Office of the Chancellor > Speeches, Columns and Letters > Faculty Staff Welcome Breakfast

Faculty Staff Welcome Breakfast
September 3, 2009
Mary Rippon Theatre
Chancellor Philip DiStefano

Thank you to the Staff Council and the Boulder Faculty Assembly for sponsoring this breakfast and for the opportunity for all of us to get reacquainted.

I want to take a few minutes to welcome you all back to campus for the start of the 2009-10 academic year and to let you know what's been going on over the summer.

Over the summer we've had some changes to our senior leadership team. Please help me welcome new Interim Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Stein Sture, new Interim Vice Chancellor for Research Russ Moore, Interim Dean of the Graduate School John Stevenson, and Chief of Staff Joey White, whom I was able to talk out of retirement!

I would particularly like to welcome our new faculty and staff who may be new to the CU community.

For those of you new to us, the historic Mary Rippon Theater is home to History Department commencement ceremonies and the summer Colorado Shakespeare Festival.

Mary Rippon was our third faculty member at CU-Boulder and the first female to teach at any state university. She taught our first history class and she also taught the languages. She retired in 1909 after 31 years of service to the university.

This theater was completed in 1939 with donations from her former students and the Works Progress Administration.

One hundred years after Mary Rippon's retirement we welcome 68 new tenure-track faculty members for the new year, including 31 women who followed a path blazed by Mary Rippon. Seventeen of our new faculty members are of non-Caucasian ethnicity, and 15 chose not to disclose their ethnicity.

These 68 positions include 23 new positions, supporting our Flagship 2030 strategic plan goals of improving diversity and adding 300 new tenure track positions over a 10-year period. So far we have added 73 new faculty positions in three years, even during these budget-challenged times, and we have allocated 13 more for fiscal year 2010-11.

It was my pleasure to meet many of you at our New Faculty Orientation on Aug. 18. I was inspired that we were able to attract so many top-flight faculty from other top universities, confirming for me that we have something to offer.

This summer the vice chancellors and I have been busy planning for Flagship 2030 implementation and prioritizing initiatives to undertake in the next two years. Our strategic plan is integral to both our fund-raising efforts and our 2010 re-accreditation. I hope you can all come to my "State of the Campus" address on Monday, Oct. 5 at 3:30 to hear about both re-accreditation and our plans for Flagship 2030 short-term implementations.

In addition to welcoming new faculty we also welcomed 5,600 new freshmen this year. While the census isn't until later this month we think this class may rival our second-largest class (5,617 in 2006), second only to last year's record-breaking freshman class.

The new class also includes 884 students of color based on confirmations, making it the second most ethnically diverse class in our history.

Faculty and staff worked very hard to find courses, seats and beds for all of our new students. Thank you to you all for your hard work and long hours. I would like to particularly acknowledge the hard work of the Arts and Sciences faculty and staff, Continuing Education, the Advising Center and room scheduling to accommodate the students.

All new students received at least 12 credits at Orientation Registration and many who wanted more were able to get them. The bulk of the new seats were created in social sciences. Music and Journalism both generated additional general education seats. This was truly a team effort in the name of the university. My great thanks to all of you.

In addition I want to thank Deb Coffin, Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs and Dean of Students - and Kambiz Khalili, Director of Housing and Dining Services - and their dedicated staffs for finding housing for all these new students while we have a residence hall off-line for renovation.

This reinforces for me after 35 years at the university, that our outstanding staff always comes through at crunch time to keep the university running.

New Buildings
It's hard not to notice all the construction on campus and I want to thank everyone for any inconvenience this may have caused in the name of progress. One of the goals of Flagship 2030 is providing students the tools for success.

The new Visual Arts Complex is scheduled for completion in early 2010. The Department of Art and Art History and the CU Museum are looking forward to moving in.

The Center for Community – the new hub for student services - is opening next fall. The new Norlin Study Commons began 24/7 operations last weekend. The Regent Drive overpass is an important new safety addition to our campus.

In six days we break ground for the new Jennie Smoly Caruthers Systems Biotechnology Building, the anchor of our East Campus build-out called for in Flagship 2030 and a hub for interdisciplinary research in the biosciences. Enhancing interdisciplinary research is a foundation of Flagship 2030.

Nobel laureate Tom Cech has returned to us from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute where he served as president to lead our Colorado Initiative in Molecular Biotechnology, to be headquartered in the new building, and to teach freshman chemistry.

We have broken ground in the Grandview area for a new building for the Institute of Behavioral Science to open next fall. Currently IBS is dispersed across nine buildings on campus and downtown. IBS is another great example of interdisciplinary research called for in Flagship 2030.

Campus Accomplishments
I would like to close by briefly mentioning a few recent accomplishments over the summer that our entire campus community can take pride in.

Just three weeks ago we announced a record for campus federally sponsored research of $340 million, breaking last year's record by $60 million. This supports the work of many hundreds of graduate students and also undergraduates who participate in our Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program while advancing society in myriad ways with relevant research.

Together with the CU Foundation we matched our fundraising record of $58 million last year, which is remarkable given the state of the economy. I want to thank CU Foundation Vice President Carolyn Whitehead and her staff for all their hard work along with the Deans and Development Officers.

It's also an exceptional achievement that we attracted a record 23 new graduate students who have received prestigious National Science Foundation fellowships. Typically we have seven or eight new NSF fellows enrolling each fall and a total of 25 on campus. This year we have 51 NSF fellows on campus. It is a wonderful testament to the quality of our graduate programs and it is certainly in-step with our Flagship 2030 goal of enhancing graduate education.

You may recall that last spring that five of our graduate specialty programs were ranked in the Top 10 by U.S. News & World Report.

Two weeks ago we proudly celebrated the 100th Anniversary of teacher certification at CU-Boulder. Teacher preparation is one of the most important things we do in our sphere of influence on society. The history of the School of Education parallels that of the university as teacher preparation was established by law in 1874 as the only mandated university department at CU's inception.

In the arts and humanities, our resident string quartet, the Takacs Quartet, was nominated for yet another Grammy Award last spring.

This summer, two members of the law faculty joined the Obama administration.

Our legacy of environmentalism and sustainability received another boost two weeks ago when Sierra Magazine ranked us the No. 1 green campus.

This is due to an ethic that is ever-present throughout all quarters of our campus community but I would like to especially mention our Environmental Center and its director Dave Newport and his staff, for their leadership.

Just two weeks ago, three programs were ranked in the top 20 by U.S. News and World Report: aerospace engineering, environmental engineering, and the entrepreneurship program in the Leeds School of Business.

The College of Engineering, the Leeds School of Business, and CU-Boulder has a whole were all ranked in the top 40.

We can all take pride in the recognition we are receiving for our hard work.

Again, welcome back as we begin our 132rd year. And please join me for the "State of the Campus" address Oct. 5 where I will detail our short-term plans for continued Flagship 2030 implementation.

Thank you! Have a great year. I will see you soon!