Experiencia interdisciplinaria para la construcción comunidad universitaria basadas en el bienestar a través de juegos de mesa en espacios curriculares y no curriculares

Games are commonly viewed as entertainment activities; however, they have now been heavily included in more formal settings such as industry and education. It is easy to find games engaging and motivational. Moreover, they can be used as tools to shape behaviors. Games have the characteristic of creating spaces of trust and fun, facilitating interactions between people, taking on new roles to generate empathy, and creating new interpersonal bonds.Under these premises, since the beginning of the year 2023, the Faculties of Engineering, the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, and the Faculty of Architecture and Design, with the support of the Design Factory Javeriana Bogotá (DFJBOG), of the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana de Bogotá, have joined forces to promote a space called “Game Afternoons”. It is a space open to the entire university community (students, professors, administrative staff, graduates, among others) that revolves around sharing through modern board games. It is a space where you can attend alone or with friends, you can take any available board game or join a group that is already playing, it has professors and students who explain the games in case you do not know each other, and sometimes, the space is complemented with refreshments, music, and some more dynamics.“Tardes de Juegos” has been positioning itself as a space that favors the creation of a university community, where bonds are created between members of different faculties and disciplines, also as a space of well-being for the community within the same university campus, and finally, as a space for learning based on games, since modern board games have many mechanics that encourage collaboration, critical thinking, social deduction, resource management, strategy, among other skills and competencies.

In this paper we propose to expose how has been the creation, development, and positioning of this space, we will also expose what have been the best practices that the team has found to facilitate the implementation of this space, we will present the results obtained so far in terms of building university community, and the impact on it. Finally, we will explore the challenges and next steps to be addressed in the future.