By Russ Moore, Provost
Over the past few years, we have had wide-ranging conversations on campus about how we might better focus our efforts in the areas defined by such terms as information, communication, journalism, media, and technology. As you know, there have been several campus level committees, various working and discussion groups, and around a dozen faculty teams working on curricular and program ideas; there has been a productive conversation this academic year about ways forward among the arts-based units in Arts and Sciences. As part of this ongoing process, I invited an external team of nationally recognized scholars and leaders to talk with campus constituencies last month. Amongst other questions, I asked them:
- What is the best way for the University of Colorado Boulder to serve its educational and scholarly missions in this large domain?
- What are the strengths and weaknesses of the current proposal?
- What advice would you have about implementing such important changes?
During their visit, the team met with various deans, with chairs and directors, with interested faculty from across the campus, and with academic affairs.
The team has now issued its report, and I am making it available to the campus at https://academicaffairs.colorado.edu/academicreview/. At that site, you can also find information about the entire process. I have already briefed the deans and the chairs and directors mentioned in this report about its contents, but, as at every phase, my goal has been to get these reports out to the entire campus as quickly as possible.
I wish to be clear that my receipt and release of this report does not necessarily mean that I agree with or endorse the recommendations contained therein. Rather, this report will become part of our ongoing conversations about how we should move forward in the general areas of information, communication, journalism, media, and technology where we have demonstrated and recognized strengths and assets and where we have opportunities to make educational, scholarly, and creative strides.
You can send your ideas about and responses to this report to input@colorado.edu. There is also a faculty discussion site being curated by Professor Michele Jackson that can accessed at http://icjmtdiscussion.pbworks.com/w/page/63877075/Home. I look forward from hearing from all of you as we move forward in this conversation. I will offer my own thoughts on these recommendations before the end of this semester.