Visionary Buff Partners
What if you could break long-held rules at CU Boulder? What would learning look like?
What would you change about the way students learn at CU Boulder? How could the student experience help people develop the skills and capacities needed to thrive in an uncertain and changing world? And what if you had the funding, support, and freedom to make your vision a reality?
Reimagine the Future of Learning at CU Boulder
Visionary Buff Partners invites undergraduate and graduate students to propose bold visions for the future of learning at CU Boulder. We’re looking for ideas that break rules and challenge traditional approaches to higher education while creating new opportunities for all students to develop durable skills. These are transferable human capacities such as collaboration, communication, curiosity, creative thinking, adaptability, problem-solving, and learning from failure.
We invite you to imagine and test what those future learning experiences and skills might look like. What opportunities should students have to learn and develop during their time at CU Boulder? How can we make these opportunities accessible to all learners? What could we do that’s radically different to make that possible?
Up to five visions will receive up to $25,000 and 18 months of support to turn those ideas into experimental projects. Students will lead the work in partnership with faculty and staff, receive expert support and guidance throughout the process, and be compensated for their participation.
You don’t need a finished project plan or even a complete team to apply. We’re looking for a compelling vision, the durable skills it could help students develop, and an initial sense of how you might bring it to life.
Why get involved?
If your vision is selected, you won’t just be asked for your perspective. You will have the opportunity to make your ideas come to life.
- Help shape the future of learning at CU Boulder by bringing a student perspective directly into the design and testing of new learning and teaching approaches.
- Turn a vision into action, with funding, expert support, and 18 months to experiment, learn, adapt, and see where your ideas can go
- Work alongside students, faculty, and staff as partners, building relationships and gaining experience leading change within a complex organization.
- Develop and demonstrate durable skills yourself, including collaboration, communication, creative thinking, project management, problem-solving, adaptability, and learning from experimentation and failure.
- Gain recognition for what you learn and contribute, including a new durable skills recognition badge that will help you demonstrate and communicate the skills developed through your project.
- Be compensated for your time and contribution as a member of an awarded project team.
Selection Criteria: What are we looking for?
We want you to think radically about how students learn and develop the skills they need to thrive in their personal lives, their careers, and their communities. How might we break long-held teaching and learning rules at CU Boulder? What assumptions about teaching and learning in higher education could we challenge?
Your vision should respond to three questions:
What assumption, convention, or “rule” of higher education does your vision rethink or break? We’re looking for visions and ideas that challenge long-held traditions and assumptions about teaching and learning in higher education. What could we do differently to create a student learning experience that better responds to the needs, opportunities, and challenges students face now and in the future?
What durable skills or human capacities would your vision help students develop?
We’re looking for ideas that can cultivate critical human capacities in students during their career at CU Boulder. Skills that will serve them as they navigate an increasingly uncertain world while deepening their connection to themselves, to others, and to their community. Part of the challenge is identifying the skills and capacities you think will matter for students in the future.
How might your vision become something students could experience, test, or participate in? While we welcome wild imagination and bold ideas, we’re also looking for feasibility. Visions should be grounded in a brief description of how you might get to your learning future. You don’t need to give us a detailed project or implementation plan. We’re looking for an initial sense of how your ideas could move from “What if?” to “Let’s try it.”
We welcome ambitious visions. This initiative is designed for experimentation, so we don’t expect you to know in advance whether your ideas will work. Part of the opportunity is to find out!
Response Criteria: What do I need to submit?
What happens if my vision is selected?
Selection is the beginning of the project! You are not expected to have everything figured out when you apply.
Beginning in spring 2027, selected students will work with Visionary Buff Partners to develop their initial ideas into 18-month experimental projects.
Each project team will include at least three students and up to two faculty or staff partners. If you don’t have a team yet, that’s okay. We’ll help selected students build a team or connect with others whose ideas and interests align.
Together, we’ll help you:
| Projects will also have access to training, consultation, and technical support in areas including:
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The projects are intentionally experimental. Success does not mean proving that your original vision was right. Testing ideas, discovering what doesn’t work, changing direction, and learning from the experience are all valuable outcomes.
Joining a funded project means making an active commitment to your team and project over the 18-month period.
Selected students will be expected to participate in:
- Regular project team meetings
- Project planning, development, and implementation
- Relevant training and support activities
- Testing and refining the team’s vision and ideas
- Assessment and reflection on the project process
- Opportunities to share project learning with the wider CU Boulder community
Expected time commitment: Up to 5 hours a week or 20 hours per month with a highly flexible schedule from week to week.
Project period: January 2027 – June 2028.
Students will be compensated for their participation on project teams.
A selection committee composed of undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and staff will review submissions using the three selection criteria outlined above. Finalists may be invited to a brief 30-minute conversation with the selection committee to tell us more about their vision. Conversations can take place in person or via Zoom.
Call for Vision opens: October 14, 2026
Community Q&A Mixer: October 22, 2026, from 5:15-6:30 p.m., CASE Building E-390
Come along to:
- Grab some pizza and soda
- Ask questions about the initiative
- Talk through your visions and ideas
- Meet potential team members, if you don’t have any yet
Vision submissions due: Midnight, November 15, 2026
Conversations with finalists: November 30–December 4, 2026
Selected ideas announced: December 7, 2026
Ready to share your vision?
Submit your vision or send questions to Blair Young at byoung@colorado.EDU.
Not sure whether your vision is “ready” enough?
That’s okay. Many of the challenges facing education and the future of work don’t have obvious answers, and we don’t expect you to have one either.
Visionary Buff Partners is intentionally open-ended because we want your visions, not proposals with a designed solution.
Bring us something you think could make learning at CU Boulder different, better, or more meaningful.
Imagine it. Challenge it. Test it. See what happens.