Strategic Vision

FY 2023-28

Updated: 5/2024


Research and Innovation

We cultivate research excellence and enable our faculty and students to produce extraordinary scholarship in computing.

We cultivate a culture of research scholarship that centers research excellence and enables our faculty and students to produce extraordinary scholarship in computing.

Vision

We embrace an inclusive vision of computing scholarship that encompasses a diverse array of significant contributions to the primary literature, to public computational infrastructure, and to policy and practice, and emphasizes the principles of ethical and responsible computing. Our pursuit of research excellence prioritizes depth and impact over quantity-based metrics.

In the next five years, we will:

  • Be a leading institution for interdisciplinary computing research.
  • Be a top choice in Colorado for tech partnerships and entrepreneurship activities, especially in areas that positively impact health, safety, and quality of life.
  • Be internationally recognized as a department that expands the definition of computing, informs national policy, improves climate resilience and societal sustainability, and produces world-class graduates.

To enable this vision, we will:

    • Identify and launch three new Centers of Excellence in Computing that build on our research strengths.
    • Identify, design, and implement multiple research support programs in the department, such as support for pre-proposal planning; mid- and post-grant reporting; pre-tenure teaching release; and post-tenure research expedition support.
    • Raise and invest $5M over five years in new research computing infrastructure (e.g., GPUs), special opportunity projects, and multiple endowed professorships.
    • Develop internship and hiring relationships with all major tech companies in the Rocky Mountain region.
    • Double the number of CU PhD graduates who are placed into tenure-track faculty jobs worldwide, within the next 5 years.

    Education

    We responsibly imagine, create, and design the future of computing for society.

    We cultivate ethical scholars and engineers who are ready to responsibly imagine, create, and design the future of computing for society.

    Vision

    The Department of Computer Science at CU Boulder aspires to excellence in teaching and the success of our students at all levels, the continuous improvement of our curriculum, and the integration of research and scholarship into our teaching programs. Our approach to education embraces both the modern diversity and interdisciplinarity of computing and the many pathways to excelling at computational thinking. Our pursuit of teaching excellence prioritizes academic freedom, a vigorous and coherent curriculum, clarity, and inclusion in the classroom.

    In the next five years, we will:

    • Be a leader in developing a modern computing curriculum that equips our graduates with the ethical and technical skills they need to navigate complex computing challenges.
    • Be nationally recognized for being a teaching community that embraces integrating inclusive pedagogy throughout our curriculum and supports student success for all student populations.
    • Be a top choice for graduate students seeking a career in academia, government, or industry.

    To enable this vision, we will:

      • Implement a multi-year Curriculum 2030 effort that reviews the status of all of our existing residential degree programs and creates an integrated curriculum that prepares our graduates to succeed in the modern computing environment in both industry and academia.
      • Achieve adoption of inclusive pedagogical techniques throughout 75% of our curriculum and measure the impacts this change has on student success, especially for systemically marginalized student populations.
      • Invest $1M over five years in new resources across faculty, staff, and space to support our goals in developing a modern curriculum, adopting inclusive pedagogy, and supporting diverse pathways into computing.
      • Identify and implement strategies to reduce the sizes of all large computer science classes by 33% to 50%—or to provide small class experiences to students in large CS classes—to provide students with better student/course support staff ratios for better teaching, in particular through more time for personalized attention and quality feedback.
      • Implement a multi-year Curriculum 2030 effort that reviews the status of all of our existing residential degree programs and creates an integrated curriculum that prepares our graduates to succeed in the modern computing environment in both industry and academia.

      Inclusion

      Creating an inclusive community of students, faculty, staff, and alumni.

      We are a community centered in mutual respect, collaboration, and safety in which decisions are made fairly, in accordance with our values.

      Vision

      The Department of Computer Science consists of faculty, staff and students dedicated to antiracism, diversity, equity, and inclusion. We value the innovation that multiple perspectives and backgrounds bring to our community, and we are building a culture where everyone is valued, feels a sense of belonging, and is able to participate in the department’s research and teaching missions, as well as its initiatives and decision making. We support each other so that all may succeed in achieving their professional and academic goals. We empower and value each individual’s unique contributions to our research and teaching missions.

      In the next five years, we will:

      • Be nationally recognized as a supportive computing community that values inclusion and mutual respect via its actions and the ability of all members to contribute and pursue their academic and professional goals.
      • Be a deliberative organization that prioritizes a sense of belonging among all faculty, staff, and students, and values transparency, financial and resource equity, and a shared sense of responsibility for the department’s research and teaching missions.
      • Become a department that innovates in recruiting and retaining students, staff, and faculty from systemically marginalized groups to create a diverse computing community.

      To enable this vision, we will:

        • Increase representation of students from systemically marginalized groups in research every year, with a special focus on undergraduate scholars and domestic PhD students.
        • Develop new formal and informal departmental communication practices to promote engagement and a shared sense of belonging among faculty, staff, and students.
        • Improve outreach to all Colorado communities such that we reach parity of geographic representation of the state within our undergraduate student body, including through our partnership program at Western Colorado University. 
        • Support diverse pathways into and through our academic programs, with equitable and inclusive admissions, recruitment, and retention practices.
        • Cultivate engaged student communities that support the individual and collective success for all students in coursework, research, and computing-related extramural activities (including internships, personal projects, and research experiences). We will do this by collaborating with active student computing organizations to promote participation and visibility of CU Boulder computer science students at the state and national levels.