Celebrating 2024 successes

A snow-covered UCCS campus in front of Pikes Peak. Photo by Jeffrey M Foster

2024 was a remarkable year for UCCS. As the semester and year comes to a close, we take this chance to look back at the many achievements across campus.

Search Process Enhancements

Over the past year, UCCS Human Resources has implemented several enhancements to make the hiring processes more efficient and inclusive. This initiative, which started in July 2023 and was fully implemented in January 2024, has brought remarkable benefits to our recruitment efforts.

Reduced Time-to-Fill: Our updated processes have decreased the average time-to-fill for both new and vacant staff positions by an impressive 51.76%, allowing us to onboard and welcome new team members more swiftly and effectively.

Enhanced Candidate Experience: Our new processes have significantly boosted candidate satisfaction, ensuring that candidates feel valued and engaged throughout their journey.

Enhanced Employer Brand: Positive feedback from candidates has bolstered the university’s reputation as an employer of choice, attracting more high-quality applicants.

Consistency in Hiring: A uniform approach across departments has strengthened our commitment to a fair, inclusive, and legally compliant hiring practices.

Higher Offer Acceptance Rates: The engaging and efficient process have increased the rate of offer acceptances, helping us secure top talent.

Better Quality of Hires: Our refined processes enable us to continue to attract and secure our “first-choice” candidates, and continue to enhance the overall quality of hires.

Cost Savings: Streamlined operations have resulted in significant financial savings. By reducing the time to fill positions, we have minimized costs associated with prolonged job postings and reduced reliance on temporary staffing. This efficiency allows us to allocate resources more effectively.

Increased Hiring Manager and Search Team Satisfaction: Hiring managers, administrative teams, and search teams have expressed increased satisfaction with the overall hiring process, appreciating the efficiency and effectiveness.

Enhancing the UCCS Brand

UCCS merchandise is now available in our local Scheels! A huge thank you to Paul Yankey, Assistant Teaching Professor of Marketing in the College of Business, for making this happen.

Accessibility

In response to the work of the Faculty Committee on Disability, UCCS has made significant strides in our work to improve accessibility on campus:

The construction in front of Cragmor Hall as made our campus more accessible: The existing ramp and stairs in front of Cragmor have been replaced. The patio surface was moved to provide a smooth area for groups to gather. And a raised handicap accessible sidewalk has been added across the street.

Facility Services continue their work on modernizing campus elevators.

The Faculty Resource Center convened the Digital Access Committee and brought MK Naughton on board as the Digital Accessibility Specialist, as well as worked towards thorough accessibility in its digital content, proactively addressing gaps.

In the summer of 2024, the College of Education, in partnership with the Faculty Resource Center, hosted several workshops and collaboration days to make every COE course 100% digitally accessible.

Enrollment Management and Student Affairs

The housing down payment was removed to solve that financial barrier for some of our students.

Concurrent enrollment with local high schools was expanded.

The IR, EMSA, and Academic Affairs departments worked together to reduce waitlists, which resulted in UCCS hitting our enrollment numbers for the fall.

To enhance first-year student engagement, EMSA rolled out a new peer-to-peer platform called Nearpeer that 95% of freshmen have signed up for, helping them find peers with similar interests on campus.

In a friendly competition with CU Denver, UCCS raised over $16,000 for Clyde’s Cupboard, increasing food security for UCCS students.

EMSA has implemented over 20 strategies to increase enrollment and retention from the Strategic Enrollment Plan, the entirety of which will be launching January 2025.

EMSA is improving the pipeline of local high school students with the launch of assured admissions for those in the top 10% of their class. They will be admitted to UCCS without having to go through the full application process.

Administration and Finance

Increased budget transparency and provided campus stakeholders new opportunities to engage: budget book club sessions, budget 101s, budget transparency sessions in each college, etc.

The Family Development Center (FDC) was awarded the 2023 Gold for best Child Day Care in Colorado Springs by news source Colorado Springs Indy

Parking and Transportation received grants for the sidewalk on North Nevada as well as charging stations for electric vehicles

Updates to the SAFE app provided students, faculty and staff a way to quickly receive alerts, find maps, and be able to connect with dispatch on their phones. Additional cameras were also added to campus.

Cybersecurity

The cybersecurity program has worked with D11 to bring the Colorado Springs School of Technology to the campus UCCS Kevin O’Neil Cybersecurity Center to create a pipeline of high school students into UCCS through concurrent enrollment.

The Cybersecurity Programs Office, along with their partner colleges, hosted 85 events reaching 12,693 people in 2024 (not including events for UCCS students only).

Including UCCS student events, they hosted over 100 events (WiCyS Club, Sec+ Cert Training, career events, networking, speakers, and more) reaching more than 13,000 people.

Lyda Hill Institute for Human Resilience

The Lyda Hill Institute for Human Resilience is committed to transforming lives, communities, and science focused on resilience. In 2024, the Institute continued its focus on empowering the community, helping people heal from trauma, and advancing resilience science. Here is a list of some of our successes for 2024.

First GRIT conference was held with over 200 participants with inspirational speakers including 6-time Olympic medalist Amy Van Dyken.

Added 1,000 new GRIT Coaches and now have coaches all across the United States and 37 other countries around the world.

Held the first Resilience Science Summit in July with an invite only set of global scholars from Australia, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and across the United States.

Received grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health bringing our total federally funded grants to over eight million dollars in the past five years.

Established partnership with STRATA Wellness providing resilience focused trauma recovery at our Milestones Resilience Care Center for several organizations across the region.

Provided wonderful CREATE workshops and programming for the campus community including cooking, art, pickleball, yoga, to name a few.

Provided peer support training, resilience trainings, and other services for critical partners in the community including: UCHealth Memorial, El Paso County Public Health, 4^th Judicial District, Chafee County Public Health, Colorado Department of Transportation, Colorado Springs Police Department.

Established the First Priority Peer Support Program at UCCS.

Helen and Arthur E. Johnson Beth-El College of Nursing and Health Sciences

The Helen and Arthur E. Johnson Beth-El College of Nursing and Health Sciences launched the new CU Hybrid Doctor of Physical Therapy program. This innovative program is the first of its kind to be offered in the CU system. Unlike many medical degrees that require all courses to be taken in person, the Doctor of Physical Therapy program meets hand-on, laboratory, and clinical requirements while remaining partially online. This program expands access to students who would otherwise be unable to relocate for two-and-a-half years.

The Beth-El College of Nursing and Health Sciences has also incorporated interprofessional education in majors and curriculums. In the past healthcare workers have always worked in silos when treating a patient, never really knowing what the other providers are doing or their expertise. Research has shown that this results in poor patient care. By introducing Incorporated Interprofessional Education into all our majors’ curriculum, students learn how to work as a team with different care providers and understand each person’s roles, expertise, and how to communicate to provide optimum care. The college has taken this interdisciplinary work even further by incorporating interprofessional education at an international level by remotely including students from programs in other countries. This is a huge benefit to our students, because different countries have very different approaches to medicine, thereby broadening our students’ perspectives on treatment and care.

College of Engineering and Applied Science

The new Anschutz Engineering Center officially opened in April of this year, advancing teaching and research space along with new degrees in Aerospace. AES also launched the Design and Prototyping Center, expanding unique learning spaces and labs.

College of Business

The El Pomar Institute for Innovation and Commercialization and the Center for Entrepreneurship are partnering with Syracuse University’s Institute for Veterans and Military Families to bring the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans (EBV) to Colorado Springs in August, 2025. The EBV program leverages the skills, resources and infrastructure of higher education to offer cutting-edge, experiential training in entrepreneurship and small business management to veterans. Veteran entrepreneurs will experience world-class entrepreneurship training with fellow veterans or family members and establish lifelong mentors and friends in community of like-minded entrepreneurs, veterans and program graduates.

The College of Business held the inaugural Deloitte Space and Cyber Workforce Summit, bringing together esteemed speakers, industry partners, community members, and UCCS faculty, students and staff to discuss how space policy and security posture influence national security and critical infrastructure.

College of Public Service

The College of Public Service sponsored three community statewide nonprofit, grants management, and evaluation professional events that brought UCCS faculty expertise and curriculum to over 400 members of the state:

State of the Sector Watch Party in association with the Community Resource Center

Colorado Nonprofit Association Connecting Colorado Event

Southern Colorado Association of Fundraising Professionals Summit on Philanthropy

CPS’s excellent track record with court administration evaluation projects resulted in a four-year, rather than yearly, renewal with Colorado’s Fourth Judicial District data exchange memorandum of understanding. With the MOU, undergraduate and graduate students gain evaluation and research experience working with agency data.

College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences

The College of Language, Arts, and Sciences celebrated the 40 year anniversary of the Math Olympiad as one of the most esteemed math competitions in the world. The Olympiad has inspired generations of students to engage with mathematics in creative, challenging and deeply rewarding ways, and many champions have gone on to impressive professional careers in mathematics. In in it’s 40 year history, over 20,000 students participated during 1984–2024. They have written ca. 100,000 essays and were awarded ca. $640,000 in prizes.

College of Education

The College of Education took over management of Leadership Pikes Peak, now referred to as Leadership Pikes Peak powered by UCCS. The COE celebrated over 20 years of partnership with the United States Air Force Academy. This counseling and leadership program now provides training opportunities for USAFA squadron commanders, noncommissioned officers as well as an annual symposium for the group commanders and chiefs at USAFA. By managing Leadership Pikes Peak, COE is strengthening community connections and increasing the profile of the university within El Paso County, as well as UCCS’s connect to our military community.