Chancellor Jennifer Sobanet, Provost Lynn Vidler, Vice Chancellor of Strategic Initiatives Robin Parent and the Interim Vice Chancellor for Enrollment Management and Student Affairs Stephanie Hanenberg attended the Oct. 23 Senate meeting to address four questions from SGA.
Chancellor Sobanet and the Executive Leadership Team spoke for 45 minutes before SGA transitioned into the Senate meeting to discuss increasing the student activity fee.
Chancellor and the Executive Leadership Team
At the Oct. 16 Senate meeting, SGA prepared four questions focused on finance, connection, research and infrastructure.
Before the question segment, Sobanet discussed the importance of leadership, defining it as a social process that enables people to work together as a cohesive group to produce collective results.
“We are the architects of our collective future, and we get to choose our values, our culture and the actions to create the UCCS of the future,” Sobanet said. She later added, “Plans don’t make change, people do.”
Question One: Given that enrollment has been down, what does the five-year plan look like to increase enrollment and by effect funding to the university?
According to Hanenberg, Enrollment Management and Student Affairs, the Provost Office and the Vice Chancellor for Administration and Finance are collaborating to align course availability with student demand which has already reduced UCCS’ waitlist and increased enrollment by 3%. Hanenberg also mentioned that retention has grown by over 2% for the first time since 2012.
Parent discussed impact funds, a source of additional funding for students, staff and faculty to use for initiatives, programs, activities or events that connect with one of the campus’s four core pillars.
Question Two: Given that commuter students make up a significant portion of UCCS’s population, what do you all believe UCCS needs to do to raise community engagement?
Hanenberg explained that UCCS has been improving social spaces for students in response to student demand, citing the recent renovations to the library.
Hanenberg also noted that the Excel Centers have increased programming with other departments to increase student engagement.
“Students who go to an Excel Center one time are retained at a higher rate than students who do not, and you can clearly see the stats that if you go two times or three times or four times, that the retention numbers just keep going up,” Parent said.
Question Three: Chancellor Sobanet has spoken about elevating UCCS’s standing as a research institution. The 2030 Strategic Plan calls for ‘promoting research and creative excellence that generates new knowledge, benefits society, and expands transformational experiences for students.’ In practical terms, how does the team envision translating that goal into measurable progress?”
Vidler explained that the main priority is to maintain its status as an R2 research school which requires doctoral programs and the proper infrastructure, such as the Office of Research and Office of Sponsored Programs and Research Integrity.
Additionally, they explained the unique opportunity that undergraduates have to work with faculty members on research projects.
Question Four: What are UCCS’s plans to address the maintenance and longevity of aging infrastructure which include roads on and around the university, as well as its many buildings?”
Sobanet addressed the geographical difficulties of the campus and how campus has grown quickly, adding nearly 70 buildings in the last 30 years. She said that UCCS is focused on improving and renovating student spaces and infrastructure.
This focus leads to deferred maintenance, which will postpone necessary upkeep and repairs to roads.
Student activity fee
SGA voted unanimously to increase the student activity fee by 2% to keep up with inflation, raising the fee from $31.15 to $31.77 during the spring and fall semester and from $15.58 to $15.89 in the summer semester.
According to Senior Executive Director of Student Life & Assessment Brad Bayer, the increase will generate an additional $13,754 over the 2026-2027 academic school year.
The final decision will be made by the Board of Regents with SGA’s vote counting as a recommendation.
In other news:
- According to Bayer, GAF approved the Mountain Metro bus passes proposal. UCCS is now working on a service agreement with Mountain Metro.
- On Nov. 6, the United Campus Workers of Colorado is holding a protest outside Berger Hall at noon to push for collective bargaining rights of all CU employees.
- BAC will be accepting applications for funding until Nov. 11.
Photo from The Scribe archives.