Chancellor's Campus Listening Tour

Chancellor Justin Schwartz embarked on a campuswide listening tour during the 2024-25 academic year to learn more about CU Boulder and the people who make it unique, as well as to solicit comments and questions about campus priorities and challenges.

These visits to all of CU Boulder’s colleges and schools, as well as several institutes and centers, provided insightful snapshots of the achievements, successes and concerns of faculty, staff and students. The conversations are helping to inform campus leadership about needs and opportunities ahead and are being integrated into campus planning processes.

Although individual comments from each college and school participant are not included below, several themes emerged in multiple units across campus (in no particular order):

Areas of strength and success  

• There is widespread support moving ahead as a comprehensive research university with a foundational grounding in the liberal arts and a commitment to the arts and humanities.
• The university is well-positioned to build on its diversifying research funding portfolio.
• The idea of creating a school of public policy was viewed as having clear benefits for the campus and for a number of disciplines.
• CU Boulder’s entrepreneurial ethos and achievements in business, engineering, law, music and other disciplines are key differentiators for the campus.
• CU’s long tradition of interdisciplinary work, reflected in its institutes, centers, and colleges and schools, is one of the university’s chief strengths and differentiators.
• While CU Boulder’s international graduate student enrollment is aligned with our peers, the university could benefit from a more robust strategy for attracting and retaining international graduate students.
• There is a strong commitment to mentorship of graduate students that the campus can build upon.
• Across units, faculty, staff, and students are supportive of accelerating housing development at CU South, at the Caddo Parkway site adjacent to Williams Village, and at the U.S. 36/McCaslin Boulevard property.

Areas of opportunity for further growth and improvement

Retention and strengthening campus community

• There is general agreement that CU Boulder needs more and better data on how it is doing with student recruiting, retention and success.
• To improve retention, the campus needs a more holistic approach to working with students who are struggling with academic success.
• The retention of faculty, staff and students of color is viewed as a priority across units – with a deliberate focus on ensuring everyone feels supported to be successful.
• The university needs to work harder to recruit and retain women graduate students, particularly in STEM fields.

Salaries, benefits, finances and resources

• The university's commitment to raises in recent years is appreciated, but the volume of increase was not enough to help new faculty and most staff live in or near where they work.
• Salary differentials between colleges and schools have created "haves and have nots" among their respective faculties, and salary competitiveness with peer universities is also challenging.
• There is a desire to maintain programs in the arts and humanities – to remain a comprehensive research university.
• The budget model is still opaque to many campus constituents.
• There is a desire for graduate student medical benefits to be available to the graduate students' families, not just individual graduate students. 
• The university is ready for a more comprehensive, campus-specific and strategic approach to fundraising.

Sustainability

• There is widespread support for the concept that sustainability is not only a STEM discipline, but a need and a reality that touches all aspects of CU Boulder's academic mission, the university's operations, and its position as a resource for the state, nation and the world.
• There is support across units for new undergraduate and graduate degrees in sustainability.
• There is support for leveraging faculty expertise in solving CU Boulder problems related to sustainability; belonging, equity and community, interdisciplinary teaching and learning, and other issues.
• The campus is ready to take the next steps in developing more online undergraduate and graduate degrees, certificates and microcredentials, and interdisciplinary degrees, including but not exclusively around sustainability.
• There is a campuswide commitment to elevating our visibility and impact in sustainability nationally and globally and in driving implementation of research outcomes.

Procurement and work-process challenges

• The university needs to work with the CU system to simplify procurement processes, which can be time-consuming and confusing. Issues related to procuring software are particularly challenging.
• The university needs an aligned strategy on hiring that brings institutes and colleges closer together.
• The university needs a better, more streamlined, more employee-friendly approach to HR.
• Faculty processes on career tracking, benchmarks and milestones, and policy adherence need to be more uniform and simplified.

Academic freedom and free expression

• Faculty across units expect the chancellor and the administration to advocate for free speech, academic freedom and carrying out our mission to conduct research and engage in scholarship, creative work and teaching. 
• Student free speech should be protected.