Our Plan in Action

Staff who can sustain balance in their own lives are better positioned to show up consistently and meaningfully for students; this action ensures our commitment to student wellbeing begins with how we care for our own team.

Key Actions:

Using staff engagement data and direct feedback, identify and act on opportunities to improve the conditions that allow staff to balance their professional and personal lives.

Progress will be measured against the following Staff Engagement Survey indicators:

• “The amount of work required of me is reasonable.”
• “I am able to balance work and personal life.”

Outcome:

Staff engagement survey scores on work/life integration indicators improve at the next cycle, with more staff reporting that their workload is reasonable, that they can balance work and personal life, and that they have energy remaining at the end of the day.

Clear, accurate job descriptions are the foundation of a well-functioning team, reducing ambiguity, supporting fair workload distribution, and giving every staff member the baseline clarity they need to do their best work.

Key Actions:

Continue to update and refine job descriptions to clarify work responsibilities and scope of work, ensuring staff have a clear and reasonable mandate.

Outcome:

Staff across the portfolio have accurate job descriptions that clearly reflect their responsibilities and scope, reducing ambiguity, supporting fair workload distribution, and providing a stronger foundation for performance and development conversations.

Regular, structured conversations about growth and performance build a culture of accountability and investment, ensuring every staff member has a clear development path connected to portfolio priorities.

Key Actions:

All staff will have Annual Reviews & Goal-Setting conversations that include at least one learning and development goal, supporting individual growth alongside portfolio accountability.

Outcome:

All staff have at least one documented learning and development goal each year, with regular review conversations that connect individual growth to portfolio goals and priorities and support ongoing accountability.

A shared language for wellbeing doesn’t happen by default; revisiting the Toolkit together embeds the habits and norms that make our portfolio a healthier place to work, and allows us to authentically model wellbeing for the students we serve.

Key Actions:

Revisit the Wellbeing Strategic Toolkit with teams, embedding wellbeing practices into how we work together and creating shared language for a healthier portfolio culture.

Outcome:

Teams across the portfolio develop shared language and practices around wellbeing, with the Toolkit serving as a practical resource for day-to-day work, resulting in a portfolio culture where staff feel more supported, connected, and equipped to model wellbeing for the students they serve.

Knowing who we are reaching and who we are not is fundamental to equitable service delivery; expanding dashboard use ensures that data becomes a practical decision-making tool for every team, not just a reporting mechanism.

Key Actions:

Continue to build out Participation Dashboards to provide insight into the characteristics of students using services, including a wider range of AVPS programs and services, and encourage the use of dashboards for goal setting and identifying key actions at the program/service level.

Outcome:

Staff regularly use dashboard data to inform goal setting and key actions at the program/service level, with a wider range of AVPS programs represented and a stronger culture of data-informed decision-making across the portfolio.

Equity commitments without data are intentions without accountability; by engaging UBC’s equity data processes, we create the evidence base needed to identify disparities and take targeted, informed action.

Key Actions:

Advance accessibility, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism commitments by engaging with UBC data governance processes for equity data, ensuring language used on unit forms follows data standards, encouraging participation in equity censuses, and reviewing available data such as Student Diversity Census Fact Sheets.

Outcome:

AVPS units use equity data to identify and address disparities in service access and program participation, with forms and processes aligned to UBC data standards and increased staff participation in equity data collection.

Robust, representative student feedback is one of our most valuable planning resources; a redesigned survey capturing both undergraduate and graduate voices will give us far richer insights to drive continuous improvement across both campuses.

Key Actions:

In partnership with PAIR and VPS, transform the Undergraduate Experience Survey into a “University Experience Survey” that includes graduate students, improves response rates, and provides valuable insights to support decision-making across both campuses.

Outcome:

A redesigned University Experience Survey capturing the experiences of both undergraduate and graduate students, with improved response rates and actionable data that informs strategic and operational decision-making across both campuses.

Without a shared structure for professional growth, access to development is uneven and proximity-driven; this Framework makes learning equitable, intentional, and directly connected to who we need to become as a portfolio.

Key Actions:

Develop and implement a Learning & Development Framework for the AVPS portfolio that provides a structured, equitable approach to professional growth across all departments and roles.

The framework will:

• articulate shared competencies and learning priorities, support consistent access to development opportunities, and create the conditions for staff to grow in ways that strengthen both individual practice and portfolio-wide capability.
• be developed with input from staff and leaders across the portfolio, and will complement the Annual Reviews & Goal Setting process by providing a shared language and structure for learning conversations.

Outcome:

A portfolio-wide L&D Framework in active use, with staff across all departments experiencing equitable access to professional development opportunities and a clear connection between their individual growth and the portfolio’s shared goals.

Advancing truth and reconciliation is an ongoing professional responsibility, not a one-time training; this action builds the knowledge and relational grounding that allows staff to integrate these commitments authentically into their daily work and their relationships with students.

Key Actions:

Support new and continuing staff in building their knowledge, understanding and capacity of historical and ongoing impacts of colonialism and encourage the application of Truth and Reconciliation learning to their professional contexts.

Outcome:

Increased levels of participation in learning and development opportunities, along with the application of learning. For Indigenous students and staff, an increased sense of belonging, inclusion and cultural safety.

Co-hosting a national conference is a rare opportunity to both shape the Canadian conversation about student affairs and return our team energized, equipped with fresh networks and ideas drawn from the sector’s best practices.

Key Actions:

Co-lead the hosting of the CACUSS 2027 conference, strengthening Canadian post-secondary student affairs professional development, while also sharing our approaches to evidence-informed practice, collaboration, and student success.

Outcome:

UBC Okanagan will emerge from CACUSS 2027 as a recognized contributor to evidence-informed, equity-focused student success in Canada, having advanced national practice. Returned staff will be energized and better connected to colleagues in Vancouver, the broader profession, and they will demonstrate that co-creating impact with students and partners is central to our work.

Operational improvements alone cannot build a wellbeing culture; this action invests in the shared understanding, language, and practices that make wellbeing something the portfolio actively lives and models, not just speaks about.

Key Actions:

Grounded in the principles of the Okanagan Charter, invest in professional development and shared learning that deepens staff understanding of wellbeing, not just as a personal outcome, but as a professional practice and organizational value. This includes creating opportunities for staff to develop shared language and frameworks for wellbeing, engage in community-building across the portfolio, and strengthen their capacity to embed wellbeing principles in how they design and deliver programs and services for students.

Where Foundational Goal 1 works to improve the structural conditions that support staff, this action cultivates the culture, knowledge, and sense of shared purpose that makes wellbeing something we actively practice and model together.

Outcome:

A portfolio community with deepened wellbeing literacy and a stronger sense of shared identity, staff who don’t just experience support, but understand and embody the principles behind it.

Equity cannot be addressed in isolation from the systems and structures we operate within; embedding EDI across policy, hiring, infrastructure, and strategy ensures our commitment to equitable access shapes how we work at every level of the portfolio.

Key Actions:

Embed accessibility, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism practices across five key areas of portfolio operations:

Policy:

Apply accessibility and equity principles when developing and revising internal policies.

E.g., Use of EIO’s equitable decision making tool when reviewing governing bylaws or unit standard operating procedures.

Operational Infrastructure:

Apply accessibility and equity principles in the procurement and use of operational infrastructure, including physical spaces, the built environment, and digital technologies.

Employee Experience:

Strengthen HPSM employee belonging and flourishing by engaging initiatives that foster a culture of respect and inclusion, and ensure fair and equitable opportunities for career development and advancement.

Employee Hiring:

Engage accessible and equitable hiring practices, including using equitable guides to hiring, encouraging participation in the employment equity advisor program, and adhering to employment equity and relevant policies.

Strategy:

Integrate accessibility, equity, inclusion, and/or anti-racism commitments and priorities into unit strategic planning, using tools such as the Activating Inclusion Toolkit in consultation with EIO strategists.

Professional Development:

Work to enhance student, faculty, and/or staff competencies to promote accessibility, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism as outlined in the StEAR Framework.

E.g., Promoting EIO programs and resources on conflict engagement, dialogue, and EDI-related topics.

Outcome:

Accessibility, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism practices meaningfully embedded across all portfolio operations, reflected in more equitable policies, inclusive physical and digital infrastructure, stronger employee belonging, improved hiring practices, and department-level reporting that actively advance the StEAR Framework commitments.

UBCO’s campus structure is continually evolving; advising must align with academic reorganization.

Key Actions:

In partnership with Faculties, reimagine advising for students in a way that is aligned with the emerging academic reorganization. The new advising model will foster improved advising experiences, strong faculty connectivity, and developmentally rich support.

Outcome:

Students will experience an improved advising experience that includes:

• faster resolution of complex issues
• more proactive and developmental support
• stronger career integration
• Faculty-specific expertise

Students who fall through the cracks often do so because they sit at the intersection of multiple needs that different offices address in isolation. Student Success Teams proactively bring those supports together so no student has to coordinate their own care.

Key Actions:

Redesign student support delivery by forming proactive interdisciplinary Student Success Teams. Teams will support student persistence, retention and achievement by engaging cross-functional teams around trends, policy and processes.

Each team may include:

• Academic advisors
• Indigenous student advisors
• Immigration advisors
• Disability advisors
• Learning strategists
• Counsellors
• Career advisors
• Associate Deans
• Faculty Program Advisors

Outcome:

Students will experience seamless, proactive, integrated support from application through graduation.

Without a shared system, institutional knowledge about a student’s journey lives in disconnected silos.

Key Actions:

In partnership with the CIO and University Registrar, investigate and consider implementing a single, cloud-based Student Success CRM for all AVPS departments and key campus partners to effectively manage appointments, advisor and student experience records, referrals, tasks, communications, documents, and analytics.

Outcome:

Consolidated, data-informed student support infrastructure across portfolio units.

As UBCO extends its presence into downtown Kelowna, upper-year and graduate students in professional programs need the same access to support and community that the main campus provides.

Key Actions:

As UBCO Downtown opens in late 2028, we will deliver student services both in person and virtually to support upper-year and graduate students in Social Work, Nursing, Masters of Management, and other new professional programs. We will activate welcoming social spaces, multi-faith spaces, and bridge students with community organizations and industry.

Outcome:

Upper-year and graduate students in professional programs experience a welcoming, service-rich presence downtown, with seamless access to the supports they need, meaningful connections to community organizations and industry, and a genuine sense of belonging to both the UBCO community and the city they are preparing to work in.

For many prospective and current students, students.ok.ubc.ca is the first touchpoint with UBCO services. Fragmented information architecture and outdated content create unnecessary friction before a student ever steps on campus, undermining their confidence in finding the support they need.

Key Action:

Conduct a comprehensive review and revision of students.ok.ubc.ca, including updating information architecture, content strategy, and maintenance and governance models to align with industry best practices to revitalize the overall digital student experience at UBC Okanagan.

Outcome:

Students can easily and intuitively navigate UBCO information and resources online, quickly finding the support, programs, and community they need, reducing drop-off and improving confidence in accessing UBCO services from the very first interaction.

A fragmented orientation sends new students conflicting signals about who UBCO is. consolidating and enriching our programs creates one cohesive, memorable welcome that sets the tone for a student’s entire time at UBCO.

Key Actions:

Consolidate Create and Jump Start into a single multi-day orientation for all incoming students, reducing move-ins from two to one, expanding academic and cohort-specific programming (Indigenous, Black, Transfer, Graduate, 2SLGBTQ+, First Generation, International), and replacing UBC 101 as the pre-arrival transition program with a coordinated “Welcome to UBCO Life” campaign aimed at providing students with just-in-time information.

Outcome:

A more cohesive, equitable New-to-UBC experience that strengthens belonging and academic readiness.

Unprecedented international enrolment growth anticipated over the next three years, resulting from the Global Elevation Award, new professional master’s programs, and 2+2 and block transfer agreements, creates an urgent need to review and redesign international student support.

Key Actions:

Diagnose service gaps and adapt the international student support model to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse international student cohort.

Outcome:

Services reshaped to meet the diversity, economic profile, and success needs of a substantially larger, more diverse international cohort.

Transition data is only valuable when it connects directly to action. We need to ensure we capture the right signals early enough to intervene and route students to the support they need before challenges compound.

Key Actions:

In collaboration with PAIR, redesign the New to UBC survey to measure key transitional indicators of academic preparedness, perseverance, and social integration, with results feeding directly into Student Success Team workflows for proactive outreach and resource connection.

Outcome:

Retention and success risks identified earlier, with personalized interventions deployed proactively.

First-year students who feel academically and socially connected are substantially more likely to persist; yet most arrive at UBCO without an established peer network, making those opening weeks critical and fragile. Research consistently identifies learning communities as a high-impact practice that directly addresses this vulnerability.

Key Actions:

Research consistently identifies learning communities as a high-impact practice that directly addresses this vulnerability, accelerating peer connections, deepening academic engagement, and strengthening a sense of belonging at precisely the moment when students are most at risk of disengaging.

In collaboration with the Provost’s Office, Enrolment Services, and academic Faculties, explore and implement cohort-based learning communities for first-year students who share two or more common courses. These intentional peer groups will be supported by targeted programming, including supplemental learning sessions, social connection events, first-year faculty meet-and-greets, and early career exploration.

Communities will be designed with an equity lens, with dedicated cohorts for underrepresented student populations, ensuring the benefits of peer connection are accessible to all incoming students.

Outcome:

First-year students embedded in learning communities that accelerate peer connection, academic integration, and belonging, reducing early attrition and strengthening long-term retention.

Access to spaces for movement, community, and restoration is a core component of student wellbeing, not a luxury.

Key Actions:

Finalize a signed agreement with the City of Kelowna for a $7M contribution and a 25-year service agreement ($25M+) for the new Recreation Centre. Complete Phase 1 fundraising; advance Board Stages 2 & 3 for approval; initiate site preparation with the goal of opening the facility before September 2028.

Outcome:

A landmark facility that transforms recreation access for students and the broader Okanagan community, set to open in 2028.

Shared traditions build institutional identity and a lasting alumni connection; elevating Homecoming into a flagship annual event gives every student a moment to feel pride in their campus and a genuine sense of belonging to something larger than themselves.

Key Actions:

Assume a leadership role in UBCO Homecoming, positioning it as a flagship event for the entire campus community, including students, alumni, faculty, and staff. Alongside this, strengthen affinity with the UBCO Heat brand, both on campus and in the broader Okanagan community, by integrating Heat identity into campus life, community activations, and alumni engagement.

A strong, recognizable brand creates a shared sense of pride and belonging, connecting students, staff, faculty, and alumni to a collective UBCO identity that extends well beyond graduation.

Outcome:

UBCO Homecoming established as a signature campus tradition that strengthens community, school pride, and alumni connection, an annual touchstone that deepens students’ sense of belonging and their long term relationship with the institution.

A wellbeing framework with clear ownership and measurable KPIs ensures our commitment to student and staff wellbeing stays accountable and evolves alongside the needs of the community it serves.

Key Actions:

Support the development of a refreshed Wellbeing Strategic Framework in partnership with the UBC Wellbeing team and share with the campus community. Engage partners across campuses on implementation and leverage. Create an evaluation plan and KPIs for the renewed framework.

Outcome:

A refreshed, campus-wide Wellbeing Strategic Framework actively in use, with clear implementation ownership and measurable KPIs tracking impact on student and staff wellbeing across the UBCO community.

Belonging is not a universal experience by default; Black students at UBCO deserve dedicated investment in spaces and programming that affirm their identity, build community, and actively support their academic success and connection to campus life.

Key Actions:

Support Black students on their path to success by:

• building community through an expanded, permanent Black student space.
• creating a support network, offering Black-centered programming and events that showcase Black student excellence.
• connecting our students with the broader Okanagan community.

Outcome:

Black students at UBCO experience a stronger sense of belonging, identity affirmation, and community, with dedicated programming and dedicated space that supports their student success and connection to campus life.

An external review creates an obligation to act; implementing its recommendations ensures UBCO has the institutional alignment, coordination, and expertise to respond to disclosures with the consistency, care, and trauma-informed approach that survivors deserve.

Key Actions:

In response to the SVPRO External Review, implement priority recommendations across four areas:

Institutional alignment:

Strengthening the positioning, mandate, and resourcing of SVPRO within the university structure.

Education:

Expanding campus-wide sexual violence prevention education and awareness for students, staff, and faculty.

Internal Operations:

Improving processes, data practices, and service delivery within SVPRO.

Collaborative policy and response processes:

Strengthening coordination across university units to ensure a consistent, trauma informed, and survivor-centred institutional response to disclosures and complaints.

Outcome:

UBCO’s sexual violence prevention and response infrastructure is strengthened, with clearer institutional alignment, improved education and awareness, more effective internal operations, and more consistent collaborative response processes, resulting in a campus where survivors receive timely, trauma-informed support and community members have the knowledge and resources to respond appropriately.

Career development is most effective when it is woven into the fabric of how students experience university. Integrating career support with advising and experiential education ensures students cannot easily miss the pathways that shape their futures.

Key Actions:

• Centralize career development
• Co-locate interdisciplinary co-op
• Deepen partnership with the Provost Office and Faculty of Science
• Expand business development support for regional small to medium enterprises (SMEs)
• Embed career navigation within Student Success Teams

Outcome:

Improved graduate employment outcomes; career services integrated into the student support continuum, and increased student & graduate offerings from SMEs.

Experiential Education (EE) is one of the most evidence-based approaches to improving graduate outcomes, yet too many students still don’t know what is available or how to access it; this builds the infrastructure and visibility that makes experiential education a defining, accessible feature of every UBCO degree.

Key Actions:

EE Competency Framework:

Seek Senate endorsement (Vancouver and Okanagan) for the UBC EE Competencies Framework, positioning UBCO’s model as the institution-wide standard.

UBC EE Roundtable:

Revitalize the UBC EE Roundtable, in partnership with the Vancouver Provost Office, to set a multi-year EE action agenda for both campuses.

UBCO EE Sustainment:

Transition UBCO EE pilot (including joint sponsorship, EE leadership, EE Advisory) and infrastructure to a sustained model.

Workday EE Tagging:

In collaboration with Enrolment Services and Provosts across both campuses, tag all EE embedded course opportunities in Workday to improve student discovery and participation tracking.

EE Hub:

Transition the Experiential Education Hub from pilot to sustained operation, removing access barriers and expanding awareness of curricular, co-curricular, and extracurricular EE pathways for students.

Outcome:

EE is recognized as a defining feature of the UBC and UBCO student experience, with infrastructure to track, scale, and communicate participation institution-wide.