Here you will find a comprehensive insight into the project's communication activities and media presence. Our aim is to make the importance of health and well-being in everyday university life visible and to raise awareness of a healthy work-learning balance. Through active and transparent public relations work, we want to spread the word about campus health and establish the University of Potsdam as a pioneer for a health-promoting campus.
Press Releases
"Mental health is not just a private matter" - A survey focusses on the well-being of students at the University of Potsdam
"HAY! How Are You?" is the title of a study that aims to find out exactly that from students at the University of Potsdam in the summer semester of 2025. To this end, staff from the Student Health Management - Feel Good Campus, together with researchers from the Chair of Social and Preventive Medicine, have developed a health survey that can be completed in just over 20 minutes by 15 June 2025 and aims to find out from as many students as possible: "How are you?" Florian Dönau spoke to Julia Seiffert from Student Health Management and psychological psychotherapist Dr Mira Tschorn about burnout, mental hygiene and the pandemic as a turning point.
Why do we need a survey on student health?
Seiffert: We want to get a better overview of the health of students at the University of Potsdam in general and at the same time collect enough data to be able to identify the specific challenges in individual degree programmes. A study by Techniker Krankenkasse found that the number of students who are severely exhausted - i.e. at risk of burnout - doubled between 2015 and 2023. We cannot deduce from this whether this is also the case at the University of Potsdam. In 2023, we conducted a small one-day survey as part of the Health Day. A good quarter of the participants said that they would like the "cheap kebab" in Golm back. We sometimes wish for that too, but we need more meaningful results in order to be able to change something in terms of health. We hope that "HAY! How are you?".
Tschorn: We also conducted a preliminary survey at the University of Potsdam, in which 36 per cent had elevated depression levels, which is more than a third. However, that was only a random sample of around 180 participants. You can also assume a certain bias in a study on mental health: This means that many people take part who have dealt with the topic of mental health from their own experience. The literature also shows that depression is more common among students than in the population as a whole. But we still don't have enough data on the University of Potsdam in particular, which has a few special features. For example, half of the students live in another city, namely Berlin.
Seiffert: In addition, there are issues that are not health issues at all at first glance, such as the financing of studies or - in Potsdam and Berlin alike - the issue of housing. And I think we can all empathise with the fact that corona was a kind of turning point and since then one crisis has followed the next. We are asking what very specific challenges students are facing and what resources they need in order to cope better with stress. We want to show that such issues are not purely a private matter and that they need to be talked about.
A strong signal for health promotion - University of Potsdam signs Okanagan Charter
The Okanagan Charter is an international guideline for health-promoting universities and colleges. It calls on them to establish health as a cross-sectional task and to interlink health promotion and sustainability. On 25 February 2025, University President Prof. Oliver Günther, Ph.D., and Chancellor Hendrik Woithe signed the charter at the sports reception. With this step, the University of Potsdam officially commits to promoting health and well-being in all areas of university life. "Health is a key prerequisite for successful studying, teaching and working. By signing the Okanagan Charter, we are sending a clear signal for a sustainable and health-promoting university culture," emphasised University President Prof. Oliver Günther Ph.D.
The two main objectives of the guideline are to embed health in all aspects of university culture, in all administrative, operational and academic missions, and to guide action and co-operation in health promotion at local and global levels. The University of Potsdam is the fifth university in Germany to sign the charter. It thus joins a group of international universities that are committed to creating a campus life that maintains and promotes the health and well-being of employees and students.
"By signing this agreement, the UP's occupational and student health management team is realising strategic goals of our university development plan," says Chancellor Hendrik Woithe. "Together, we are creating sustainable structures that will strengthen health, well-being and performance at our university in the long term." Health promotion is seen as a cross-sectional task at the University of Potsdam; the "Health Steering Committee" was set up back in 2008 to coordinate health-promoting programmes. Occupational health management (OHM) is part of the Department of Human Resources and Legal Affairs. The aim of occupational health management is to maintain and promote the health of employees through a supportive working environment and targeted measures. The Feel Good Campus, Student Health Management (SGM), was launched in 2019 as a project of the Centre for University Sports and is supported by Techniker Krankenkasse. The main aim of SGM is to make studying and teaching health-friendly. The common goal is to create health-promoting structures and raise awareness of health issues. Existing programmes are bundled and new, easily accessible measures are developed. In recent years, the focus has been on mental health.
Podcasts
Wir sind UP- Julia Seiffert
What limits the well-being and health of Potsdam's students? What is the Feel Good Campus and how does the project attempt to identify the challenges and problems in this context, tackle them and be effective in the long term? Who are the Feel Good Coaches and how should university structures be changed in order to maintain, promote and restore student health in the long term?
In this episode, Erika talks about this with Julia Seiffert, the coordinator of the Feel Good Campus, the student health management system.
Here you can read and download the transcript.
Study Stream Nr. 10 - Feel Good at UP!
In Study Stream No. 10, everything revolves around the topics of well-being and mental health during studies. Julia Seiffert talks to Wega Herbstreit (Psychological Counseling) and students from the University of Potsdam about this in the podcast. You can watch it here.
Written Contributions
Portal - Mentale Gesundheit
In addition to various podcasts, there are also articles in the Potsdam health magazine portal from the Feel Good Campus. Julia Seiffert provides exciting insights into the student health management and its wide range of offers. Further exciting topics and the portal can be found here .
SpeakUP
This speakUP article describes the mental stress experienced by students, particularly during the exam phase. Two of those affected, Sophia and Alex, share their experiences with stress, depression and difficulties in finding help. Both emphasize the importance of social support, exercise and therapy. The text encourages students to talk openly about mental health problems and to seek help.
