Plan Refresh
Our 2030 strategic plan, launched in 2021, expresses CU Denver’s vision to Make Education Work for All. We built this plan as a community and have made amazing progress toward that vision.
But fast-changing dynamics in education, workforce, demographics, and technology warrant refinements in our strategic plan, so that we meet our public service responsibility—to students, to communities, to Colorado—moving forward.
Strategic Plan Refresh Goals
In Fall 2025 across CU Denver, we will discuss how we will:
- Make education work for all through access, equity, and student outcomes
- Prioritize discovery and innovation through research and creative works that impact our communities
- Cultivate a campuswide innovation ecosystem focused on excellence and efficiency in everything we do
- Drive toward a flourishing university community rooted in belonging and meaningful work
In winter 2026, we will launch a refined strategic framework aligned with these core concepts.
These concepts do not reflect a wholesale change in CU Denver’s strategic direction. Rather, they represent an evolution in how we describe, execute, track, and excite people about our continuing Make Education Work for All vision.
Strategic Dialogues
This fall, in addition to campus conversations for faculty and staff, strategic dialogues have been taking place across CU Denver units. They are meant to tease out:
- Alignment with proposed core concepts and perspectives on their framing
- Ideas for how the concepts are best applied across units and in our collective work
- Potential milestones that may reflect success and progress in these areas
- Measures of success to help us assess progress and promote accountability
After Thanksgiving, executive leaders and project team members will synthesize learnings from dialogues into a revised strategic vision and a framework of concrete milestones and success measures.
Project Resources
The Strategic Plan Operations Team (SPOT) provides documents and resources to guide strategic dialogues at local levels:
- Guide to Local Conversations: Leaders of unit-level dialogues should download and save this document locally, to use in their conversations.
- Responses to Chancellor Forum poll questions: For reference in strategic dialogues
- Link to video of Sept. 16 Chancellor Forum where the process was introduced
Community Viewpoints from Oct 21-24 Campus Conversations
Please click or tap any image to see a larger, more legible version of the image.
Project Timeline
October
Early Oct.
Introduce project to community
Oct. 21-22
Community Conversation with Staff and Faculty
Mid-Oct to Late-Nov
Strategic Dialogues at Local Levels
Early Dec.
Analysis of input from campus conversations and Qualtrics submissions
Mid Dec.-Early Jan.
Integrate inputs into new draft of strategic plan language, including proposed milestones and success measures
Late Jan.-Early Feb.
Update language, solidify milestones and metrics based on input from key constituents
Mid-Feb.
Share refreshed strategic plan with milestones and success measures
Our Work So Far
Since the 2021 launch of CU Denver's 2030 Strategic Plan, we have made great progress, remaining accountable to our community through publication of annual Progress Roadmaps that can be viewed here.