Dear Strategic Resources and Support team,
Happy New Year! I am excited for 2024 and also proud of the achievements you’ve made this academic year.
During a particularly fast-paced fall you advanced a number of key initiatives that continue to drive student success and improve the university experience. This includes the work of our Strategic Enrollment Management planning team, which has produced a set of recommendations that campus leaders will be reviewing soon to determine an implementation strategy, as well as the multi-faceted Buff Undergraduate Success (BUS) initiative, which we expect to yield further progress on student retention when the next round of numbers is tallied.
There are also a few items your unit leaders and I have been working on that you’ll be hearing more about in the weeks ahead:
- Diversity, equity and inclusion: University leaders have committed to a Shared Equity Leadership model and putting it into practice in our units.
- Sustainability: We established a new Campus Sustainability Executive Council geared toward action and accountability around our carbon neutrality commitments and implementation of the forthcoming Climate Action Plan.
- Health and wellness: Our SRS leadership team developed a collective goal within our performance plans of promoting wellness across the SRS units through increased awareness of campus resources/programs, increased utilization of vacation leave and supervisor training/engagement.
In coordination with all of you, we will also continue moving forward on priority deliverables around employee engagement, compensation, and gaining automation and efficiencies through technology, web and work process/policy.
I am energized thinking of all the great work you are doing to make the university a better place to learn, teach, conduct research, live and work. And I look forward to supporting you and your teams in the months ahead.
Other news and notes:
- MLK Jr. Convocation: I encourage all of you to attend the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Convocation on Jan. 22 at the University Memorial Center from 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. as our community reflects on Dr. King’s legacy.
- President’s DEI awards, grants: Feb. 2 is the nomination/application deadline for CU President Todd Saliman’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Grants. I encourage you to take advantage of these opportunities to recognize colleagues and advance the innovative ideas sprouting up across our SRS units.
With gratitude for all you do,
Pat