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As part of the sixth annual Live Free Weekend , the CU-Â鶹ӰԺ community is being encouraged to take a pledge to forego all alcohol use for 96 hours from Sept. 25-29. The weekend challenge includes numerous free and fun events. Click through to learn more.

A NASA mission to Mars led by the Â鶹ӰԺ is set to slide into orbit around the red planet Sept. 21 to investigate how its climate has changed over the eons, completing a 10-month interplanetary journey of 442 million miles. The orbit-insertion maneuver will begin with six thruster engines firing to shed some of the velocity from the spacecraft, known as the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN, or MAVEN mission. The thruster engines will ignite and burn for 33 minutes to slow the spacecraft, allowing it to be captured into an elliptical orbit around Mars.

Commencement is an important event in the lives of our students and their families. It is the culmination of their academic careers to date and marks their transition in the next phase of life. We would like to encourage the university community to support commencement and participate in the ceremony. To that end we would like to announce that all staff volunteering as commencement marshals for the Saturday, Dec. 20 ceremony, will receive four hours of administrative leave, to be taken in consultation with their department and supervisor.

Please join us for a celebration of our outstanding faculty. On Friday, Sept. 19 beginning at 1:30 p.m., CU-Â鶹ӰԺ will host its ninth annual Fall Convocation: A Celebration of Faculty Achievement . It will be held in conjunction with this year’s Family Weekend. Events include speakers throughout the morning and an awards ceremony followed by a reception.

Thousands of CU-Â鶹ӰԺ family members will begin arriving on campus Thursday afternoon and Friday morning for Family Weekend 2014, where they will visit their student’s campus home, attend classes and presentations, tour the campus and Â鶹ӰԺ and cheer on the Colorado Buffaloes as they take on the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors.

Be Colorado has partnered with leading kids’ fitness and nutrition organizations to create a program that makes developing healthy habits fun. Brussels + Muscles is a program for CU Health Plan participants and their kids ages 5-11, regardless of whether their kids are claimed as Plan dependents. This revolutionary new fitness and nutrition program uses gaming, tracking and rewards to make sure that kids are getting less screen time and more sunshine!

Most homeowners are willing to take part in cost-sharing that helps pay for wildfire risk mitigation on their properties, but some of those with the highest wildfire risk are the least likely to participate in those programs, according to a collaborative study by the Â鶹ӰԺ and partnering institutions.

The CU-Â鶹ӰԺ Police Department is offering students a chance to win one of 10 free bike U-locks. Click through to learn more.

Valerie Simons, Director of Institutional Equity and Compliance and Title IX coordinator at CU-Â鶹ӰԺ, discusses how she is helping CU-Â鶹ӰԺ expand its efforts to reduce sexual discrimination and harassment and more effectively respond to it when it occurs.

In recognition of national Constitution Day, nearly 100 students, faculty and alumni of the Â鶹ӰԺ Law School will teach a lesson on the First Amendment and online bullying in high school classrooms throughout Colorado Sept. 15-26.