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Colorado State University

Undergraduate School

Mailing Address
102 Administration Building 0100 Campus Delivery
Fort Collins, Colorado 80523-0100
Phone
(970) 491-6444
Email address
admissions@colostate.edu
School Information
"Colorado State University is one of the nation’s top public research universities and an institution on the rise. In the last decade, CSU has produced record enrollment, built on all-time highs in student diversity and student success; record fundraising far outpacing ambitious goals; groundbreaking research driven by a highly productive faculty; a campus revitalized by a transformational building campaign; and, perhaps most important, an unrivaled learning environment where nine of 10 recent graduates say they would choose CSU again and rate their education as excellent. (...) "As a leading public research university, Colorado State has the breadth of programs to address the wide range of issues facing society. As a land-grant university, we have the focus to pragmatically deal with these issues and develop the education, research, and outreach programs to make our world a better place." (Source: https://about.colostate.edu/)
General Information
Although the university has not yet taken steps to embed critical race theory into its main operations, university leaders have taken overtly political steps to advocate for anti-racist ideas. For instance, university leaders officially posted articles calling for the defunding of police. Additionally, CSU has also taken the symbolic step of launching its ‘Black Lives Matter’ programming with mural at Visual Arts Building. See developments below:

Actions Taken

Admissions Policies
  • CSU's 2023-2027 "Academic Master Plan" states that the university would "Design distinct recruiting, retention, and student success strategies that promote education, research, and engagement for all underrepresented and underserved groups."
Anti-Racism, Bias, and Diversity Training
  • CSU's Office of Inclusive Excellence "provides a variety of diversity, equity, and inclusion training opportunities for CSU employees, which includes faculty, staff, and graduate students." DEI training courses include: "Understanding Oppression," Microaggressions and Inclusive Language," and "Tools for Bystander Intervention."
Curriculum Changes and Requirements
  • "Colorado State University's diversity course requirement for all students to graduate, titled 'Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,' will now be graded, in part, on 'student engagement in dialogue,'" Campus Reform reports.
  • The School of Education at CSU highlights several of its teachers and how they infuse diversity into their curriculums. For example, professor Kari Dockendorff describes her course, Quantitative Research Methods (EDRM 700), by stating "We use data to represent educational processes and outcomes to reveal systematic inequities."
Faculty/Staff Requirements
  • CSU's Division of University Operations Diversity Plan states that it would "Require members of search committees to attend one of the search training sessions offered by the Office of Equal Opportunity..." and that "Recognizing implicit bias and learning how to prevent it are important skills that are taught in search chair training and inclusive excellence training."
Political Actions and Support for Anti-Racism
  • University Leaders officially posted articles calling for the defunding of police.
  • The university's website featured the Fort Collins Anti-Racism Network, which is "a new group that seeks to help end racism. They are holding gatherings as they design the group dynamic and future anti-racism work."
Program and Research Funding
  • The goal of CSU's Faculty Institute of Excellence is "to create a learning environment for faculty to engage in topics of diversity and inclusion in pedagogy, curriculum, and campus communities." The purpose of the Institute is "to transform classrooms and positively influence campus climate such that awareness regarding diversity and inclusion is integrated within pedagogical practices" and "to develop awareness, knowledge, and skill sets that promote equity and social justice in educational settings."
  • CSU is a member of the Rocky Mountain Alliance for Minority Participation (formerly the Colorado-Wyoming Alliance for Minority Participation), which is a "consortium of institutions committed to increasing the quality of education for underrepresented minorities (URM) in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields.”
Resources
  • The School of Education is "hosting sessions dedicated to inclusive pedagogical practices in the 2021 Diversity Symposium." The symposium "is a five-day-long conference... to come together as a community to explore and learn around topics of diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice."
  • Colorado State University, Pueblo held an Anti-Racism Workshop with two sessions: "Change Begins With You: Strategies For Everyday Anti-Racist Action" and "Educate To Liberate: Tools for Teaching Writing In the Anti-Racist Classroom."
  • CSU's WAC Clearinghouse published a special issue titled "Anti-Racist Activism: Teaching Rhetoric and Writing," which states "This special issue helps meet a pressing need to continue and deepen a critical dialogue about race matters, particularly in classrooms that take up the pedagogical aims of synthesis, analysis, argumentation, persuasion and presentation, in short, the teaching of rhetoric and writing."
  • The University's Black/African American Cultural Center published an "Anti-Racism Resources" webpage which includes "Anti-Racist Baby" and "How to be an Anti-Racist" by Ibram X. Kendi and "White Fragility: Why It’s so Hard for White People to Talk About Racism" by Robin DiAngelo.
  • On October 29, 2019, CSU News reported that School of Education Professor D-L Stewart published a book titled "Rethinking College Student Development Theory Using Critical Frameworks," which includes "theories that expand student development through critical race theory, queer theory, feminist theory, and more."
  • CSU Libraries published a research guide on "inclusive excellence" which "contains resources related to topics of equity and inclusion in higher education, particularly topics related to pedagogy and underserved student groups."
  • The functions of the President’s Multicultural Student Advisory Committee at CSU are "to engage in conversations with university faculty and administrators, share students’ perspectives, and provide recommendations that will develop and sustain a campus climate of inclusiveness and help CSU better serve its increasingly diverse population."
  • The Social Justice Speaker Series at CSU's College of Health and Human Sciences "seeks to stimulate thought and action as we continue to work toward promoting equity and inclusive excellence at CSU."
  • CSU states that it promotes "cultural responsiveness throughout the student experience (including in the classroom, research and mentoring)."
Symbolic Actions
  • CSU launches ‘Black Lives Matter’ programming with mural at Visual Arts Building
Last updated April 25th, 2024
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