The University of Colorado Denver (CU Denver) is a

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...

research university A research university or a research-intensive university is a university that is committed to research as a central part of its mission. They are "the key sites of Knowledge production modes, knowledge production", along with "intergenerational ...

located in downtown

Denver, Colorado Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...

. It is part of the University of Colorado system. Established in 1912 as an extension of the

University of Colorado Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado, United States. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University o ...

, CU Denver attained university status and became an independent institution in 1973. CU Denver is classified among R1: Doctoral Universities – Very High Research Activity. The university's graduate programs award more

master's degrees A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

than any other institution in the state, serving roughly 5,000 students annually. CU Denver makes up one-third of the Auraria Campus in downtown Denver, along with the

Metropolitan State University of Denver Metropolitan State University of Denver (MSU Denver or Metro State) is a public university in Denver, Colorado, United States. It is located on the Auraria Campus, along with the University of Colorado Denver and the Community College of Denver ...

and the Community College of Denver.

History

University of Colorado System Anschutz Medical Campus

The University of Colorado created the Department of Medicine and Surgery in September 1883 in the Old Main building on the Boulder campus. The Department of Nursing opened in 1898. By 1892, the last two years of classes were taught in Denver because the larger population afforded more practical experience. This practice triggered something of a turf battle with the

University of Denver The University of Denver (DU) is a private research university in Denver, Colorado, United States. Founded in 1864, it has an enrollment of approximately 5,700 undergraduate students and 7,200 graduate students. It is classified among "R1: D ...

's medical school and the subsequent legal battle went to the

state Supreme Court In the United States, a state supreme court (known by other names in some states) is the highest court in the state judiciary of a U.S. state. On matters of state law, the judgment of a state supreme court is considered final and binding in ...

. In 1897, the court found that CU's charter restricted them to

Boulder In geology, a boulder (or rarely bowlder) is a rock fragment with size greater than in diameter. Smaller pieces are called cobbles and pebbles. While a boulder may be small enough to move or roll manually, others are extremely massive. In ...

. However, in 1910, CU got an amendment to the state Constitution passed which allowed them to move back to Denver. In 1911, the School of Medicine combined with the Denver and Gross Medical College to form a larger school with a more comprehensive program, paving the way for the school's permanent move to Denver. In 1925, the School of Medicine moved to the campus on Ninth Avenue and Colorado Boulevard in Denver. This would become the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center (UCHSC). In 1995, the Fitzsimons Army Medical Center was officially put on the

Base Realignment and Closure Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) was a process by a Federal government of the United States, United States federal government commission to increase the efficiency of the United States Department of Defense by coordinating the realignment and ...

list, after which officials from the Health Sciences Center, University of Colorado Hospital and the City of Aurora presented a proposal to the

Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and supervising the six U.S. armed services: the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, ...

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

to repurpose the decommissioned base as an academic health center. In 1999, the Army base was closed under the 1995 Base Realignment and Closure action. In 2004, the first UCHSC labs moved from Denver to the research towers on the Fitzsimons campus. In 2006, the Fitzsimons campus of UCHSC was renamed the Anschutz Medical Campus in recognition of philanthropic donations from

Philip Philip, also Phillip, is a male name derived from the Macedonian Old Koine language, Greek (''Philippos'', lit. "horse-loving" or "fond of horses"), from a compound of (''philos'', "dear", "loved", "loving") and (''hippos'', "horse"). Prominen ...

and Nancy Anschutz. By the end of 2008, academic and research operations of all CU Denver health sciences schools and colleges relocated from the Ninth Avenue and Colorado Boulevard campus to the new Anschutz campus, joining the affiliated University of Colorado Hospital and Children's Hospital.

University of Colorado Denver

The University of Colorado Denver began as the Extension Center of University of Colorado's Department of Correspondence and Extension, which was established in 1912. In 1938, the Extension Center acquired permanent quarters in Denver in the C.A. Johnson Building at 509 17th Street, where a single, full-time faculty member ran the school with the help of part-time teachers. In 1947, the Extension Center moved into the Fraternal Building at 1405 Glenarm Place. In 1956, the university acquired the Denver Tramway Company Building at 14th and Arapahoe Streets (now the Hotel Teatro and the Denver Center for the Performing Arts Tramway building). In 1964, the Extension Center was renamed the University of Colorado – Denver Center. On January 11, 1973, lawmakers, upon proclamation of the governor, amended the state constitution to establish additional CU campuses, transforming the University of Colorado—Denver Center into the University of Colorado Denver (CU Denver). Between 1973 and 1976, the State of Colorado built the Auraria Higher Education Center (AHEC) on a downtown campus to be shared by the University of Colorado Denver, the

and the Community College of Denver. In 1977, the Denver campus expanded to the newly opened AHEC, and later to several buildings extending into downtown Denver.

Merger, subsequent separation, and renaming

In the summer of 2004, the University of Colorado Denver and the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center merged to create the University of Colorado Denver and Health Sciences Center (UCDHSC). On October 29, 2007, the board of regents voted to rename UCDHSC the "University of Colorado Denver", consisting of the Anschutz Medical Campus and the Denver Campus. In August 2011, the regents approved a name change to the "University of Colorado Denver , Anschutz Medical Campus" (including the vertical bar), while the legal name of the dual institution remained "University of Colorado Denver". However, in 2014, the University of Colorado appointed separate chancellors for the University of Colorado Denver and the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, effectively separating the two campuses. The campuses offer some dual campus programs, but the Anschutz Medical Campus is independently referred to as "CU Anschutz" or "CU Anschutz Medical Campus" in official materials, and the Denver Campus is independently referred to as "CU Denver" in official materials. The marketing campaign ALL FOUR:COLORADO emphasizes the distinct identities of the Denver and Anschutz campuses alongside the other CU institutions,

and

Colorado Springs Colorado Springs is the most populous city in El Paso County, Colorado, United States, and its county seat. The city had a population of 478,961 at the 2020 census, a 15.02% increase since 2010. Colorado Springs is the second-most populous c ...

Beall's List

The university was known for its association with Beall's List, created by its former faculty member

Jeffrey Beall Jeffrey Beall is an American librarian and library scientist who drew attention to "predatory open access publishing", a term he coined, and created Beall's list, a list of potentially predatory open-access publishers. He is a critic of the o ...

and used by universities worldwide, and ultimately for the role the university played in the disappearance of the list. In an interview in 2018, Beall stated that "my university began to attack me in several ways. They launched a research misconduct investigation against me (after seven months, the result of the investigation was that no misconduct had occurred). They also put an unqualified, mendacious supervisor over me, and he constantly attacked and harassed me. I decided I could no longer safely publish the list with my university threatening me in these ways."

Campuses

CU Denver Campus

CU Denver Student Wellness Center and Student Commons Building on the Downtown Denver Campus

CU Denver, part of the Auraria Campus, is located to the southwest of downtown

Denver Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...

in the Auraria Neighborhood, on Speer Boulevard and Auraria Parkway. In a unique arrangement, CU Denver shares certain facilities (such as the Tivoli Student Union) on the Auraria Campus with two additional institutes of higher education,

and the Community College of Denver. Proprietary facilities such as the CU Denver Student Commons Building are not shared. CU Denver Regional Transportation District's (RTD)

Light Rail Light rail (or light rail transit, abbreviated to LRT) is a form of passenger urban rail transit that uses rolling stock derived from tram technology National Conference of the Transportation Research Board while also having some features from ...

has two stops on the Auraria Campus: Colfax at Auraria and Auraria West Campus. A student wellness center opened in Summer of 2018. CU Denver features both undergraduate and graduate courses, with graduate students making up 32 percent of enrolled students. The campus is located in the heart of the

central business district A central business district (CBD) is the Commerce, commercial and business center of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides wit ...

and is in close proximity to the Ball Arena, Elitch Gardens, the Colorado Convention Center, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Larimer Square, and the 16th Street Mall. The reclaimed Tivoli brewery, which closed in 1969, houses the student union.

Institutional profile

University of Colorado Denver offers bachelor's, master's, doctoral, and first professional degrees.

Enrollment

In addition to on campus students, the university had an additional 11,000 online students in fall 2019. 76% of the student population were full-time students, 16% were out-of-state residents, and international students made up 6% of total enrollment. 15,490 students were enrolled at CU. 41% of undergraduate students and 55% of new freshmen at CU Denver belonged to an ethnic minority. The average entering ACT score for new freshmen at CU Denver was 22.9 composite. The average entering SAT scores at CU Denver was 549 Math and 542 Verbal. The average high school GPA for new freshmen was 3.37. The most popular undergraduate majors at CU Denver were biology, psychology, pre-engineering, music, and economics. International students on the campus arrived from 125 countries. The 2020 average 6-year graduation rate was 48%. The CU Denver campus had 14,000 enrolled students as of fall 2022. 52 percent of undergraduate students and 25 percent of graduate students belong to minority groups. ''U.S. News'' gives the school a diversity index rating of 0.68, ranking 75th of national universities.

Academics

University of Colorado Denver has the largest graduate business school and graduate school of education in Colorado.

Libraries

The Auraria library on the CU Denver campus downtown serves the three institutions that share the campus—CU Denver, Metropolitan State University of Denver and Community College of Denver. The library houses nearly 1 million print books, 130,000 e-books, 44,000 e-journals and 300 databases.

Schools and colleges

The university offers degrees in a wide variety of academic fields such as music industry, engineering, business, film & television, culture, history, language, digital design, the natural sciences, and biomedical sciences. CU Denver hosts 8 schools and colleges: * College of Architecture and Planning *College of Arts & Media * The Business School * School of Education & Human Development * College of Engineering, Design, and Computing * College of Liberal Arts and Sciences * School of Public Affairs and its Presidential Climate Action Project * Graduate School. The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is CU Denver's largest school offering 23 baccalaureate degrees, 17 master's degrees, and 4 PhD programs. The College of Arts & Media is home to The Music & Entertainment Industry Studies (MEIS) Department, the largest music department in the Rocky Mountain Region. The College of Architecture and Planning is located on 14th street, offering graduate degrees in architecture, urban design, historic preservation, urban and regional planning, and landscape architecture. In the engineering areas, the downtown campus has worked with

Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American Arms industry, defense and aerospace manufacturer with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta on March 15, 1995. It is headquartered in North ...

and

Raytheon Raytheon is a business unit of RTX Corporation and is a major U.S. defense contractor and industrial corporation with manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. Founded in 1922, it merged in 2020 with Unite ...

School of Medicine for the University of Colorado System

The University of Colorado School of Medicine is the medical school of the University of Colorado system. It is separate from the University of Colorado Denver, located at the Anschutz Medical Campus in

Aurora An aurora ( aurorae or auroras), also commonly known as the northern lights (aurora borealis) or southern lights (aurora australis), is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly observed in high-latitude regions (around the Arc ...

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

, one of the four University of Colorado system campuses. The medical school and CU Denver offer some dual programs.

College of Arts & Media

The College of Arts & Media (CAM) was the first college in Colorado devoted exclusively to Arts and Entertainment. The college is focused on the intersections of arts, technology, and commerce. With over 1,300 students in the college, it is one of the largest arts colleges in the Western U.S. CAM houses three departments: Music & Entertainment Industry Studies, Film & Television, and Visual Arts. The Music & Entertainment Industry Studies (MEIS) is one of the only contemporary focused music departments in the U.S. It is nationally known and ranked as one of the top contemporary music departments. MEIS attracts students from throughout the country and has over 500 enrolled students. There are currently four emphasis programs in MEIS: Music Business, Recording Arts, Music Performance, and Singer/Songwriter. The facilities used by the program include five recording studios, 16 practices rooms, a piano lab, a 200-seat King Center Recital Hall, and a 500-seat King Center Concert Hall. The Film & Television Program is the only BFA film and television program in Colorado. Over 250 students are enrolled in the department. The curriculum is hands-on and students generally start making films in Production One during the second semester of their freshman year. The Visual Arts Department houses programs in Art History, 3D Digital Animation, Photography, Digital Design, Illustration, and Art Practices. The college houses the renowned Digital Animation Center (DAC). All of the programs in the College of Arts & Media are hands-on and career-focused.

Graduate school

The Graduate School at CU Denver , Anschutz awards more graduate degrees than any other institution in Colorado. The school consists of nearly 60 graduate programs. The departments running these programs are housed in the schools and colleges on both campuses of the university. These offerings include both department-based and interdisciplinary programs in architecture and planning, arts and media, biomedical sciences, business, education and human development, engineering and applied sciences, humanities, sociology, applied mathematics, nursing, public affairs, public health, chemistry, and social sciences. Graduate programs at the Anschutz Medical Campus offer MS and PhD degrees focusing on basic, clinical and translational research in the biomedical sciences.

Business School

The University of Colorado Denver Business School is accredited by

AACSB The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) is an American professional and accreditation organization. It was founded as the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business in 1916 to provide accreditation to business ...

International. The school is accredited at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. The Business School is one of only a few schools in the US to have a separate accreditation for its Accounting program. Business is one of the school's most popular majors since it is located in the heart of Downtown Denver. The Business School has worked with some of Colorado's top businesses such as

Molson Coors Molson Coors Beverage Company is a Canadian-American Multinational corporation, multinational Drink industry, drink and brewing company, brewing company headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Molson Coors was formed in 2005 through the merger of Mo ...

Wells Fargo Wells Fargo & Company is an American multinational financial services company with a significant global presence. The company operates in 35 countries and serves over 70 million customers worldwide. It is a systemically important fi ...

, First Bank and

Frontier Airlines Frontier Airlines, Inc. is a major American ultra low-cost airline headquartered in Denver, Colorado. It operates flights to over 120 destinations in the United States, Caribbean, Mexico and Central America, and employs more than 5,000 staff. ...

, who provide feedback on the school's curriculum.

School of Public Affairs

The School of Public Affairs at CU Denver is accredited by the

Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration The Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA) is a Washington, D.C.–based non-profit organization. It is an international association and accreditation body of public affairs schools also known as schools of publ ...

(NASPAA). The school offers a number of highly ranked programs, including environmental policy, nonprofit management and public management. The online Master of Criminal Justice program was recently ranked in the top 10 nationwide by U.S. News & World Report. Students can choose from a wide range of innovative Master of Public Affairs and Master of Criminal Justice concentrations. The school also offers a Ph.D. in Public Affairs and recently launched a highly successful Bachelor of Criminal Justice undergraduate degree.

Rankings

For 2021, '' U.S. News & World Report'' ranked the university 113th in Top Public Schools, 106th in Top Performers on Social Mobility, and 161st in Best Undergraduate Engineering Programs.

Relations with foreign universities

CU Denver maintains a joint education program with China Agricultural University in

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

, operated at International College Beijing (ICB) on the CAU campus. Beijing students at ICB can attain a four-year degree in either economics or communications from CU Denver, with the opportunity to study abroad at the Denver campus.

Student life

Tivoli Student Union on the CU Denver Auraria Campus

University of Colorado Denver has over 100 student organizations, honor societies, professional organizations and faith-based groups, that offer social, service, and professional opportunities for their members within the university and community. First time freshmen and first time international students at the downtown campus are encouraged to live on campus in the Campus Village Residence Halls, a student housing complex at the Auraria Campus for students, faculty and staff from any of the three schools that share the campus. CU Denver provides a variety of sports and recreation activities to students, faculty and staff, including personal training, intramural

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

, squash, and

tennis Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...

, and sports equipment checkout for on or off campus use. The CU Denver student newspaper is the ''CU Denver Sentry''. The Distinguished Lecture Series hosts an array of speakers which has included David Horowitz and

Malcolm-Jamal Warner Malcolm-Jamal Warner (born August 18, 1970) is an American actor. He rose to prominence for his role as Theodore Huxtable on the NBC sitcom ''The Cosby Show'' (1984–1992), which earned him a nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a ...

. The Tivoli Student Union serves as a student center for the Community College of Denver,

and University of Colorado Denver.

Club sports

While CU Denver does not sponsor officially sanctioned collegiate athletic programs, the school does offer several club athletic teams. These include men's and women's

, men's

, cheer,

cycling Cycling, also known as bicycling or biking, is the activity of riding a bicycle or other types of pedal-driven human-powered vehicles such as balance bikes, unicycles, tricycles, and quadricycles. Cycling is practised around the world fo ...

powerlifting Powerlifting is a competitive strength athletics, strength sport that consists of three attempts at maximal weight on three lifts: Squat (exercise), squat, bench press, and deadlift. As in the sport of Olympic weightlifting, it involves the athle ...

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, such as saltwater or freshwater environments, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Swimmers achieve locomotion by coordinating limb and body movements to achieve hydrody ...

, and

. CU Denver's club teams compete against other programs in Colorado and the greater mountain west region.

Notable people

Notable faculty

* Brenda J. Allen, former Vice Chancellor for Diversity & Inclusion, author of ''Difference Matters: Communicating Social Identity'' *

, founder of Beall's List * Tom Cech, of CU Boulder; Nobel laureate; affiliated faculty with CU Denver's Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics * Leo Franca, Department of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences; has developed stabilized finite elements, important in computational mechanics and engineering simulation * Mary E. Guy, political scientist, public administration scholar * Mark A. Heckler, founding dean of the CU Denver College of Arts and Media, president emeritus of

Valparaiso University Valparaiso University (Valpo) is a private university in Valparaiso, Indiana, United States. It is an independent Lutheran university with five colleges. It enrolls nearly 2,300 students and has a campus. The university is known for its Luthe ...

* Lawrence Hunter, founder of the International Society for Computational Biology, the world's oldest and largest professional organization for bioinformatics and

computational biology Computational biology refers to the use of techniques in computer science, data analysis, mathematical modeling and Computer simulation, computational simulations to understand biological systems and relationships. An intersection of computer sci ...

* Bill Porter, audio engineer from the School of Music; created the first college program in audio engineering

Notable alumni

* Rick Alden, Class of 1996, owner and CEO of Skullcandy * Insook Bhushan, Olympic table tennis player * Janet Bonnema, civil engineer, first woman allowed to enter a tunnel project in Colorado * Deanne Criswell, first female administrator of the

Federal Emergency Management Agency The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), initially created under President Jimmy Carter by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978 and implemented by two Exec ...

* Daniel Gilbert, Class of 1981, author and Professor of Psychology at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

* Christi Grimm, Inspector General for the

United States Department of Health and Human Services The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is a cabinet-level executive branch department of the US federal government created to protect the health of the US people and providing essential human services. Its motto is ...

* Michael B. Hancock, Class of 1995, 45th mayor of Denver *

Illenium Nicholas Daniel "Nick" Miller (born December 26, 1990), professionally known as Illenium (stylized in all caps), is an American musician, DJ, music producer, and songwriter. He has released five studio albums, his most recent being ''Illenium'', ...

, Class of 2013, EDM DJ * Russell Keanini, Class of 1987, mechanical engineer * Aaron Kopp, Class of 2009, filmmaker, director/producer of '' Liyana'' * Jason Lewis, politician and radio host * William Lindstedt, politician * Frances McConnell-Mills, Class of 1918,

toxicologist Toxicology is a scientific discipline (academia), discipline, overlapping with biology, chemistry, pharmacology, and medicine, that involves the study of the adverse effects of chemical substances on living organisms and the practice of diagnos ...

* Karen Middleton, Class of 1996, former member of the Colorado House of Representatives and current Executive Director of

Cobalt Cobalt is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. ...

(formerly known as NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado) * John Morse, Class of 2001, former Majority Leader of the Colorado State Senate * Julie Anne Peters, MBA 1989, author of young adult fiction * Tenzing Rigdol, contemporary Tibetan artist and activist * Carlos Samour, Associate Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court * Isaac Slade, Class of 2005, former lead singer and co-founder of Denver-based rock band

The Fray The Fray is an American rock band from Denver, Colorado, formed in 2002 by schoolmates Isaac Slade and Joe King. Their debut studio album, '' How to Save a Life'' (2005) was released by Epic Records and received quadruple platinum certific ...

* Don Southerton, writer * Gloria Tanner, Class of 1976, first female African-American Colorado State Senator * Jun Xia, Class of 1989, Chinese architect and lead designer of the

Shanghai Tower The Shanghai Tower is a 128-story, megatall skyscraper located in Lujiazui, Pudong, Shanghai.

* Francisco F. Nogales, Spanish pathologist

Notes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Colorado Denver, University Of 1912 establishments in Colorado Auraria Campus Education in Aurora, Colorado Education in Denver Universities and colleges established in 1912 UC Denver UC Denver

Universities and colleges accredited by the Higher Learning Commission