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CU Boulder Provost Russ Moore and Senior Vice Chancellor Kelly Fox today announced a path forward to implement the campus’s Academic Futures lead priorities, as well as the first steps for further defining the initiative’s fourth priority.

To begin implementing the first priority—Creating a Common Student-Centered Approach to Learning—the two said the campus would take four basic actions:

• Form a Common Learning Experience Committee, composed of faculty and chaired by Vice Provost for Academic Planning & Assessment Katherine Eggert, to “examine the feasibility of developing a common learning experience and make recommendations regarding cross-unit/campus-level curricular issues.”
• Create a common campuswide approach to advising by incorporating the recommendations of the Foundations of Excellence Advising Committee, convened by Vice Provost Mary Kraus, in order to create a networked community that shares best practices to ensure our students are receiving timely and useful advising.
• Vice Provost Katherine Eggert has been asked to appoint a founding director of a campuswide Center for Teaching and Learning. The center will be a centralized resource that “develops and disseminates innovative, research-based teaching and learning practices and supports our campuswide community of practice in this arena.”
• Undertake a collective approach to shaping the first-year academic and co-curricular experience of all CU Boulder students by building upon the ongoing work of the Foundations of Excellence initiative, the First-Year Experience Transition Committee and the Transfer Success Committee.

The provost has asked Interim Arts and Sciences Dean Jim White to head a committee that will be tasked with creating a forward-thinking, dynamic vision for an interdisciplinary approach to research, teaching and creative work—one that is well-suited to serve the needs of tomorrow’s students and faculty in a rapidly evolving future.

Finally, to begin the first steps in further defining the Teaching and Technology, Online and Distance Learning priority, the provost has appointed Dean of Libraries Robert McDonald to form a committee to develop a CU Boulder strategy for online, distance and blended learning.

This strategy “will address our current undergraduate population needs and incorporate innovative approaches to the needs of unique populations beyond the campus’s boundaries,” Moore said.

Moore and Fox said the committees “will utilize many of the recommendations contained in the Academic Futures report, though not necessarily all of its recommended pathways.”

“In the coming months, we will provide regular updates on our progress toward implementing the Academic Futures priorities and share ways for the campus community to follow progress and provide input,” Fox said.

In addition, the two said announcements on phase one workstreams of the Financial Futures initiative that support the Academic Futures priorities and the campus’s other strategic initiatives would be announced next week.

In addition, next week we will announce phase one workstreams within our Financial Futures initiative that support our Academic Futures priorities and our other strategic initiatives. Co-leads Carla Ho-a, deputy CFO, and Ann Schmiesing, interim senior vice provost for Academic Resource Management, will be hosting an upcoming schedule of town halls. Additional information, including overview documentation and a form for questions and feedback, will be available on the Financial Futures website.