Mar 28, 2024  
2015-2016 Undergraduate Catalog 
    
2015-2016 Undergraduate Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

Special Programs


Please click on the following links to learn more about:

Early Alert Program

Assistant Vice Chancellor for Undergraduate Experiences: John Lanning, John.Lanning@ucdenver.edu
Office: Lawrence Street Center, Suite 300
Telephone: 303-315-2133
Fax: 303-315-5829

CU Denver participates in the campus-wide Early Alert program to identify undergraduate students in need of assistance from academic and student service offices. Providing assistance early in the semester is very important to a student’s success in their baccalaureate program.

The Early Alert program is designed for faculty to identify students in the fifth and sixth weeks of the semester who need assistance because of academic performance, class participation, and/or behavior issues. Students who are identified by faculty for an alert are contacted by the advising office in the student’s home school or college. It is important for students to respond to Early Alert communication with their advisors. Assistance is then provided to students through academic advising and referrals to appropriate CU Denver student service offices.

Further information about the CU Denver Early Alert program is available from the Office of Undergraduate Experiences, 303-315-2133.

 

Experiential Learning Center (Internships, Service, and Research)

Director:  Tony R. Smith
Office, Events, and Assessment Coordinator:  Rachel Wilcoxson
Office: Tivoli Student Union, 260
Telephone: 303-556-6656

Live your learning at CU Denver! Students have many opportunities to explore academic fields through direct experience, including internships, service in the community, undergraduate research, and international experiences. Connect your academic learning to the real world by putting your knowledge into practice. You will develop new skills, grow personally and professionally, and enrich your academic experience. 

Internships (Academic and Not-For-Credit)

Hundreds of CU Denver students engage in degree-related work experiences with corporations, government, and nonprofit agencies in the Denver metro area and around the world. Students can earn academic credit, pay, or both while gaining relevant experience related to their career interests.

Community Engagement

Students gain a better understanding of community issues, develop practical skills, and make a difference in the world around them when they engage in service activities. From the first-year experience course to senior capstone classes, faculty weave service projects into their courses, giving students a wider view of the world. These service learning experiences vary in length of time, but the impact is always transformational. Many volunteer opportunities that connect students with the local, national, and international communities are available through the Experiential Learning Center. Students can also earn AmeriCorps education awards for service.

Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities

Whether assisting faculty with research or pursuing their own research under faculty supervision, CU Denver students can experience what it means to be involved in the creation of knowledge. Students may apply for research grants through the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) and showcase their research projects at the annual Research and Creative Activities Symposium. The Experiential Learning Center provides resources for a myriad of opportunities available to CU Denver students.

 

First-Year Seminar Program

Assistant Vice Chancellor for Undergraduate Experiences: John Lanning, John.Lanning@ucdenver.edu
Program Coordinator for Undergraduate Experiences: TBD
Office: Lawrence Street Center, Suite 300
Telephone: 303-315-2133
Fax: 303-315-5829

CU Denver offers the optional First-Year Seminar (FYS) program, which is designed to assist students in successfully making the transition from high school to college, improve student retention, and boost new student confidence. FYS courses integrate rigorous academic content with academic skills such as library usage, campus resources, information literacy, time management, communication skills, and career counseling. Class size is capped at 24 students to facilitate interaction between student and instructor, and to allow the instructor to serve as a mentor in the student’s first semester of college.

Why should entering high school students participate in a First-Year Seminar course?

  • higher first semester grades
  • student engagement with campus activities
  • higher student satisfaction facilitated by small class size and a faculty mentor
  • knowledge and utilization of campus resources designed to assist students
  • early exploration of career paths and a suitable major
  • more likely to stay in college
  • Core curriculum credit
  • active learning pedagogy designed to improve writing and critical thinking skills

Inworks

Associate Vice Chancellor for Innovation Initiatives: Dr. John Bennett
Associate Director: Dr. Heather Underwood
Program Manager / Contact: Caitlin Sullivan - caitlin.sullivan@ucdenver.edu

Address: CU Dravo Building 1250 14th street suite 1300
Phone: 303-315-0047

Inworks is a new initiative of the University of Colorado Denver │ Anschutz Medical Campus that draws together faculty, staff and students from across the two campuses, as well as entrepreneurs and leaders from industry, government, education and the community, to address problems of importance to human society. Our mission is to impart skills and habits of mind that allow people to collaboratively create impactful solutions to human problems.
We seek to create innovative solutions to some of the world’s most challenging problems, while in the process creating life-long innovators.

Inworks offers a wide range of courses, an undergraduate certificate, a graduate certificate and a minor in Human-Centered Design and Innovation. We also offer broad opportunities for learning: speaker programs, workshops and other programs that bring together people from radically different backgrounds to consider issues of importance to human society. Our modern facilities support collaborative innovation and provide extensive facilities for rapid prototyping. For more information, visit www.inworks.org.

Office of Undergraduate Experiences

Assistant Vice Chancellor for Undergraduate Experiences: John Lanning, John.Lanning@ucdenver.edu
Office: Lawrence Street Center, Suite 300
Telephone: 303-315-2133
Fax: 303-315-5829

The Office of Undergraduate Experiences coordinates and implements education programs designed to promote undergraduate student access to high-quality and innovative CU Denver programs, improve the recruitment and retention of undergraduate students, and coordinate programs between academic and student affairs to better serve students. Undergraduate Experiences oversees the University Honors and Leadership program, the First-Year Seminar program, the Experiential Learning Center, and the Early Alert program.

Health Professions Programs on the Denver Campus

Two colleges on the Denver Campus offer health-related programs for undergraduate students seeking careers in the health sciences. Admission to the Denver Campus, however, does not assure admission to any professional health career program. Admission to those programs is a separate, competitive process open to qualified applicants from any accredited college or university.

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Department of Biology

Contact: Kimberly F. Regier
Telephone: 303-556-8309
E-mail: Kimberly.Regier@ucdenver.edu

To serve the needs of students who wish to obtain recognition for the acquisition of specialized skills in biology and to better prepare students for graduate school, health careers and jobs in industry, the Department of Biology offers a certificate program in biotechnology  .

Health Careers

Advisor: Charles Ferguson
Telephone: 303-556-4350
Advisor: Denise Leberer
Telephone: 303-556-2868
Advisor: Kent Nofsinger
Telephone: 303-556-6218
Advisor: Trishia Vasquez
Telephone: 303-352-3557

Health career advisors on the Denver Campus assist in planning a course of study designed to improve your chances of success in the health career of your choice, including: dentistry and dental hygiene, medicine, medical technology, nursing, optometry, osteopathy, pharmacy, physical therapy, physician assistant, podiatry or veterinary medicine. A comprehensive list of health career options and additional information to help you mold your academic experience to your specific goals is available on the health careers website.

BA/BS-MD Program

The BA/BS-MD degree program at the University of Colorado Denver (CU Denver) | Anschutz Medical Campus aims to promote diversity and to better serve the health care needs of the state of Colorado by assembling 10 outstanding students from broadly diverse backgrounds who are committed to serving the health care needs of Colorado. The program is a partnership between the University of Colorado Denver College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Being accepted into the program enables students to earn a reserved seat in the University of Colorado School of Medicine provided he or she meets a specific set of academic and non-academic requirements.

Admission of students will be conducted through a holistic review to select academically qualified individuals from a broad range of backgrounds who show a strong commitment to a career in medicine and to serving the people of Colorado.

For more information, visit http://babsmd.ucdenver.edu or contact Mrs. Trishia Vasquez at trishia.vasquez@ucdenver.edu.

Health and Behavioral Sciences

Contact for minor: Sharry Erzinger
Telephone: 303-556-6793

The health and behavioral sciences department offers a minor in community health science that is designed to provide undergraduates with the basic intellectual and methodological tools needed for public health. The minor in community health science supplements graduate degrees in a broad range of fields, including the biomedical sciences, social and behavioral sciences, public health, law, medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, business administration and health services research. The program is especially appropriate for students intending to pursue careers in public health, as well as the primary care specialties in medicine, nursing or health policy and administration.

While a major is not currently available, students may develop an individually structured major (ISM) that combines course work in community health sciences with that of related fields such as anthropology, biology and psychology. For details see the Individually Structured Major BA  section in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences  of the catalog.

College of Engineering and Applied Science

Contact: Engineering Student Services, 303-556-4768
or
Department of Bioengineering, 303-556-5840
Website: engineering.ucdenver.edu

The desirability of obtaining an engineering education prior to undertaking a study of medicine is increasing continually as medicine itself is evolving. A great deal of new equipment, most of it electronic, is being developed to assist the medical practitioner in treatment of patients. Bioengineering, computer science and engineering, communication system design and analysis, big data analysis, mechanical engineering and probability are highly applicable to medical problems. The College of Engineering and Applied Science offers students a pre-medicine option. Contact the Engineering Student Services Center or a specific department for more information.

 

Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC)

The Air Force, Navy/Marines, and Army offer college students the opportunity to receive a commission as an officer through the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) program. These military training programs occur in conjunction with a student’s undergraduate coursework and lead to a commission upon graduation. All ROTC programs offer competitive scholarships, allow for elective academic credit depending on policies of the student’s home school or college, and include a commitment to military active or reserve duty.

The University of Colorado Denver actively supports students desiring to participate in one of the ROTC programs and provides registration access to Army ROTC (sponsored by the Metropolitan State University of Denver) and to Navy/Marines or Air Force ROTC (sponsored by the University of Colorado Boulder).

Interested students should contact the specific ROTC program directly for military training, scholarship information, and registration details.

Air Force ROTC
AFROTC Detachment 105
University of CO Boulder
UCB 371
Boulder, CO 80309-0371
Phone: (303) 492-3128; (303) 492-8352

Navy/Marines ROTC
Naval ROTC
University of CO Boulder
UCB 374
Boulder, CO 80309-0374
Phone: (303) 492-2576

Army ROTC
Dept. of Military Science
633 Curtis Street
Modular Building MO-1
Denver, CO 80217
Phone: (303) 352-7419

Transfer students enrolled in Army, Air Force, or Navy/Marines ROTC programs should consult with their school or college regarding the application of ROTC course credit toward graduation requirements.

University Honors and Leadership Program (UHL)

Director:  Steven G. Medema
Program Coordinator:  Elisabeth Levy
Office: 1047 Ninth Street Park
Telephone: 303-556-5297
Fax: 303-556-6744
E-mail: UHL@ucdenver.edu

University Honors and Leadership (UHL) is a program of excellence designed for students who have demonstrated superior achievement in academic performance and/or outstanding leadership qualities. UHL is founded on the premise that the integration of rigorous programs of academic excellence and leadership education provides the ideal environment in which to develop the gifts of the next generation of leaders in academia, business, policy-making, and service to communities local, national, and global.

The four-year UHL program is unique in integrating academic honors and leadership education within a highly selective learning community of outstanding students and faculty. The UHL program allows students to complement their major field of study with a traditional honors experience in the academic honors track or with a program of leadership education in the leadership studies track. Students move through the UHL program in cohorts that simultaneously promote community, teamwork, and individual initiative. All UHL courses are multidisciplinary, reflecting the view that the ability to effectively analyze the challenges faced in all sectors of society can be enhanced by the integration of appropriate information drawn from a broad base of perspectives and problem-solving skills. The UHL program complements this philosophy with an emphasis on the development of exceptional oral and written communication skills, projects that steep students in sophisticated research methods, and the opportunity to work in teams to solve practical problems in the community.

The Academic Program

UHL is a multidisciplinary cohort program consisting of 27 semester hours of coursework to be completed over four years. The UHL courses substitute for most of the CU Denver core curriculum requirements.

UHL students have the opportunity to pursue an honors experience through the academic honors track or to focus on leadership education through the leadership studies track. UHL students have a shared first-year experience, taking a core of coursework common to both tracks. The second and third years of the UHL program offer programs designed specifically for the academic honors and leadership studies tracks. UHL students come together for a two-semester capstone research seminar in the fourth year.

Students pursuing the academic honors track have the opportunity to earn a minor in “Multidisciplinary Research Methods.” Those completing the leadership studies track have the opportunity to earn a minor in “Leadership Studies.”

UHL students who successfully satisfy the course and credit-hour requirements and maintain a GPA of 3.50 or higher in their UHL courses will graduate with “University Honors.”