Chancellor G.P. "Bud" Peterson. (Photo/Larry Harwood)

Dear Members of the CU-Boulder Community,

As we bring the academic year to a close, it is helpful to review what we have accomplished and assess what we can do better. The past year has been one of renewed focus and excitement at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Throughout the campus community and in every area critical to our success, we are moving forward to create a better, more positive environment, one in which our students, faculty and staff can thrive and succeed. I would like to take this opportunity to share with you what I think are just a few of the highlights that showcase our future and provide a glimpse at some of our community's achievements.

Challenging our students - This past fall, we enrolled CU-Boulder's largest, most diverse and one of the most academically qualified freshman classes ever. As we near graduation, applications for the fall class are up more than twelve percent, as is both quality and diversity. This past November, our campus was honored by the Peace Corps for being only the sixth university nationwide to surpass 2,000 volunteers during the organization's lifetime – an award that I believe is symbolic of our students' best values and descriptive of their true character: students who are aware, idealistic, and who posses a strong sense of social consciousness.

Strategic planning - Last fall, we initiated our strategic planning process, "Flagship 2030" and established a steering committee of nearly sixty faculty, students, staff, community members, alumni and friends of the university. The steering committee has reached out to involve more than 200 members of the university community who have engaged both our internal and external stakeholders in this process. The goal is to define the characteristics of a great national, comprehensive, research university in the year 2030, and more importantly, to identify what actions we must take to achieve these characteristics and what resources will be needed to guide the institution well into the 21st century. We will soon be compiling a preliminary report of the Flagship 2030 committee, which will then be vetted thoroughly within our university community before a final version is presented to the Board of Regents next fall.

Communications - The importance of our flagship university to the state of Colorado and its future cannot be understated. It is vital that we clearly communicate that value to the citizens, the stakeholders and the many audiences in our state, in order to secure our future and theirs. With this in mind, we continue to focus on ensuring proactive and effective communication. We recently concluded two national searches that have yielded a pair of seasoned professionals to help our university implement a proactive, message-driven, and dynamic communications strategy, one that is well coordinated and strategically focused. This will bring together our marketing, branding, media relations, publications, web, internal communications and community relations efforts. In so doing, we are making an important investment in our future success—we have important stories to tell in the local, national and global media, and we must ensure that our messages are effectively distributed, to clearly communicate our values and the importance of the work so many of you are doing.