The University of Colorado Boulder was named one of the top 100 best colleges for future leaders by Time Magazine and Statista. CU Boulder is the only university from Colorado listed.
To assemble the list, Time and Statista analyzed 2,000 resumes of the top leaders in the U.S., including politicians, CEOs, union leaders and Nobel winners, to find out where they went to college. CU Boulder was ranked no. 64 out of all public and private U.S. universities.
Stefanie Johnson, the director of CU Boulder’s Center for Leadership, said it’s meaningful to see a public school like the University of Colorado on the list representing the Front Range.
“CU naturally attracts really outstanding leaders,” Johnson said. “We see this in our freshmen class with students coming in, people who want to have a positive impact on society and humanity and I think that’s exciting to know we attract that top talent.”
The ranking comes as CU Boulder is expanding its leadership development with the Center for Leadership, which supports 32 leadership programs from across campus by providing funding, programs, experiential learning opportunities and a community for student leaders. It was founded in 2020 under the direction of Chancellor Phil DiStefano.
“It’s not that we’re only looking for those individuals who are going to be Supreme Court justices or in politics, but how can our students be leaders in their community after they graduate,” DiStefano said. “We look at leadership in various ways and want our students who want to be leaders to experience leadership in different settings.”
Longstanding leadership traditions at CU Boulder were key in getting this recognition, including the undergraduate research program that allows students to work with faculty on their research projects. The Presidents Leadership Class, a four-year CU Boulder program, is one of the oldest leadership programs in the country, DiStefano said, at more than 50 years old.
DiStefano said leadership development is critical so students will be civically engaged when they graduate from CU Boulder.
“I’ve talked this past year about using terms like leadership and policy and democracy and how we work together on those three areas to make sure that when students leave here they don’t just leave with a fantastic degree, they leave as really good citizens that are going to be the leaders of our country in different ways,” DiStefano said. “So from the standpoint of a public university like ours, I think it’s one of our moral obligations.”
Anastasia Gallegos-Roque is involved in the CU Leading Edge Council, which is part of the Center for Leadership. In her time building her leadership skills at CU Boulder, she said she’s become more confident in who she is as a person and leader.
“I’ve learned from my own experiences that you have to hear people out and you’re not leading for yourself, you’re leading for others,” Gallegos-Roque said. “And because you are leading for others, their opinions, their words, their thoughts matter just as much as yours do.”
Gallegos-Roque is participating in leadership programs at CU Boulder for herself — she wants to be a leader who shows up as her authentic self, stands up for what she believes in and inspires others to do the same.
“More so it’s within myself and who I actually want to be outside of any institution,” she said.
