President Saliman discusses current priorities with Faculty Senate

A forthcoming CU marketing campaign, state funding and chancellor searches at UCCS and CU Boulder were among the topics CU President Todd Saliman addressed during his appearance at last week’s Faculty Senate-Faculty Council meeting.

At the Oct. 26 meeting, held virtually, Saliman said an upcoming CU marketing campaign will draw attention to the good work taking place at all four campuses.

“What we’re doing is coordinating our marketing, our outreach and our communications to target specific communities around the state,” Saliman said, noting that attempts to ask voters to increase public funding for higher education have failed in the recent past. “This will be a long-term, consistent and persistent effort to change minds in our great state. We need to do more in Colorado to change the conversation.”

CU has begun the work of collaborating with other higher education institutions in Colorado to determine how much state funding will be necessary next year – the base amount to maintain the status quo, and any additional amount that would be needed to achieve greater goals.

“There is a direct line between state funding and our ability to adequately compensate our faculty and staff,” Saliman said. “As you all are painfully aware, we don’t do for our faculty and staff what we should be doing.”

Saliman said he is pleased that the campuses are making tough choices this year in order to provide compensation increases for faculty and staff.

Regarding the searches for chancellors at UCCS and CU Boulder, Saliman said the former is making good progress, with a search committee and search firm in place. “My goal is to be able to forward multiple finalists to the UCCS community,” he said. “At CU Boulder, we are in the final stages of hiring a search firm and the search committee is going to be established soon.”

Following a question-and-answer period, Saliman closed with an expression of gratitude.

“Thank you all,” he said. “It’s a difficult time for you to do what you do, for our staff to do what they do. I’m incredibly grateful for your hard work and dedication.”

The next Faculty Council meeting is scheduled for Nov. 30.