The Office for Outreach and Engagement has changed its name to the Office for Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship to reflect its charge to support faculty involved in public and community-engaged scholarship and to differentiate its focus from other campus functions and units. 

“This name change reinforces the office’s focus on the nexus of faculty scholarship and community concerns and increases the likelihood that faculty and staff will seek out support for their community-focused projects,” said Scott Battle, dean of Continuing Education and vice provost for outreach and engagement. “Many CU Boulder units work with the public, with mutual benefit, but this office is uniquely charged with supporting the community-engaged scholarship of faculty and, by extension, staff and students.”

Public and community-engaged scholarship, as a broad phrase, encompasses the many ways that research, teaching and creative work are advanced through collaboration and connections that address community needs and interests. Such work has long been one way faculty and staff members advance their work and help actualize CU Boulder's mission as a comprehensive public research university. 

The office has been the lead academic support unit for public and community-engaged scholarship since 2008. The new name will help increase a better understanding of the office’s role and engagement with programming. 

“Our team is passionate about supporting individual projects,” said Director David Meens. “We also understand how important it is to connect that work to the larger campus context and help build a culture where public and community-engaged scholarship is part of CU Boulder's culture.”

In conjunction with its name change, the office has established the Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship Advisory Group to formalize cross-campus collaboration in this space. Represented campus units include engaged scholarship in their missions or as a substantial and ongoing part of their regular activities. 

Members are committed academic leaders of this work at CU Boulder and will inform the office how it might best fulfill its capacity-building role, as well as units supporting overlapping campuswide priorities such as the Office of Faculty Affairs and the Research & Innovation Office.  

“The new name simplifies things. It more precisely reflects our niche on campus and is better aligned with the changing language of our field. And that alignment matters because CU Boulder, through representation of our office, is quite active on the national level,” said Meens. “We want to be a good conduit for the amazing work happening here, and we will all benefit from this new group activated to promote, facilitate and support engaged scholarship on our campus.”

Many of the office's signature funding, services, programs and initiatives will remain the same going forward. The Office for Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship has a new website at colorado.edu/outreach/paces and is now on Facebook and X/Twitter as @CUBoulderPACES.