Prioritizing faculty success: A look back and ahead with Provost Ann Stevens

As the fall 2025 semester comes to a close, CU Boulder continues to build momentum toward its long-term goals on fostering faculty success. From supporting structural faculty salary improvements to celebrating faculty excellence to leveraging faculty expertise in dealing with government transition to launching new visioning for online education, global education and public engagement, CU Boulder continues to move ahead to foster faculty success in research, scholarship, creative work, teaching and outreach/service.

Provost Ann Stevens sat down with us to reflect on what stood out this semester, why it matters and what’s ahead in 2026.

Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Ann Stevens

 

How has CU Boulder advanced in fostering faculty success this semester? 

In myriad ways. As I’ve visited all our colleges and schools this fall, I’ve seen thriving programs, as well as energized faculty who are asking smart questions about how we resource the academic mission, how we can continue to innovate within the mission and take the next important steps in interdisciplinarity, and how we do all of this while maintaining our commitments to diversity and inclusion and to academic freedom.

The Chancellor’s Task Force on Faculty Salaries’ recently released report is both the culmination of an effort across many faculty, the BFA and university leadership and is the starting point for an ongoing strategy to address faculty compensation challenges.  The report, with recommendations for compensation options and strategies and with an emphasis on improving the market competitiveness of faculty salaries, is a critical step to better rewarding and retaining our faculty. Overlapping and related to this effort, a group of Faculty Fellows, working under Interim Vice Chancellor for Academic Resource Management Fernando Rosario-Ortiz, are focused on advancing select recommendations from the Faculty Salary Procedures Working Group. 

I’ve also been pleased to be able to support OFA’s Faculty Fellows program, which was launched by Vice Chancellor for Faculty Affairs Michele Moses and serves as a model for the campus. Along with the dedicated OFA staff, the Faculty Fellows help make CU Boulder a better place for our faculty and academic leaders, as they spearhead three leadership programs, several community building efforts, and significant mentoring and development opportunities. OFA has also begun looking at expanded or improved training and orientation for new department chairs, a group whose success is perhaps more directly related to overall faculty success than any other leadership group on campus. 

Recognizing the challenging era of major changes in federal funding and the relationship between government and higher education, we’ve also had opportunities to address these challenges with faculty. We’ve turned to our own faculty and administrative leaders in our Faculty Federal Government and Higher Education Series, sponsored by our Office of Faculty Affairs, to help us better understand what’s happening to federal funding and priorities and how we can adjust and adapt to these realities. 

As we have met the challenges of federal funding, we have done so with a strong commitment to academic freedom and to work continuity. Working with the chancellor’s office and the CU system, we have carefully monitored grant cuts and updated the campus on events in Washington. At CU Boulder, we have supported the appeals of canceled grants and partnered with schools, colleges, the Research & Innovation Office and the chancellor’s office to allow important scholarly work to proceed even in the face of grant cancellations. I have addressed, in each of my “Conversations with the Provost” this semester, issues of how CU—from the Board of Regents and the president to the chancellor and my office—are standing together to protect academic freedom and the research, scholarship and creative work of our faculty. 

Finally, in these visits and in our Deans Council and chairs and directors meetings, we have provided access to legal resources to support equity work in our academic units, and provided guidance on protecting our scholars from outside harassment on our scholarship and safety page. 

Provost Ann Stevens speaking with colleagues in the School of Education during a Conversation with the Provost event.

What projects are you most excited about for the year ahead and why? 

I’m particularly excited about the online education visioning process, which has the potential to transform the experience of all students, faculty and staff. For faculty, this is an opportunity to make sure those who want to explore online courses, programs or approaches know where to turn and have resources and support to push their pedagogy further. 

We’ll also be implementing the Common Curriculum passed by the faculty and greenlighted by then-Provost Russell Moore in 2023. This work is being facilitated by a BFA working group, and we’re drafting a policy so that starting in fall 2026 we’ll have a campus curriculum committee that will oversee the Common Curriculum and facilitate its full launch in 2027. I’m eager for us to administer the Common Curriculum in a way that both preserves faculty control over curriculum and meets our critical accreditation needs for general education and learning assessment. This project will also intersect with important new steps we’ll be taking to re-envision and expand our residential learning communities for incoming students.

In the spring semester, I’ll be announcing a decision on the future leadership structure of our College of Arts and Sciences—helping to resolve uncertainty that has affected A&S and the campus for far too long—and I think, for the good of our mission, we’ve got to take a permanent and definitive step that provides the best structure to support our A&S students, faculty and staff. 

We’ll also be completing a national search and selecting a new dean of libraries, who will be a critical partner to faculty across our campus and will help energize and re-imagine what this center for scholarly work and campus resource can become in the decades to come. 

How can faculty, staff and students help achieve these goals?

First, stay engaged with your shared governance organizations: Boulder Faculty Assembly, Staff Council, CU Boulder Student Government, and the Graduate and Professional Student Government. 

Faculty and staff also should stay engaged at both unit and college levels. Direct questions to your department chairs and deans—I update these groups regularly on academic progress and challenges, and these leaders are accountable to you, as I am. You can always direct questions to my office at VCAA@colorado.edu. 

At the same time, stay informed. Read the CU Boulder Today faculty and staff edition three times every week and the Provost’s Post every month. In each publication, you’ll find key updates on policies, programs and processes that will help you succeed in your work and stories on the life of the campus and its many communities. Other helpful publications are college-based newsletters and campuswide publications such as the Research and Innovation Bulletin and Federal Updates that provide key information on the campus’s research mission and the offices that support it. 

Having just spent a semester engaging with many of you in our marvelous colleges and schools, I would encourage you to keep the faith. First, in yourselves—in your training, scholarship and life experiences. Next, keep the faith in your colleagues and students; then in our academic mission of serving as Colorado’s leading research and doctoral degree-granting institution; and finally, in your leaders, from your department chairs, directors and deans, to our team in Academic Affairs and the chancellor’s cabinet.