Dear Colleagues, 

Since fall 2023, faculty and staff across CU Denver have engaged in an Academic Transformation initiative to help our university navigate an evolving higher education landscape. In December 2024, four working groups published final reports with recommendations on their webpages, linked from the Academic Transformation project page.  

While we ultimately will progress on recommendations made by all four working groups, I am writing today to update you on how we will move forward together on recommendations by the Academic Program Viability and Curricular Innovation working group. 

Annual Academic Program Check-Ins  

One of this group’s central recommendations was to initiate Annual Check-Ins for each academic program to help guide strategic decisions about their trajectory. These Check-Ins will incorporate various measures—based on existing data and factors such as market intelligence and a brief program self-assessment, in alignment with existing policies and processes. 

Data and perspectives from these Annual Check-Ins will help CU Denver’s faculty and academic leaders assess and position programs for long-term strength and viability, maximize the efficiency of resource allocation, and increase the collective value of our academic offerings to students.  

Provost team members have begun meeting with groups across campus to discuss how these recommendations will be operationalized over the coming months, and to gather feedback to guide development of this process. This spring and summer will be devoted to training, testing, and refining processes and metrics based on community input, as we continue to co-create infrastructure for the Check-Ins that will begin this fall. Data-driven action steps, on which program representatives will collaborate with administrative and operational units to execute support activities, would progress in the spring 2026 semester. 

Why We Are Doing This 

Since the working group on this topic began its efforts 15 months ago, its participants—a cross-section of faculty, staff, and academic leaders—have recognized various reasons to develop an inclusive, systematic process to measure academic program viability and foster curricular innovation. For example, identification of a program’s challenges may prompt innovative ideas, such as shifts in program focus or outreach. Recognition of growth potential may suggest where targeted investments might drive enrollment. The working group has recommended a “no surprises” approach, whereby any considerations that may emerge from the Check-Ins are the result of data, dialogue (among faculty and staff as well as academic and administrative leaders), and a transparent process.  

I understand that this initiative may add to uncertainty about capacity and stability during this time of significant change for our university and broader community. While this initiative is vital for CU Denver’s long-term strength and success, we are mindful of the need to mitigate workload impacts. We are prioritizing efficiencies through dashboards, templates, the leveraging of existing data, and building on already-developed groundwork by the originating working group (whose report can be reviewed here). This effort is about synthesizing information we already have to inform dialogue and decisions about the future direction of academic programs.   

Workshops and Resources 

This spring, we will offer structured workshops for constituents engaged in this process, and individualized data and process support will be available upon request. Dates for the first set of workshops are now available on a new Academic Program Check-In webpageand more details about these trainings, as well as updates and resources, will be published as they become available. 

I deeply appreciate the faculty and staff who have served on our Academic Transformation working groups and are helping us move forward on their recommendations. You can expect more updates from this office on this effort, and on how we will operationalize other Academic Transformations recommendations, in the months to come.   

Pamela Jansma, PhD, Interim Provost 

Co-Facilitators of the Academic Program Viability and Curricular Innovation Working Group: 

Joanne Addison, PhD 

Jody Beck, PhD 

Wendy Bolyard, PhD  

Co-Chairs of the Academic Transformation Steering Committee: 

Richard Allen, PhD 

Beth Myers, PhD