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Good afternoon. The ideas on your website inspired me to share my thoughts on CU’s future.

My interests and research lie in learning assessment and program evaluation.

How frequently does CU use innovative technologies and external research to assess the learning that we claim our students have acquired? Is every faculty member confident they understand their students’ learning and the grades they’ve assigned accurately?

Regarding programs, including Academic Futures, is a reliable set of evaluation ideas being used to ascertain program effectiveness? Is a third party evaluator assessing CU program strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities?

These are a few of my thoughts and questions as I learn about Academic Futures. I have been an Instructor on the Boulder campus since 2002 in the Program for Writing and Rhetoric and would be honored to discuss learning assessment and program evaluation whenever you like.

Thank you for your efforts to improve an already great university!

Rosalyn H. Zigmond, Ph.D
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Here is my feedback to the Academic Futures question about importance and evaluation of teaching.

The idea to increase the importance of teaching in faculty evaluations is a timely and important one.
The landmark study, “Talking About Leaving” by Seymour and Hewitt that examines why
so many college students (50% or more) leave science majors shows that poor teaching is a top reason.
And retention is a top CU issue. Better teaching can have a significant positive impact.

The idea that “good teaching is impossible to measure” is a red herring and false.
FCQs show no correlation to student learning, they have a place but are not a good way to evaluate
teaching. A much better idea is having experienced teachers sit in on one or two classes taught by a faculty
member. This is extremely revealing and shows who is doing a good job engaging
and inspiring students. There should be several faculty committees designed to evaluate teaching
and give reports to departments for promotion and tenure. They should spend perhaps
two hours per faculty member visiting classes and another hour writing the report.
Would 3 hours per year per faculty member be too much for this important task?
Having a committee where most (though not all) members were outside the
department would add rigor and take responsibility away from people having to evaluate
their friends, the case when evaluation is entirely internal, as it is now.

I was on a national committee convened at Syracuse University 25 years ago to deal with
the need to evaluate university teaching and make it important in P & T.
The problem hasn’t changed in 25 years. Action here at CU could make a difference.

As a publically supported institution I find it remarkable how little the teaching
of Colorado students matters. If all those parents truly realized this there would
be calls for change. Let’s get ahead of the curve and do it ourselves.

Doug Duncan
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Hi,

I think the idea of shared stories and “lore” is so important to the student experience and feeling included, welcomed and part of something larger. I didn’t learn about that until I went on the employee welcome experience with Campus HR.

Sincerely,
Genna
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Expand and more broadly advertise the Chancellor's postdoctoral program,
including the aspect that values inclusive excellence, but at the same
time remove what appears to be language describing the program as
requiring department chairs to commit to hiring those individuals as
tenure-track faculty after the postdoc experience is over. That apparent
requirement, whether really what is intended or not, is prohibitive to
having a broad applicant pool.
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One idea just came to mind about state funding for public universities and colleges. It's not specific on its details or currently implementable--it's just an idea.

I think we need to tie state funding for universities and colleges with state funding for K-12 education. We need to make the case that in the 21st century we should be thinking K-16 education. Specifically, if I could wave a magic wand I would positively correlate K-12 funding with university funding. The more students and funding there is for K-12, the more university funding there will be. Basically, for every $1 of K-12 funding there would be X cents allocated for universities and colleges.

Instead of having a chuck of state money go toward education and then divvied up between K-12 and universities (I would add community college funding to the university part), funding for universities and colleges would be set at some ratio based on the number of K-12 students and funding.

The argument is that university and college education is every bit the public good that K-12 education is. Very few people would argue that kindergartners should pay tuition because they education is a private good. We extend that argument to be: we are investing in kindergartners to succeed all the way through elementary school, middle school, high school, and colleges and universities.

--
Eric Vance, Ph.D.
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Hi,
How do we go from our many pockets of online and distance education excellence to a more cohesive model that will help us scale to meet the rapidly evolving needs of students?
I teach an intro to computer use class for staff on campus, primarily our custodial staff. I see an underserved need for adult students who’d like to take classes and use tuition benefit, but do not have consistent or secure access to computer practice. I think having more computer labs, with access for adult learners and staff would help us be more cohesive. Much of the time, lab use is blocked off for just undergrads. This is a campus focused on undergrads and not the diversity of learners.
I also have students volunteer in my classes to give an opportunity for hands-on teaching experience and learning what it’s like to oversee a program. I like combining the technology practice with live human connection and opportunities for undergrads.
How can our leadership help to unify our academic thinking, our financial models and our operational approaches to technology, online and distance learning?
I believe technology has become a need and a right in our society. It’s a vital job skill. If we can think of it through that lens, I believe we can provide adult learners and part-time adult students better access and on-the-job training.
How do we transform to a continuum of services, technologies and partnerships that will support increased enrollments, positive academic outcomes and a stronger institutional reputation?
I believe robust technology training classes for adults can attract the population of potential students who avoid going back to school because of lack of computer skills.
I find the MyCUinfo portal and CU sites kind of clunky and repetitive, and not simple to navigate. A lot of the time I google something I want to find in the CU site, versus looking through the CU site for it. I think people now are demanding super intuitive app-like technology.
How do we mainstream technology-driven teaching practices to the same level as current presence-based teaching to incentivize broader faculty participation in these transformative modalities?
In class I teach with humor and relating the tech skill we’re using to something personally relevant to a student. For example copying/pasting favorite singer photos to Word, to learn that skill. I think people like having fun with technology, using SnapChat to record that you attended an event for class. Learning a tech tool together – for example learning Adobe Premiere by editing a video together in a class.
I’m also a part-time student at CU and I notice we depend so much on technology to do the teaching. So little classtime, a lot of homework online, videos, online tools for submitting projects. I think we assume technology can teach us, but the human connection and teaching each other is what cements information in our brains. If technology alone could teach us, we’d all be learning physics and medicine and car repair on YouTube and Google. But we don’t – most of us watch funny videos on YouTube and shop and get directions with Google. Technology has all the answers and yet technology alone can’t be the instructor.
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Good Afternoon,

I applaud your work!

I am a Contracting Officer in the Office of Contracts and Grants and I regularly see, through our various research funding sponsors the desire by the Sponsor to keep the research from being published. Even our federal agencies! Restrictions on publication is considered restricted research and there may be many reasons for the restriction, but often it is due to ignorance on our Sponsor’s part of what it means to work with a University. They don’t seem to understand our mission and why we are difficult when we perform the kind of work that industry also performs (such over at LASP).

To prioritize a public-spirited research and teaching mission for our University would mean beefing up our Sponsor education efforts, early on at proposal stage even. IT would also mean expanding our restricted research committee to include more faculty members who value and strongly protect the University’s mission. They must be willing to say “no” to sponsor funding if it is for frivolous restrictions.

I hope my inputs provide for some thought and consideration. I feel like I’m often on the front lines having to fight on behalf of all CU researchers at the expense of one that has a real opportunity to receive funding…but with lots of strings attached…I see my job as removing the strings so that the researchers have as much freedom and options with their research as possible. Negotiation is not a dirty word. It’s a mission-saver!

Thanks,

Melissa Clymer
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To whom it may concern,
I just got an email about this initiative of yours and your request for feedback, so here is my feedback:

What if we reimagined the role of staff, promoting a culture and mindset of interdisciplinary engagement and partnership, and providing opportunities for staff to collaborate in interdisciplinary planning and problem solving?
Most research has to become highly interdisciplinary in order to tackle different science an engineering problems and this is something that researchers tend to do out of necessity. Providing opportunities for staff participation and problem solving would be great as long they have the qualifications, experience or expertise needed.

What if we could meet the most basic needs of staff, including childcare and eldercare options? How would this impact our ability to recruit and retain a diverse workforce and ensure a climate of inclusivity and gender equity?
Yes, childcare and eldercare is a big, big concern for many. Offering help with this would really make CU a much more attractive workplace given the importance that family has in our lives. However, I would rather remove equity and replace it with equality, even better, I would simply make this available to anyone regardless of gender, race, religion... Equity and equality are different things, as far as I understand, equity is equality of outcome and equality refers to equality of opportunities which I think is much more beneficial.

What if staff at all levels had flexible career paths and support for their professional growth? How would this impact our employee retention in a hyper-competitive job market, and how could it help us to cultivate CU Boulder leaders—with unmatched institutional knowledge—from within our own ranks?
This this would be beneficial as long as there are clear career paths and this growth is transferable to other institutions.

What if we had a work culture built on the bedrocks of inclusivity and innovation? How would we measure the success of such an engaged and empowered staff?
Wouldn't it be better to have a work culture built on merit, truth and progress? Inclusion and diversity should naturally result from recruiting and keeping the best people for the job at hand and not by trying to include at least one member of every possible community or minority. Discriminating in favor of one person due to their minority status (or some other innate characteristic) means a discrimination against someone else for one of those innate characteristics.


How do we recruit diverse faculty and then support and encourage them to contribute to a diverse learning environment? What kind of programs do we need to develop or modify to help in this process?In general, make these opportunities known as far and wide as possible so that a diverse audience is aware of their existence. Then remove, or help facilitate the sorting of obstacles (visas, relocation, language, childcare, eldercare...) so that all applicants start with an equal footing. Diversity will emerge naturally.

What can we do to guarantee that every member of the faculty feels as part of the same community, all working toward a shared vision and goals?Offer the same benefits to every faculty member. I am a Senior Research Associate and I have never felt as a faculty member; at times I am treated (and called) as a postdoc as if my position were not permanent.

What if we reimagine how faculty are evaluated? This includes developing a framework to better define what excellence in teaching means. Also, does it make sense for us to continue looking at research and teaching as two independent evaluation criteria? How do we best evaluate faculty who are doing multidisciplinary work?
How do we better engage research faculty and integrate them into the overall mission of the university?
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Hello,

Some feedback as requested:
What if we reimagined the role of staff, promoting a culture and mindset of interdisciplinary engagement and partnership, and providing opportunities for staff to collaborate in interdisciplinary planning and problem solving?
This is much needed! I have never seen a system as siloed as the university. The left hand isn’t talking to the right hand, no one wants to take accountability for anything, the bucks get passed downstream ad infinitum, and this is just within CU Boulder! I have been in my position for 4 years now and I have absolutely no idea who my contemporaries/counterparts are in other departments within the university, much less with our contemporaries in the same departments on our other campuses. We hear about the great work on the Anschutz, Denver, and Colorado Springs campuses through lunch-and-learns that our contractors provide us from time to time, but we have no idea who our contemporaries are in those departments. We don’t talk, much less collaborate, which is a huge loss for everyone in terms of process improvements, sharing of best practices, and potential career path options.
What if we could meet the most basic needs of staff, including childcare and eldercare options? How would this impact our ability to recruit and retain a diverse workforce and ensure a climate of inclusivity and gender equity?
This would be a game-changer. It would be an exceptional recruitment tool (for people with kids) and exceptional retention tool (for older employees with aging parents). I don’t have kids but I am very concerned how to care for my aging mother. If I had help and support on that front, it would be invaluable. We don’t work at the university for the pay; we work here for culture of learning and access to learning which the university environment provides. Quality of life matters more to us than how much money we are making. CU is renowned for its benefits, not its pay, and providing assistance with childcare and eldercare would be a huge feather in the university’s cap—right along with the tuition benefit (which needs substantial improvement as it is very difficult for most staff to access presently).
What if staff at all levels had flexible career paths and support for their professional growth? How would this impact our employee retention in a hyper-competitive job market, and how could it help us to cultivate CU Boulder leaders—with unmatched institutional knowledge—from within our own ranks?
Flexible career paths is key. I love what I do and I’m good at it, but I’m in a dead-end job in terms of career progression within my department. I’ve been here 4 years now and have not been offered any professional development—we never have funding for it. That said, I would love to see increased access to our tuition benefit AS professional development, especially for Continuing Ed classes. Continuing Ed courses are presently not covered under our tuition benefit, which is totally stupid since those classes tend to be best suited to working professionals both in terms of condensed content as timing (evenings).
I would love to know if I could do something similar in another department, or even at one of our other campuses

Thanks for the work you are doing and questions you are asking very important!
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Hi AF -

So I do like the range of general ideas you've proposed for Staff Success, but no where in there does it address the issues of pay, or of providing a solid platform for the staff to do their work. As you well know, the last year has seen the implementation of new systems that quite honestly, were failures. Add to that the loss of staff because of the frustrations those systems created, in large part because they aren't paid enough to make the work they are doing feel supported, and you have a very challenging staff environment.

I know that when I seek answers, or attempt interdisciplinary work, I run into numerous roadblocks. These generally don't have to do with a lack of desire, but more so they are caused by a lack of time, and a general feeling of 'overwhelm' many of the staff feel. Yes, child and elder care would be great, as would more professional development, but if CU can't provide pay enough for people to be able to eek out a living in Boulder, and if they can't provide enough staffing to ensure that or operations run more smoothly so we can better serve the students, and the faculty, we'll continue to be in the same boat.

So good ideas, but pair them to a commitment by the university to significantly increase staff salaries, and staffing itself.

Thanks!

Kurt
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Here is some feedback to the questions you posed regarding Staff Success. Thanks for the opportunity to contribute!

Jennifer Schufer

1. What if we could meet the most basic needs of staff, including childcare and eldercare options? How would this impact our ability to recruit and retain a diverse workforce and ensure a climate of inclusivity and gender equity?
o To recruit and retain a diverse workforce we need to reimagine what benefits look like and what is important to the audiences we want to recruit and retain. What is important to a traditional family, a single parent family, a single person, a millennial or a GenXer? One’s paycheck, retirement options and health benefits are the expectations, but if we want people to seek us out and then stay, we need to provide them with something unique; especially with the increase in housing costs. I believe that employers who go out of their way to help people balance their personal lives with their work lives will come out on top in the long run. Studying the waves of people who are starting their own businesses would give glimpses into why they are opting to go out on their own and could provide insight into what benefits could be offered. From my vantage point as a supervisor, I find that people are very invested in the work they do, love their team and are committed to CU Boulder. But, many times, they feel guilty about asking for vacation time, flexibility or help in balancing their personal lives or family responsibilities with their work responsibilities. For people with families who do not have family members to support them, balancing family responsibilities becomes even more complicated and leads to less sleep, more guilt and more stress which affects work performance. If we could institutionalize a culture of flexibility and a feeling that staff are not breaking the rules or asking for favors to have the balance they need (whether it is taking a child to school or getting daily exercise) I think we could decrease the employee’s level of stress and increase their performance and loyalty to CU Boulder. Perhaps these are some ideas we could consider:
§ offering flexible work hours that:
§ match school schedules for children which would save families from paying high costs for pre- and post-school day care (many times people only need a 30 or 45 minute adjustment and having it would save $30 per day or $440 per month)
§ line up with bus routes from communities more than 20 miles away
§ create job classes that include work that can be done entirely from a remote location
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In regards to Staff Success,
I want to start by saying no complaints about my job I love what I do. I know Orrie Gartner and he is awesome so I’m sure his ideas are great however things that could keep me working here longer are:

A pay raise other than the cost of living. I’m at the top of my level and get outstanding reviews however when I ask for a raise I’m told I have to go exempt. A little more appreciation would be great.

Years ago the University looked into changing sick time into flexible days off that could be used for vacation. I’m healthy so sick time is a limited benefit for me.

When I started we were a much smaller group and had free BBQ, birthday cake once a month, etc. and it felt more like a team. Now that we are bigger it feels like a factory. Now we can’t even bring our wife to the holiday party. I value family and I love working but I’d rather be with my wife than at a holiday party with co-workers, not to sound like a non-team member but if I’m bowling or skating I’d rather it be with my wife.

Training is always good and sometimes hard to attend when it is on main campus. First aid (an AED would be good for our building), the finance classes are good, etc.

As for partnerships, I feel we could defiantly do better working with Facilities management. Sometimes I feel that big projects are only about the money and not doing things correctly.
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I’d like to thank you for all the work this committee is doing to explore new ideas and address issues at CU Boulder. What an incredible opportunity to be able to offer ideas to make our community even better. Many thanks!

This particular piece of feedback is difficult to give. However, it seems the type of issue the university would ultimately care to address. As someone who works with graduate students regularly, the opportunity to hear directly from them about their experience is a common thing. My colleagues (from various corners of the university related to graduate students) and I have noticed over time that it is not unusual to hear accounts from students about faculty advisors inappropriately managing their graduate student advisees. Many advisors are very supportive and helpful. Many are fulfilling the mentoring expectations inherent in their positions. I would also like to recognize that earning a graduate degree is inherently a challenging and rigorous process, as it should be. These are not the cases I am addressing. This feedback is meant to address situations where department cultures are harmful and power dynamics are leveraged in unhealthy ways. When this is the case, there are considerable and unnecessary hardships placed on our students.

There are students on this campus who say they are expected to work many times over their contracted (and reported) weekly work hours to prove their dedication to their field. There are graduate students experiencing mental health concerns they attribute directly to the treatment they receive from their advisors and departments. There are grad students who report waiting up to 6 months for a meeting with their advisor to get feedback on their dissertation. Still others claim that dissertation defense dates are drastically delayed by advisors to force students to continue in research efforts far beyond the time they could have finished their degree. These situations are shared privately and few students feel safe to address these situations openly, fearing retaliation from those supervising them and recognizing the years of work and financial sacrifice that hang in the balance. Therefore, I cannot guarantee these claims could even be substantiated. I simply offer these situations as examples of how the ultimate authority of one person over the academic and professional success of graduate students can be detrimental to their success and harmful to their mental health.

As Academic Futures is an effort to identify and address systemic issues effecting the culture and effectiveness of our institution, I ask you to reconsider the structure that, in practice, gives authority to one person over the professional future of those they supervise. It would be a bold move, challenging a decades-long dynamic between tenured faculty and the students who work for them, but it is an important shift to make. I propose five ideas to provide some checks and balances to the management of graduate students and help ameliorate the reported situation.

1. Provide graduate student-specific common space and interdepartmental social programming to encourage relationships and build community, providing support systems and perspectives outside a graduate student's department of study.

2. Build an ABD to PhD program independent of any department that allows PhD students who are academically eligible to finish their degree to do so separate from their original department

3. Provide required professional development for faculty and graduate students on best practices for supervision and mentorship as well as a thorough orientation to the rights and responsibilities of faculty advisors and graduate students

4. Request and review annual 360 degree evaluations of every CU Boulder employee who has supervisory responsibilities (staff included as I would fall into this category and don’t want to suggest something for others that I am not willing to do) paired with professional development related to any distinct weaknesses identified as well as investigation into egregious cases

5. When PhD students master out or any graduate student (PhD or masters) leaves their program without a degree, track which departments they are coming from. If patterns arise where certain departments are losing a number of grad students, investigate and respond accordingly to any identified departmental issues.

Reasons for graduate student attrition or mental health problems are vast and many have nothing to do with negative advising situations. For the attrition or mental health concerns that do, however, CU has many options to systemically address these issues in smart, effective ways.

Thank you for your consideration.

Respectfully,
Alaina Nickerson
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