Office of the Chancellor > Speeches, Columns and Letters > Letter to the Campus Community

Letter to the Campus Community
May 5, 2008

Dear Members of the CU Community,

It is hard for me to believe Val and I have been at the University of Colorado at Boulder for nearly two years already. When we first arrived, we were optimistic about the future of the University, but we had no idea we would see CU enjoy so many successes in such a short time. Today, we are experiencing unparalleled success and many of you have heard me describe what a great time it is to be at CU-Boulder! As we enter a new era of vitality and direction, there are many people who deserve credit for the tremendous progress we are making. As we bring the academic year to a close, I want to take this opportunity to review our many successes and outline a path forward as we continue to move toward the ambitious goals outlined in Flagship 2030.

There is a lot of good news to share. We recorded all-time highs this year in applications, freshman enrollment, fundraising and federal research awards and expenditures. In April we learned CU-Boulder ranks 26th in the country among Top Public Research Universities in the listing published by the Center for Measuring University Performance. These rankings are based on nine measures including research, National Academy members, faculty awards, doctorates granted and ACT range, among others, making them both meaningful and significant.

Flagship 2030
The success and progress we have made on our strategic plan, Flagship 2030: Serving Colorado, Engaged in the World, is remarkable not only in its breadth and scope but also in terms of the involvement of the University community.  The plan was approved by the Board of Regents in November and was designed to position the state's flagship University as a role model for higher education in the 21st century. The plan identifies eight core and 10 transformational initiatives. Many of you have been thoroughly engaged in the process, serving on the steering committee or task forces and providing input electronically or at one of the many open forums. The goal is not to simply print the plan and leave it on a shelf, but instead to use it as a method by which we can continually prioritize and measure everything we do.

While the planning process and end result have been a very successful process, it also has resulted in important benefits we did not anticipate. When we began work 17 months ago, I did not realize what it would allow us, as a University community, to accomplish and how it would transform attitudes on campus. Flagship 2030 has provided a vehicle for us to stop looking at the past and instead to focus on the future to see all of our potential—and the view ahead is truly exciting! We began by asking in what areas do we have national or international leadership positions and in what areas do we have the potential for such leadership? We like what we see, and it has proven to be a truly invigorating process. Today we are well into Phase II—the hard work of implementing the plan.

Nine task forces have been meeting to create action plans to implement the 18 initiatives. More than 250 individuals volunteered to serve on the task forces—more than twice the number we expected or could accommodate. Yet everyone interested will have the opportunity to contribute to the development of our action and implementation plans. This overwhelming response has served to reassure me of the commitment of our campus community to the mission of the University. As I have said before, people support the things they feel passionately about and believe are well managed, and we are making a case for both here at CU.

The task forces on faculty, research, graduate education, undergraduate education, enrollment, facilities, budget, staff and operations, and outreach are being asked to provide an update this month and to develop fully fleshed-out action plans by Sept. 1.

We can count our accomplishments in many ways, but I prefer to look at them through those things that make up the heart and soul of any great university—our people, programs and platforms.

People
Investment in our people—students, faculty and staff—is the most important investment we can make.

Students
Fall 2008 admissions applications are up 35 percent since the fall of 2005, and the incoming class has a record 23,000 applicants competing for fewer than 5,600 spots. We expect the average grade-point ratio of our new freshmen to be between 3.6 and 3.7—our best-qualified class for the third straight year. And we have increased the number of new freshmen of color by 18 percent in two years.

Faculty
We continue to move toward our goal of creating 300 new tenure-track faculty positions over a 10-year period. We have budgeted for 30 new positions in the upcoming year, following gains of 25 new faculty last year and 25 again this year. And we continue to aggressively pursue support for endowed chair positions with a goal of doubling the number of fully endowed chairs in the next three to five years. We currently have 26 endowed chairs, but less than half of these have endowments greater than $500,000.

CU President Emeritus Hank Brown began his appointment here at CU-Boulder on May 2 as a tenured professor in the Department of Political Science and holder of the Quigg and Virginia Newton Endowed Chair in Leadership. In this role he will help to establish the Center in Leadership Development.

In addition, I'm very excited that our first Nobel laureate, Professor Tom Cech, will be returning to CU full time in January 2009 to resume his teaching and research, after serving as president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute for eight years.

Staff
We have completed the search for three senior leadership positions and a fourth is in the final stages. The first Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity and Community Engagement in our history, Dr. Sallye McKee, began work in August. As a member of our senior leadership team she ensures that diversity is always at the table and a part of our day-to-day decision making in budgetary, administrative, academic and governance decisions.

Tonya Haas assumed the role of Chief of Staff in March, moving from her previous position as Assistant City and County Manager for the City and County of Broomfield. She succeeds retired longtime Chief of Staff, Joey White, who was invaluable in the chancellor's office for 20 years. Joey continues to work with us as a consultant on the implementation of Flagship 2030.

Boulder City Manager Frank Bruno hits the ground running this month as Vice Chancellor for Administration. He succeeds Paul Tabolt who retired in March after 17 years of valuable service improving our facilities and environmental practices and strengthening our relationship with the City of Boulder. We are now interviewing five finalists for Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs.

Reorganized Units
We have restructured four organizational units in the past two years—Athletics, University Communications, the CU-Boulder Foundation staff, and the Alumni Association, and have greatly expanded the role and scope of the Office of Human Resources. We completed the transfer of responsibility for Athletics from the President to the Chancellor, and Athletics is now fully integrated into the fabric of the University. We want to be a national model for how Athletics interacts within the University. We witness daily our coaches as University ambassadors in ways we have not seen before.

We completed an important change by moving the Alumni Association organizationally from the CU Foundation, where it had resided for 11 years, back home into the fold of the University under the direction of the Office of Student Affairs. We already are seeing the benefits of the collaboration and resource sharing between the University and the Alumni Association in several successful outreach events. This also has created new synergies between the Alumni Association, the Parents Association, Admissions, Athletics and the CU Foundation. Ron Stump, our Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs for more than 11 years, was named Interim Director of the Alumni Association. He has served as Vice Chancellor of one of the university's largest divisions overseeing more than 30 departments.

Programs
Three of Governor Bill Ritter's four key initiatives mirror ours at CU-Boulder—biotechnology, renewable and sustainable energy and aerospace. We could add a fourth major initiative to the governor's priorities—geosciences, which is another one of our premier research strengths.

We have developed a five-year interim funding plan, supported by the CU Foundation, for the Colorado Initiative in Molecular Biotechnology (CIMB). House Bill 1001 signed by the governor on April 24, 2008, provides $5.5 million a year for the next five years to support research and development in the field of biosciences in Colorado, and we are well positioned to leverage our research strengths to garner additional resources from this research-incentive bill.

The CU Energy Initiative (EI) has 43 funded research projects in renewable and sustainable energy as we work to heal a wounded planet and create new forms of sustainable energy.  Within EI is our leadership in the Colorado Renewable Energy Collaboratory, which in conjunction with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and other state research universities, is a perfect example of the Colorado Research Diamond called for in Flagship 2030. The Collaboratory announced its second research center on April 21, the Center for Revolutionary Solar Photoconversion (CRSP), to develop the next generation of solar technologies. It joins the Colorado Center for Biorefining and Biofuels (C2B2), which has already enjoyed remarkable success.

Our excellent Aerospace Engineering program dovetails with Governor Ritter's aerospace priority and ranks second nationally in the number of Ph.D. graduates, producing 1,600 alumni who work in Colorado. It is a major reason that Colorado ranks second only to California in space economy. And it is a perfect example of how the "human capital" that we as a university provide can enhance the economy of the state and help to develop and expand the local economy.

The U.S. Arctic Research Commission met in Boulder in February to learn of our climate change research. And why not? We are global leaders in monitoring greenhouse gases and Arctic ice melt and we are gaining worldwide attention for our stunning findings. Researchers in the National Snow and Ice Data Center shared in the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for their contributions to a groundbreaking report on climate change. CU ranks third nationally in federal research grants on the environment.

In the arts, the College of Music is reaching out to the Denver arts community with its springtime "CU at Boettcher" concert scheduled for three years and funded with the help of a $114,000 grant from the Office of the President. This high-visibility exposure will bring attention and support to our excellent College of Music from the Denver community as concertgoers see our talented student musicians, faculty and alumni in various performances. The April 29, 2008, debut of this series was a smashing success, playing to rave reviews in the Denver media.

The Shakespeare Festival, continuing to celebrate its 50th anniversary, opens June 20 with Macbeth in the Mary Rippon Outdoor Theatre and runs through August 16. The first performance occurred on August 2, 1958, and this summer's season promises to be just as significant and will contain a number of new surprises.

In Athletics, the CU football team played in the Independence Bowl and the Lady Buffs made it to the semifinals of the Women's National Invitational Basketball Tournament, hosting four games at the Coors Events Center. Our spring football game was attended by 17,800 fans at Folsom Field, and 400 children completed exercise drills with the players on the field before the game.

Platforms
We have $300 million in capital construction under way on the CU-Boulder campus this year. We completed and moved into the newly renovated and expanded Koelbel Building and this fall we will open a newly renovated residence hall, Arnet Hall, which will help us to redefine how we educate our students.  Work has started on the Visual Arts Complex, which will be completed in the 2009-10 academic year. The Center for Community will house all student services under one roof and Eckley and Ketchum halls are being renovated. The Board of Regents approved a new aerospace and energy building at the northeast corner of the Engineering Center and a geosciences Building on the East Campus. We are continuing to move ahead with our new biotechnology building, which is a priority for state funding. This facility will be a lynchpin for economic development and will benefit the university, the state and the nation. To that end, we also are discussing with the City of Boulder a hotel-conference center that would meet the needs of both the University and the city.

Community Service and Civic Engagement
We can be proud we are not only educating good students but also good citizens. CU-Boulder was one of three U.S. universities to receive the 2007 Presidential Award for General Community Service. We competed with more than 530 universities for the award given in February by the Corporation for National and Community Service based in Washington, D.C. We estimate 13,400 students participate in some form of community service, including 3,500 who engage in academic service learning.

Commitment to Diversity
We launched the Chancellor's Diversity Advisory Board including 35 community members from across the state and nation representing all facets of diverse communities. This board will advise us on how we can continue to improve and enhance diversity in all its forms at our University. The board, which met for the second time on April 25, 2008, is forming into work committees on student success, faculty recruitment and retention, campus climate and community engagement. This external board is in addition to an ongoing internal campus group.

Fundraising and Research Revenues
Our fundraising and research revenues are as healthy as ever. In the past two years we have nearly doubled our private fundraising and we are on track to nearly triple it in three years. In fiscal 2006 we raised $31 million and for fiscal 2009 we have set our fundraising goal at $85.5 million, an ambitious goal to be sure, but one we think we can reach.

In addition, this past year we established a record for sponsored research revenues of $266.2 million, $10 million more than the year before and expect to significantly exceed that level this year.

Campus Safety
Campus safety continues to be a major priority. Students, faculty and staff have signed up for a new wireless text-messaging service that debuted last fall, enabling the University to notify them swiftly by mobile phone in case of a campus emergency. We are working to build two pedestrian underpasses for the safety of students and citizens, the first one at Regent Drive by the Fiske Planetarium and a second in the future at the corner of Euclid Avenue and Broadway.

Indeed, it has been a productive year and we have much to celebrate here at CU. As we continue to make progress toward the goals outlined in Flagship 2030, I want to extend my most sincere appreciation to all of you for all you do for this great University. Through the devotion of your time, energy and efforts, we continue to make progress and to reach unprecedented new heights as a national comprehensive research University. I am confident that by continuing to work together, we can succeed in making the University of Colorado at Boulder the "New Flagship University for the 21st Century," as described in our strategic plan, and one of the most productive and influential research universities in the nation.

Sincerely,

G.P. "Bud" Peterson, Chancellor