As the flagship university of the state of Colorado, the University of Colorado Boulder is a dynamic community of scholars and learners situated on one of the most spectacular college campuses in the country. As one of 34 U.S. public institutions belonging to the prestigious Association of American Universities (AAU) – and the only member in the Rocky Mountain region – we have a proud tradition of academic excellence, with five Nobel laureates and more than 50 members of prestigious academic academies. CU-Boulder has blossomed in size and quality since we opened our doors in 1877 – attracting superb faculty, staff and students and building strong programs in the sciences, engineering, business, law, arts, humanities, education, music and many other disciplines. Today, with our sights set on becoming the standard for the great comprehensive public research universities of the new century, we strive to serve the people of Colorado and to engage with the world through excellence in our teaching, research, creative work and service.
CU-Boulder prides itself on our academic successes and the educational achievements of our students. Student success is one of our three strategic priority areas of campus, along with research identity and academic programs of distinction. While we are engaged in campuses-wide efforts, the Center for STEM Learning (CSL) serves as a hub and catalyst promoting educational transformation and foundational support of underpinning research and professional development in critical areas of national need in science technology engineering and mathematics. The CSL serves as the administrative home of our BVA membership.
Through the Bay View Alliance, the University of Colorado Boulder seeks to engage in all three Research Action Clusters, as well as study and foster the development networks and build the educational capacities of all institutions of higher education. In, Research Action Cluster 1, we, housing the Science Education Initiative, and through partnerships with the UBC CWSEI, bring long-standing efforts to promote and sustain departmental use of evidence-based practices in undergraduate education. Research Action Cluster 2, with its focus on broad skills and practices, fits well with our institutional efforts in focusing on critical thinking and interdisciplinary success of students, largely driven through the Offices of the Associate Vice Chancellor for Undergraduate Education. The analytics efforts of RAC 3 complement our strong commitment to collecting evidence of educational impact on the student and course level. We anticipate collaborations through our offices of planning budget and analysis, and information technology, to promote the use of student analytics and outcomes for our academic pursuits. Finally, through recently started efforts in collaboration with: 1) the AAU we are promoting studying the nature of educational change at the departmental level, and 2) the APLU, we are fostering a national network of STEM education centers, to help promote and scale these institutional efforts.
CU-Boulder brings significant committed institutional structure to promote this effort, including:
- The Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education
- The Center for STEM Learning, with the CSL’s executive board (chancellor, provost, deans of arts & sciences, education, and engineering, and vice chancellor for strategic relations). And the ~75 programs involved in educational transformation ranging from the faculty teaching excellence program, to the graduate teacher program, the learning assistant program, integrative teaching and learning program, and more.
- Members of our AAU STEM education initiative project (which brings faculty from organizational change, education, engineering, and arts and sciences).
(Photo by Glenn Asakawa/University of Colorado)