In January, the Buff Undergraduate Success (BUS) team  from Provost Russell Moore and Chief Operating Officer Patrick O’Rourke that retains the initiative’s purpose to increase retention and graduation rates, improve undergraduate students’ academic and social experiences, and support enrollment management strategy and curricular planning. The charge remains effective until June 30, 2025.

What’s new?

The updated charge focuses on underrepresented students and limits the current number of projects. It stresses BUS’s engagement in a cross-functional and cross-campus collaboration that results in improvements for all undergraduate students and particularly for underrepresented students from historically marginalized groups from their first day until graduation.

The updated charge also limits the number of BUS projects to six per semester and directs the BUS members to align its work with the provost’s and COO’s priority projects referenced in the transformation and financial resilience initiative.

What are 2 major accomplishments for BUS?

The BUS initiative has improved both retention and graduation rates.

Retention rates at all-time highs

The BUS team collaborated with the schools and colleges, undergraduate education, student affairs and student initiatives to achieve CU �鶹ӰԺ’s first-fall-to-second-fall retention rate for first-year, first-time students in the entering cohort of fall 2022: a record high of 89.1%. The fall-to-spring retention rate also hit an all-time high of 96.4% for the entering cohort of fall 2023.

Graduation rates show improvement

The combined efforts of BUS and its many campus partners have helped to improve CU �鶹ӰԺ’s six-year graduation rates. Entering first-year cohorts from 2005 to 2014 had a six-year graduation rate, on average, of 70%. In contrast, the entering first-year cohort of fall 2017 had a six-year graduation rate of 74.9%, also an all-time high.

What are the 6 projects identified for spring and summer?

• Design a vision for wraparound student support that starts with first-year students and pays special attention to first-generation students, racially and ethnically minoritized students, students with high financial need, and students with disabilities
• Formulate recommendations to improve math instruction and academic support
• Undertake next steps in acquiring a new degree audit system
• Align process for emergency funding distribution
• Amplify CU �鶹ӰԺ student traditions, including benchmarking and identifying gaps in the student experience
• Refine and sustain re-enrollment campaigns (repeating model for each semester)

Do you have questions or project ideas that support student success?

The BUS team looks forward to engaging with the campus community. with your questions and suggestions, and visit the BUS website for more information.

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For more than two years, the BUS Leadership Implementation Team has been focused on increasing undergraduate retention and graduation rates. The success of this work is reflected in the fall 2023 census data, showing improvements in multiple areas:

• Second-fall retention, which measures undergraduate students retained from their first fall semester to their second, hit 89.1% in 2023. The previous record was 87.8% set in 2021.
• Third-fall retention peaked at 81.7%. The previous record was 81.3% set by the fall 2017 and 2020 cohorts.
• The six-year graduation rate for the fall 2017 cohort is 74.9%, surpassing 74.7% achieved by the fall 2016 cohort.

Do you have ideas for student success projects? Complete the feedback form or email buslit@colorado.edu.

At the same time, however, retention among first-generation and historically marginalized and underrepresented student populations does not uniformly show the same improvements.

First-generation students closed the retention rate gap by 5 percentage points between the fall 2021 and 2022 cohorts. While higher across a number of demographics—for example, Asian Americans are 1 percentage point and women are 0.4 percentage points higher than the university’s average second-fall retention rate of 89%—and among the highest for all Colorado institutions of higher education, retention for these groups continues to lag the overall rate of retention.

To continue this strong momentum in increasing retention rates and enhancing student success, and to step up efforts to close gaps in student success for first-generation and historically marginalized and underrepresented student populations, the BUS team is aligning its work this academic year with Provost Russell Moore’s priorities:

• Strategic enrollment management alignment
• First-year residential academic experiences 
• Technology and communications projects

The BUS team is also focusing on these 12 projects, which are in various stages of activity and completion for fall 2023.

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The Buff Undergraduate Success (BUS) initiative made important progress this academic year on 11 projects focused on increasing retention and creating a sense of belonging for CU �鶹ӰԺ undergraduate students.

Ongoing commitments for fall 2023

1. Begin implementation of the common curriculum.

2. Implement a common framework for undergraduate advising across the campus.

3. Implement a plan to reduce tuition and fees for lower-income students.

4. Expand the transfer credit evaluation efficiency pilot to more departments.

5. Create a campus network for call center staff.

6. Create guidelines and training for using the new first-year student success dashboard.

7. Align and unify support of key campus traditions for all students and affinity-based communities.

8. Create a proposal for improving tutoring across campus.

9. Improve the predicted GPA model for allocating merit scholarships and create consistent scholarship renewal criteria.

10. Refocus CU Lead Alliance programs to provide consistent service to targeted populations.

11. Create a faculty framework for Canvas grading enhancements and best practices.

12. Review campuswide degree audit rules, encoding and exception practices.

Nine of the BUS projects for academic year 2022-23 were accomplished in full: 

• A pilot in selected College of Arts and Sciences departments to speed up the evaluation of transfer credits.

• A pilot of a new advising experience for newly admitted Alternative College Option students.  

• A request for proposal for a new degree audit platform.

• A centralized, published directory of affinity spaces campuswide (select “inclusive resources”).

• A draft first-year student success dashboard created for review and comment.

• Supporting the �鶹ӰԺ Faculty Assembly’s sponsorship of a vote by faculty governance groups on a campuswide common curriculum.

• Centrally publicizing all campus tutoring centers.

• Soliciting ideas from students on the newly launched student communications model.

• Replacing defunct Minimum Academic Preparation Standards (MAPS) with new campus- and school/college-level recommendations for undergraduate admission.

Two of the projects were accomplished in part, with work continuing:

• Updating the campus e-communications policy.

• Streamlining review and approval process for late course withdrawals.

These accomplishments stem from “our commitment to work as a team across academics and the student support and student life functions,” said Katherine Eggert, senior vice provost for academic planning and assessment and one of BUS’s four co-leads. “This collaborative approach is truly the most efficient and effective way to ensure that our work helps students meet their academic goals and milestones and breaks down barriers that prevent them from feeling like they belong in the CU �鶹ӰԺ community.”

Eggert also singled out the council of deans for their crucial participation in and support for BUS efforts. “The deans of the schools and colleges are committed to improving undergraduate education for all students, not only the ones in their own programs. That’s a breakthrough approach that distinguishes CU �鶹ӰԺ’s student success initiatives from those of many of our peer universities.”

The BUS team is using metrics to evaluate different aspects of student success and make informed decisions about future improvements or enhancements. These data address areas such as grade replacement impact on student GPA, first-year students’ fall-to-spring retention (2022-23 versus previous years), the effect of text message reminders on students’ timely registration for classes, students’ progress in intra-university transfer, the effectiveness of the Alternative College Option Advising Pilot Program, the use and effectiveness of tutoring services, and how students have used the newly created Basic Needs Department in the division of Student Affairs, among other areas of focus.  

"We are gathering critically important data on student basic needs related to our metrics efforts," said Joe Thomas, associate vice chancellor for student affairs and BUS co-lead. "For example, between August of 2022 and March of 2023, the Basic Needs Center has supported 398 students with financial assistance through emergency meal cards and housing assistance, including assisting 25 students with emergency housing placement. We have seen a 110% increase in the amount of food being distributed to students in our on campus food pantry from March of 2022 to March of 2023."   

Also this year, BUS initiated a reenrollment campaign this spring with a goal of reaching a 90% fall-to-fall first-year student retention rate. Using data-informed targeting to encourage fall registration, the campaign kicked off with a message from the deans that communicated care and belonging and continued with offering individualized help from campus experts to students who were facing registration barriers. BUS is currently evaluating the success of this effort.

A number of BUS initiatives are designed to address affordability challenges, which directly affect retention, or to support students with minoritized identities across the university. For example, projects are underway to develop a consistent and streamlined approach for allocating, coordinating and renewing scholarships, refocus CU LEAD Alliance programs to provide consistent service to targeted populations and implement a plan to cover a larger portion of the cost of attendance for lower-income Colorado resident students.

BUS has already declared its commitment to complete 12 initiatives for the fall 2023 semester. “Our work as the BUS team—with leadership from units that include Academic Affairs, Student Affairs, Advising, the Office of the Registrar, Enrollment Management, the Office of Data Analytics, the Office of Information Technology, Undergraduate Education, Strategic Relations and Communications and the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion—is concentrated and impactful,” said Eggert. “As we look toward the fall with 12 ongoing commitments, we will continue to use data to help drive our decisions and design metrics to measure our progress.”

The BUS initiative was formed in fall 2021 and charged with making data informed decisions to improve undergraduate student success by collaborating with students, faculty, staff and units from across CU �鶹ӰԺ to implement programs and processes to help students continue their CU �鶹ӰԺ educations, earn timely degrees and feel like they belong.

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The proposal for learning objectives and outcomes for a common undergraduate curriculum at CU �鶹ӰԺ, submitted to Provost Russell Moore in October by the Common Curriculum Planning Committee, won approval at the end of the fall 2022 semester in nearly all faculty governance groups in the schools and colleges, the Libraries and the Program in Environmental Design, as well as in the �鶹ӰԺ Faculty Assembly. 

The vote was strongly in favor of the common curriculum proposal in all of these groups except for the Leeds School of Business, which held two all-faculty votes on the matter. In the first vote, 22 Leeds faculty voted in favor of and 24 against the proposal, with 31 abstentions. In the second vote, which was two ballots short of a quorum as defined by Leeds bylaws, 31 faculty voted in favor of and 17 against the proposal, with 16 abstentions. 

On Feb. 1, Moore directed BFA Chair Tiffany Beechy, Senior Vice Provost for Academic Planning and Assessment Katherine Eggert, and Dean and Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Daryl Maeda to proceed toward implementing the proposal, beginning with developing a set of implementation principles in concert with the BFA.

Eggert, Maeda and their staff teams will also begin working with colleges, schools and the Division of Student Affairs to map the common curriculum goals and learning outcomes onto existing degree programs and the First-Year Experience program.

In fall 2023, a campuswide faculty curriculum committee will be formed to evaluate the map and to work with colleges, schools and Student Affairs to identify opportunities to fill any gaps in order to achieve the common curriculum’s goals. The committee will ultimately be responsible for maintaining the common curriculum after it has been fully implemented.

Beechy, Eggert and Maeda urge all those with feedback about the common curriculum’s implementation to contact them at commoncurriculum@colorado.edu. Learn more about the at CU �鶹ӰԺ.

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The Common Curriculum Planning Committee (CCPC), led by Senior Vice Provost and Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Planning and Assessment Katherine Eggert and Dean and Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Daryl Maeda, wrapped up multiple open forum presentations to campus of the CCPC’s draft proposal for a common curricular experience for CU �鶹ӰԺ undergraduate students. 

The CCPC worked throughout the 2021–22 academic year to develop a draft of the common curriculum’s learning objectives and outcomes for campus comment, basing their discussions on a wealth of input received from faculty, students and staff after an invitation for white papers and during a spring 2021 listening tour of more than 80 departments, programs, student groups and student support units. 

“I want to thank all of the committee members who rose to the challenge of developing an exciting draft plan that embodies the university’s values and that synthesizes learning goals applicable to all our undergraduate students,” Eggert said. “I also want to thank the many members of our community who have already given the committee valuable feedback on the draft.”

Comments on the draft proposal will be accepted throughout the summer and may be submitted to commoncurriculum@colorado.edu. The committee will reconvene in the fall to finalize the proposal before submitting it to the provost. An implementation team will be formed in late fall, following a faculty approval process whose structure will be determined in partnership with the �鶹ӰԺ Faculty Assembly.

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Faculty, staff and students are encouraged to join the Common Curriculum Planning Committee for one of the scheduled open forums to engage in the critical discussion around framing a common undergraduate curriculum for all CU �鶹ӰԺ students.

Responding to the 2020 report by the Higher Learning Commission, CU �鶹ӰԺ’s accrediting body, Chancellor Phil DiStefano declared CU �鶹ӰԺ’s commitment to creating a common learning experience and a common set of intended learning outcomes for CU �鶹ӰԺ undergraduates. This commitment is grounded in the 2018 recommendation of the university’s Academic Futures strategic initiative to define common educational touch points throughout the undergraduate experience. 

Convened by the provost last fall, and drawing from initial input received from more than 1,000 participants in a preparatory listening tour of academic units, student groups and student support staff, the committee has drafted goals and learning outcomes to define the common purpose of a CU �鶹ӰԺ undergraduate education and to provide common educational touch points to all CU �鶹ӰԺ students, regardless of their degree program. 

The committee now seeks further input from faculty, staff and students before revising its proposal, which will be submitted for further review and faculty approval in fall 2022.

   Register for a virtual forum

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Provost Russell Moore recently appointed members of the Common Curriculum Planning Committee to continue the groundwork laid last year in creating a common learning experience and a common set of learning outcomes for CU �鶹ӰԺ undergraduate students.

Developing a common curriculum for undergraduate students was recommended in the Academic Futures report and reinforced in the reaccreditation review from the Higher Learning Commission. Last spring, Katherine Eggert, senior vice provost for academic planning and assessment, and Robert Shay, professor of musicology and a former dean of the College of Music, co-led a campuswide listening tour for developing a common curriculum that involved more than 1,000 faculty, staff and students from academic units, shared governance groups, student groups and academic support organizations.

Eggert and Daryl Maeda, dean and vice provost for undergraduate education, will co-lead the planning committee, which is charged with the important work of weighing campus input; studying current CU �鶹ӰԺ school and college general education requirements as well as models from peer institutions and elsewhere; reviewing the current scholarship on the purpose and function of an institution-wide undergraduate curriculum; and writing a draft plan for a CU �鶹ӰԺ common curriculum that they will then revise based on further campus review and input.

Members of this planning committee, which includes students, faculty and subject matter experts from the university staff, will meet weekly during the fall 2021 semester and periodically during the spring 2022 semester. 

The campus continues to encourage white papers on any aspect of the common curriculum. Submit white papers through the common curriculum webpage. Any questions or feedback about the discussion and process may be sent to commoncurriculum@colorado.edu.

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The academic assessment steering committee, led by Katherine Eggert, senior vice provost for academic planning and assessment, has been spending the spring semester studying the various levels of student learning assessment already occurring on campus. The committee has also been meeting with assessment leads across campus with proven student learning assessment track records to understand the methods and mechanics behind their success.

“We’ve found that there are many successful efforts across campus for setting learning goals and assessing their success, some of them longstanding and some of them recently started,” said Eggert. “What CU �鶹ӰԺ does not yet have, however, is a way of coordinating those efforts and sharing best practices.”

The charter of the academic assessment steering committee, composed of CU �鶹ӰԺ faculty and staff members with experience as academic assessment and student data practitioners, is to study what it will take to establish a campuswide culture of assessing CU �鶹ӰԺ’s academic offerings and student academic achievement.

During CU �鶹ӰԺ’s reaccreditation process in academic year 2019–20, both the university and its accrediting agency, the Higher Learning Commission, identified the regular collection and use of student outcomes assessment data to improve learning and student support as an unmet priority across many of the university’s academic programs. They noted that consistent, cross-campus assessment efforts are essential to improving student success. 

“The committee’s goal is to make recommendations to the provost that will guide the development of a campus culture of learning assessment over the next several years,” Eggert added.

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The university has started work to address recent recommendations for creating a common learning experience and a common set of learning outcomes for CU �鶹ӰԺ undergraduates. These recommendations, included in the 2018 report (PDF) of the Academic Futures Committee and the 2020 report (PDF) of the Higher Learning Commission, CU �鶹ӰԺ’s accrediting body, have been endorsed by Chancellor Philip P. DiStefano.

The development of a common curriculum is rooted in the Academic Futures Committee’s proposal to establish common educational touchpoints for undergraduates across all CU �鶹ӰԺ majors and in the 2019 Interdisciplinary Working Group’s call (PDF) to develop a range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary educational experiences for students. 

Senior Vice Provost for Academic Planning and Assessment Katherine Eggert will lead the university’s effort for developing a common curriculum. Throughout the spring 2021 semester, Eggert and Professor of Musicology Robert Shay, who is a former dean of the College of Music, will meet with academic departments and programs in a listening tour as a first step in understanding the hopes and concerns of faculty and staff who work to advance CU �鶹ӰԺ’s undergraduate programs. Five public forums for the campus community are scheduled in March. 

“Our purpose for these meetings is to gather thoughts and ideas from faculty, staff and students around the concept of a shared community of learning and to spark strategic thinking on how to plan a common curriculum and what it would look like,” said Eggert.

The listening tour and public forums will be followed in academic year 2021–22 by the work of a common curriculum steering committee, whose draft recommendations will be available for campus review and comment before they are finalized.

Also this spring, Eggert will lead an academic assessment steering committee composed of CU �鶹ӰԺ faculty and staff members, chosen for their experience as academic assessment and student data practitioners, to study what it will take to establish a campuswide culture of assessing CU �鶹ӰԺ’s academic offerings and student academic achievement. The committee will look at current campus assessment practices and resources, with a focus on asking how CU �鶹ӰԺ can build on successful efforts already underway. The group will also study academic assessment practices at peer institutions to understand what additional support might be required to extend the benefits of outcomes assessments to every academic program. 

During CU �鶹ӰԺ’s accreditation process in academic year 2019–20, both the university and the Higher Learning Commission identified the regular collection and use of student outcomes assessment data to improve learning as an unmet priority across many of the university’s academic programs. They noted that consistent, cross-campus assessment efforts are essential to improving student academic success. 

“Instituting a campuswide academic assessment culture will help us have a better understanding of where our current efforts are aiding student success and where more remains to be done,” said Eggert. “We look forward to this process and welcome campus input at every step.”

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