Campus Names New Assistant Vice Chancellor for Student Wellness

February 9, 2009

Starting next month, UC San Diego will have an assistant vice chancellor in charge of student wellness, officials announced last week. Karen Calfas, a faculty member both at UCSD and San Diego State University and an expert on health promotion, will step into the position March 23. She will oversee Student Health Services, Counseling and Psychological Services, the Sexual Assault Resource Center, Campus Recreation and the Wellness Center, and report to Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Penny Rue.

Karen Calfas will become UCSD's new assistant vice chancellor for Student Wellness.

Calfas’ role also includes promoting and expanding the existing Student Affairs Wellness Initiative, fundraising for and development of a new Student Wellness Center and transforming existing departments under her oversight into a more cohesive and collaborative source of holistic wellness services. She will also foster close collaboration with Academic Affairs and other key campus partners.

 “Dr. Calfas will play two vital roles on the UC San Diego campus: leading the university in creating a strong and active wellness culture at UC San Diego that enables all enrolled students to flourish while developing lifelong wellness self-management skills and overseeing, organizing and bridging the staffing, programs and resources among several departments that constitute the Wellness Cluster,” Vice Chancellor Rue said in a statement.

Calfas has been part of the SDSU faculty as a full professor and has been directing the department of Health Promotion under Student Health Services since 1992. She is an adjunct professor and program faculty in the department of psychology at SDSU and in the Joint Doctoral Program in clinical psychology at SDSU and at UCSD since 1990.  She also has been an adjunct professor at the Graduate School of Public Health since 2005 and an assistant clinical professor at the department of family and preventive medicine at UCSD since 1994.

Calfas received her doctorate in 1990 from UCSD and her bachelor’s in 1985 from Pacific Lutheran University, in Tacoma, Wash.  She has been a licensed psychologist in the state of California since 1993.