In an effort to become a “health promoting” university, the University of Michigan and seven other institutions have adopted the Okanagan Charter. The charter’s mission is to call on colleges and universities to “embed health into all aspects of campus culture and to lead health promotion action and collaboration locally and globally.”
The charter — which was created at the 2015 International Conference on Health Promoting Universities and Colleges in Kelowna, British Columbia — is named in acknowledgement of the Okanagan nation, a First Nations and Native American group based mainly in British Columbia and Washington state. Other U.S. universities signed onto the charter include the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Northern Illinois University and University of California, Berkeley.
