Our Guiding Principles
Vision
An inclusive culture of health where everyone has the opportunity to thrive and flourish
Mission
The Semel HCI Center connects people, knowledge, and resources, translates research and community knowledge into action, and catalyzes learning and innovation to advance wellbeing and strengthen the conditions for people and communities to belong and thrive at UCLA and beyond.
Core Values
Integrity: Lead with character through care, accountability, and evidence.
- We advance health and wellbeing through ethical, evidence-informed action.
- We communicate with honesty and transparency, take responsibility for our actions and their impact, and remain open to learning from diverse perspectives, lived experiences, and community knowledge.
- We empower individuals and communities to make informed choices and help strengthen the conditions that promote human and planetary health.
Excellence: Strive for greatness by advancing innovative and integrative approaches for wellbeing.
- We bring together diverse disciplines, perspectives, and stakeholders to connect research and address complex wellbeing challenges.
- We pursue the highest standards in research, education, programming, and service to advance a culture of wellbeing.
- We ask bold questions, challenge assumptions to imagine and develop holistic approaches that contribute lasting impacts to wellbeing and inspire others locally and globally.
Belonging: Build community by cultivating inclusive environments where everyone can connect and thrive.
- We promote respect, compassion, and connection so people feel valued and supported.
- We celebrate and build across diverse identities, lived experiences, and approaches to health and wellbeing.
We address disparities and barriers to access, respond to evolving needs, and connect across communities to strengthen individual and collective wellbeing.
Strategy
Semel HCI Center acts as a spark plug and home for well-being-related innovation on campus, bridges diverse departments and stakeholders, and leverages the strengths across and beyond our campus, building on the rich local knowledge as well as the world-renowned research and teaching at UCLA. We pair content area faculty and senior management operators to co-lead thematic workgroups within the Semel HCI Center, called “pods” (BEWell/Built Environment, BreatheWell, EatWell, EngageWell, MindWell, and ResearchWell). Not only does this leadership structure help accelerate the translation of research to evidence-based practice on UCLA’s campus and beyond, but it also expands the breadth and reach of Semel HCI Center’s impact. Pod leaders utilize asset mapping and mobilization to identify possible collaborators across and beyond campus, and apply the five conditions for collective impact: (1) share a common agenda, (2) provide a coordinating structure, (3) engage in mutually reinforcing activities, (4) participate in continuous communication, and (5) agree on shared measurement systems to evaluate and boost progress. Students, staff, faculty, and broader community members are all welcome and encouraged to attend pod meetings, submit proposals to translate research to practice, test innovative ideas, participate in transdisciplinary well-being research, teach experiential courses, and provide programming for on and off campus communities. These activities propel knowledge discovery, sharing, innovation, and engagement through the facilitation of discussions, inquiry, forums, and community building where differing viewpoints and lived experiences are shared and diversity is valued.
As a land grant institution, the Semel Healthy Campus Initiatives Center at UCLA acknowledges the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples as the traditional land caretakers of Tovaangar (Los Angeles basin, So. Channel Islands).