Strategic Initiatives

Academic Futures

Year Three Implementation: Enacting Our Commitment to Furthering the Public Good

Our university has launched multiple strategic initiatives in recent years, and at the heart of these is our core mission of furthering the public good. Through this important work we are bolstering our university’s long-term value to the students, faculty, staff, alumni, supporters, communities, peers and the democracy we serve, by embracing our role and responsibility as Colorado’s leading national public research university.

As we enter Year Three of Academic Futures, its core themes and projects, featured below, will guide our work. In alignment with our strategic vision and imperatives, they focus on people, as we shape tomorrow’s leaders; on programs, as we continue our journey to be the top university for innovation, and on the positive outcomes of all our work that impact humanity, strengthening and fulfilling our commitment to the public good.

Learn More

Integrated House of CU Boulder Strategic Initiatives with Strategic vision as the roof, Academic Futures as the top girder, our supporting strategic initiatives as the body of the house, and Financial Futures as the foundation

Priority Themes & Projects

Creating a Common Student-Centered Approach to Teaching & Learning

Striving to become a fully student-centered campus was a primary motivation and central project for Academic Futures, as well as a key focus of Foundations of Excellence and the IDEA Plan. These important ideas are a central focus of the support work of both Financial Futures and Strategic Facilities Visioning, and tied to a host of other strategic projects CU Boulder is engaged in this year. All of this points to serving students: the main public mission of CU Boulder and the main public good it provides.

Teaching & Technology, Online & Distance Education

To expand opportunities for learning on campus, off campus, and around the world, this initiative gives faculty a dynamic teaching tool to leverage their research, scholarship and creative work, and helps CU Boulder students earn their degrees more quickly and with less debt. These efforts extend the university’s innovation and the outcomes to communities across Colorado, the nation and the world.

Making Excellence Inclusive

Under the IDEA Plan, the campus is building a roadmap for making excellence inclusive, cultivating diversity, instilling equity as a core value in our community, and structurally reshaping our campus culture. This initiative furthers the public good by making the university a reflection of the public itself and a launchpad for research, scholarship and creative work.

Interdisciplinary Teaching, Research & Creative Works

Advanced as an important driver in the Project Two of the Academic Futures Report, interdisciplinary teaching, research, scholarship and creative work have long been expressed values of the CU Boulder faculty, strong desires of generations of CU students, and exciting challenges to staff. The energy, creativity and innovation unleashed through interdisciplinarity has enormous benefits for students, faculty, and the public good.

Other Themes & Projects

What it Means to be a Public University Today

We consider this initiative, embedded in Academic Futures, in our daily activities of research, scholarship, creative work, teaching and service. These activities further the public good by providing new knowledge, discoveries and creative works that directly serve students, empower and inspire faculty, and open the university to communities and the public at large.

Governance

In 2019-2020, Provost Russ Moore has charged the deans with developing more comprehensive governance structures in their colleges and schools, responding to the Academic Futures Report. The goal: develop more unified governance approaches at the college/school level, and a governance ecosystem where units can learn from each other and find opportunities to support the work of the BFA.

Sustaining, Supporting & Inspiring Our Community

Under the IDEA Plan, we are creating commitments to diversity, equity and inclusive excellence that will sustain, support and inspire our research, scholarship, creative work, teaching and service, with direct benefits for diverse communities and individuals inside and outside the university. Through the Strategic Facilities Visioning initiative, we are preparing the campus’s physical infrastructure to support learning, teaching, research and community/public interaction.

Internationalizing Our Campus

A key project of Academic Futures, this initiative unifies the university’s efforts around international education, learning, research, scholarship, creative work and outreach/service, with benefits for students, faculty, and local and international publics. Work on this theme is still in the discussion phase in 2019-20.

Campus Success: Physical Resources

Our Strategic Facilities Visioning initiative provides the foundation for physical infrastructure planning needed for CU Boulder to carry out its mission, serve its constituents and successfully execute on all of the priority themes and projects from Academic Futures.

Financial Futures

Aligning Our Financial Resources to Our Mission

Financial Futures will enable CU Boulder to make investments aligned with our vision and strategic initiatives by developing a new approach to strategic financial alignment with our overarching mission and priorities.

Learn More