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

State of the Campus Address
September 25, 2002

Faculty
I believe that CU-Boulder owes much of its excellence to the entrepreneurial instincts of people with big dreams and high performance — despite limited resources. I find these people everywhere on our campus. Let’s begin by looking at the faculty. The quality of our faculty has never been better. Impressive numbers of our teacher/scholars have been named to prestigious academies. Many have garnered highly competitive prizes, grants, and teaching recognitions. These honors are not limited to our highly distinguished long-time faculty; many of our early-career faculty members have received national recognition as well.

Here are just a few of the recent honors for our faculty:

• Education professor Mitchell Nathan played the leading role in CU-Boulder’s winning a $5.8 million grant, along with Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Wisconsin, to study methods of improving the way students learn algebra.
• In the past year, two of our faculty have been tapped for MacArthur Fellowships, often called the "genius grant." Last October, Norman Pace, professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology, was one of 23 recipients of the $500,000 fellowship. We have just learned that Daniel Jurafsky of the linguistics department has been named one of this year’s winners.
• This summer, four researchers from CU-Boulder were among the 60 recipients of the 2001 Presidential Early Career Awards announced by President Bush. CU-Boulder led the nation in the number of winners. They were Kenneth Gall in mechanical engineering, Jorge Zornberg in civil environmental and architectural engineering, Steven Brown of CIRES, and Thomas Hamill, also of CIRES.
• Patricia Rankin, associate professor of physics, played the key role in CU-Boulder’s receiving a $3.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation to help increase the number of women in leadership roles in science, mathematics, engineering and technology programs at the university.

And, of course, we are extremely proud of last year’s Nobel Prize in physics won by Carl Wieman and Eric Cornell. As you may know, Carl is teaching a large undergraduate class in physics for non-science majors again this year. Such dedication probably was a leading factor in his receiving the National Science Foundation’s Director’s Award for Distinguished Teaching Scholars last year — one of seven scientists and engineers in the United States to receive this first-ever award. And, to further validate CU-Boulder’s national stature, this year another of our faculty members, Richard McCray of astrophysical and planetary sciences, was one of six faculty members in the U.S. to receive the award in its second year. So, two of the first 13 NSF Distinguished Teaching Scholars are from CU-Boulder

Collectively, our faculty is one of the most productive faculties in the United States. This past year, the Boulder campus brought in more than $229 million in sponsored research, setting another campus record. That’s a 70 percent increase over the past six years! About half of the total this year went to the Graduate School, helping fund its remarkable array of interdisciplinary institutes and centers.

View text version of data table

Faculty are vitally important to the continued success of the Boulder campus. Despite economic challenges, I am committed to making faculty salaries a top priority. We also are developing other proposals to engage the faculty. These include creating a new recognition of faculty achievements and establishing a round-table discussion series that will focus on critical issues for the campus. I also have asked my colleagues to seek innovative ways of responding to housing concerns by faculty.

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