More than 350 students, faculty and staff joined the 2015 Spring Town Hall on the CU-Boulder campus today. Whether attending in-person or watching via streamed video, the audience heard directly from the campus鈥� top leadership, including Chancellor Philip P. DiStefano, Senior Vice Chancellor and CFO Kelly Fox and Provost Russell Moore.
Moderators were CUSG executive Juedon Kebede and CU-Boulder Professor and Director of the Environmental Studies Program Sharon Collinge, who led the panel in a discussion on topics ranging from the campus culture and climate, to student success and future funding of the institution.
Following the discussion, leadership also answered questions from the audience and some which were emailed previously. The answers covered topics ranging from the faculty and staff tuition benefit, online education and investment in athletics facilities balanced with academic and student space.
When asked about student success and what it means to him, DiStefano said, "I want to see us graduate 80 percent of our students within six years by 2020, and I want them to leave with a degree and hopefully very little debt," for which he received a round of applause.
Moore identified a number of initiatives underway on campus to help our students succeed, including an updated approach to new student orientation.
鈥淲e鈥檙e taking a multi-faceted approach. We鈥檙e taking pages from the best practices from other universities, and we鈥檙e trying to implement them in a coordinated fashion across the campus,鈥� said Moore.
Moore said the new process will be more technology-assisted and high-touch so that we can make it easier for students to enroll and become engaged on campus.
Moore also pointed to a new, campuswide approach to academic advising and a faculty mentorship program as other exciting initiatives that the university is undertaking to support student success.
The panelists discussed the recent Board of Regents vote to raise resident tuition by 2.9 percent, as well as the broader topic of the university鈥檚 funding from the state, tuition and other forms of revenue. DiStefano expressed his gratitude to the state Legislature for the continued support, but emphasized that CU-Boulder must be serious about actively seeking alternative sources of revenue.
鈥淲e have other ways of increasing revenue besides state funding and tuition,鈥� DiStefano said, 鈥渓et鈥檚 be innovative and entrepreneurial and aggressive and continue to identify ways to increase revenue so that we can offset any of the loss of revenue from the state.鈥�
DiStefano said the campus has already been doing well on that front.
鈥淲e鈥檝e raised an additional $10 million this year through private fundraising, industry research, and other sources. We鈥檙e continuing to identify new ways to generate more revenue.鈥�
Fox addressed how the campus sets current fiscal priorities.
鈥淲e put together a strategic budget process a couple years ago, so that really has brought all the leadership together to help identify what the priorities for investing are. The first priorities for fiscal year 2016 include investing in faculty and staff salaries with a compensation pool of 3 percent. Other investments are around our enrollment initiatives and retention strategies, and we are addressing deferred maintenance to some our very aging facilities and we need to take a very strategic approach to how you start investing in these issues.鈥�
Moore explained that there are three primary considerations given to any financial decision: will it enhance our reputation as a great national research university, will it promote student success, and will it help us create alternate revenue sources.
DiStefano reminded the group that while athletic fundraising for new facility upgrades was exceeding $70 million, 鈥渨e have invested $850 to 860 million in the last five to 10 years in our academic and student space, and we don鈥檛 talk about that enough. We鈥檝e added 2 million square feet in the last eight years.鈥�
Moore also discussed the shifting of departments from main campus to the newer buildings on the East Campus.
鈥淒epartments are not moving out there in silos,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey are in these buildings and collaborating and acting in an interdisciplinary way.鈥�
The trio also discussed an interdisciplinary approach to student success, and new student welcome, as keys to increasing future graduation rates and the diversity on campus.
In closing, the Chancellor discussed the new panel discussion format, 鈥淥ne of the things that I wanted to accomplish with this format is for our faculty, staff and students to see how we work together as a team鈥� It鈥檚 really a team approach how we work together, how we improve the campus, get ideas from across the campus, and move our campus forward.鈥�
For those unable to attend the event, . Follow-up questions are always welcome at chancellor@colorado.edu, and the organizers would love to hear your feedback on the new panel format. If you sent a question and it was not answered at the Town Hall, please look for a personal response in the coming days.