HCA 2025 Wellness Summit

The Wellness Summit serves as an annual gathering for the HCA Community of Practice, providing an opportunity to come together, learn, share, and celebrate efforts across the province to strengthen post-secondary mental health and wellness. We are excited to meet in-person to explore this year’s theme, 

Reimagining Campus Culture

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Context

The HCA Wellness Summit has been a groundbreaking event for students, staff and other partners in post-secondary institutions in Alberta. It has served as a safe space for inclusive and community integrated collaboration to discuss and generate innovative approaches to mental health and wellness on campuses. Through this year’s summit, HCA aims to address some fundamental as well as some emerging concerns in the current post secondary mental health landscape in Alberta. 

“Reimagining Campus Culture” calls for a collective effort to reshape campus environments across Alberta by cultivating wellness, belonging, and inclusion. It emphasizes the importance of engaging students, staff, faculty, administration, and community partners in a shared responsibility to transform campus culture. The summit will explore actionable approaches to mental health and wellness challenges, addressing systemic issues while anticipating future needs. By cultivating well-being as a collective priority, the summit aims to inspire meaningful change and create healthier, inclusive, resilient, and thriving campus communities across the province.

Cultivating a Sense of Belonging

How important is it that students, staff and faculty feel seen, valued, supported, and included in a campus? To develop a campus culture centered on wellness, it is important to understand how connection, inclusion, and a shared purpose contribute to shaping a thriving academic and social environment at a post-secondary institution.

What are some ways in which we can incorporate holistic approaches to creating this sense of belonging on campus? A post-secondary institution is a place where students forge their identities, where people find purpose, and where peoples’ careers spans years if not decades. A sense of belonging is the foundation upon which students, staff, and faculty can build resilience, navigate challenges, and achieve their full potential. Furthermore, a strong sense of belonging creates a stronger sense of community among the members of a post-secondary institution.

Strengthening Partnerships Across Campuses and Communities

The ability to build meaningful connections and strengthen them over time is a vital skill to possess at a post-secondary institution. This sub-theme highlights the value of collaboration between/within campuses and their surrounding communities to develop sustainable approaches to mental health and wellness. It emphasizes the importance of shared learning, collective action, and mutual support between institutions and community partners to co-create solutions that address systemic and social challenges rooted in the mental health and wellness landscape.

Collaborations with the community and with other campuses help institutions to co-develop programs and services tailored to their unique wellness needs. Interdepartmental partnerships and support systems help reduce departmental silos and further strengthen a culture of collaboration on campus. Moreover, a collaboration centered community on campus is reflective of a transformative culture within the post-secondary institution.

Integrating Wellness in Learning Environments

This sub-theme uses a whole campus approach to define a learning environment as any space in the entire campus that is integral for learning, growth, and well-being.

Integrating Wellness in Learning Environments focuses on the rapidly evolving post-secondary learning environment and calls for a reimagining of education that prioritizes mental health and well-being alongside academic achievement. It explores how wellness can be incorporated into learning environments, facilitating holistic student development and reducing barriers to student achievement as well as encompassing staff well-being through a whole campus approach.

By embedding wellness into the core of education, campuses can ensure that students are not only prepared for their careers but also equipped to navigate life’s challenges. The foundation of campus culture centered on wellness should start in the classroom itself. The mental health and wellbeing of students, faculty, and staff is vital in shaping a wellness focused culture on campus. Thus, this sub-theme explores the role of students, faculty, and staff on campus in creating a wellness-centered educational ecosystem.

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Learning Objectives

Through the summit, the attendees will:

• Identify and build diverse relationships across Alberta that strengthen collective action and campus-wide resilience to promote mental health and well-being.
• Learn about the role of campus culture in supporting post-secondary mental health and wellness and find necessary measures to build a healthy campus culture at one’s post-secondary institution.
• Recognize the interconnectedness of belonging, partnerships, inclusion, and wellness in creating healthy learning environments and explore actionable strategies to promote and integrate mental health and well-being in classroom settings.
• Explore how to build and sustain partnerships that share knowledge, resources, and goals for collective impact.
• Develop actionable plans, resilient leadership, and culturally appropriate approaches to mental health and well-being that align with a shared vision for healthy, caring campus communities.

Registration for the 2025 HCA Wellness Summit will open in April!

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2025 HCA Wellness Summit: Invitation to Present

We are delighted to extend a warm invitation to the Healthy Campus Alberta Community of Practice to present at the 2025 Wellness Summit, spotlighting the theme: “Reimagining Campus Culture” The HCA Wellness Summit serves as an annual nexus for HCA, fostering connections, resource-sharing, and celebrating the remarkable strides made in nurturing inclusive and supportive campus communities across the province. We value your experiences and perspectives to be pivotal in shaping a wellness-centered campus community. 

Submissions to the Invitation to Present are due on March 14, 2025

View Application Details 

Submit to the Invitation to Present

 

More information about travel and accommodations coming soon.

 

Dates and Location 

MacEwan Ballroom, University of Calgary, Alberta. 

Tuesday, June 17, 2025 (9:00 am – 5:00 pm) 

Wednesday, June 18, 2025 (9:00 am – 3:00 pm) 

Venue: University of Calgary 

Address: 2500 University Dr NW, Calgary AB T2N 1N4