UMass Boston

UMass Boston Launches the Beacon Wellness Initiative

10/03/2023| Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco

At UMass Boston, we care deeply about the health and well-being of all.

Wellness is a foundation for human flourishing. It is about our mental health, our physical health, and more. Viewed holistically, wellness includes self and other care, a self-awareness and understanding of what it means to thrive and to be at our very best – academically and psychosocially, intellectually and spiritually and also financially and in our relationships with nature and all living systems.
As a university community of students, faculty, and staff, it is vital for us to exercise control over - and improve - our health and well-being by creating a supportive environment, fostering a culture of wellness, and building wellness skills.
I am pleased, then, to announce the launch of the Beacon Wellness Initiative. First and foremost, the Initiative promises to strengthen coordination of health promotion efforts across the university for the benefit of all – students, faculty, staff, the community, and especially those who face persistent barriers to adequate health services and wellness opportunities.
The objective of the Initiative is to embed health promotion in everything we do – to integrate it within the university's culture and structures. This will entail engaging every unit and corner of campus to incorporate health promotion activities into our work and to foster a collaborative environment of mindfulness for every member of the UMass Boston community.
More broadly, the Beacon Wellness Initiative comports with a growing movement in higher education focusing on health and well-being as a core aspiration of campus life. Creating an ecology of systems and opportunities for wellness is key priority now and moving forward. Indeed, UMass Boston is uniquely positioned – through its research, teaching, community engagement, extraordinary diversity, and commitment to health equity – to become a leader in modeling health promotion strategies and advancing knowledge creation in the field.
As one next step, we intend to form a Beacon Wellness Commission composed of faculty, students, administrators, and experts to develop a comprehensive plan for UMass Boston’s health promotion efforts and to guide the initiative’s progress. The commission would be called on to facilitate collaboration across the university to improve the efficiency and quality of health promotion services and develop recommendations for improving our health promotion efforts.
The Wellness Commission – to be formed in the coming weeks and stood up by the end of October – will be composed of three sub-committees, one each focused on students, faculty and staff, and the community, in addition to a coordinating committee. 
Our hope is to make maintaining health and well-being a foundation of our culture at UMass Boston, a pillar of our day-to-day life on campus. We are excited to support the Beacon community through what we believe is a holistic, full spectrum approach to wellness.
We look forward to working with the UMass Boston community on the Beacon Wellness Initiative.