Holistic Wellness and Integrative Learning
Holistic Wellness and Integrative Learning
Cal State Monterey Bay educators help students engage in their career development and civic lives by fostering holistic wellness and integrative learning. Cal State Monterey Bay educators include faculty, student affairs professionals, staff, students, and community partners.
About the Paradigm
The holistic wellness and integrative learning paradigm was developed by a cross-divisional team of Cal State Monterey Bay faculty, student affairs professionals, and administrators who participated in the 2017 AAC&U Institute on Integrative Learning and Signature Work. The paradigm is grounded in the belief that for a university and its surrounding communities to thrive, everyone needs to understand the connections among:
- Wellness: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, environmental, and financial
- Equity: identity, power, and privilege
- Community and Belonging: connectedness and support
- Learning: general education, disciplinary, co-curricular/community, and workplace
- Engagement: Career and civic, the more an institution can help its staff, faculty, and students foster and integrate those dimensions, the more an institution and its community partners will thrive. This framework utilizes UC Davis' Eight Dimensions of Wellness.
Fostering this paradigm requires Cal State Monterey Bay educators (which include faculty lecturers and tenure-line, co-curricular professionals in Academic Affairs and Student Affairs, other university employees, students, and community partners) to model and foster integrative learning that helps them and the students they work with promote and connect all dimensions of the paradigm within and across curricular, co-curricular, and community contexts. Cal State Monterey Bay's Health and Wellness Services has many programs that support holistic wellness.
Holistic Wellness and Integrative Learning Paradigm
We thrive as a community when we all help each other integrate learning that fosters wellness, equity, belonging, career development, and civic engagement.
CSUMB Holistic Wellness & Integrative Learning Paradigm.
Safety
Being our authentic selves without heightened risk of physical or emotional harm.
Physical Wellness
Meeting needs for physical activity, diet, sleep, and nutrition.
Mental & Emotional Wellness
Responding productively to life situations and creating satisfying relationships.
Spiritual Wellness
Expanding our sense of purpose and meaning in life.
Environmental Wellness
Fostering pleasant, stimulating environments that support good health and well-being.
Financial Wellness
Establishing satisfying current and future financial situations.
Equity
Recognizing, discussing openly, and responding productively to influences of identity, power, and privilege.
Community & Belonging
Developing a sense of connection and a well-developed support system of caring family, friends, and/or colleagues.
Learning
Recognizing creative abilities and finding ways to expand knowledge and skills in personal, curricular, co-curricular, community, and workplace contexts.
Engagement
Achieving satisfaction and enrichment derived from one's professional and civic work and its impacts on others.
Octopus version
Integrative learning octopus metaphor - octopus by Sarah Chen, CSUMB Science Illustration.