University of Colorado Denver


The University of Colorado Denver is a public research university in Denver and Aurora, Colorado. It is part of the University of Colorado system. The university has two campuses—one in downtown Denver at the Auraria Campus, and the other at the Anschutz Medical Campus located nearly 10 miles away in neighboring Aurora. Additionally, the Anschutz Medical Campus shares its campus with the Children's Hospital and University of Colorado Hospital. The dual campus nature of the university is the result of the 2004 consolidation of the University of Colorado Denver and the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.
According to the National Science Foundation, The University of Colorado Denver spent $525 million on research and development in 2018, ranking it 49th in the nation. It also granted more graduate degrees than any other institution in the state.
Enrollment at the school's two campuses in downtown Denver and in Aurora has grown from 23,670 students in 2015 to 24,910 students in 2019. The school also offers classes via CU Online. CU Denver, along with University of Colorado Hospital and University Physicians, Inc., employs more than 12,200 Coloradans, making it one of the metro Denver area's top employers. The university serves more than 500,000 patients a year through its hospital and clinical services.

History

University of Colorado 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's medical school and the subsequent legal battle went to the state Supreme Court. In 1897, the court found that CU's charter restricted them to Boulder. 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.
In 1995, the Fitzsimons Army Medical Center was officially put on the Base Realignment and Closure 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 in Washington, D.C. 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 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. In 2011, the Regents approved the name University of Colorado Denver | Anschutz Medical Campus.

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. 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.
Between 1973 and 1976, the State of Colorado built the Auraria Higher Education Center on a downtown campus to be shared by the University of Colorado Denver, the Metropolitan State University of Denver 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 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. On October 29, 2007, the board of regents voted to rename UCDHSC as 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, while the legal name of the dual institution remained University of Colorado Denver. However, 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, Boulder and Colorado Springs.

Campuses

CU Denver Campus

CU Denver, part of the Auraria Campus, is located to the southwest of downtown Denver in the Auraria Neighborhood, on Speer Boulevard and Auraria Parkway. In a unique arrangement, CU Denver shares certain facilities on the Auraria Campus with two additional institutes of higher education, Metropolitan State University of Denver 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 Light Rail 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 more than 35 percent of the students graduate students. The campus is located in the heart of the central business district and is in close proximity to the Pepsi Center, 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.

CU Anschutz Medical Campus

The Health Sciences Campus previously had two sub-campuses, the main campus at Ninth Avenue and Colorado Boulevard in Denver, which has since been decommissioned, and a new campus in neighboring Aurora, where all activities of the former Health Sciences Center has since relocated. The latter campus, which is now called the Anschutz Medical Campus, is host to the Research Complex towers, The Barbara Davis Diabetes Center, the Nighthorse Campbell Native Health building, various centers of the University of Colorado Hospital, and the health sciences library. There are approximately 4000 students at the Anschutz Medical Campus with 1400 of these in the School of Medicine.

Institutional profile

University of Colorado Denver offers bachelor's, master's, doctoral, and first professional degrees. The university operates on a $1.8 billion annual economy. The University of Colorado Hospital, which is the principal teaching hospital for the University of Colorado Denver, serves more than half a million patients every year. In the 2009–10 fiscal year, CU Denver's two campuses received almost $385 million in combined research funding.

Enrollment

More than 18,000 students are enrolled at CU Denver | Anschutz, plus an additional 11,000 online students. Among CU Denver | Anschutz students, 57% are undergraduates and 43% are pursuing graduate studies. 76% of the student population are full-time students, 16% are out-of-state residents, and international students make up 6% of total enrollment. 24,910 students are enrolled at CU Denver. Of these, 64% are undergraduates, and 36% are graduate students. 41% of undergraduate students and 55% of new freshmen at CU Denver belong to an ethnic minority. The average entering ACT score for new freshmen at CU Denver is 22.9 composite. The average entering SAT scores at CU Denver is 549 Math and 542 Verbal. The average high school GPA for new freshmen is 3.37. The most popular undergraduate majors at CU Denver are biology, psychology, pre-engineering, music, and economics. International students on the campus arrive from 125 countries.

Academics and research

University of Colorado Denver | Anschutz Medical Campus is one of the largest universities in Colorado with more than 18,000 students and awarding more than 4,500 degrees in a year. It has the largest graduate business school and graduate school of education in Colorado, and its School of Medicine is the only allopathic medical school in the state. In 2013, more than $400 million in sponsored research funding was awarded to University of Colorado Denver | Anschutz Medical Campus researchers. The vast majority of this research is dedicated to health sciences at the Anschutz Medical Campus. In 2011, more than $179,000,000 was awarded by the National Institutes of Health to CU Denver researchers. The core laboratories in the research complex, at the Anschutz Medical Campus, include mass spectrometry, X-ray crystallography, electron microscopy, a 900 mega-hertz nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer, DNA array and peptide protein chemistry. The university is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity".

Libraries

The University of Colorado Denver | Anschutz Medical Campus hosts two libraries, one on each of its two campuses. 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. The library on the Anschutz Medical Campus is the largest health sciences library in Colorado, with more than 32,000 e-journals. The health sciences library opened in late 2007 with two Information Commons, 30 group study rooms, and wireless internet connectivity throughout the library.

Schools and colleges

University of Colorado Denver | Anschutz Medical Campus offers more than 140 degree programs in 13 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, the biomedical sciences and medicine. CU Denver hosts 8 schools and colleges: the College of Architecture and Planning, the College of Arts & Media, The Business School, the School of Education & Human Development, the College of Engineering and Applied Science, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the School of Public Affairs and its Presidential Climate Action Project, and the Graduate School. The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is CU Denver's largest school on the Downtown Denver Campus, 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 Department, the largest music department in the Rocky Mountain Region. CU Denver sponsors the only college of architecture and planning in Colorado. 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 and Raytheon. On the Anschutz Medical Campus, the university houses the School of Dental Medicine, the School of Medicine, the College of Nursing, the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Colorado School of Public Health, and the Graduate School.

School of Medicine

The university's School of Medicine offers a four-year program leading to an MD degree, and houses various graduate programs leading to the PhD degree. The school also includes a Child Health Associate/Physician Assistant degree and a doctor of Physical Therapy degree. Both are three-year programs. The Medical Scientist Training Program awards both MD and PhD degrees. There are about 650 MD students at the school, plus 350 in the Physician Assistant and Physical Therapy programs and 400 in Graduate Medical Education.

School of Pharmacy

The University of Colorado's School of Pharmacy began in 1911 as a division of the School of Medicine in Boulder. It became an independent college in 1913 and a school in 1957. It received its accreditation in 1938–1939 and awarded a B.S. in Pharmacy degree in 1995–1996 when it received a full accreditation status awarding the Doctor of Pharmacy degree by the ACPE. In 1986, the School of Pharmacy was administratively transferred to the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver. The physical transfer from Boulder and final consolidation of faculty, staff and students was completed between August and November 1992. In 2008, the school moved to the Anschutz Medical Campus, and offers medical and graduate degrees in pharmacy, the pharmaceutical sciences, molecular toxicology, and pharmaceutical outcomes research. 30% of its class is from out of state. In 2009, the NIH awarded $7,310,389 and $19,189,543 in grants towards the SOP and Pharmacology department, respectively. In 2011, the school will move into its new building, the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences which will also be located on the Anschutz Medical Campus.

College of Arts & Media

The College of Arts & Media 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 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. 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 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, Wells Fargo, First Bank, and Frontier Airlines, who provide feedback on the school's Business curriculum.

School of Public Affairs

The School of Public Affairs at CU Denver is ranked 29th among schools of public affairs in the United States and is fully accredited by the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration. 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. Through community events and the timely research of the Buechner Institute for Governance, the School of Public Affairs is committed to making a real impact in Colorado, the region and beyond.

Rankings

University of Colorado Denver | Anschutz Medical Campus features in a number of rankings in U.S. News & World Report's America's Best Graduate Schools. The university ranked 5th among American medical schools for primary care in 2010, and 27th among medical schools for research. The graduate school ranked 68th in the biological sciences in 2010. The Music Business Program was ranked in the top 11 in the U.S. by Billboard Magazine in 2014. The university ranked 34th on the Forbes list of best public colleges. The Business School is the 5th Best Graduate School for Physician – Executives, according to Modern Healthcare. In 2010, CU Denver | Anschutz ranked 7th in The Scientist's Best Places to Work for Postdocs survey.

Student life

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, volleyball, soccer, squash, and tennis, and sports equipment check out for on or off campus use.
The CU Denver student newspaper is called the "CU Denver Sentry". The Distinguished Lecture Series hosts an array of speakers, that have included David Horowitz and Malcolm-Jamal Warner. The Tivoli Student Union serves as a student center for the Community College of Denver, Metropolitan State University of Denver and University of Colorado Denver.

Notable people

Notable faculty