History quest: Who was CU’s first staff member?

Campus staff is the backbone of the university, supporting its goals and achievements for more than a century in making the University of Colorado what it is today: one of the foremost educational institutions in the country. Boulder Campus Staff Council would like to thank each and every one of you for your efforts in achieving these goals.

The Awards and Staff Recognition (ASR) Committee of your Boulder Campus Staff Council is taking on the challenge of documenting staff accomplishments -- present and past. In helping to promote those achievements, we are partnering with Campus HR on developing additional recognition programs and trying to answer the 130-plus-year-old question, who was the first staff person hired at CU who did not also teach?

Staff has a family tree full of remarkable colleagues who were breaking down barriers, creating innovative solutions to student and administrative issues and, more often than not, just doing their jobs day in and day out at a level that added to CU’s reputation.

The ASR committee is planning to research the contributions of staff to the university, community and one another. The goal is to develop a centralized archive of staff achievements and history that can be accessed by the CU community.

To accomplish this task, the committee will need the help of all staff, many of whom are second- and third-generation employees. We want to hear the stories of what it was like when CU brought in its first computers, of recruiting students during the train age, of the challenges through the years of cooking for students, maintenance of buildings, and groundskeeping before engines, etc.

If you would like to share a story or help the committee with this project, please contact scouncil@Colorado.edu or visit our website.

ASR meeting schedule: Noon to 1:30 p.m.

Oct. 18, Regent 1B55; Nov. 16, UMC 381; Dec. 20, ARC 446.

Submitted by Boulder Campus Staff Council