When FISU’s Healthy Campus program was launched in 2020, Gold accredited Murdoch University saw an opportunity for cohesion at a time of high change for the university. Facing large internal changes and the global external challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, Murdoch University’s Murdoch Active embraced the opportunity to unify departments around the university’s Strategic Goals.
Nearly four years later, Healthy Campus is now such an integral part of Murdoch’s activities that it is specifically referenced in the development of the University’s Student Wellbeing Strategy.
‘Initially, Healthy Campus appeared to be about acknowledging things we were already doing,’ said Jamie Ball, Manager, Murdoch Active. ‘By gaining external validation of our activities, we hoped it would offer an opportunity for recognition of our work, as well as potentially a comparative advantage in talking to external audiences, especially prospective students.’
Mr Ball said the benefits had far outstripped these initial expectations. ‘Healthy Campus is a university-specific program, it is designed to acknowledge the unique environment in which our institutions operate. There are other programs that aim to create the same value, but none offers the value of being purpose-built for tertiary education.’
Murdoch University’s experience with Healthy Campus is that it has served as a useful centre point for the value of sport discussion internally and opened avenues for collaboration. Mr Ball said what initially appeared to have the potential to simply be extra work, has actually offered a valuable and on-going opportunity to talk to different audiences about the university’s existing achievements.
Mr Ball also cited the research and support coming from FISU under the programme as being of much greater value than he initially anticipated.
‘The value of Healthy Campus is high, particularly when compared to the costs and inputs. Australian universities will benefit by participating and the more signatories we have, the greater the value each of us will receive from FISU’s Healthy Campus programme,’ Mr Ball said.
Click below to read Murdoch’s Healthy Campus ebook. (244KB)
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