Office of the Chancellor > State of the Campus Address 2002 > Students

State of the Campus Address
September 25, 2002

Students
The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well among our students as well. Led by an energetic team of tri-executives, UCSU manages a budget of $27 million, running such cost centers as Wardenburg, UMC, Rec Center, Cultural Events Board, and several others. Many of our students have won prestigious national honors, such as the Marshall Scholarship, Fulbright Scholarship, and Goldwater Scholarship. Here are just some examples of recent student accomplishments:

• CU-Boulder student musicians, Peter Sommer and Andy Nevala, along with assistant professor Chip Stephens, won awards in three categories of Down Beat magazine’s annual competition honoring great students and jazz programs around the country.
• Last year, a Student Honor Code was instituted on campus, a move made possible through the leadership and hard work of such students as Christian Gardner-Wood and Eric Lentell.
• A team of aerospace engineering sciences students has been selected as one of six finalists in NASA’s MarsPort Engineering Design Student Competition to design a deployable greenhouse that could help support astronauts on a long-term mission to Mars.
• This month, World Trade Center redevelopment proposals by 10 of our architectural students were unveiled and discussed on campus. Some of their ideas may find their way into proposals for redeveloping the World Trade Center site.
• In 2001, CU-Boulder’s student-athletes enjoyed a memorable year. The men’s cross country team won its first national championship, matching the women who won their first championship in the previous year. The football team brought home the Big XII championship; and the women’s basketball team sustained its run as an NCAA power. The ski team finished second in the nation.

The quality of our student body keeps getting better and better. This year’s freshman class, the largest ever at 5,391, also is distinguished by an outstanding set of high school GPA, ACT scores and SAT totals. Among our new freshmen, 625 (or nearly 12 percent) graduated high school with 4.0 or higher GPAs. I am pleased to report that 10 Daniels Scholars and 15 Boettcher Scholars have chosen to attend CU-Boulder this fall.

In addition to the multitude of academic neighborhood programs offered at CU-Boulder, we continue to seek innovative ways of enriching the learning experience of all our students. For example, we are exploring the concept of instituting capstone-type experiences that may focus on such topics as leadership, technology, service, writing and ethics.

You have heard a lot recently about the record fall 2002 enrollment numbers. Our robust overall enrollment of 27,954 students offers good news for our efforts to improve retention and the numbers of graduate, international and transfer students. Our strong freshman numbers indicate that CU-Boulder has become a major national draw for prospective students and is attracting the best students in Colorado. And the increased number of continuing students point toward an appreciation of the educational quality offered here. Since 1996, overall enrollment has increased by 14 percent.

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CU-Boulder’s emphasis on student diversity also is showing positive results. This year, total minority enrollment increased by nearly 5 percent; students of color represent about 13 percent of the student body. I am extremely pleased that, among new freshmen, students of color increased by more than 14 percent, now comprising more than 15 percent of the total freshman class. The number of freshman students of color has grown by 42 percent since 1996.

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