Tap, tap, tap. Is it on now? Alright. Let's start finding our seats, please. Okay. The meeting will come to order. Regents and guests, this meeting is live streamed and recorded. Regent Spiegel, will you lead us in the pledge of allegiance? Thank you. Today, the land acknowledgment will be read by UCCS student Jaslyn Rollison. Jazzy is a Sophomore studying English Secondary Education and serves as an engagement leader and the vice president of the Black Student Union. Come on up, Josie. Oh good to see you. That's Hi. Good afternoon.
The University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, UCCS, commits to acknowledging the lands on which we reside. We honor our native indigenous communities past, present, and emerging, and recognize the original inhabitants and traditional guardians of what is now Colorado Springs. We honor this land as the ancestral home of the Neuchu, which includes the Northern Ute, Southern Ute, and the Ute Mountain Ute peoples. The Neuchu originally referred to Pikes Peak as Tavakav or Sun Mountain, being the first peak of the shining mountains to see the sun's rays.
We also recognize the many indigenous peoples in this region, including the Apache Nation, the Arapaho Nation, the Cheyenne Nation, the Comanche tribe, and the Kiowa tribe, and their historical and continuing relationships as stewards of this land. Land acknowledgements do not exist in past or historical context. Colonialism is a current and ongoing practice, and thus, we must remain mindful of its present impacts. As an institution of higher education, we share the responsibility to actively listen, reflect, and
center the histories and lived experiences of indigenous peoples. In community, right. Next Alright. Next is the approval of the agenda for the November 6 Board of Regents meeting. Is there a motion? So moved. Moved by Regent McNulty. It is seconded by Regent Monterra. Is there any discussion? Alright. Seeing none, all in favor of approving the Board of Regents meeting agenda, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Seeing none, the motion passes.
Great. Up next, we'll hear we have public comment from those who have signed up. We've got two people today. I think we've heard heard from these individuals before so they know how it goes. You've got two minutes to speak. If you go too long over, then we'll have to cut you off. But, we've got Jade Kelly up first. Madam chair? Yes. I just I wanna let those for public comment know that I'm gonna have to step out to take a work call because we still have to do our work. And I mean no disrespect to the comments that you have come up to take. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you. Welcome, Jade. Good afternoon, Regents. President Solomon and chancellors.
My name is Jade Kelly, and I serve as president of of CWA Local seven seven nine nine representing seven public sector unions across Colorado, including our union here on campus, United Campus Workers Colorado. I've worked at CU Boulder for the past eleven years as a university staff member, and I can honestly say that I love my job and I love CU. I've jumped at each opportunity to serve our university. I've had the honor of serving two terms as cochair of staff council, working alongside this very board on important initiatives like paid parental leave for university staff with Regent Gonal before family was passed by the voters and adopted statewide.
And I'm deeply proud of the work as we've done as a union to make CU a better place to learn, work, and serve our state. Today, I'm here to share why unions and collective bargaining can strengthen this university for generations to student workforce is a mission aligned, fiscally responsive, time tested, and necessary step to achieve our goals as an institution. Collective bargaining is not about division. It's about giving workers like myself and those in this room a seat at the table and finding solutions that actually work for everyone.
Empirical research show that unionized public institutions often secure more stable funding, achieve significantly better retention of faculty and staff, and stronger equity outcomes among gender, race, class, and disability. We've seen that right here in Colorado. Our teachers union helped win full funding for k through 12 in the state legislator, giving a huge boost to public schools and ensuring every state every student in our state benefits from a well resourced public education. CU can lead in the same way, and we can create a powerful alliance of organized workers to fight for better funding, protect against federal overreach, and keep CU safer,
more equitable, and free from political interference. Research shows us that when campus workers can unionize and have a collective voice, students learn in safer labs and cleaner classrooms, that when research shows that we are fear from, that when researchers are free from retaliation, academic freedom flourishes. When those who keep this university running can negotiate fairly, obtain a contract, CU becomes stronger, more stable, and more just. CU has always been a place that values innovation and inclusion in the public good of Colorado.
Thank you all for your service to the state of Colorado. Appreciate you and thank you for the time. Thanks. Up next, we have Dylan Harris. Welcome. Yes. Thank you. Okay. Hi, everybody. My timer's up. Okay. So I'm Dylan Harris. I'm a GES professor here at Jarkhand Environmental Studies. I've been here five years. I'm the president of our AAUP chapter. I'm a member of United Campus Workers. I'm also the LAS liberal I forgot a little more. LAS, representative for the United University budget advisory committee. I'm also a social science rep for a faculty assembly. I'm also the chair of our sustainability committee, and I just got elected to the
system level sustainability committee. Right? I could go on. I do lots of service here, too much service for an assistant professor, but I do it because I deeply care about this place. I care about my students. I care about my colleagues. I care about, our staff. And so what I wanna do today is just speak a little bit about academic freedom, the fact that we desperately need that. I wanna start by appreciating that as it enshrined in Regents policy, and I appreciate that. I just wanna highlight that despite that, there have been several instances here, and I'm saying this as the president of AUP, the person who gets called, emailed, texted when
something happens, like, for example, students standing up in classrooms and yelling faculty that we only have two genders. Right? How do we protect those faculty who are desperately trying to do their jobs? I also have faculty reach out to me to say that they've had students, you know, challenge their expertise in the classroom. Right? I've had staff members say similar things. Right? And so what I wanna say here is just that we desperately need it. Thank you for your support so far. However, it seems like we have it until we don't. And I just wanna end with this by saying that, in my conversations with various
administration folks, different colleagues at different campuses, we have it in the policy. But at the same time, when push comes to shove, we wanna know that it matters, that you really have our backs. And with that, I just wanna remind you all that, again, again, thank you for those policies, but that we have infringements happening here all the time. So reach out if you have questions. Happy to explain how things work here at UCCS, collective bargaining for all. Thank you. Thank you. So this concludes public comment. Next up is chair's report. So thanks for joining us at the November board meeting today.
This is actually our final regular board meeting of 2025, which is hard to believe. Thank you to Chancellor Sobine and her team here at UCCS for hosting us. I know it takes a lot of work to make this happen. We appreciate it. It's my understanding that some of Regent Emeritus Norwood Rob's family may be joining us today via live stream. I wanna thank them for tuning in. I'm looking forward to honoring Regent Emeritus Raab and his significant impact on CU and the Sea Springs community later this afternoon. It's been a busy fall with great work happening across CU.
Last week, the economic study produced each year by the business research division of CU Boulder's Leeds School of Business revealed that the CU system generated 12,200,000,000.0 in economic impact across Colorado for the, 2425 fiscal year. Across Colorado for the, 2425 fiscal year. This number rises to 20,000,000,000 when you include CU's affiliate hospitals, UC Health, University of Colorado Hospital, and Children's Hospital. This study demonstrates CU's growing role in the state's economy through education, research, innovation, and health care, and the significant impact the university has on people and communities across Colorado.
At the September, we launched our new CU Leadership Speaker Series with inaugural speaker, Kaye Firth Butterfield, at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. The event drew nearly 200 people who came to hear Firth Butterfield, a world renowned expert in responsible design, development, and use of AI. The speaker series is collab is a collaborative initiative of the Board of Regents office and president Solomon's office. We're excited to identify our next speaker soon and are delighted the series is up and running. It gives us another way to benefit the broader CU community by enabling us to
serve as an educational and informational resource on urgent topics. While it continues to be a challenging season for Buffs football, I'm so impressed with our dedicated fans who come out to cheer for our hardworking student athletes. Our Buffs soccer team closed out the regular season with a six match unbeaten streak and a win that set program records. The women went on to beat the University of Central Florida in the big 12 quarterfinals, but unfortunately, they fell to Kansas last night in the semifinals. Bummer. They're awaiting their NCAA tournament selection, which will be announced on Monday. Here at UCCS, the men's soccer ranked number 19 in the United Soccer Coaches National
Poll, and they are regular season, co champions. The team will compete in the RMAC tournament semifinals on November 12. UCCS women's volleyball is tied for first place in the RMAC's, standings after securing their eighth straight win and their twentieth win of the season. Only the fourth time in program history the team has reached the 20 win mark. I'm looking forward to hearing an update on UCCS athletics later this afternoon. Go mountain lions and go buffs. And I'll throw in go links too and go doctors. So, I just wanna I wanna say that president Solomon and I enjoyed a lovely
lunch last week with Jorge Chavez and one of the topics that we talked a great deal about was academic freedom and freedom of speech. And I wanna assure you that it is in policy and is something that every regent sitting at this table supports strongly. And go president Solomon. Before I hand things over to him, I wanna congratulate him on being recognized by Scouting Colorado with one of the organization's twenty twenty five Valley La Pena Awards, which honor champions of the Hispanic and Latino community. President Solomon was selected for the award because of his efforts to ensure that people
from all of Colorado's communities have a pathway to see you. Congratulations. And with that, I'll turn turn things over to President Solomon for his President's Update. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. And it's great to be here today, and thank you all for for joining us. And, thanks for the nice shout out. I didn't know that was in your talking points. Thank you. So it's wonderful to be here at UCCS. Incredibly beautiful day here. And, we're it's always always a pleasure. So I I I got the the the the privilege of, being able to spend
an entire day on campus learning from some of you in this room about some of the amazing things going on here at UCCS. UCCS. And I I had a terrific meeting with, with, with shared governance leaders, with students, faculty, and staff. And we talked a lot about the the many issues facing the UCCS community and also the broader, higher education community and and, throughout our country. You know, one of something that I'm always just thrilled to hear more about is the amazing work that's being done at UCCS to to increase the pathways to a
college degree and, and the work that's being done through with concurrent enrollment, which provides an opportunity for high school students to take college level classes and then then transfer those classes to a four year institution. And UCCS is forming more and more partnerships with high schools around, this neck of the woods to make it easier for our students to pursue a college degree. And I was also really pleased to to get to visit with our student life community and visit Clyde's Cupboard.
And, and I would just encourage everybody to to support Clyde's Cupboard, especially now. These, food banks are in high demand and seeing a lot of a lot of business these days, and, and and we all need to be supporting them. So either through your your canned goods and your and your or your your your monetary donations now. If you wanna give, now is the time to to open up your your checkbook and and write a check and support our our our, our our our food efforts
on all of our campuses. And, of course, as madam chair mentioned, thank you, congratulations to the basketball team for the the first RMAC championship that is soccer. What? Oh, it says basketball, but that's wrong. But that's wrong. But what she said, she works here. So thank you. Thank you. And so, so a couple other just kudo things. So Ann Shoots just announced a wonderful, super cool new partnership an AI powered research
resource through Alphabet. And, and it and and can I just say how incredibly lucky Verily is to be associated with us? And so congratulations to CU An And, we are and and it's our honor as well to be associated with them. So CU Denver has just been doing amazing work in terms of partnerships with, school districts around the Denver Metro Area. So shout out to Ken for the terrific, guaranteed admission agreements that you've entered into with deep Denver Public Schools, Aurora Public Schools, and Jefferson County Public Schools.
So thank you, and thanks for for your good work. And, of course, our good friends at CU Boulder are doing amazing things too. And CU Boulder was recognized as one of the nation's most environmentally responsible universities in Princeton's review's 2026 guide to green colleges, and you earned a rating of ninety nine ninety eight out of 99 points. And I'm not quite sure why they don't make it a 100 scale. But, but congratulations. And so so with that, just two two last things.
One is, the board gets to vote on distinguished professors today, and and these incredible people will be joining us at a future board meeting to share their their journeys with the board. But I get one of the best things of my job is I get to call these folks and let them know that they have been elevated to this incredible rank. And these are amazing individuals, and they and I'm humbled every time I talk to every single one of them because they do amazing things on all of our campuses. So congratulations to them, and I look forward to them visiting with the board.
And then finally, I just wanted to to reiterate what what chair Renison said. And, and and after after having lunch with Jorge, and he and he said it and he recommended that every time we get a chance to reiterate our our support for academic freedom, we should. And I appreciate your comments about about, regent policy. Regent policy, it is enshrined in regent policy, and that policy has not changed one bit. And so our commitment to academic freedom hasn't has has has not, changed in any
way, and and our and our, faculty have the same protections, and the community has the same protections that we've always had. And so if if you become aware of examples of things that are going on that you think might be a violation of that, please notify the campus immediately because we have we have procedures in place to deal with that. So, so I remain committed, and the entire all the chancellors do, and so does the board. And just thank you to the board for making it crystal clear that this is a priority of the university.
With the letter that the board sends to our students at the beginning of the academic year, I'm not aware of any other university that does it. And so so kudos to to the board for doing that as well. So with that, madam chair, if it's okay, I'm gonna ask the the chancellors to give a quick update. So since we're in your house, chancellor Sobonay. Thank you. And, welcome to my house. Welcome to UCCS. We, we always love having a chance to host our regents and all of you here at UCCS. I'm just glad that we don't have a winter storm this year like we did
last year. We had to do this on, remotely. And half of you had already crossed over the past, so I don't know. Just want to say to you, President Solomon, thank you for visiting campus last month and meeting with our shared governance leaders and our students and our faculty and staff and learning more about the incredible research and creative works and student activities happening here at UCCS. That was a really, really big deal. We also want to thank you for your donation to Clyde's Cupboard because that meant a lot to us. I also want to thank, Regent Scott for joining us at our annual State of
the Campus event and helping us celebrate sixty years of UCCS. I also wanna thank, Regents Hood and Scott for visiting our campus yesterday afternoon. You have a had an extensive tour with a lot of brilliant faculty who were explaining a lot of things that go over my head, and to Regents Spiegel and James for your donations to Clyde's Closet. We really appreciate that. I know that Nathan Gibson, our athletic director, is gonna be speaking later today, so I'm gonna let him update us on all of our athletic endeavors. And I really wanna echo what both, Chair Rennison and President Solomon have said about
academic freedom and that we have an unwavering support of academic freedom on this campus, and it comes directly from regents, from you, all of you and the policies that have been in place for many, many years. So thank you. Now President Solomon asked me to highlight our recent recruitment and retention efforts. I'm not gonna steal the thunder of this evening's regent reception, so I'm going to be judicious with my words. And for those of you who won't be at the reception this evening, we will have more information about, some big announcements in UCCS news and even potentially the Gazette.
So we have hundreds of faculty, staff and students on this campus working together to implement our new enrollment plan and NIST recommendations. From a recruitment perspective, we are opening more pathways for high school students by expanding our dual and concurrent enrollment programs and our Clyde's Commitment, our guaranteed admissions program. For our transfer students, we have expanded our ability elevate, to evaluate transfer credit and are working with Pikes Peak State College to streamline our transfer credit processes. For all of our students, we are expanding online and micro credential options and our
graduate programs are booming. We are embracing AI to assist in retention front, for the first time in a decade, our retention has hit 70.4%. We've been laser focused on engagement with our student government association, including implementing near peer mentor programs, engagement leaders, and orientation leaders. On the academic front, front, we've been streamlining emphasis, majors, and specializations while combining multimodal
sections into single courses to create more flexibility for students, all while addressing course scheduling conflicts to get our students to the graduation stage faster. And the outcomes are clear. Increases in headcount last spring, this past summer, and fall. Student success is front and center in everything that we do. As I close, just like the two of you, our chair and our president, food insecurity is on my mind. While November is our annual CU Food Fight, raising money for UCCS and CU Denver
food pantries, it's more important than ever, as many of our students, staff, and faculty have been financially impacted by the government shutdown. It's been a big impact here in Colorado Springs especially. Our Student Government Association, and I see our vice president here, has just Cupboard. And our students, our faculty, and our staff.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Chancellor Sobonaid. So Anne Schmiesing is here for us because because, Justin Schwartz is out of the country. So welcome back Anne. Glad to have you here and look forward to hearing from you. Thank you so much president Solomon and Regents. It's really my pleasure to be here on behalf of CU Boulder while chancellor Schwartz is out of town. Our campus has a lot to look forward to this academic year and beyond, but I'm gonna focus on just two of those reasons today, the Sundance Film Festival and
our one hundred and fiftieth anniversary celebration. So CU Boulder has long standing excellence and innovation in film, video, and related fields. So we're really excited to welcome filmmakers, actors, directors, writers, industry members, and global film audiences when Sundance moves to Boulder starting in 2027. It's really an honor to help celebrate more than 40 of independent storytelling on the campus where Sundance founder Robert Redford attended college from 1954 to '56.
The Sundance Film Festival is powerful. For example, the '23 festival contributed over a $11,818,000,000 dollars to Utah's economy while creating more than 1,600 jobs for Utah residents and attracting more than 21,000 visitors from out of state. We were pleased to work with the city of Boulder, state of Colorado, visit Boulder, and a coalition of regional partners to draw the festival to Boulder, not simply because
of this economic impact, but because of the unique collaborative opportunities it will also offer to our campus. Campus officials are working closely with Sundance organizers to plan and support the transition to Boulder. Along with an operational group, a steering committee is collaborating with faculty who have existing Sundance partnerships as well as with shared governance and student club leaders. More information about how faculty, staff, and students can engage with the Sundance Film Festival
will be forthcoming over the course of this academic year. But for now, mark your calendars for January 27 and stay tuned for how you can get involved. Now as we prepare for the arrival of Sundance, we are also eagerly anticipating CU Boulder's hundred and fiftieth anniversary in 2026 coming right up. I am helping to lead a steering committee to shape a year long celebration that will coincide with the state of Colorado's one hundred and fiftieth anniversary celebrations and the
two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the declaration of independence. This milestone will help honor CU Boulder's legacy, engage the Boulder campus, alumni and broader communities and help us envision the kind of campus we want to create in the future. Past and how they have shaped our university into the place it is today. I invite everyone to visit colorado.edu forward /1fifty,15o, to learn more about CU Boulder through the eras and submit suggestions for
buffs throughout history who should be highlighted. There'll be a series of events throughout the next year that will be open to individuals across the CU system and the regions, of course. So I hope to see all of you there as details are announced. Thank you so much for allowing me a few minutes to highlight these exciting upcoming moments for our campus. Thank you very much. And, Chancellor Christiansen. Thank you very much, President, Solomon. I wanna start out by reiterating our commitment to academic, freedom as well on our
campus. And I also want to to echo the comments made around food insecurity. We are part of the food fight competition, which is a friendly competition between UCCS and CU Denver. We're winning right now, by the way. Indeed. That's okay. Well, it's okay. It's like a marathon. But I really encourage anyone that's interested in in investing in our students, our staff, and our faculty, please do so. These are really tough times, given the circumstances we find ourselves in. And, number of the members of my leadership team and I have contributed already and and and our staff leadership team and I have contributed already and and and our
staff and faculty are engaged in this. So please please contribute to to help our people. I would also like to talk a little bit about our enrollment and, retention wins that we've had. Recently, president Solomon mentioned, the guaranteed admissions, agreements that we've signed with Denver Public Schools, Aurora Public Schools, and, GEFCO Public Schools. These really are meant to reaffirm our foundational mission of opening our doors as wide as possible to students from all backgrounds and experiences to come and have an opportunity at a college education.
And we're so proud of of that foundational mission of our campus, and and these just reaffirm our commitment, in in the spirit of of that mission. And we really look forward to, seeing a number of new students on our campus as a direct result of this opportunity. Education was possible to them, but also inspiring students that may not have even thought college was possible. And so, really thank my team for for doing the leg work to to make those things happen. We had a record tying retention rate this fall of nearly 77%, which is a
direct result of much more proactive student engagement in terms of advisors and faculty interacting both with, trying to yield new students from the enrollment perspective, but then also getting students registered, and getting them set for the new semester well before the semester started. And that tended to not be the case on our campus, and so a very small tweak in that way really led to a roughly 4% increase year over year, in our retention rate. Very proud of of a small change having a a big impact. The other thing that we're in the process of doing is completely revamping all of
our student success support structures through four different working groups on our campus. I'll highlight one of them. We have data that resides on our students in so many different systems, and none of those systems talk to each other, and none of those systems, not all of the systems are accessible to the front facing student support that we have on our campus. So we're building a data analytics platform that really brings all of that information together, provides us a real time view, 360 degree view of every student on our campus, so that we can support their needs and well-being in the moment.
K? And so that's one thing that we're doing that really is transforming our Again, proactive not reactive. And, I think this will really lead to a new, jump in our retention rates as well as our graduation rates over time. On the academic side, some of you might be aware we're going through a program viability process where we are evaluating every single academic program that we offer to ensure that it's career aligned, to ensure that it is market competitive, to ensure that it's meeting the mark of the investments that we're making in it, and to really ensure
that students get out of it what they deserve in terms of transformational experience. Aligned with that, we are completely realigning our core curriculum so that it makes transfer easier, so that it ensures that students can focus on their on both core breadth learning, but also really their disciplinary education, which positions them for a job, a good job in the future. So we're working not just in getting more students in, not just keeping them there, but ensuring that all of the experiences that they have lead to the career outcomes that they're expecting from us.
They have lead to the career outcomes that they're expecting from us in our public service obligation as a public university here in the state of Colorado. Thank you. Thank you very much. Chancellor Elliman, had to head out out of town for an HLC meeting. He did. But we're lucky to have Terry Carruthers with us. So, Terry, pass it over to you. So good afternoon, chair Renison, vice chair Montero, president Solomon, and regents and chancellors. I'm honored to be able to share a brief update on CU Angie's on behalf of chancellor Elliman. I know he would echo the comments made on academic freedom, and our food drive
is currently happening as well. Thanks to our staff council who are always there, the head of the game for everybody. We have upped our campus financial support to the food bank, and our community is coming forward in a big way because it is so needed right now. And we thank everyone that's been contributing to that. It's fair to say that the federal and state activities and budget issues continue to cause a fair amount of anxiety across the missions of education, research and clinical care. It would be foolish to not recognize the impact these times are having on everyone on the campus and throughout our communities. Now more than ever, building a sense of community is important.
We continue to have campus wide events like our block party, our history day, our Veterans Day event. We're looking forward to first snow celebration. I think we're looking forward to the celebration, first snow, not so much, and other events that celebrate our people. We need to call out our students who are out there setting the example for bonding with their spirited activities in the veteran commons. It's been so much fun to watch them. Even ahead of the January 5 date for more individuals to return part time to campus, we're seeing a more consistent on campus presence. And as chancellor elements stated to everyone when the change was announced in September, we
remain committed to supporting flexibility wherever possible, balancing individual needs and our shared responsibility, and, fostering a vibrant, collaborative campus environment for one another and the people that we serve. As a result, we are monitoring parking permits, and we are our capacity, we're giving continuing to give free eco passes to individuals who have a permit of any kind. We are carefully looking at our physical space needs, and we are excited for the renewed energy and organic interactions that we're seeing right now.
Thank you to the staff and faculty who have been willing to talk with us and partner on these changes. Chancellor Elliman continues to work toward the finalization of the dean for the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. He's almost there. There. And we have interviewed some amazing candidates for the executive vice chancellor for faculty and student affairs as provost Naren will be retiring. Finally, we had the most amazing donor celebration dinner last week at the Anschutz Health Sciences Center building. President Solomon and Chancellor Elamin welcomed more than 300 top donors and some of the
faculty who are recipients of the amazing kindness and support of these donors. This magical evening included a fireside chat, which highlighted the huge investment from Tom and Cindy Marsico to battle one of the toughest forms of camp cancer that we know, and that's pancreatic cancer. As always, hope springs eternal for this and so many other advances that are needed. Thank you. Thank you very much. And madam chair, if I could just recognize one other person. Yes, ma'am. So some somebody at system administration recently announced that they'd be retiring, so I just
wanted to to recognize her here today. So Felicity O'Haraon, we're standing sitting right back there, has been an amazing member of our team for for quite a few years. And so we're very grateful to you and for the work of that you've done and the and the team that you've led. So so we will miss you, and I and she'll be staying until we can find someone to replace her. Right, Felicity? And so, so anyway, congratulations to you, and thanks for all you've done for the university. Great. Next are the governance leaders reports.
You'll each have five minutes for your report. We're gonna start first with the ICSF chair Mitchell Morrow. Welcome. Good afternoon, presidents, hallow, and chancellors, and regents. I'm just gonna jump right into our report and in no particular order starting with Anschutz. The fall semester is going along smoothly at Anschutz Medical Campus. The student senate has helped fund many events across different programs, which is helping promote interactions across programs and awareness of student senate resources. Recently, many programs put on individual, Halloween celebrations, and student senate also put on a campus wide pumpkin painting and costume contest event after the success of the event last
year. We also hosted our first student senate town hall on Monday, November 3. These town halls are a new initiative designed to help engage the student body and learn more of their wants and needs directly. The focus of this town hall was campus and health campus health and wellness with an emphasis on following up with the student body as a student student physical fitness and activity survey that was completed last year. The survey had a phenomenal response rate at of the 25% of the student body, so we wanted to present the results of the survey and follow-up about the efforts
that had been taken to address the needs shown in the survey. We are excited for ongoing conversations around physical wellness and programs and spaces. Next is Boulder. CU Boulder just wrapped up our homecoming week. This year, the CUSG worked with student life and alum and the alumni association to collaborate on events and create one cohesive theme as we move towards CU Boulder's one hundred and fiftieth anniversary. This collaboration led to increased engagement, the start of a new, traditions, like an on campus homecoming parade and brought together our community and alumni with students.
We had a sold out comedy show featuring comedian Connor Wood as well as our kickoff event and the homecoming spirit days. Our distinguished speakers board hosted a sold out event on Tuesday, November 4 at Mackey Auditorium where we welcomed Emmy nominated actor, director, and producer Giancarlo Esposito to campus. Cultural event the cultural event sport, unfortunately, had to postpone an event with Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, but we are looking forward to welcoming her to campus early next semester. KVCU Radio eleven ninety is currently preparing for a move from the University Memorial Center
to Carlson Gym on campus where they will have more space and better access to engage students and educate them on radio communications. There are also ongoing conversations about the possibility podcast class for students using radio eleven ninety's new space. CUSG is currently working to hire a new director of student legal services as our last director was appointed to serve as a municipal judge. We're also searching for a new director of student service learning and impact in community engagement or SLiCE after the previous director was promoted to lead the basic needs center
on campus. Additionally, we welcome doctor, Thanibuni, oh, excuse me, to CU Boulder as our new new director of the Center for Student, Involvement or CSI. Recently, the University Memorial Center, UMC, has been working with a consulting firm with from Georgia that has previously worked on student centers at Colorado State, Emory, CU Burke UC Berkeley, excuse me, and UPenn to build out of twenty year plan for the UMC. The goal is to improve the student experience and access to all of the resources
the UMC houses while also considering how it can continue to support visitors, families, and alumni for years to come. The consulting team will will be visiting campus several more times throughout the school year as they develop the plan and associated engineering work with hopes to move forward with exciting renovations and preserve the building's iconic architecture. Tri executives, all our projects are in full swing. President Masala has, been working with all the the cost centers of the office of information technology to build out a Canvas course that every student will be enrolled in explaining what CUSG is, how we function, and where student fees go.
With this, we expect to see increased student engagement during elections and in future projects. President Guido has been working on initiatives with members of the CUSG CUSG executive cabinet to help ensure that every student at CU Boulder feels supported and has, has the network they need to succeed, helping give students a place to stand so they can thrive inside and outside of the classroom. She also collaborated with director of with our director of legal affairs to host an immigration panel and clinic for students and community members to help them understand their rights and navigate visa or other documentation processes.
President Sharkey has been leading campus safety initiatives to ensure that all student students and first time visitors feel safe and supported on campus. He recently conducted a campus safety walk where various campus stakeholders joined to identify areas of areas for improvement and collaborate in solutions. In addition to safety, he is also working with members of the CUSG executive cabinet on projects addressing student housing, food insecurity, helping ensure that students have proper access to their food and shelter. The tri executives also have also met with the student body presidents and other student leaders from across the big 12 at the big twelve student Government Conference at West
Virginia University. We're currently planning our lobbying trip to Washington DC for the Big twelve on the Hale conference this spring. Next is Denver. CU Denver has successfully hosted the first homecoming week in recent history with a week packed full of events, including a 46 to 42 win for CU Denver Athletics against UCCS men's basketball, as well as having, Lynx Day of Service and the annual Lynx Live concert that hosted Rebecca Black as the headliner. We look forward to the continued growth and partnership as homecoming becomes a signature event. One time funding of $3,000 has been secured for to fund three additional Spirit Thursday
events for the academic year. The student government will match these funds to a total of $6,000 for event and giveaway costs. A student, organization town hall was held last month to cover changes to the funding process as well as to discuss areas of support needed to have a thriving student organization environment on campus. Similar events are to be hosted in the future based on the feedback received from the participants. The student services review committee process is underway for the academic year, and we are all excited to welcome the remaining participants throughout the remainder of the semester. Work has begun to analyze the structure to identify areas of improvement and create action
steps to address shortcomings. Much of this work will be carried out into the spring semester. The 2030 plan refresh is an exciting topic for the campus and student leaders from various units were invited to offer feedback on the changes being proposed to the plan. We're grateful for this collaboration collaborative opportunity and look forward to seeing the rollout of the refresh plan. And finally, from Colorado Springs, on behalf of the Student Government Association at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, I'm pleased to share that the student engagement at UCCS has not only rebounded to pre pandemic levels, but continues to grow. This year, 193 student clubs and organizations are registered through student life and leadership, the
most in over four years and nearly a 20% increase from the from fall twenty twenty four. Notably, students involved in these organizations are retained at rates roughly 13% higher than the campus average and achieve an average 0.25 GPA point increase. Already, 35 clubs have received over $70,000 in supplemental funding through SGA's budget advisory committee, all made possible through the student activities fee. Campus beer is thriving. More than 1,500 students attended this year's fall welcome back concert featuring Young Gravy and over 7,000 students joined the homecoming bonfire, both showing strong year over year growth.
Just last week, our annual, Halloweek brought students together daily, for fall and Halloween themed events. We're also excited to host upcoming community traditions like Friendsgiving on November 19 and Light the Spine on December 3, which will feature over 30 student clubs celebrating the close of the semester through decorated and lighted club displays. Finally, we thank the chant we thank chancellor Sobonnet for campus leadership and for their engagement with SGA and for including students in recent discussions on the 2030 strategic plan. It's truly a great time to be a mountain lion.
That is it for the ICSF report. Thank you all. Thank you. Up next, we have staff council report. I see both Janae Hurt and Kimberly Slavsky here. So okay. It looks like Kimberly's got the pleasure today. Thank you to president Solomon, chair Renison, vice chair Montero, regents and chancellors for the opportunity to share this time with you to discuss matters related to the staff at CU. The following update provides the insight into the challenges that we in shared governance have been hearing from staff since we last reported in September. In our last report, we discussed our plan for our next year goals and what
we are going to do to implement them. These plans include strengthening intercampus relationships, not just with UCSC and our campuses, but between campuses as well. Janae and I continue to work with campus council leadership and attend meetings when possible to remind staff that we are here for them and that we want to help and be supportive. I I have to say, I really do enjoy the ability to participate, and I thank the campus councils for letting both Janee and I be a part of the conversation of what means the most to them.
We would also like to take a minute to thank president Solomon along with Christopher Sparks and his team for all their hard work on our campus staff council videos that were just completed in the last few weeks. These videos are going to be used not only to build awareness that we exist but also explain how people can join and get more involved. UCSC also greatly appreciates the ability to work with CU leadership to advocate for staff, including the ability to comment on upcoming regent law and policy, additions and changes, APS additions and changes, and high level search committees.
Our conversations with Felicity O'Hara are an amazing opportunity to not only present our challenges, but also to get clarification on issues and rumors as well as constructive feedback when we need it. The challenges facing staff have not diminished. In fact, in many ways, they've intensified. Confirms excuse me. Concerns around the future of higher education funding, job security, increasing workloads, and maintaining enthusiasm for the roles at CU are top of mind for many. We extend our sincerest thanks to Felicity O'Hara and her team for the pilot program, Connected Conversations, which is already being beginning to reach at least one campus, UCCS.
We recognize that meaningful change across the system will be will take time and may not be without difficulty, but we deeply appreciate the efforts being made to create a more positive experience for staff. In the meantime, how can we support our colleagues while these changes are underway? Frankly, we believe it begins with us on UCSC. By leveraging our existing relationships with leadership and improving communications with staff, we can provide a clearer, more consistent information that can help dispel uncertainty and prevent the spread of rumors. It's also about reminding staff of the many resources that are available to them, highlighting
not just financial or health related benefits, but also the opportunities for growth and development. These include the tuition benefit, LinkedIn Learning, campus based learning and development courses, Precipio, and many other offerings that may not be widely known or utilized. Our role is not only to listen, but also to support. While our group is small, 23 members serving a much larger population of staff, We are committed to partnering with campus councils to hear concerns, collaborate on solutions, and help reframe the challenges in a more constructive light. It is time to shift the narrative around staff identity.
Our colleagues are not just or only staff. They are essential contributors to the success of this institution and the incredible work it accomplishes. We must remember our own why, the deeper reason why we choose to continue our careers at CU beyond the paycheck. Leadership is not confined to titles or position. It resides in within each of us. It is reflected in how we support one another, propose solutions, and identify opportunities to improve processes and strengthen our collective efforts. The hope is that these practices become more common and they will permeate through the
organization fostering an even more supportive and empowered work environment. Thank you. Thank you. Up next, we have faculty council chair, doctor Jorge Chavez. Good afternoon. Thank you, president Salomon, chair Renison, vice chair Monterra, Regents and the chancellors for the opportunity to share with you the work of CU Faculty Council. It's a pleasure to be here at Colorado Springs. I would like to start by thanking President Salomon and Chair Rennison for your recent remarks and continued remarks addressing the centrality of academic freedom and freedom of expression on our campuses. And also thank you to the Chancellor for addressing that today.
And the important role that our institution plays in ensuring a space for civil discourse. Our faculty across the campuses remain concerned by the chilling effect of executive actions and orders and continue to grapple with the consequences of lost grants and federal money, which support our faculty, our staff, our students and our research. These have very real impact. The faculty council LGBTQ plus committee conducted a survey of LGBTQ plus faculty, staff, students, finding considerable concern for their safety and protection. I would like to thank vice president for collaboration, Judy Diasbonoquisti, for meeting with the women's and LGBTQ plus committees to hear the concerns on these issues.
In addition, federal actions have resulted in approximately $50,000,000 in grant losses and losses of nearly 100 positions across our campuses. I commend the chances for the continued and continuing efforts to support our faculty as they navigate commitments to students and staff and work to identify alternatives, alternative avenues of support. I encourage the continued collaboration between administration and faculty to address the impacts of federal mandates and executive orders. And for continued communication that our CU values have not changed and that we continue to serve all of our students in our broader community.
And I thank you for that message that you keep, repeating. The faculty council, met on September 25 and October 23. The October meeting was also a faculty senate meeting at which President Salomon addressed the senate covering a range of topics from the strategic plan to the budget to academic freedom and the impact of federal mandates. Thank you, President Salomon, for engaging that conversation and for collaborating with faculty. Highlighting some of our work, the Faculty Council has been in discussions to create a Climate and Sustainability Committee to share ideas across the campuses as this is aligned with our CU strategic plan and the goals of our campuses.
At the present time, this has been put on hold and instead faculty representatives from the campus faculty assemblies will join the existing system wide sustainability steering committee. This seems like a fruitful avenue for expanded collaboration between the campuses and our faculty. The faculty council also voted to approve a proposal from the faculty council committee on personnel and benefits with recommendations for additions to recent changes to APS-five 14 tuition assistance benefit to be more competitive with those of peer institutions and more consistent across campuses and for expanded faculty role in future discussions of this policy. Finally, the Faculty Council Committee on Education Policy and University Standards has continued to review
and provide feedback on APS ten fourteen, intellectual property for education materials. This work has been ongoing for several years now and we appreciate the education materials. This work has been ongoing for several years now and we appreciate the thoughtful collaboration between the regents, the administration, the faculty council and that deliberate and that we're making deliberate and continued progress. Thank you. Thank you. Up next next on the agenda is the consent agenda. The entire consent agenda is listed in community. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? Second. Alright. It's moved by regent Montero and seconded by regent Chavez. Is there any discussion? Alright. Seeing none, the question before us is approval of all items listed on the consent
agenda. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Aye. Seeing none, the motion passes. The consent agenda is adopted. Next on the agenda is faculty dismissal for cause. Professor Mark Tom Ford at UCCS. Is there a motion? So moved by Regent Spiegel. Second. K. Oh, a tie there, but I'm gonna go with Regent Chavez on the second. Is there any discussion? Alright seeing none the question before us is faculty dismissal for cause. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion passes.
Up next is university affairs committee report. I'm gonna pass it over to committee chair, Van Driel. Thank you, madam chair. The university affairs committee met at 12:30 on Tuesday, September 2. I have the wrong date on here. That's funny. That is not when we met. We met in October. My apologies. I'll pretend that I'm gonna look it up, but I'm not gonna find that. But it's in diligent. All members of the committee were present. We are also grateful to be joined by Regent James. The committee considered and approved and recommended approval to the board of two degree programs,
both of which were approved minutes ago. They were simply fantastic, as so many are. Then we had a long discussion item on continuing in professional education. My sincere gratitude to Ted Rockwell and to Candida Bennett for joining us and presenting and sharing their expertise as well as our repeat, offenders at UA who joined them and shared their expertise in Lynn Vidler, Beth Myers, and Rod Nairn. Finally, we ended with good news from the campus. As we're on the UCCS campus, I will share some of their good news, which
was they have received a federal grant to start, a support program that is going to serve, first generation low income students. It is a fantastic program, and we're wonder wonderfully proud of them and of Susan Taylor and all of her hard work on this. If you wanna hear more information about good news from any of our other campuses, you will have to join us on 01/22/2026 at 12:30 on Zoom where you can enjoy those things with us.
Thank you, madam chair. Thank you so much. Up next is the governance committee report. I'll turn it over to committee chair, Spiegel. Great. Thank you, chair Renison, and good afternoon, everyone. The governance committee met on October 23, and myself, along with regents McNulty and Hood and Scott were in attendance. We began the meeting by discussing the winter retreat, which will be a one day virtual event on January 15, And we continue to discuss topic ideas for the meeting, and details of that are continuing to be developed.
And I thank everyone for their their input into that. We spent the bulk of our time, as we usually do, on regent laws and policies and took several action items in the committee, that were discussed. And the changes to these following laws and policies, you can see, were placed on the consent agenda and were just approved as we approved the consent agenda. Many of the things that you hear people talking about, things like academic freedom and all of those things are things that we discussed robustly at at our meetings. And although that wasn't on this agenda, but you you see lots of these things. We're we're always making sure to review these and making sure we're getting the input
from our faculty and staff and students and stakeholders on them. So, the ones that were just on the consent agenda were, article one part c, the University of Colorado policy framework, article two part c, the university seal, article two a five, the chair and vice chair, Policy two c one, committee governing principles. Policy three f, evaluations for officers of the university and officers of the administration. And policy four b, academic planning and accountability. And once again, those all just passed on the consent agenda so you can look
and see, what if any changes were made to those. We had several, discussion items and proposed changes to laws and policies. These are receiving notice of motion at this November board meeting and will be discussed again at the January 22 governance committee meeting. Those include policy one b guiding principles article two part d and policy two d regent awards. Policy two e, faculty, staff, and student representatives to the board of regents, policy three
a, definitions of officers of the university, policy 13 d, defense and indemnification of University of Colorado employees, policy 13 e, fiscal misconduct, policy 14 b, use of the university's name and marks in advertising marketing by external entities. In addition, I added article six laws of the regent, a a proposed amendment to article six around class, university and classified staff that would define and recognize our house
staff. This is just receiving a notice of motion at this meeting. The laws and policy coordinating committee, Dan Montes, gave an overview of the twenty twenty four, twenty five law and policy review process, and we received a brief update on some of the non substantive law and policy changes that have happened. We had several discussion items, including the resolution catalog. Thank you, regent McNulty. That is, you know, kinda spearheading this effort to figure out ways to, implement a plan to, to catalog our resolutions.
So thank you for bringing that. We also had some discussion about, AI policy governance and, got an update on some of the great work that President Solomon and his team is doing as as well of other other ways for the the members of the board, to engage with peer institutions and understand best practices and alignment guidelines. The next governance committee meeting is on January 22 at 9AM, and we welcome everyone to come and join us and, give their input and feedback. So thank you.
Thank you. Up next is the finance committee report. I'm gonna turn it over to Regent Chavez. Thank you, madam chair. The finance committee met on October 29, which actually is the correct date. The meeting is posted and available in community. Mark didn't hear that, but, that's okay. I'll move on. The the during the capital construction during the capital construction portion of the meeting, the committee heard the quarterly capital construction report from Corey. Corey also reviewed how the Colorado Commission on Higher Education ranked state funded capital construction
requests for next year's budget, are are set out. Three of the four CU projects submitted for consideration are ranked in the top 10 of that list. Next, Corey gave an overview on the naming policy and what circumstances require region approval and review. Following that presentation, the committee considered two requests honoring, naming of CU Boulder buildings. The first that I wanna talk about is, is the, renaming of Residence 1 to
Code Tocker Hall. And for those of you who aren't familiar with the the term code talkers, during World War one and World War two, hundreds of Native American servicemen from more than 20 tribes, used their indigenous languages to send secret coded messages enemies could never break, known as code talkers. These individuals helped, US forces achieve military victory in some of the greatest battles of
the twentieth century. 11 tribes with historic ties to Colorado have direct connections to the Code Talker legacy serving in both, world wars. Code Talkers Hall, excuse me, is also in in the same area of the CU Boulder campus where temporary housing for World War two veterans who returned to school with their families under the GI Bill were located, and it was known as Vetsville, because
of that. The honorary name stems from a desire to honor the historical significance of the land, respecting reflecting a deep respect for its past and the stories that it holds. This land that once housed indigenous people and veterans will continue to serve as a home for CU Boulder students. And naming the building Code Talker Hall allows the university to honor the past while educating future generations about the heroic contributions of veterans and the contributions the code talkers
made during World War one and World War two. And I want to, introduce and recognize, two folks that are here, guests that are here, senator Benny Shendo, from the CU Boulder campus. Senator Shendo is the associate vice chancellor for Native American affairs. Say hi to everybody. And and and with him is, Jordan Mora, who's a member of the Jemez Pueblo. He's a sophomore here at UCCS, and he's also a track and field athlete in
the Javelin. So thank you both for being here. And and the reason I wanted to talk about this is because, you know, far too often, we think that doing a land acknowledgment or or something similar is is the most we can do. And the truth is it's the least we can do. And so doing this and and taking steps towards recognizing the sacrifice folks have made
over the years and the contributions that they've made is a step forward. And I I I personally would like to see, and I'm sure Benny would agree, that we continue that effort with recognition inside Kotakar Hall that explains that history. Because if you missed it today, I don't want you I want you to be able to see it in the actual in the hall itself. So thank you both for being here. The, the second committee the second renaming that the committee considered, is is a plaza
at the CU Event Center to, Seale Berry Plaza. The name will be familiar to many of you, Seale Berry. She was part of the, women's basketball hall of fame. She is inducted into the women's hall of fame and made invaluable contributions to CU women's basketball program throughout her tenure as head coach of the women's basketball program from 1983 through 2005 and to the university as the as the athletic director athletic department
administrator from 2005 through 2020. This honor is, not only recognition for Berry's accomplishments on the court, which are many, but also her contributions to the Boulder community and her immense contributions to to women's sports as a player, a coach, and athletic department administrator. And in addition to the accomplishments as a coach, Barry epitomizes what it's meant to be a buff, leading with integrity, passion, and class. And that, both items I just mentioned were included on the consent agenda, which we
just, approved. The final capital item considered by the committee was the purchase of 2350 Arapahoe Avenue in Boulder. The property is located at the corner of Arapahoe Avenue and Folsom Street and is surrounded on three sides by other campus owned property. The per the purchase creates a future opportunity for the campus to redevelop the the property to meet the future campus needs and demands. The the, purchases, were included in the consent agenda as well.
During the finance portion of the meeting I only have 10 pages, so I'm I'm on I'm on one. During the finance portion of the meeting, Scott Munson gave his quarterly IT project status report. Time and labor project continues to be on time and on budget. Treasurer Sharma reported on the performance of the treasury pool as of the close of September. Treasurer Sharma, Comptroller McNamara and Chad presented an annual report on the financial health of CU. The next presentation was by Rich Robekind from the CU bold CU Boulder lead school
of business. Rich presented the fiscal year twenty four, twenty five CU economic impact study, which shows that CU campuses and the CU Anschutz affiliated hospitals have a combined total economic impact of 20,000,000,000 in fiscal year twenty four-twenty five. Dollars 20,000,000,000. That's amazing. With 12,500,000,000.0 coming from the CU and remaining impact from the affiliated hospitals. I wanna, offer my thanks to Rich and Brian Lewandowski from Leeds as well as
Ryan Allred, Stephanie Sheldon, and Chad's on Chad's team for their work on this presentation. And finally, Chad presented CU's ten year revenue expenditure forecast. This forecast illustrates the challenges facing the state's budget in the near term with state expenditures foreshadows what will likely be a challenging legislative session, and we know it will help with our advocacy efforts at the capital. And I I just wanna say thank you to Chad's team, all the folks who
were involved in that. For those of you who don't know, not even the state does a ten year forecast. We do that. We have an amazing wealth of experienced experts who are able to help us put that together, and the state even relies on that information that we provide to them, most recently last year in the in the special legislative session. So I wanna thank Chad for all the work that you do and your team
on on that project. Our next meeting is January 29. I hope you all attend. And, that concludes my report. Great. Thank you. Up next time for Christmas. Yeah. Thanksgiving. Yeah. Next is quarterly treasurer's report. Treasurer Usha Sharma. Welcome. Thank you, madam chair. So the report that I'm going to be presenting today is as of 09/30/2025, our first fiscal quarter. You also have an eight page report in community that has a lot more detail
than what I'm gonna present, but it does pull key information from that report. Next slide, please. What's the picture? Oh, that's a lost lake up by Kepler Pass. Recent. So this chart illustrates the liquidity position and cash flow pattern of the university over the last couple years. The blue color, the blue area right there is segment one portfolio that's invested in AAA rated government money market fund and that has daily liquidity. The gold portion is 1.5,
segment 1.5. That's enhanced cash portfolio invested up to a horizon of up to like two seventy days and it's used to cover cash flows that are like less than daily, frequency like monthly payroll and semiannual debt service payment. Both segments reflect the seasonality and cash flow pattern of the university. Segment one earned one 4.4% interest and segment 1.5 earned about 4.7%
over the last twelve months. The light gray area on the very bottom represents segment two are sold duration bonds, about $193,000,000 at quarter end that are meant to fund the cash portion of capital projects, strategic projects and some other on portion cash needs. This segment earned about 4.8% over the last twelve months. With recent cuts in Fed fund rate, we'll see that return going down over time. Next slide, please. So this is the market indicator for major indices as well as our pool.
And these are presented on absolute basis and not relative. The all indices for broader equity and bond markets were green for the most recent quarter and last twelve months, showing a resilient market despite lots of noises in the market. Broader equity market had a strong performance in immediate quarter enrolling twelve months with S and P 500 returning above 8% for the quarter and 17.6% for twelve months. The non U. S. Equity index, ACWI, returned 7.6%
for the quarter and 17.3% for rolling twelve months. The Bloomberg aggregate bond index returned 2% for the quarter and 2.9% for the last twelve months. The treasury pool had good absolute return for the quarter of 3.5% and for the last twelve months of 8.1%, it lagged its benchmark for both periods. Next slide. This slide contains a lot of information and this is all about treasury pool investments. As of 09/30/2025, the pool balance on a market value basis was approximately $4,100,000,000 compared
to $3,900,000,000 a year ago, an increase of about $173,000,000 over the last twelve months. The pie chart on the bottom left shows the asset allocation at the September. The total pool consisted of 21% in cash, about 35 in fixed income, 36% in equities and about 8% in long term investment pool. We commonly refer as the LTIP. I am happy to report that the asset allocation was within the investment policy guidelines. The last table on the bottom right shows returns of treasury pool over several time
horizons. The relative performance over these periods is somewhat mixed. While return net of fees lacks the benchmark for the immediate quarter one and three year, the inception to debt return is ahead of the benchmark. Mark. Next slide. The previous page and this one both provide information on treasury pool investment performance. The difference is the table on this on the previous page shows the market value of the portfolio at two different points in time, twelve months apart, 09/30/2024 and 09/30/2025.
The table on this slide represents the investment balance of the pool at the same point in time, but at two different valuation basis, cost and market. The market value of the treasury pool on September 30 was was about $4,100,000,000 compared to $3,500,000,000 in cost with a nice appreciation. Next slide. Now I'm switching on to CU's debt portfolio. The debt capacity ratio and the weighted average cost of cost of debt, that information is updated on an annual basis after the fiscal year end.
So the 2.56 debt capacity ratio that you are seeing there and the weighted average cost of capital of 2.78, those numbers were calculated at the June '30. And you will be seeing these numbers two more quarters. The state requirement is 10% and the region policy limit is 7%, providing a nice cushion there. Total outstanding debt as of September was close to $1,700,000,000 However, this does not reflect
the most recent bond issuance that was closed on October 14, which has about $76,500,000 in new debt, but the refunding will actually reduce our principal amount by about 14,000,000. The current debt portfolio mix is 75% tax exempt and 25% taxable. That excludes other other debt, which is, for Quebec at 54,000,000. CU's bonds are rated AA one by Moody's and AA plus by Fitch, and the commercial paper is rated p one f one plus by the same rating agencies respectively.
And these ratings were recently conformed in August during our most recent bond issuance. With that, I'm ready for questions. Questions? All right. Seeing none, thank you very much. Next is an action item regarding real property transactions for Colorado Avenue Housing. I'm going to turn it over to CFO, Chad Martirano. Thank you, madam chair. I'm actually going to hand the baton over to, senior vice chancellor at CU Boulder, Todd Haggerty, to talk through this. Just to give point of reference, this came through the finance committee in August, and
it was brought forward to this November meeting to be heard in the finance committee portion of the meeting. So I'm gonna hand it over to to mister Hagerty. Thank you, Chad. Madam chair, regents, president Solomon, and chancellors, it's my pleasure to be here to talk about a very critical and important opportunity for CU Boulder. So you get this next slide. And I was given explicit instructions from chancellor Schwartz to say if you can get one thing across, please make it the first bullet point on this slide. And that is why we're doing this and why we're bringing this to you today is that we know that student housing and student housing that is close on campus
and affordable is one of the most critical tactics that we can do to improve our student outcomes and student success and ultimately graduation. So that is why we're coming here today. So it is always great to have an opportunity when you don't need to use capital campus capital or debt. And also, this helps with our sustainability goals and providing new retail and other amenities to a part of a critical entrance into the heart of the campus. A time line of how we got here and one of the things I'll just note is our the engagement that we wanted to have to make sure we were authentically listening and engaging with the neighbors that may will be impacted by this by
this project. And we've had several of those engagements you see four listed on here and one of the things as we move forward in this project, if it is approved, that we will continue those engagements throughout the entire process and have that dialogue with those neighbors. But what I will just come to is really what are we talking about today. What's that? The action item actually before you is for the sale of three properties that CU Boulder currently holds, then the acquisition of that green box that you can see on the screen up there back to us at no cost. And then the ability for us to enter into negotiations in the ground lease with
the developer to provide this housing long term. So as the the nuts and bolts of the item there, but also gives you kind of a perspective here of where this project is that located on campus and again, why addressing some of the neighbors concerns has been critical throughout. Again, as we've gone throughout the entire process, we've been from the CU Bowl started working diligently with with our partner and the design review board to ensure that it aligns with campus aesthetics, campus materiality, providing open space. And so we've had a lot of work here to come to make sure that
we are providing that, in in the designs where they are now and ensuring that they'll be there as we move forward because this is going to be a very prominent and visible entryway into the campus. Again, here on the conceptual massing just along Colorado Avenue, one of the things we've been intentional about too to help mitigate the impact on those neighbors is bring most of the massing towards Colorado Avenue and where the traffic comes into campus. I'll also note there the one of the key components of this is actually improving pedestrian, safety and access air by making it more friendly for both bicycles and for
pedestrians there along that. You'll see those trees in that area there, which is fairly barren at this point. Right now, this will allow us to really beautify that area and make it safer. And last, I just wanted to make sure that we were as, you know, being part of an important community in Boulder. And as Anne Schmiesing mentioned, part of a hundred and fifty years, that we want we do wanna be good neighbors always with with the surrounding communities. And as we've heard the feedback, we've heard a lot of their concerns, there are a lot of their requests. And these are just some of the things on here that we have brought forward that they've asked for a physical wall.
We are going to do that. We are aligning, with solar fence or the shadow that buildings will cast, which is aligning with the the city of Boulder's code for 25 foot for multifamily homes. And then of course, always we've already engaged on this, making sure that we are working on structural stability, groundwater management to ensure that that doesn't impact the neighbors. And again, trying to make sure we're pulling most of that passing back from the that it doesn't come up right against their backyards. And most importantly, you know, too, we have a beautiful campus, always consistently one of
the five most beautiful in the country. And we wanna make sure that we maintain that by having the aesthetic be in alignment with the campus. Any questions? Questions? Not a question, Todd, but I do want to just thank you for the amount of time time that the group has taken to meet with neighbors to understand the concerns and try to satisfy those concerns. Got off to a little bit of a tough start, but I think we we came back to it really well. And I also wanna emphasize the fact that we are looking at potentially 1,600 students that will be able to be housed in this area, which is unbelievable for, our
Boulder campus. So appreciate the work that's been done on this. Yeah. Thank you very much. And there's a whole team behind that, and some of them are here, including, Corey Donaldson has been instrumental in Derek Silva. So thank you to them. Regent Chavez. Thank you, madam chair. I wanna echo, Ken's comments. One of the issues I hear most often from parents of CU Boulder students is is lack of housing and, and the and the conditions in which many of them are forced to to occupy, and and it's a it's a big issue.
So this does go a long way towards meeting that need. It doesn't come close to solving it, but it it gets us a long way. The second part is is the, concerns that the neighbors have had and and I have shared my concerns about those as well and my desire and the rest of the finance committee's desire to, try and meet them as as much as possible and and I think that you have done so.
And so I wanna thank you and and all of the folks who have been involved on behalf of the campus for doing so. That includes things that aren't even on here which which are designing a a a four sided building which, doesn't always happen. Right? A lot of times you just see a facade, a nice beautiful facade, and the back, looks poorly built. And and, and and that isn't the case here. And so the design review, team deserves a lot of credit for ensuring, ensuring that.
So I just wanna say thanks for all the work that you've done on it and and, I'd like to hear how it continues to unfold. Yes. Thank you. Great. Additional comments or questions? Regent Vandrill. Thank you, madam chair. I am remarkably like John Snow in this matter in which I know nothing. So I will ask you to explain something to me. When I see point four there that massing has been reduced, my understanding of that, my intuition on that, if you will, is that that means our ability to serve our students is being decreased and the costs are probably going higher.
Can you explain to me, if I'm wrong, why I'm wrong? So a couple of different points there, but a great question, Regent Madrigal. One of the things that we've been able to do is but it's that really last that last number five bullet point too, is when we talk about the design aesthetic and going closer to some of our other existing student housing facilities, we do wanna match that where some of those are as well. And because we pivoted on part of the building, it was gonna be geared more towards second year students in the long run. You actually it is more of a dormitory style like there. So we didn't lose any beds as we reduce some of the the the size
there. So we are continuing to be able to serve, like I said, a 1,600 potential students there. And we we also know that we there's more to come and more to do to make sure we're addressing this need. But we're able to balance what it looks like to the campus and may not lose beds as we reduce the size by getting a critical need to which is second year housing. I appreciate that. I especially appreciate your first part. Thank you very much. Okay. Alright. Any more? Regent Hood. I just wanna say that I echo the comments of my fellow regents, and especially
with the engagement with the neighbors. I think that really is laudable, and we've done, a lot of engagement with them and tried to address their concerns. And we're never gonna address every concern, but we can at least try. And we can try to make reasonable accommodations for people who are our neighbors. I just hope, I understand that today we're giving you all permission to proceed with this project, and we're giving you permission to enter into an agreement with the developer and continue on. But it's my expectation as Regent that you will continue to engage in good faith
with the neighbors, even though we're not gonna be involved directly in this process. And that we're gonna continue to ensure that the design aesthetic matches that of the rest of the campus. Because as you emphasized, this is a huge project and it's a big statement piece for our campus. It's gonna be a big introduction, feature introduction to people coming into Boulder and to the campus. And we want it to go well, we want it to look right. So thank you for continuing to do those things, and, appreciate all of the thought that's gone into this.
Thank you very much. Okay. Additional, Regent Spiegel. Thank you, Chair Rennison. I just wanna say where I see a win win here is that, you know, what what this is doing is, you know, by creating affordable housing for students, we're we're really helping them and their families save money. And, like, Regent Chavez, that's often something I hear relative to the housing in Boulder. I don't wanna lose sight of Chancellor Schwartz's point when we talk about a win win. So they're saving money, but we also know student success is directly tied to their, to students' ties to the campus.
And having more housing options and more of those things we know will also help us improve our student success metrics. So I appreciate that. And I do wanna echo the commitment to being good neighbors also and to the community there and that engagement process and the expectation that that that continues. So, thank you for all of that. Thank you. Everybody good? Mark Vendrell. Regent Vendrell. I have one other question. Obviously, you showed us a map of some of the housing that's coming out of
there. Do you know have a sense of the number of of what the previous number of occupants in that area was? Regent Benjurello, I don't have that off the top of my head, but happy to look into that, for you. I would positively love to know that at some point. So thank you. Yeah. I would guess it was. Alright. Thank you. Is there a motion to approve the real property transactions agenda item? Okay. I got regent Monterra got it. Did you go first or did he He doesn't. Alright. I'll give regent Monterra the motion and regent Spiegel the second.
Is there any additional discussion? Alright. Seeing none, the question before us is approval of real property transactions for Colorado Avenue housing. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Seeing none, the motion passes. Thank you, Todd. And thank you. Thanks to your team. Thank you. Up next is an action item, UCCS tuition proposal. CFO Chad Martirano again. Thank you, madam chair, regents, president Solomon, chancellors. Pleasure to be here today to talk to you about a out year tuition proposal at UCCS. As you recall, at the June board meeting, we typically do out year planning, and
this is something that would fall into that space. We just wanted to get it in a good spot spot before we brought it to the board, and that's why we're bringing it here at the November meeting. So the somebody that's done a lot of presentations has shared with me, like, start with the punchline at the beginning. So what we're aiming to do here is to eliminate the lower level undergraduate tier, create a new tier for the College of Education, a new, nonresident College of Nursing tier, and then standardize the differential between these four rates across the campus for both undergraduate or pardon me, for undergraduate resident and nonresident students.
There's a couple of reasons tied to the campus's desire to do that, but the primary one is that there's just a lot of confusion in terms of how the tuition tables work here. Students start, and it doesn't matter their field of study, and they pay the same rate between the first credit hour and the fifty ninth credit hour. And then all of a sudden, when they get to that sixtieth credit hour and it could be a an incoming freshman student that is has 55 credits in their pocket in their fall term, and then all of a sudden they're over that 60 mark in their spring term and their tuition goes up, that creates a lot of confusion for students and families. So the campus has heard from student government leadership, from parents, students that, they just
don't understand why it works that way. So they're trying to provide transparent way to convey the expense and the cost for higher education at UCCS through these tuition, tiers. It the tiers are set up in a way that more accurately reflect the differential costs associated with the programs. And the campus is proposing this a way that's revenue neutral, but over time would result in some additional revenues that they would, intend to target towards student scholarships, student services, and and eliminating a a subsidy from graduate tuition to help with graduate studies. Something else to put in one's mind, about how the differentials are structured.
If we look at our, some of the data from our alumni or alumni outcomes earnings, which we presented at the May Finance Committee meeting, when we look at graduates from these four fields and we break those down in the first five years from graduation, you kind of see that the tier is actually aligned with earnings. So that's just another data point for us to say these seem like reasonable price points as we think about the differentials relative to these programs. One really important thing to talk about, and there this will become evident when we illustrate what's happening or what we're proposing to do with the rates is, over 75
or around over 73 of, current students will see a decrease in their cost as a result of this change. For that remaining 26% of current students, they will be held flat at their current rates, experience no change. And then when we're thinking about, I mentioned in the first year, the campus is doing this revenue neutral as students complete and the and the cohorts, graduate. Any of those additional revenues would be targeted to the types of things like scholarships, stipends for doctoral students, and then again, eliminating the subsidy from graduate tuition to the
undergraduate side like I mentioned before. So let's, let's this is a visual and we're we're digging into the resident side. On the left hand side, that green box is what currently happens. And then as soon as you hit that sixtieth credit hour, you trickle down into one of those other differential rates. What the campus is proposing is on the left side, and when a student comes in based on their field of study, that's the rates that they pay, and that differential is pegged to that new base rate in the black. So it's that second box on the on the right hand side. And then rates would be $8 less for this per credit hour hour for School
of Education, $50 more for Business and Engineering, and a $100 more for Nursing. As we look at what the rate change will be on a year over year basis, remember that continuing lower lower division students are held flat for up to two years, and upper division students will see the benefit of this new rate. And so there will experience a tuition rate decrease ranging from 1.9 to 6.6%. And this is the illustration of what we're essentially doing. So if you picture, kinda like two hydraulic blocks with a lower level rate and an upper level rate, we're we're bringing those into balance.
So that orange line that's dotted across the screen demonstrates what the new proposed rate is. So it's putting the two bars together essentially, to codify that new new set rate. If we think about what that would look like in in fiscal year twenty six, twenty seven relative to current year rates, the bottom of this page shows that proposed rate for, LAS, and it compares that across that proposed rate for, LAS, and it compares that across all the governing boards in the state. So you can kinda see how it compares. It's still lower than CU Denver, and it's in shouting distance of, CSU and CSU
Pueblo. If we add in tuition and fees, you can see how that compares, and it continues to be a little bit lower than CU Denver, and it's in market with other competitors in the state. On the nursing program, when we look at that, that's first column here. When we look at the UCCS nursing program proposed rate for residents as compared to others, it's below Anschutz when we add in mandatory fees. It's still not the largest in the state. That actually goes to Metro State MSU Denver. But that's just another competitor where we believe the campus believes it's pricing this in
a competitive way. On the nonresident side, similar story, same same, structure here, same structure in terms of what's happening with the rates. There is an exception to this, and that is actually in the lower right hand corner, and that's in the nonresident nursing program where the rate that the campus is proposing is actually higher than a lower level and upper level rate. Those additional revenues for nonresident students paying at this rate, the campus believes is in line with market, and that will help keep costs more affordable for resident students in the long run.
So what are the next steps? Today, we're proposing the board approve these rates as the starting place for for fiscal 2627, and that whatever happens with state funding and ultimate tuition rates for next year, they would be a basis of this. If the board approves today, this would also require approval of the legislature through the budgeting process in the spring, and, hopefully, it is in place starting 2026. Happy to take any questions if folks have them. Great. Regent McNulty. Thank you, madam chair. Chad, thank you, for your presentation.
Thank you for your work. This has never made any sense to me. Chancellor Sobony, I know that you share a similar opinion, and so I think it is time to address it. I'm glad that so much thought and work has has gone into addressing it. The question I had is the question I the question I will pose is, a great deal of analysis has been done, to to ensure that UCCS continues to be competitive.
And, my question is, do do we think that this change and and I'm and and it's really important that we're holding current students harmless. Right? Do we think that this change is going to affect UCCS's ability to attract students? Yep. I'm looking at my ABC of enrollment management right back there. I actually not only do we think it's not going to harm it, we are the the potential for future students, we think it's actually going to help in recruiting new students as well as retaining the students that we get.
Thank you, chancellor. And that that that's sort of what I thought. And so I'm glad to have that ratified verified. Thank you. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you. Additional question? Oh, regent Montero. Just so we've been talking about, tuition changes at Colorado Springs for quite a while, and frankly, none of the other proposals made sense to me. They were, I think, gonna be to the detriment of enrollment. And I think this is a creative and a long overdue plan to get us there. And I really appreciate the work that went into it, both with Chad and your
team, Jennifer. I think it's gonna do a great job of rebuilding stability at the at the college. And maybe will affect that junior senior decline of people that leave, in that period because a lot of that is due to the increase in tuition that we're seeing. So well done. And that that comment, Regent Montero, I wanna say thank you to the UCCS budget and finance team as well as folks on my team, Corey Donaldson, Emily Parker, and Sue Lena Duran, where we've spent a lot of time on this over the last few months to get it into this place, as well as, Jen St.
Peter who has helped out from the CU Denver campus on this. So thank you to everybody who had a hand in making this what it is today. Great. Regent Vandrew? Thank you, madam chair. You said at the beginning the enormous complexity of the current tuition tables. My question for you is, what number of tuition tables will there be when this is implemented? Well, at least no more than 19 from 38. Okay. I would say that's progress, I suppose, if I may. It's it's so much more simplified than it was before that I don't think it's
a fair comparison to go 38 to 19. It is so much more clear and so much more simple. And we can, it allows families to be able to forecast. We can actually use our tuition calculator that's on our website so that students and families can actually now forecast what their costs will be to stay here for four years and finish out in the undergraduate. Important point to expand on. So so even going down to a number that might still appear to be more, of the 38 that were there in the current state, you could have a student using table five in the first semester, and then they have to go to table
seven in the second semester. And so that confusion is what contributes to that. So that simplification will occur regardless of how many are there. It's just you have your table, and that's what you look for in terms of your tuition expense. Right. And I wanna point out to Regent Van Driel that that is a prime number which should be pleasing to you. So alright. You're welcome. Any other questions or comments? Okay. Great. Is there a motion to approve the u c So moved. Oh, there we go. Second? Alright. We're gonna give the second to Regent Spiegel. Madam chair?
Oh, yes. I was gonna say I wanted to discuss this. Yeah. Okay. Great. Is there any discussion? Regent Vandrill. Thank you, madam chair. I didn't want you to move too fast. Okay. There's Thank you. I have not voted for a tuition increase since I've been here, and I don't plan to vote for a tuition increase here. I say this that it's easy to see this as a tuition increase because over time, it's gonna generate revenue. My hope is that it won't and that that's gonna mess up with your budget, people, because my hope with this is for this this our goal should be degrees,
and the people who are closest to degrees have more credits. And my hope with this is that it motivates more people to be in those categories, and that that lowers your revenue, and that makes me happy. It it creates a problem we'll have to solve. But I in that sense, it it feeds into something we've been trying to do as a system, which is to communicate to people that they have options to I won't say trick the system, but they have options to be smarter than the traditional
path and to use that to get their education cheaper and more affordable. And for those people, this is making a a big difference, and people who choose to not avail themselves of that have some consequence to their choice. And for those reasons, I consider this a tuition decrease. And so I thank you for bringing me the ability to finally vote for a tuition decrease. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you very much. Alright. The question before us is approval of the UCCS tuition proposal. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Alright. The motion passes unanimously.
Excellent. Yes. Regent Sobonay. If I if if I may, just thank you. Thank you all so much, and I wanna say thank you. I'm looking at some people in the audience who worked so hard to make this happen. And, Chad, you and your team, Terry and Jeff and, Jovita, so many people have worked so hard on this. And this has been going on for years, as can as, Regent Montero said. And for us to get this over the finish line, and hopefully now go discuss this with the legislature, it's really an exciting step. And, as as Chad mentioned, our students have asked for this, our families have asked
for this. You all have asked for this, so I just thank you for the support on this and for the great work that has been done in the background to get us this far. Thank you. Thank you. Alright. Next is an information item. I was gonna say don't go anywhere, Chad, on the unrestricted net position. We'll turn it over to you. Well, who would wanna leave for this one? So this is the this is the point in the year where we wow. So each year, we present to the board, about, the university's current unrestricted net position.
These are just the fund balances across the entire system. It's something that we've been doing for over a decade since 2014. And I'm gonna talk through some high level component parts here. If there's a question that you have that, that you wanna take offline, feel free to ask me, and I'm happy to get that to you. But I'm gonna try to go through this in a thorough but quick manner here. One thing that our campuses have all done in the prior fiscal year and headed into the current in the current fiscal year is they've reconstituted their emergency tuition stabilization
plan amounts. These are dollars that are set aside or ongoing, like, enrollment contingency rows that are pledged in the event that there's, the need to, backfill revenues without increasing tuition, that this is a revenue source for campuses to do that. The last time that campuses tapped into this was around the pandemic, and they've reconstituted those balances since that time. So moving into the so moving into the campuses, I'm gonna show you, just to orient you, what you will see by campus. We're gonna talk about these different categories.
The gold bar is the the the most recent year's balance, and the black bar is the prior year's balance. So you can see the change over time. Just to talk through what some of these categories are, auxiliary facilities, nonpledged, that's any balances that might exist in a in an auxiliary unit. That could be housing and dining, could be extended studies. The strategic set aside capital, those are monies that are typically held by units that are tied to, controlled maintenance needs or, r and r for, different plant issue plant,
like, infrastructure or tied to IT needs. General programmatic, those are reserves held at the department level. Those can be used for department initiatives, including things like faculty start ups. Campus obligated capital, those are monies that a campus is starting to save for what what they would eventually need regent approval to spend on. One of the reasons that you see Boulder's, a little bit lower in this space is they've actually gotten a lot of regent approval over the years, so that's a lower base. So they've actually spent some of that money. Finally, that big negative number that you see on the screen is actually an accounting
exercise. That's compensated absences and post employment benefits. That would assume that they're, everybody there's a there's a run on everybody's leave and sick leave, and the university had to pay that out at the same time. That's the value associated with that. We anticipate that that would continue to grow over time as compensation pools grow, and that liability grows over time too. There's also a portion of that that's post employment retirement benefits. If an individual works with CU long enough and has a little bit of, and isn't Medicare eligibility, they can purchase health care through CU.
Talking through these dollar amounts at the CU Boulder campus, these are those five bars, and this tells you what those fund balances are in the in the most recent year, what some of the things are tie that they're tied to. But the the slide that's actually tangible by campus is this next one, and you'll you'll tend to see themes of these balances. Campuses spend these monies or or, setting aside these dollars for infrastructure needs, IT needs, or or campus initiatives as well as that emergency tuition stabilization fund. Moving into CU Denver, you can see the year over year change here.
General programmatic is a little bit lower than it was in the prior year at CU Denver. Same trend that you see saw at Boulder with the other bars. And then if we look at what are some of the things that the campus is spending that on, deferred maintenance, faculty start up packages, IT, technology, grad student support, and then initiatives tied to student retention and success. Success. In looking at CU Anschutz, we see those same bars. General programmatic's down a little bit. Same trend as the other campuses with the other components. And if we look at what the CU Boulder campus is is largely spending these things on are are if we look at what the CU Boulder campus is is
largely spending these things on are are faculty, professional recruitments, start up packages, research initiatives, lab, deferred maintenance, IT, the Gates Institute initiative, innovations, and, some debt service tied to the School of Dentistry buildings. At UCCS, general programmatic is growing year over year, a little bit of a decrease in strategic set aside and and capital obligated or campus obligated capital. And then when we talk about what are those tangible things, continuation of some initiatives and some of those balances are tied to to monies from system for student retention
and engagement online, faculty and staff retention strategies, the engineering renovation project, which is underway, and, technology and software upgrades. Finally, system administration. We also, have these these components. And when we look at those, those are largely tied to to things that are funded out of the president's office, and we we've highlighted some of those by campus here. And that includes the security enhancements of Boulder, wayfinding, sustainability, collaborative initiatives at CU Denver,
campus security here at UCCS, and research collaborations at Anschutz. And with that, that concludes the unrestricted net position reporting for fiscal year twenty four four, twenty five, and I'm happy to take any questions. Any questions? Alright. Seeing none, thank you very much, Chad. Thank you. We're a little bit ahead of schedule, so I think, those of you who made it, I think a fifteen minute break is in order. So I'll see everyone back here. And and madam chair, I'm I totally did not pray praise the people that I wanna praise. So huge shout out and thanks to Nora Sandoval from my team who works a
ton on this and makes all of these slides look super, super easy, but there's a ton of work that goes over these. And thank you to the campus folks that that helped contribute to this too. You bet. Thank you. So we'll see everybody back here about 03:15. Our seats, please. Oop. There's the mic's working now. Sorry. I'm screaming. Thank you. Alrighty. Amber, are you ready for this? Sweet. Alright. Let's get some more people seated. Alright. Popcorn table, we're gonna need you to take your seats. I know this the draw is strong. Alright. Alright, Amber, when you're ready. Excellent. So next we're gonna hear from Yeah.
Yeah. From UCCS athletic director, Nathan Gibson, and his new walkout song. Congratulations. I I expected everybody would have a walkout video, so I appreciate that for today. Madam Chair, President Solomon, Board of Regents, campus leaders, thank you, again just for the opportunity to share a little bit about, our athletics programs here at UCCS. And as I've done the last few times, I have a special guest with me as well that I'll turn it over to after my remarks. But, each time I have the opportunity to present to this group, I always lead
with how outstanding our student athletes are, and how they are accomplishing in their sport, in the classroom, and in the community. I hope that when you all think about Mountain Lion athletics, the first thing that comes to mind is that our student athletes are some of the best students on this campus. This past year, we achieved a 3.4 department GPA, which marked twenty one consecutive years, forty two consecutive semesters that our department has achieved a three point o GPA or better. We also have an outstanding academic success rate.
Student athlete retention is among the best on campus, and a graduation rate that is 25% higher than the student body. Beyond that, we boast programs that are among the most competitive in division two. Last year, five of our 14 programs were nationally ranked, and we celebrated four RMAC championships. Beyond that, our student athletes are also leaders in our community as we were recognized once again last year as a top 10 athletics program in division two for total community service hours performed, which equated to about $250,000 of economic impact in Southern Colorado.
Further, I am also thrilled to share with you that, as you saw our great volleyball team, in the walkout video, but that we are having a historic fall. Starting with our volleyball program, as we sit here today, our volleyball team has a twenty and two record, is in first place in the conference. They are nationally and regionally ranked, and is having the best season in school history. They have a couple weeks of regular season left, but our volleyball team has the opportunity to do some things that we've never done before, in with that program. Next, I am so proud to report that our men's soccer program, for the first
time in school history, are conference champions. This past week, men's soccer won the regular season championship, and we are gearing up to host the conference tournament as the number one seed. For those of you who are here this summer, you will remember that our men's soccer student athlete, Sean Belzer, presented, and he predicted that our team would win the conference championship this fall. So good on Sean for that prediction. But we are the high GPA. That's right. He knows. He knows. He can see it. But we are thrilled for this team accomplishment, as it has truly been a long
time coming for that program. Further, both of our cross country programs are nationally ranked. Men currently sit at number 15 in the country. Women are at number three. This is the highest ranking for our women's cross country program in school history. They will also be both teams will be competing at the regional meet, this weekend, and then we'll be heading to nationals thereafter. Finally, our other fall program, women's soccer, number 14 in the country. And they will be hosting our conference tournament quarter final this weekend, and they are poised to make a run-in the post season and head into the national tournament as
a top seed. Again, this has been a historic fall for Mountain Lion Athletics. It's the first time that all five of our programs have been nationally ranked at the same time, and the support and excitement on campus as you would expect has just been amazing. With that said, it is now, winter sports as well for us, and it's officially basketball season. We are excited for both basketball programs this year, and I asked one of our amazing student athletes from our women women's basketball program to present with me here today. So it is my pleasure to turn it over to Brielyn Robinson of the women's
basketball Hi, everyone. I'm so happy to be here. My name is Brielyn Robinson, and I'm a fifth year, member of the UCCS women's basketball team. And I'm currently in my third year being coached by coach Bessie Wilson. I graduated in 2024 with my bachelor's degree in business administration, and I'm now in, pursuit of my master's here here at UCCS in business administration. I'm a Colorado native, and, I grew up in Aurora, Colorado.
It's, like, twenty minutes outside of Denver. Yeah. During my recruitment process, one of the biggest things is I wanted to stay closer to home, and UCCS was perfect for that. It still gave me some space, but it was, still close. And I was really hooked because it's such a beautiful place here. The mountains really got me, and I really liked how it was close to a city. So I was able to still have cool events and activities to go to. I also like the size of UCCS and how the classrooms I could really know my professors and my other classmates and vice versa. That really helps graduate early.
From an athletic standpoint, I really like that UCCS is also a division two program. I really wanted a nice balance. When I went to college, I wanted to be able to focus on my academics as well as my athletics and, like, my personal life. I really got that balanced lifestyle here, which helps me be able to graduate early. I did graduate in three years. D two also has, summers free. So I was able to take a lot of classes in the summer, which really helped me. For my first two years at UCCS, I had a lot of learning experiences. I redshirted my freshman year, and then my sophomore year, we didn't win as much
as I'd liked. But then our new coach, coach Missy Wilson came in and really changed the program around to be more competitive. The last two years have been completely different. Trans transitioning into a new program, was really difficult, but it was worth it in the end. And it really taught me how to, embrace discomfort and grow through it, and that's exactly what me and my teammates did. Two years ago, we won the RMAC conference. Unfortunately, we did lose in the tournament, but we made it up because last year, we did win the RMAC tournament.
That game against Colorado Mesa was one of the best moments of my life. Just I had so much pride, and I was so grateful to be a part of such a good program. And it really showed that, like, our hard work does pay off because we do work really hard. Now I'm proud to say I'm a back to back RMEC champion. And yeah. Thank you. And, NCAA tournament qualifier and a college graduate, pursuing my master's degree. This journey also helped me grow as a leader because I was elected team captain by my, teammates.
It really helped me learn to lead with empathy, communicate across different personalities, and help create, like, a positive team culture. And I think we've done a really good job of that over the past few years. Also, the mountain lion strong program we have here that focuses on mental health and, student athletes has really helped me learn how to manage my emotions, support my teammates, and stay grounded through a bunch of hard times that student athletes face. As I approach the end of my college career, I've been reflecting different tools and
resources, through mentors, academic advisors, and career services that have helped me explore different opportunities because I do wanna, go into the sports industry when I do graduate. So they've helped me kind of have my foot in the door there. I'm incredibly grateful for UCCS, and for everything it's given me, through education and my athletic experiences and the people and memories I've made. The university has helped me shape me into who I am today as an athlete, as a person, as a leader. Yeah.
I'm just really grateful for this school. I've been here for five years. So, thank you for letting me share my story, and thank you to the board for your support for student athletes like me. I'm proud to represent UCCS and the Mountain Lion family. Thank you so much. Oh, yeah. Any questions? Questions? Regent Hood. I just wanna say I'm sure I speak for the rest of the regions, but you make us so proud. Oh, thank you. You're you're clearly a a great student, a phenomenal athlete, but you also have a bright future in public speaking. Oh my gosh. That means a lot. That means a lot.
Thank you. Regent McNulty. You don't know how much a compliment that is from Regent Hode. He's also a lawyer, so he has plenty of practice. Reland, thank you for joining us here today. Of course. Wonderful example of, the the, student athlete community that we have here at UCCS. I too am very proud of UCCS. I think it's a wonderful campus. Really appreciate all of the things and the detail that you brought to shared with your decision to attend UCCS. Mhmm. And, and loved hearing that, being a student athlete helped you grow as as a
leader. So much. Yeah. Because I I do believe that athletics is so important to, to the University of Colorado, to our students whether you're playing or not. And my expectation is that our student athletes are our leaders on campus. That that desire, that drive, that grit, is something that that our student athletes can share with other students on campus. And really, really pleased to hear that that that that your life has played out in that way. Very impressive.
Thank you for sharing your story with us and thank you for for making us proud of UCCS. Thank you so much for your kind words. Any additional comments? Regent James and then Regent Pendrell. Well, you know I'm proud of you. It's good to see you up here. And it's funny that you are from Aurora and you're here in Colorado Springs. Colorado Springs is my hometown, and I now live in Denver. Oh. But I'm really glad to see you here, and I would just like to echo what, Regent Hood said because I am a public speaker, and you are excellent. You are engaging. You're a lot of fun. Thank you. You've got careers all over the place. Thank you.
This is gonna be great. But, seriously, congratulations. I'm very proud of you. Yeah. Thank you so much. Regent Vandrill? Thank you, madam chair. I will say, Regent James' comments comes from a non Lawyer and well, regent McNulty said that regent Hood was a lawyer. McNulty's a lawyer too. So you can actually trust that she's telling the truth, unlike him. I have, a question for you. But before that, I wanna share, I'm a former professor, and I've taught a lot of student athletes. And my I I will say I've loved every student athlete I've had.
But my favorite thing is especially winter sports athletes in the fall because they're so excited and dynamite, and then they have their first day of practice, and they're dead in class. And you I just love it, and I feel for you. And every single one I've had has been a champion, and I'm sure you're a champion and they adjust to never sleeping and running constantly and doing that. And you have my admiration. I think it's made you every student I've had is it's made them unbelievably better as students, to be such competitors.
And I appreciate you also representing the university and helping making it better. I said I had a question, and this is it. Okay. So your season is is underway. Yeah. Next week. Awesome. So, well, none of us live on this campus, but some of us live closer than actually, everyone up here lives closer than me. So, when are when is the best time for us to see you if we can only make one game? What are you most what's the game you're most excited about?
I would say our first RMAC game against Colorado Mesa because it's Mesa's also ranked one and we're ranked two. And it's like a redo of the game of the championship last year, and it's blackout night. So and you can get a free shirt if you come. So, yeah, that's gonna be a really big game for us. When is it? December 3. December 3. Thank you. Of course. Yeah. Great. Any additional comments? Chancellor Sobony. I just wanna brag on our on our amazing athletics department.
I think about how division two sports really is focused on our students. We focus, Bree, on you and your ability to excel athletically, but also academically and in leadership and service. You are an example, a shining example of that, and I love that you're getting your master's degree. Yes. And president Solomon, you might remember that you wore some rings earlier. This this was Bree's ring that you were wearing. So, I just wanna say it's just a joy to watch the the purpose of
Division two athletics come to fruition in you and in your success and in your life. And I just am overjoyed that you are part of the UCCS and the Mountain Lion family. And we are going to cheer you on all year long. And at the same time, I want I see coach Wilson back there hiding back far away. I wanna recognize what a fabulous coach we have in women's basketball. All of our coaches are fabulous. I just have watched the work over the the few years that I've been here that you've done, coach, and I cannot thank you enough.
And the leadership that you provide to the entire, not just your own sport, but to all of athletics across UCCS is really, really phenomenal. And thank you. Thank you for what you do. And and then I just wanna call out our athletic director, Nate Gibson, because this type of success that we're having this fall and that I know we're gonna have this winter Mhmm. And we're gonna have this spring is years and years and years of work, and it's been thoughtful, strategic leadership, Nate, that you have put into place for almost a
decade now. And you have hired the right coaches, we've brought in the right students, and we're starting to see all of that come to fruition across all of our sports. So to the trio who are here representing all of our great athletes and coaches, thank you for all that you do. Yes. Great. Thank you. Regent McNulty. Thank you, madam chair. Director Gibson, I have a couple of questions for you. I didn't really mean it to sound like that. Permission to approach, your honor. So, it it is it is impressive, that, the, department has been able to maintain,
three o GPA, at least a three point o GPA for the past twenty one years. Can you comment on whether that's usual, amongst our, peer institutions? Is it is it something that that really sets us apart? How how unique is that? I I would answer by saying I I don't know any other athletic director that can boast that that comment. I I know that, other ADs have that will say, hey. We had a great year. We had a three o. But to do it for as long as we have and consecutively, I've yet to
meet an athletic administrator who who who said that they they they've been able to do the same thing. So, again, I take credit to our student athletes, coaches, and really, I've my ten years as AD, my twenty years on campus, on day one, our my predecessor said this is the goal. This is where we start. It's academic quality first and foremost, and we're gonna have a three point o GPA forever. So, that's my charge, and then whoever's after me, that'll be their charge. But, it's it's very rare to answer your question.
It it seemed it seemed to me that it it would be. How as as you and your coaches and assistant coaches are out recruiting student athletes to come to UCCS, how important is that statistic to the families, to to parents, and to students to to to to get them to come to UCCS? You know, I I think first of for our coaches, it's where we start in terms of we wanna see a high school transcript and we wanna see if the academic standards that we have, if that student athlete will be able to meet that at UCCS. And so I think that's where it starts. But at the same point, being able to talk about our academic success rates, our
retention, and ultimately our graduation rates, I think that's huge for our coaches to be able to say we we're we we don't just want you to come and have a successful athletics career, but we are proving time and time again that we are graduating. You're gonna get done in three years if we can get you across in three. We get you a master's degree while you're at it just like Bree. Right? Like, I think those are the the things in the recruiting process that set us apart, because at the end of the day, that's what we're that what our student athletes are here for is to cross the stage. So to be able to boast those types of statistics is huge for us.
I love the message, and I love the work. Thank you. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you. Regent Montero. Yeah. Congratulations. What a phenomenal year, and it looks like it's just getting started. So I was just curious. How many of our student athletes come from Colorado versus outside of Colorado? Yeah. Good question. We so we have about 400 student athletes, and it's about 50% are Colorado. We still you know, a lot of our, WUI state is kind of our next, so, like, California. But we also have a lot of student athletes from Texas. But about 50% are Colorado residents. I still think for us, it's we wanna own our backyard first.
We wanna we wanna get the best, student athletes that we can from our state, and then expand from there. But, sport to sport, I would say basketball is probably about fifty fifty. Whereas some of our other sports like baseball is, I think, a little bit heavier with some out of state, maybe more warm weather. But still, I would say that's probably forty sixty. So, yeah, about 50% are from from Colorado. That's great. Colorado should be proud of that. That's great. Agree. Additional comments, questions? Alright. I just I just wanna thank you for coming. I know you're busy and, we've started really emphasizing getting more sports updates on other
campuses because they matter, so I appreciate you taking the time. Of course. Thank you for having us. Have a good one. Okay. Up next, our next item on the agenda is a memorial resolution for regent emeritus Norwood Robb. His family, I believe, is still online, so I wanna welcome them and thank them for joining us. Regent Lana Spiegel will read the resolution. Turn it over. Great. Thanks, Chair Rennison, and welcome to Regent Emeritus Raab's family. Whereas former Regent Norwood Robbie Raab departed this life on 08/22/2025 at the age of
89, Whereas, Regent Emeritus Raab was born in Colorado Springs, and he attended the University of Denver, where he earned a bachelor bachelor of science in mechanical engineering, an MBA in management, and later, a certification in alternative dispute resolution. Whereas, Regent Emeritus Raab was elect dispute resolution. Whereas Regent Emeritus Raab was elected to the University of Colorado Board of Regents in 1984, serving three terms, totaling eighteen years representing the sixth congressional district. And during his tenure, he was elected board chair twice and vice chair twice.
Whereas Regent Emeritus Raab championed the continued excellence of CU's academic programs, consistently advocated for financial accountability, recognized athletics as a vital component of the university's academic mission, and was a devoted supporter who rarely missed a home football game or post season competition. Whereas, Regent Emeritus Raab was appointed by the CU president to serve on the Fitzsimmons Redevelopment Authority and to cochair governor Owens' Colorado Institute of Technology planning effort.
Whereas, Regent Emeritus Raab was a founding member of the Denver School of Science and Technology. Whereas, Regent Emeritus Raab further served his community through many roles over the years, including as vice chair of the Arapahoe County Community Corrections Board, chair of the state board for community colleges and occupational education proprietary schools task force, founding member of the Colorado Bio Technological Association, member of the Colorado Hispanic Institute, the Denver Hispanic Chamber of Commerce,
the Latin American Education Foundation, and the Governor's Biotechnology Council, and as a Rotary Club member. Whereas Regent Emeritus Raab is fondly remembered as a smart, dedicated, and genuinely kind person, an awesome colleague, and a true CU advocate who exemplified the university's values throughout his life. Now, therefore, be it resolved that in the death of Norwood Raab, the University of Colorado has lost a dedicated public servant, and the Board of Regents hereby extends deep
and heartfelt sympathy to his families and friends. Hereby adopted by the University of Colorado Board of Regents on 11/06/2025. Thank you. Is there a motion to approve the resolution? Second. Moved by Regent Montero, seconded by what was that? Regent Chavez. Let's see. Is there any additional discussion? Any discussion on this? Comments? Yes. Thank you. Thank you. I just wanna address this family if they're watching. I had the privilege to work with Robbie for about seven years, his last seven
years as regent. He really set the standard for regents quite honestly. He I I told someone this recently. He kinda struck fear in staff members here at CU. Robbie is the fellow who, if there's a three or 400 page agenda, he would honestly go through every single page, make notes. The budget officers were so fearful. Academic folks, I mean, nothing left untouched by Robbie. And he would call us out on it, and then we could get nothing by him. I mean, he really set a really high standard on behalf of the board. He was a CU guy through and through. He did have a questionable jacket that he wore to every CU home football game
that you wouldn't wear outside of a football game. But he was a generous man, very kind, and love the university. Just a privilege to work with him. Thank you, Leonard. That was lovely. Agent Chavez. Thank you, madam chair. I when we got news that that, Robbie had passed, I happen to have come across a photograph that I shared with everyone, and I was trying to find it on my phone earlier to so that we could show it on the screen, but I couldn't find it.
It's a it's a photograph of, Robbie and his wife and me and my wife, Judy. It's it was the first c football game I had ever been invited to attend, and he he invited me, and and my wife, Judy. And we got to see his jacket and we got to, to enjoy the game. I'd never I'd never been to Folsom Field. And you would think, at least I thought, you know, I wonder why he's inviting
me. Right? Todd and I were young men at the time in our early in our legislative careers, but he took the time to to reach out and get to know us. And it was, so meaningful. It was so meaningful. And, so the irony that, you know, we got to spend that time together and all these years later Now I serve on the Board of Regents and and got to share that photograph with everyone on the board was really very special.
And and I was very touched by his generosity, him and his wife's generosity at the time and it's stayed with me all these years. And so he really did set the standard and one that I'm sure we all hope to live up to. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you. Anyone else? So when I decided to run for regent at the state level six years ago, I had no idea what I was getting into. And Robbie Norwood, I called him mister Rob actually, reached out to me, one of
the first people reached out to me and just offered his counsel, his support. And almost every couple weeks, he would just check-in. And how you doing? How's it going? And I think one of the terms that's not used a lot anymore, but he was a he was a true gentleman. And I think he treated so many people with ultimate respect whether you're disagreeing or not or agreeing with him, his level of respect was tremendous and I'll never forget him doing that. Thank you. Okay. The, question before us is approval of the memorial resolution. All in favor, please say yes.
Roll call. Absolutely. Effie. Roll call. Regent Chavez? Yes. Regent Hood? Yes. Regent James? Yes. Regent McNulty? Yes. Regent Montero? Yes. Regent Scott? Not here. Regent Spiegel. Yes. Regent Vandriel. Yes. Chair Renison. Absolutely, yes. Thank you. So the motion passes. Thanks again to his family for joining us today. Alright. Next is the regents, general discussion time. Does anybody have anything they'd like to share, discuss, ponder? Oh, come on, Mark.
We know you do. Hard on them. Regent van drill. It's a haiku. It's haiku. No. It's not a haiku. No. It's not a haiku. It it is a poem, but it is a I think your mic's off. Sorry, madam chair. Yeah. It is a poem, but it is a sonnet. Okay. And a sonnet is the only type of poem that is fitting for this occasion. Upon the stage where stars and stories blend, the ripen wakes from slumber proud and bright. Its walls restored, its charm shall never end. A beacon for the bard beneath twilight. Two summers passed in silence, dreams on hold, while craftsmen shaped it, new comforts in
its frame. Come June, a return with glee, brave and bold, and Alira's folly fans the flame. Viola walks disguised in boyish guise, while love and jest entangled webs are spun. Sir Toby drinks, and Malvolio's surprise 's surprise. Draws, roars beneath the setting sun. So gather in Boulder, Shakespeare's wit takes flight. The Ripon lives this summer, again in Twelfth Night. Thank you very much. Anyone else? Where did you write that? Last week. Yeah. After Twelfth Night was announced. Where did you write that? Last week. Yeah. After Twelfth Night was announced. Yeah. Very nice. Alright, well seeing no other discussion this concludes our board meeting.
This was a one day meeting so we are now adjourned. Thanks to everyone for your participation. At 05:30 there is a reception for regents and invited guests at the ENT. Do you call it ENT or you call it the ENT? Thank you. The ENT Center for the Arts. Thank you. Thanks everyone.