Ruben P. Sança Named Executive Director of Recreation and Wellbeing

Elizabeth Cracco, assistant vice chancellor for campus life and wellbeing, has announced that Ruben P. Sança has been named executive director of recreation and wellbeing. Sança will lead the newly formed unit within Campus Life and Wellbeing, which combines the existing work of Campus Recreation with the health promotion and education efforts of the former office known as Center for Health Promotion – now Wellbeing Education and Services.

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Sança joins UMass Amherst from UMass Lowell, where he previously served as founding director of the Office of Student Life and Wellbeing, guiding and implementing comprehensive university-wide health promotion and wellbeing strategies.

Sança led Lowell to become the first Health Promoting University in New England, while serving as the marketing and communications manager of the nationwide U.S. Health Promoting Campuses Network Steering Group. In this role, Sança and the Steering Group have guided 21 institutions into becoming health promoting universities and increased its institutional membership to over 200 colleges and universities in the past year.

With almost two decades of experience in higher education Sança previously served as assistant athletic director for athletic administration at Lowell, establishing programs and policies that improved the department’s equity and inclusion ranking from 130^th place to a Top 10 overall ranking among 354 NCAA Division I institutions.

Sança also served as associate director for student affairs financial administration, where he oversaw several aspects of business management including departmental month and year-end financial statements, e-commerce and cash management audits, procurement contracts and standard operating procedures for business practices. He also brings experience in working directly with student clubs and organizations under the student government association.

Sança holds a Masters of Business Administration, and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with concentrations in management and finance and a minor in Economics from UMass Lowell.