CU Boulder ends student leadership program on climate and equity

The University of Colorado Boulder has dismantled its decade-old community engagement center, CU Engage — eliminating a long-running leadership program focused on climate justice and racial equity and reassigning several other initiatives to departments across campus.

University officials attributed the decision to financial pressures within the School of Education and a shift in funding priorities from the provost’s office.

“The school is facing a significant budget shortfall and needs to focus on its primary role and mission of educating the next generation of teachers, teacher educators and education researchers,” CU Boulder spokesperson Nicole Mueksch said in an emailed statement.

But internal emails and interviews with staff suggest the move caught many by surprise — and raised broader concerns about transparency, shifting institutional priorities and the political climate surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts.

A sudden end

On the morning of Thursday, March 20, CU Engage staff were given less than an hour’s notice before the announcement went public. At 8:30 a.m., four administrative staff and Sabrina Sideris, director of INVST — the leadership studies program housed within CU Engage — were notified of their termination via email. At 9 a.m., Provost Russell Moore and Interim School of Education Dean Fernando Rosario-Ortiz held a Zoom call with CU Engage staff to inform them the center would be dissolved.

“The directors hadn’t been informed,” Sideris said. “They didn’t even know who on the call had been terminated that morning. We indicated it to them by show of hands. … It was a pretty shady process.”

By 9:30 a.m., while the meeting was still ongoing, the provost’s office sent a campus-wide email announcing the closure. University leadership invited members of the School of Education to Q&A sessions about the decision later that day.

In a letter to the School of Education the next day, CU Engage co-directors Roudy Hildreth and Vandna Sinha wrote that faculty, staff and students were “shocked and deeply saddened” by the decision. They also objected to the short-notice Q&A and invited colleagues to a separate meeting with CU Engage on April 4.

The co-directors were on spring break this week and unavailable for comment.

A decade of engagement work

CU Engage was launched in 2014 to consolidate the university’s scattered community outreach programs under one academic roof. It housed 12 initiatives — from student-led service projects and scholarships to a leadership major and minor, as well as free English classes and community-based research. The goal was to foster community engagement and research for both students and faculty — improving experiential learning while also building goodwill for the university across Boulder.

Consolidating these efforts made coordination easier and expanded student opportunities, said CU Engage’s founding director, Ben Kirshner. Without it, “we’re just going back to what the situation was about 10 years ago,” he said.

Among the center’s best-known programs was INVST, a 35-year-old, 16-credit leadership program that paired students with local organizations addressing issues such as climate justice, equity and grassroots organizing.

“We connect our undergraduate students with off-campus community leaders,” Sideris said.  “Our students work with them as apprentices.” 

INVST has partnered with over 40 community organizations over the years, including Boulder Food Rescue, Bridge House, EFAA, Boulder Housing Coalition, the City of Boulder’s Climate and Sustainability Division, the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition and Rocky Mountain Equality.

While most CU Engage programs were reassigned to other departments, INVST was terminated outright — though Mueksch said the university would support the program moving to another academic home, if INVST is able to find one.

“I was so devastated when I read the news,” said Lodi Siefer of the Climate Justice Hive, which hosted INVST interns when her organization launched. “The curriculum and the structure were so dialed in — we were really able to launch in a way I don’t think we would have without that resource.”

A program paused — then dissolved

The decision to dissolve INVST came after a two-year pause. The first year was initiated by program leadership after two student cohorts dropped out. During that time, INVST completed a self-study and implemented changes — including a more culturally responsive curriculum, a narrower focus on community partnerships, and a lighter student workload.

The second year was extended by Rosario-Ortiz, who said he needed additional time to review the program’s evaluation, according to Sideris. When that extension was announced in March 2024, nearly 100 supporters joined a video call to protest.

“He assured all of those people that he saw the value of INVST and that we would be reinstated after the pause,” Sideris said. “Instead, we’ve been dissolved.”

Mueksch said it was during this time that the School of Education concluded it could not financially sustain the program.

In their March 21 letter, Hildreth and Sinha outlined a more recent timeline: On Jan. 27, they submitted a document to university leadership showing a balanced two-year budget and requesting at least one more year to allow CU Engage to support student and staff transitions. They were told to expect a decision by Feb. 18. That meeting was delayed without explanation — and on March 20, the center was formally dissolved.

Budget scrutiny 

CU Engage’s closure has also sparked questions about the university’s financial priorities.

Mueksch pointed to a new budget model that prioritizes programs serving a department’s own majors and disadvantages interdisciplinary efforts like CU Engage and INVST. She also disputed CU Engage leadership’s claim that they presented a balanced budget, saying projections showed deficits through 2028.

Sideris said INVST’s annual budget was around $200,000, nearly half of which came from private donors. She noted that recent raises for four associate deans in the School of Education totaled $160,000 — nearly equal to INVST’s entire operating budget.

“Of course they don’t have the funding for us if they’re paying their highest leaders more money to do the same thing,” she said.

 Mueksch said in response, “the changes in school leadership structure are unrelated to the sustainability of CU Engage.”

Annie Miller, former communications manager for CU Engage, said INVST held more than $150,000 private donor funds at the time of its dissolution last week.

“INVST has been providing high-impact programming at the university for over 30 years, in large part due to the ongoing fiscal support from donors,” Miller wrote in a letter to Dean Rosario-Ortiz. “At best, this represents reckless financial mismanagement; at worst, it is a clear breach of fiduciary duty.”

According to Mueksch, “the INVST donor funds are not sufficient to support the program in the long term.”

Political pressure or policy shift?

Some INVST staff and supporters see INVST’s elimination as part of a national trend: universities scaling back DEI efforts in response to growing political pressure.

Sideris said she “strongly” suspects INVST’s termination was influenced by recent actions from the Trump administration, which has threatened university funding over DEI programming and progressive political activity.

Mueksch said the decision had nothing to do with the Trump administration.

Universities dependent on federal funding for research and operations are facing increased scrutiny. This month, the federal government threatened to revoke $400 million from Columbia University over its handling of pro-Palestinian protests — prompting remarkable concessions. It also froze $175 million in funding to the University of Pennsylvania over its inclusion of transgender athletes.

CU Boulder, like many institutions, has rebranded its DEI efforts — renaming its DEI office the “Office of Leadership Support and Programming,” while the University of Colorado system removed its DEI webpage following executive orders.

Kirshner also expressed skepticism about a direct connection. “The budget cuts started happening before the Trump election,” he said, referring to early Covid-era pressures. He added that other programs that might be easy targets for Trump’s DEI cuts — like Multicultural Leadership Scholars — are surviving the cuts.

 “I do not know why INVST was targeted,” he said. “I don’t think a good reason was given.”

Some students and faculty have begun organizing in response.

“The lack of transparency around this decision, along with the five impending terminations during a national time of uncertainty, affects how I trust a department whose values supposedly stand for democracy, diversity, equity and justice,” said Maria Vielma, a graduate student at the School of Education.