Published: April 2, 2019

CU Boulder’s strategic initiatives continue to move ahead, integrate and come together. Read below for the monthly update, including information on Academic Futures, Financial Futures, the IDEA Plan, Foundations of Excellence and more.

Academic Futures

The Academic Futures-Financial Futures Online Strategy Working Group is developing a digital education roadmap that integrates recommendations from the Academic Futures and Financial Futures strategic initiatives. The Interdisciplinary Teaching, Research and Creative Working Group is exploring how the campus can effectively embrace interdisciplinarity in both education and scholarship.

The campus community is encouraged to attend one of the four remaining town halls of the semester for updates and progress and an opportunity to share your input and have your questions answered.

Financial Futures

Financial Futures continues to identify opportunities to increase CU Boulder’s financial resiliency and align our resources to our mission. Workstreams focused on research and portfolio review are launching. Faculty, staff and students interested in contributing ideas to these and other areas are encouraged to attend upcoming town halls on April 29 and May 2 and to submit ideas online.

Foundations of Excellence

After receiving extensive stakeholder feedback, the Foundations of Excellence Advising Committee submitted the final report and key recommendations to Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Mary Kraus. The report outlines recommended improvements to CU Boulder’s campuswide advising structure.

The First-Year Transition Committee submitted a draft report on expanding first-year academic experiences for undergraduate students to Provost Russ Moore. That report is on the website for campus input; the final report will be submitted to Provost Moore by May 7.

IDEA Plan

The spring Diversity and Inclusion Summit drew more than 150 people to two sessions that discussed the Inclusion, Diversity and Excellence in Academics (IDEA) Plan; more engagement opportunities related to the plan will be scheduled in April.

The revision committee delivered the final draft of the IDEA Plan to Vice Chancellor Robert Boswell on Friday, March 1. Boswell is expected to submit the IDEA Plan to the chancellor’s cabinet in early to mid-April.

Strategic Facilities Visioning, master planning projects

Strategic Facilities Visioning is halfway through the scenario planning phase, as interdisciplinary groups of visionaries continue to develop and test future facilities and infrastructure scenarios, with a forward-looking approach to the changing education and research landscape. Town halls on April 4 and April 10 offer in-person updates on the SFV process from the project leads.

Separately, the Housing Master Plan and Transportation Master Plan initiatives continue to engage the campus through upcoming surveys and in-person engagement opportunities.

Complementary campus- and unit-based initiatives, committees and projects

Academic re-organization

CU Boulder Provost Russell L. Moore announced on March 22 that he intends to form, by next week, three working groups of campus subject matter experts to examine the structural, budgetary and governance challenges of reorganizing the College of Arts and Sciences, per the recommendations of the Provost’s Committee on Academic Reorganization.

The working groups will deliver their analyses at the close of the 2019 calendar year and determine, in Moore’s words, “what it will take to move forward with a proposed new structure for the college.”

Accreditation

Since the accreditation process was announced, working groups made up of faculty, staff and graduate and undergraduate students have been meeting to discuss how CU Boulder fulfills the five criteria by which the university is accredited.

In late May, the steering committee will submit a report that will be made available to the campus community for feedback and suggestions through the end of August. The office of the Senior Vice Provost for Academic Planning and Assessment will facilitate input to the report throughout the summer, so look for future announcements on how this process will work.

Get involved

For a list of the initiatives and to pinpoint ways you can become engaged, via town halls and open forums or in other ways, visit the initiatives webpage.