example, those related to ensuring comprehensive health or mental health, do not reach only a small number of students who have health services, but rather that we can reach all students, even if they do not pay for health services, but that we implement all our promotion and prevention strategies—for example, benefiting students, faculty, and administrative staff—regardless of whether they pay for the health services provided by the university. If we’re talking about cultural initiatives or participation in sports teams, we should also reach more people in our university community.”
The presentation to the Academic Council represents a new step forward in developing this proposal, which seeks to consolidate a comprehensive vision of well-being, strengthen collaboration among departments, and expand opportunities for participation and support for students, faculty, and administrative staff.
The process will continue with feedback from the members of the Academic Council and the subsequent presentation of the initiative to the Higher Council, the body to which the proposal is expected to be submitted in order to move forward with its institutional review.
