A Historical Legacy

A thumbnail sketch of the Center for Multicultural Affairs' mission and purpose on the CU-Boulder campus is a reminder that CMA represents one of the most significant moments in CU history. CMA is grounded in its spectacular relationship with the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Today there continues to be a specific focus on the students of color and on providing them the means and opportunities to have cultural and personal venues to a community of camaraderie, support, inspiration, and caring partnerships throughout their academic, social and personal experiences on campus.

Ensuring access to academic excellence was the final prong of the Civil Rights Movement mandates. CU-Boulder, in 1968, met this challenge by instituting four ethnic/race-specific and one migrant-profile Educational Opportunity Programs (EOPs) whose purpose was to recruit and retain students of color. Of course, CU-Boulder fully acknowledged that the whole of the University bore this responsibility and upheld this premise by ensuring counseling and academic support services for these students via the EOP programs. In 1982, the five EOP programs merged into one EOP department which then, in 1984, came to be called CU Opportunity.

It was at this time that CU Opportunity provided recruiting, academic and counseling services to students. The counseling component of CU Opportunity was uniquely comprised of ethnic/race-specific counselors from each of the original five EOPs. However, 1984 saw the merging of CUOP recruiting unit with the CU Admissions Office, CUOP academic services became a stand-alone department and CUOP counseling services merged with CU's Counseling Center and was called Ethnic Student Support Program (ESSP). Ten years later, in 1994, ESSP was called the Cultural Unity Student Center and then de-merged and formed today's Center for Multicultural Affairs.

Written by Cleo Estrada, August 22, 2002
Former EOP student and current Associate Director for the Center for Multicultural Affairs