As we arrive at the end of another successful semester, I want to take a moment to reflect on the tremendous strides we are making as a campus and to thank all of you for your hard work.
Chancellor Philip DiStefano
CU Boulder is emerging as a leader among our peers in the Association of American Universities through the creation of a well-articulated vision and our key imperatives of lead, innovate and impact—built upon the values of our Colorado Creed and our commitment to make excellence truly inclusive on our campus. This vision is beginning to be realized through the strategic campus initiatives we are successfully moving forward.
Provost Russ Moore and Senior Vice Chancellor Kelly Fox have led our community in bringing Academic Futures through the first phase of identifying aspirational goals and are now beginning the next phase of determining how we will achieve those goals.
Supporting efforts such as Foundations of Excellence; the Inclusion, Diversity and Excellence in Academics (IDEA) Plan; Strategic Facilities Visioning and others are converging to build an environment of constant innovation that supports our imperatives.
Underpinning all of these efforts, our Financial Futures initiative is designed to align our resources with our mission to invest in the transformation of our campus experience in support of the priorities identified via Academic Futures.
Elsewhere in today’s edition of CU Boulder Today, you can get an update on our strategic initiatives and how to get involved. Moving forward, you can also track our progress and access the latest information via our newly launched strategic initiatives webpage.
As I mentioned at our State of the Campus earlier this fall, CU Boulder stands out nationally due to the incredible work we have done together to create a unique program to increase affordability for students and their families. This includes our four-year tuition guarantee, the elimination of course and program fees beginning this fall and automatic scholarships for high-achieving Colorado residents, transfer students and low-income students. And we have other things to celebrate as we close a very productive semester.
We announced an all-time record for sponsored research funding of $511.1 million for the last fiscal year.
Serene Singh, a journalism and political science senior, became CU Boulder’s first female Rhodes Scholar last month. She will pursue double master’s degrees at Oxford next fall.
Civil engineering student Nikki van den Heever was named a Rhodes Scholarship finalist. It’s a rarity to have two finalists from the same university in a single year, a credit to students we are recruiting from Colorado and the nation to be the leaders of tomorrow.
CU Boulder was ranked best in the world for geosciences in U.S. News & World Report’s 2019 Best Global Universities, as well as No. 43 globally overall. We achieved the top 10 U.S. News & World Report's rankings in atomic/molecular/optical physics, environmental law, physical chemistry and quantum physics. Additionally, our Leeds School of Business ranked 14th among public universities for the undergraduate entrepreneurship program, according to U.S. News & World Report, and our campus achieved No. 26 overall among U.S. universities in the 2018 Academic Ranking of World Universities released in August by the Shanghai Ranking Consultancy.
All of this work, and the many accomplishments of individual students, faculty and staff throughout the campus community, makes me proud of our campus, and I want to share my thanks to all of you for a great semester.
Happy holidays and Go Buffs!
Philip DiStefano
Chancellor
