SRS Insights: Evolving beyond SRS 🦬

Apr. 22, 2025

Dear Strategic Resources and Support team,

I am writing this month to share that this will be the last edition of SRS Insights as we transition away from the Strategic Resources and Support name for our collection of units and align toward the new leadership structure of our campus.

Evolving toward the future

When Chancellor Schwartz announced organizational and reporting line shifts for some of the SRS units in January, our unit leaders felt it made sense to maintain the SRS identity as we transitioned to make clear that the collaborative team culture we had established would remain intact. We also agreed that to successfully move forward we must evolve and invest completely in the new structure. Retiring the SRS name is the next step in that evolution, and the Strategic Relations and Communications team will be coordinating with units to ensure websites and other digital assets are updated.

Regardless of our structure or which unit you work in, we are one CU Boulder. Our work and values do not change, and the chancellor, during his State of the Campus Address last week, reiterated the clear set of priorities toward which we must all focus our energy:

• Student success
• Sustainability and securing the future
• Opportunity through expanded access and inclusion (i.e., a mission to serve everyone)
• Excellence in all we do

These priorities will shape the way we carry out our mission of education and research and achieve the outcomes we seek.

In many ways, the objective of creating the SRS structure in the first place – to increase cohesion and cooperation among the administrative and operational units of the campus – has been achieved. We now have new challenges and opportunities in front of us, and we can build upon the collaborative spirit SRS helped cultivate as we write CU Boulder’s next chapter.

You’re invited

Amid transition and change, it is important that we celebrate another academic year full of achievement. All of you are invited to an end-of-year SRS staff appreciation event at The Connection at the University Memorial Center on Wednesday, May 14 from 3 to 5 p.m. Please add the date to your calendar and join us for bowling, ping pong, billiards, video games, snacks and connection with your colleagues.

A Buff OneCard is required for entry and we ask that supervisors work with their employees to allow a chance to attend the event while maintaining adequate department coverage.

Other news and notes from our units

• Sustainability summit: I encourage all of you, if you’re able, to check out the 32nd annual Campus Sustainability Summit being held today and tomorrow (April 22-23) at the UMC. The summit is highlighted by a 1 p.m. Wednesday panel discussion in which the chancellor hosts Jane Zelikova, executive director of CU Boulder’s new Sustainability Research Initiative, and Andrew Mayock, our vice chancellor for sustainability, in a discussion about their shared visions and the path forward for campus sustainability and climate action.
• New police chief: Our Division of Public Safety last week named Ashley Griffin as our new campus police chief. Chief Griffin, who joins us from the University of Texas, will begin at CU Boulder on July 1.
• Sexual assault survey results: OIEC last week released results of the 2024 Sexual Assault and Related Harms Survey, which was sent to all students last fall. This is a major undertaking conducted every few years to help us shape and strengthen our campus prevention efforts.

Thank you for all you do for this university and for the impact you make!

Sincerely,

Jennifer McDuffie
Interim senior vice chancellor for operations