The 2024 National Conference of the Association for Undergraduate Education at Research Universities, which is headquartered at CSU, brought together leaders from research universities across the U.S. last month to discuss the most cutting-edge innovations in undergraduate education.
Hosted in collaboration with the Association of American Colleges & Universities, the Jan. 17-18 conference in Washington, D.C., featured 40 sessions and representatives from more than 100 universities.
This year’s conference was the first of an annual series focused on implementation efforts of the Equity/Excellence Imperative: A 2030 Blueprint for Undergraduate Education at U.S. Research Universities. UERU convened and charged the 2030 Boyer Commission with creating this report, meant to help the nation’s research universities realize their full unique potential in offering students “unparalleled preparation for life through an education at the very forefront of new knowledge, new ideas, (and) new artistic creation,” Elizabeth Loizeaux, UERU’s liaison to the commission, said in a press release.
About the initiative
The Equity/Excellence Imperative builds beyond its 1998 predecessor, providing recommendations for fostering undergraduate success at research universities in today’s climate with the guiding principle that excellence and equity are inextricably entwined — the true achievement of each relies on the other. Through UERU, leading research universities share and assess the impacts of measures taken to implement the recommendations.
“In its first year, the 2030 Boyer Commission Report has been downloaded over 20,000 times to over 14,000 unique IP addresses, and 1,500 bound copies have been shared with colleagues around the country,” said Steve Dandaneau, executive director of UERU and associate provost at CSU. “Research university leaders have used the report to foster campus conversations and, in some cases, to create new positions and allocate student success funding. The report has folks thinking about the simultaneity of ‘equity/excellence,’ a quintessentially democratic notion that, when combined with leading-edge exemplars at peer institutions, has spurred a remarkable amount of initial innovation.”
UERU at Colorado State
Last year CSU signed its third five-year contract to host UERU. With CSU’s support, UERU is now gearing up to facilitate multi-university implementation efforts relating to the Boyer report, among many other high-level undergraduate success initiatives this year.
Alongside the national conference, UERU’s 2024 activities include meetings of undergraduate leaders hosted at Emory University and at the University of California, San Diego. Work will include completing the Curricular Analytics Project — a three-year study examining the relationship between curricular complexity and student success — as well as hosting the third edition of the summer Lamborn-Hughes Institute at CSU. That will include a team from CSU along with up to nine teams from visiting research universities and is dedicated to fostering collaboration exemplified by former CSU Associate Provost for Educational Attainment Alan Lamborn, Vice President for Student Affairs Blanche Hughes, and their academic and student affairs colleagues.
“In myriad such ways, UERU will continue to work to catalyze change within, among and beyond our currently 120-plus member institutions, including CSU, in hope of supporting efforts to realize ‘equity/excellence’ for over 2.5 million undergraduate students that we serve in Fort Collins and beyond,” Dandaneau said.
About UERU
The Association for Undergraduate Education at Research Universities was established —originally as the Reinvention Center, then the Reinvention Collaborative — in response to the 1998 Boyer Commission Report tackling the unique challenges research universities face regarding undergraduate education. Its goal was to encourage and support universities in their implementation and evaluation of recommendations provided by the report, creating a network for cross-university collaboration and innovation. Hosted by CSU since 2013, UERU is now a national professional association with more than 120 members, bringing together research university leaders with the shared mission of advancing undergraduate education.
