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The confidence of Colorado business leaders has continued its strong upward trend, surging into the third quarter of 2013, according to the most recent Leeds Business Confidence Index, or LBCI, released today by the °µÍø½ûÇø’s Leeds School of Business.

Waleed Abdalati has been named the new director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, or CIRES, a joint institute of the °µÍø½ûÇø and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Abdalati is a CIRES Fellow, a CU-Boulder professor of geography and director of the CIRES Earth Science and Observation Center. He will take office on July 1.

Let’s all fist bump: Spiral galaxies like our own Milky Way appear to be much larger and more massive than previously believed, according to a new °µÍø½ûÇø study by researchers using the Hubble Space Telescope.

The °µÍø½ûÇø has become a full institutional member of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-IV, an ambitious effort by some of the world’s top astronomers to map the celestial sky in three dimensions to learn more about the structure and evolution of the universe.

The °µÍø½ûÇø has been chosen by the Association of American Universities to be one of eight campuses participating in a new initiative to improve undergraduate education in science, technology, engineering and math. Over the next three years, each of the eight project sites will receive $500,000 to undertake an innovative STEM education project.

Two °µÍø½ûÇø faculty members have received prestigious CAREER Awards from the National Science Foundation. NSF Faculty Early Career Development, or CAREER, Awards recognize talented young faculty members with grants to support outstanding research projects and to encourage the integration of teaching and research.

The U.S. Supreme Court today announced its decision in Fisher v. University of Texas, a case that reconsidered affirmative action in university admissions. The following °µÍø½ûÇø professors are available to comment on the court’s decision:

A Colorado student space research consortium led by the °µÍø½ûÇø teamed up with a Virginia space consortium led by the University of Virginia this week to help aspiring rocket scientists from around the country learn how to design, build and fly payloads.

The Department of Human Resources and the Lockheed Martin Engineering Management Program are excited to announce the launch of an exclusive Leadership and Management Graduate Certificate Program . Designed with CU-Boulder employees in mind, the program will help our current and future leaders develop and refine their leadership skills and learn new ways to measure and enhance organizational effectiveness with practical application. Course content is applicable to all professions and does not require a technical or engineering background. Our employees will be able to use the tuition reimbursement benefit to cover tuition, and employees selected to participate in this exclusive program will be allowed to attend classes during work time and the employee’s department will pay for the costs of any fees and books.

The amount of dust being blown across the landscape has increased over the last 17 years in large swaths of the West, according to a new study led by the °µÍø½ûÇø. The escalation in dust emissions — which may be due to the interplay of several factors, including increased windstorm frequency, drought cycles and changing land-use patterns — has implications both for the areas where the dust is first picked up by the winds and for the places where the dust is put back down.