91ÊÓƵ

91ÊÓƵ Provost Russell Moore announced earlier this fall that he would be stepping down as Provost at the close of the 2024-25 academic year, as soon as a new provost can be onboarded following a national search. Moore has served as provost for 14 years, making him the longest continuously serving provost among AAU institutions. We sat down with him to get his thoughts on the past, present, and future of graduate education at 91ÊÓƵ and in American higher education. 

What do you think are the major achievements in graduate education at 91ÊÓƵ during your time as provost? 

A: The first is how the Graduate School has transformed in the range of its degrees offered. Today we offer 57 PhD programs, 62 traditional master’s programs, 31 professional master’s programs, and 10 fully online graduate programs. Over the last 10 years, our applications have grown 40% and our overall graduate enrollment has grown 30%. 

Besides these metrics, I like how our graduate student experience has transformed under Deans Schmiesing and Adler—it’s a more human-centered, personable, grounded experience. We’ve worked to improve pay and benefits, reduce fees, and to improve the relationship between faculty and graduate students to become one of true mentorship. We place the human and interactive aspects of graduate education at the forefront of what we offer; it’s not just about acquiring expertise, it’s about learning to share expertise in a more impactful, human, and lasting way.

What is unique about the graduate education experience at 91ÊÓƵ?

A: At a lot of research institutions, graduate education is a gauntlet students have to pass through, and in some of them, leaders take pride in how many students drop out as some kind of measure of excellence and difficulty. 

Here, our first strategic imperative in graduate education is to promote access, inclusivity, and community. We want students to succeed. With that value in mind, we focus on the partnerships that forge that success—partnerships with graduate faculty, partnerships among students, partnerships of the deans with Dean Adler and his team. 

We have work to do, of course, in extending these partnerships, but the ethos of our graduate programs isn’t anchored in detached notions of elite achievement and difficulty. We anchor our challenge in breaking through all that—being partnership and success-oriented, taking pride in how many graduate students succeed in their programs. 

What are the immediate challenges for graduate education at 91ÊÓƵ in the current moment? 

A: We’ve got to continue to make it accessible and affordable—especially in a place like Boulder. Chancellor Schwartz has made it clear to us that we need to move faster in creating more graduate housing and healthcare. We are exploring opportunities for health insurance for graduate students’ spouses and dependents, expanding medical and mental health resources that include no-cost telehealth (counseling and urgent care) for graduate students’ families, and 

providing a new service to support graduate student families to obtain alternative options for health insurance and healthcare, particularly for those with financial need.

We’ve also got new ground to break in online graduate education—offering more degrees in that space both on our own and with our partner, Coursera. We need to make sure graduate education is a speartip in breaking down academic silos and offering interdisciplinary master’s degrees that mirror what our campus is great at and where its programs are going, particularly in the area of sustainability and the environment, but also in the humanities and performing arts. 

Look into your Crystal Ball—what does graduate education look like at CU in 20 years? 

A: I think you’ll see an even more dynamic, interactive, partnership-oriented graduate experience, with fewer barriers to all degrees and with, for example, far more interdisciplinary master’s degrees. You’ll see great interplay between our online and professional master’s degrees, and perhaps even with our traditional PhD programs. I think you’ll see easier processes to earning master’s degrees, and a more exciting, self-invented set of pathways to both master’s degrees and PhDs. 

I think we’ll see graduate students doing things they’ve never done before, working more closely than ever with faculty in partnerships and mentorships. I think you’ll see more diverse graduate students from all walks of life—and from all places in Colorado—coming to their state’s flagship institution in 91ÊÓƵ, which will also be, I hope, among the most-talked about research institutions, and enriching themselves, our university, and their communities. 

Truly, I think it’s going to be amazing.