Embrace Our Public Education Mission
We will be the premier destination for every engineering student in the state of Colorado while attracting outstanding students from across the nation and the world; grow our undergraduate and graduate programs at the rate needed to drive and support economic growth of the state; foster a collaborative environment with industry that generates students ready for success in the global workplace, including an appreciation for working in diverse teams; and produce ethical, resilient, and creative engineers experienced in innovation and entrepreneurship. Highlights include:
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Being the first public engineering college with a 50 percent women undergraduate population while reflecting the demographics of our state’s high school graduates.
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Continually improving persistence and graduation rates, ultimately achieving an 80 percent graduation rate for all college freshmen.
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Being a world leader in engineering education through continued innovation in active, project-based and experiential learning.
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Partnering with the Boulder innovation community, to provide entrepreneurship opportunities for all interested engineering students.
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Producing well-rounded engineers with knowledge and skills in ethics, leadership, business and communication who are prepared to tackle the most pressing problems of the state of Colorado with the ability to deploy these engineering solutions globally.
Strategy
- Adopt strategies to boost the number of female, underrepresented minorities and transfer students in our college, including increasing the pool of applicants, offering scholarship packages that meet financial need, developing a network of strong STEM-oriented partner schools, and conducting an annual Colorado road show.
- Improve flexibility and breadth in undergraduate engineering curricula. Among other options, consider a core freshman year, increase the number of decisions individual students make during their program of study, and increase the number of core classes taught in multiple semesters (including summer) while fostering collaboration across departments with similar course offerings. Adopt approaches to increase exposure of students to computing, statistics, ethics, business, leadership, entrepreneurship, innovation and team skills within undergraduate curriculum, and support their own personal and professional development.
- Support the professional development of faculty to become expert educators that are well versed in methods to support student academic success, persistence in engineering, and the promotion of a professional and inclusive classroom environment. Facilitate the professional development of staff in support of student academic success.
- Invest in student success by providing students with the timely and relevant support services needed (advising and coaching, mentoring, tutoring, career services, BOLD Center). Hold all students, staff and faculty accountable for student persistence and graduation progress.
- Increase the award amount of merit-based undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships to incentivize highly qualified students to commit to CU Boulder.
- Develop a communications strategy and grow programs to actively promote our national thought leadership in active, project-based and experiential engineering education.
- Develop and communicate metrics that show the college’s impact on the state of Colorado.