Common student-centered approach to teaching, learning update: May 2022 issue
Editor’s note: This is part of a series of campus updates on CU Boulder’s efforts to build a common student-centered approach to teaching and learning. This series will continue throughout the academic year.
Buff Undergraduate Success team marks first year with successes, focuses on continued projects
The Buff Undergraduate Success Leadership Implementation Team (BUS-LIT), whose charge is to identify, unify and prioritize programs across campus that contribute to student success, wrapped up this semester with its sponsorship of several notable achievements. BUS-LIT is led by Senior Vice Provost for Academic Planning & Assessment Katherine Eggert, Senior Associate Vice Chancellor and Chief Communications Officer Jon Leslie, Senior Associate Vice Chancellor and Chief Information Officer Marin Stanek, and Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Joe Thomas.
“The entire campus has made considerable headway on reaching BUS-LIT’s goals for fall 2022,” said Eggert. “A lot of what we’re doing right now is ‘under the hood’ work that won’t be obvious to students, faculty and staff but will smooth student transitions and improve students’ academic and community experience in the upcoming year.”
BUS-LIT’s achievements include facilitating a partnership with the schools and colleges and with the Boulder Faculty Assembly to revise academic policies and procedures to provide clarity to students and improve student success. The grade replacement policy has been revised to automate grade replacement rather than requiring students to “opt in,” and terminology for academic standing and deadlines and processes for intra-university transfer (IUT) will be uniform across all the schools and colleges starting in the fall semester.
BUS-LIT achievements also include supporting the creation of additional applied mathematics, economics and engineering course sections to meet the needs of Program in Exploratory Studies students in 2022–23; supporting the Center for Teaching & Learning’s Large Course Initiative; and extending the New Student Welcome communications and engagement model for incoming students through the entire first-year experience for the fall 2022 incoming class. In addition, the campus has proposed University of Colorado policy create a “satisfactory/unsatisfactory” grading basis, replacing “pass/fail,” for certain courses that cannot be taken for a letter grade.
During the spring semester, BUS-LIT also sponsored the development and official adoption of Buff Info as the centralized point of contact for campus information, service needs and resources.
During the summer, BUS-LIT’s priorities include clearing the backlog of courses submitted by prospective transfer students for analysis for potential transfer credit and creating a new basic needs department in Student Affairs, unifying currently scattered efforts and resources for students who are facing challenges such as food insecurity and housing insecurity.
BUS-LIT is analyzing, prioritizing and activating project teams for a number of other proposed solutions submitted by BUS-LIT’s working groups for removing barriers to student success at CU Boulder and looks forward to updating the campus in the fall about those projects.