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Nov. 20 2020

Dear colleagues,

This semester, CU Boulder didn’t just open. In many ways it defined what it means to be a public university. Or, more accurately, you—our faculty and staff—achieved that definition, fulfilling our mission of research, teaching and service with your dedication, resilience and focus on students and scholarship. 

Under normal circumstances—if anyone can remember what those are—the work you do is innovative in our classrooms and laboratories, and in communities across Colorado, the nation and the world. But this semester required innovation on an unheard-of scale—daily, even hourly, you made profound adjustments and amazing improvisations. 

You found new ways of teaching in remote settings, trying to balance your personal needs with those of your students and staying dedicated to making courses true learning experiences—not simply course materials.

You improvised new ways of carrying out research and scholarship, communicating with your teams and colleagues, and assembling important data. You created new knowledge in a moment in which it was vitally needed—some even contributing that knowledge to support the campus’s monitoring and managing of COVID-19.

Our graduate student instructors found the strength and resilience to balance their own courses of study while still infusing their teaching with energy and purpose. Our graduate faculty provided guidance and mentorship to graduate student instructors against a backdrop of constantly changing circumstances. 

Our Student Affairs team found new ways to support students’ academic successes—providing food, housing, social activities, compassionate counseling and care to students trying to launch or continue their education in an unprecedented, even unfair, time. Our staff across academic departments kept the university running, supporting faculty, the administration and most of all, our students. 

Throughout the semester, I heard from my own students in a course I taught on Wednesday afternoons. I heard from students through emails, and in college and school open forums. I also heard from parents in emails, phone messages and a series of town halls. I heard from our faculty in unit-level gatherings, hosted events and governance meetings, as well as from staff in these and other venues.

I heard justified frustration about a host of issues. I heard sadness and longing for better times, or for going back to the way things were. I heard anger about things that weren’t working. I heard consistently smart and probing questions and creative suggestions for how to make things work better—most of them from our faculty and staff.  

But I also heard gratitude and appreciation for what CU Boulder was and is trying to do: continue our public mission, with as human a face on that mission as possible, under circumstances that try our humanity seemingly every hour of every day.

Today, I simply want to pass that gratitude on to each of you. A public university matters most during a time of public need. This is such a moment, and in it, you’ve shown that CU Boulder matters—and even more, that our community is essential. Thank you for doing this, and doing it with such focus, compassion and commitment.  

Sincerely,

Russ

Russell Moore
Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs