Earlier this month, Chancellor Schwartz accepted the recommendations of the Chancellor’s Task Force on Outreach to create a “hub and spoke” model of coordinated outreach and community engagement to better support the campus’s vast outreach efforts and maximize engagement and partnerships with communities across the state and region.  

One of the accepted recommendations calls for the Office for Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship (PACES) to move from the Division of Continuing Education (CE), where the office has been located since its founding, into the newly formed Outreach and Community Engagement unit within the Chancellor’s office. PACES will retain its name and internal structure, and the recommendation specifies there will be no cuts to staff or budget, including to PACES’ grant-making programs. Staff currently housed in the Office of Government and Community Engagement (OGCE) will also join the new unit.  

“This move elevates public and community-engaged research, teaching and creative work as true campus-level priorities. It will afford greater coordination between PACES and other units across campus and the CU system—enabling us to better serve our faculty, staff and students doing this important work,” said David Meens, Executive Director of PACES. “On behalf of the PACES team, I want to express our gratitude to the leadership and staff of CE whose partnership and support have been essential to PACES’s success. The division’s dedication to the university's mission, and culture of creativity, warmth and good humor, have made it an outstanding home. We look forward to new opportunities to collaborate, as CE continues to serve the campus in so many critical ways.” 

Please watch the PACES newsletter and website for emerging updates and do not hesitate to contact us with questions.