Evaluation of Staff and Departmental Partnerships of MoveUBC
Creators: name: Victoria, Enzo
name: Liang, Henry
name: Chan, Jamie
name: Gaspar, Sabrina
name: Dean, Sumayya
Publisher: name: The University of British Columbia
Year: 2019

description: The University of British Columbia (UBC) runs MoveUBC, an annual month-long campaign, through the month of February to promote physical activity and healthy lifestyles for students, faculty, and residents on and near campus. Numerous events are held on the UBC campus during the campaign, with majority of these events being created and run by organizational partners. MoveUBC relies greatly on these partners to host exciting and engaging events throughout the month, and the future growth of MoveUBC largely depends on partnership contributions and participation. Because of this, it is important to make sure all of MoveUBC’s partners have a positive experience, and this is why we have collected information on and assessed the experiences of past and present MoveUBC staff and departmental partners. Interviews were conducted with representatives from three past and present MoveUBC partners, all of which are a part of a branch of UBC Recreation. These partners included; the UBC Aquatics Centre, UBC Recreations Operations, and UBC Tennis Centre. Our semi-structured interviews were conducted in-person and online via email, and questions were asked about the execution of each partner’s events, their support from MoveUBC organizers, and their goals regarding their participation in the campaign. Data collected from these interviews were used to guide MoveUBC in their partnership efforts by highlighting what MoveUBC is doing right, and which areas partners would like to see changes in. Suggestions will be taken into consideration in order to grow the MoveUBC campaign in the upcoming years, and create strong, positive, and successful relationships with all partners in the future. Common themes reported from the interviews included the definition of health, physical activity, and actively engaging its participants in any form of movement. Furthermore, the data collected across all interviews showed a common goal of increasing inclusivity in UBC; whether it be students, staff and faculty population, the goal was to increase engagement across all populations. Overall, MoveUBC and the UBC Recreation department had a clear agreement of what is to be expected and the resources provided in order to allow for an effective relationship. A recommendation for improvement of the campaign was that there should be a post-event detailed statistics report supplied to each partner as a way to gauge the success and to act as an indicator for whether or not to continue for future years. Efforts here can be redistributed to target a “lacking” component and make it stronger for next year. Another recommendation for this partnership is to have clear communication across all levels of staff involved in case any messages get miscommunicated or lost, particularly the student staff and volunteers. To fix this, an orientation event specifically for this staff demographic could be held, that way all levels of staff are on the right page by the time the campaign starts. The last recommendation for MoveUBC was expansion of the campaign. A director from UBC Aquatics Centre suggested a partnership with Wesbrook Village Community Centre due to its growing population. Regardless of whether or not the residents at Wesbrook Village are students or staff, the goals of MoveUBC and UBC Recreation partners are the same in being easily accessible to all participants in getting them physically engaged with their health. Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”