Published: May 1, 2017

Paul Chinowsky

Associate Vice Provost for Student Success Paul Chinowsky

As many of you may know, on October 21, 2016, in response to the Academic Review and Planning Advisory Committee’s (ARPAC) recommendation, Provost Russ Moore created the Residential Academic Program (RAP) Task Force. This committee was tasked with making recommendations to the provost designed to improve, among other things, the first-year student experience, space utilization and budgetary matters.

As chair of the task force, I cannot thank enough the faculty, students and staff who have participated as members, and those who have provided us feedback throughout this process. Because RAPs impact so many people on campus, we want to provide additional opportunities to the community to give us feedback before our final set of recommendations are delivered to the provost.

I will be presenting the draft recommendations this week, followed by an open forum so I can hear directly from you about your thoughts regarding those recommendations. Those forums will be from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 2, and from 9 to 10:30 a.m. Friday, May 5. Both sessions will be held in the University Memorial Center (UMC) Aspen Rooms.

Please note your feedback is very important to this process and will be considered carefully in the final report and recommendations. I very much look forward to your participation in the forums. If you are unable to attend yet still have questions or suggestions, please feel free to email me at paul.chinowsky@colorado.edu.

 

Frequently Asked Questions:

No. There currently are no plans to close any additional RAPs. There are no recommendations currently in the report to close any additional RAPs. RAPs are, and will remain, part of our first-year student experience.

The provost will work with relevant stakeholders to analyze and, if necessary, modify the recommendations presented in the final report. Due to this collaboration and our academic calendar, it is very unlikely that any recommendation will be implemented during the 2017–18 academic year.

This is difficult to answer, given no recommendations have been finalized, but generally there will be various discussions regarding whether and how to implement the recommendations presented by the Committee. These discussions, as appropriate, will involve persons from the colleges, departments, RAPs, budget and finance, and other relevant offices.

RAPs are, and will remain, part of a menu of options available to our first-year students. Other options currently include Freshman Interest Groups (FIGS) and First-Year Seminars (FYS), both of which are in pilot phases.