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Town hall, British Studies Room, Norlin Library

Intro by Jeff Cox

• Intro on teaching and reaching visioning
• Laying out of fall work
• Role of Committee and Report

Q.  How many topics will Academic Futures take on?

            A. There may be 10, 20, 50 great ideas emerging – not all will get meetings, but all will be recorded.

Comment:  Very important questions are in the atmosphere, but often decision are made when people are not here (holidays, summer).  Please don’t do that. 

Q.  How are you getting students involved?

            A.  Student groups are engaged, departmental meetings, open town halls specifically for students.  Advisors are also involved – and they often have the solutions.

            Suggestion:  Students canvassing students can work.  Tabling at the UMC

Q.   Website sheet points to a discussion about the campus growth.  Is that going to be part of the conversation?

A. The nuts and bolts of ‘capping the size”, no.  A proposition that we want a campus committed to X, Y and Z (which necessitates slower growth), yes. Though it should be said that our growth is not as out-of-control as others. 

Comment:  How do you maintain a sense of community, if we keep growing?

Comment:  Also a question of are we controlling growth or is it happening to us.

Comment:  Recognition that student growth – increased faculty.  But we don’t have offices and lab space.

Comment:  Same is true for students.  Dorms, yes.  But the other places (libraries, gyms, teaching and lab space) are lagging.

Comment:  To educator the whole student.  We’ve got students sitting on the floor in Chem 140.   That’s not helping student learning.

Comment:  Transformative educational experiences.  It can take very different forms.  That doesn’t necessarily mean a reinvention of CU.  It doesn’t always happen in the classroom.  There are other platforms (examples):  1) Race and popular culture class, 2) Prison program, 3) media archeology, 4) Shakespeare co-labs, 5) global seminar, 6) RAPs.  How do we create an environment that all faculty can do this?  Not always interdisciplinary.  But all approaches in general are small group experiences.  Students come away with horizons completely broadened.  Smaller, intense educational experiences.

            Response:  This process is also about highlighting excellent models.  Today, we’re good.  But think 10-, 20-years out.  What are our obstacles to keeping on doing this work. 

Comment:  Socially, we are in a context where liberal arts education isn’t valued anymore  (At a liberal arts college I attended), we often discussed what we were there for, but we don’t have those conversations here.  Critical thinking, discoveries, sometimes difficult.  Would be nice to provide some scaffolding outside the classroom.  Some we facilitated and some self-generated.

Comment on the Imperatives:  What does it mean to be a top Innovation University? Innovation thinking and process?

Comment:  At smaller schools, easier to explore.  Today, our students come in to get jobs.  How can we provide opportunities for discovery along the way?

Comment:  We need to reinvent the process of inviting faculty to come to CU as a line-faculty in teaching.  At Iowa State University, we have a model.  There, faculty can choose to work towards tenure in teaching (while continuing their research).  A contract is made between faculty member and leadership.  At tenure, the faculty member is evaluated primarily on teaching.  At that point, faculty can ask for contract to be reopened and redesigned with a new position description that may now emphasize research.  So the focus can shift. 

Comment:  There is a growing body of research on Truth and Reconciliation, borne out of the genocidal conflicts in Africa.  The goal is to make the massacre known to all people throughout the nation and then work towards conflict resolution.  Brown University started a Truth and reconciliation process on campus to enhance campus communication, particularly with regards to transparency.

To find out more about how to get involved, visit the Academic Futures website at