Academic Organization, Structure and Rewards

The author proposes creating an integrated and horizontal arts consortium whose mission would be to provide multiple platforms to inform interested students, faculty, and the public as to what is happening on campus, not only in terms of speakers, performances, presentations, and exhibitions, but also classes and collaboration opportunities.

The author proposes creating a Graduate Student Opportunity Program (GROP), modeled upon the university’s Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP), that would provide funding for graduate students in the arts and that would improve the quality of graduate work, enhance recruiting of graduate students and increase employment opportunities for graduate students after they complete their degrees.

The authors propose a series of recommendations in the areas of economic, curricular, and visionary support to transform existing programs in Historical Studies, Creative Work and Performance, Languages and Cultures, Literary Study, Visual Media and Visual Literacy, Philosophical and Critical Study, and Integrated Programs of study into programs of study that build upon and extend our current disciplinary structure and that would give interdisciplinarity a coherent, academic goal.

The authors call for further development of professional graduate programs at CU Boulder. Hiring trends for graduate students of all varieties, in combination with the need for new revenue flows to the campus, indicate that a concerted and increased focus on professional graduate programs is warranted.

The author suggests that institute faculty should be rostered into their “cognate department homes” along with adjustments of salaries of institute and A&S faculty along more equitable lines and a series of other standardizations and measures to promote equity between the two faculties.

The authors call for a formal conversation on how to best create a structure or set of structures that dismantle existing barriers to interdisciplinary work in the broadest sense.

The author argues that the ATLAS institute should be returned to its status as a student-centered resource given that students funded the complex that houses the institute.

The authors offer suggestions on how to overcome what they view to be the greatest challenges to working across disciplinary boundaries at CU Boulder in the areas of teaching, curriculum, and research.

The authors outline opportunities both to enhance unified strategic planning efforts and reduce real and perceived inequities in resources and opportunities available to Geosciences department faculty.

The author proposes a system that can supplement if not replace the SCH as an index of a given unit’s value through such means as rewarding the outreach capacity and impact of academic units and rewarding the extent to which the unit engages in interdisciplinary work that is of use to multiple units across campus.