Claims to Fame
CSU Fort Collins
Academics
The Professional Veterinary Medicine program is ranked second in the nation by U.S. News and World Report and is ranked first in the country in federal research dollars.
Colorado State University's College of Business offers one of the best MBA programs in the nation and in the Western United States, according to The Princeton Review, a New York-based education services company.
CSU established the state's first School of Global Environmental Sustainability to streamline the university's internationally recognized environmental research and to prepare students for the growing "green" workforce.
U.S. News and World Report ranked CSU in the top tier, among the best universities in the nation, in the 2009 "America's Best Colleges" edition, ranking the university 63rd among public universities and 125th overall.
Colorado State University's graduate engineering distance degrees offered through the Division of Continuing Education have been ranked a "Best Buy" by GetEducated.com. The "Best Buy" designation indicates that a program has been reviewed and judged to offer a high quality distance degree to a national audience at tuition rates well below the national average.
The Princeton Review ranked CSU as one of the nation's best institutions for undergraduate education.
Research
The 2008 Royal Award for Sustainable Technology Transfer, protected by HRH Crown Prince Felipe of Spain and HRH Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark, was presented to Colorado State University at COPENMIND for clean tech innovations in three different areas: an international clean cookstove project, two-stroke engine conversion kit and the next generation of biofuels production from algae.
The Energy and Engines Conversion Laboratory at CSU is the largest independent engines lab of this kind in North America.
Envirofit International, a CSU spinoff company, is developing what The New York Times calls "the first market-based model for clean-burning wood stove technology" for application in the developing world.
Colorado State University's commitment to research helped push the university's research expenditures to nearly $303 million in fiscal year 2008 - a new record for the university at a time when competition for federal funding is at an all-time high.
A Colorado State University team of mechanical engineering students recently placed third with their innovative robot at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Student Design Competition.
The CSU hurricane forecasting team has become internationally recognized for its highly anticipated hurricane forecasts through the year.
CSU scientists created the world’s first engineered solar-heated and -cooled building
CSU researchers were awarded $1.5 million, the largest single grant to study biofuels. The research will aim to accelerate work in the development of new crops for cellulosic biofuels.
CSU has been recognized with a top award from the United State Department of Agriculture for its Clean Energy Supercluster. The supercluster concept involves speeding cutting-edge technology to the marketplace.
For more than 20 years, the researchers from the Colorado State University Cancer Supercluster and University of Colorado have partnered on research that has lead to breakthroughs in cancer treatment for humans and companion animals.
The university’s Animal Cancer Center is the largest center of its kind.
The university is home to the only Centers for Disease Control laboratory of its kind outside of Atlanta, Ga
The Rocky Mountain Regional Biocontainment Laboratory at Colorado State University has formally received "select agent" research approval from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, making it the first National Institutes of Health’s NIAID laboratory of its kind in the country to begin studying these highly regulated bioterrorism agents.
Colorado State University’s cutting-edge instrument that delivers radiation to tumors in animals with unmatched precision -- a Varian Trilogy Linear Accelerator -- is the first of its kind in any animal clinic or veterinary teaching college in the world, and is only available for human treatment in a few limited locations in the United States.
The university developed a test to evaluate the status of joint cartilage, allowing the identification of early stages of arthritis in animals and humans.
Service
Consistently one of the top-ranking universities in the nation for the recruitment of Peace Corps volunteers.
The Corporation for National and Community Service named CSU to the 2008 President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll "with distinction."
Colorado State University's reputation for outreach and community partnerships has earned it a label as a Carnegie Community Engagement university, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has announced.
New University Center for the Arts, which provides theater, music and dance performance space for community-university collaborations as well as classes for student and community arts courses.
Participation in UniverCity Connections, which is a unique "town and gown" partnership designed to create sustainable and meaningful connections for community building such as participation in Fort Collins' Zero-Energy District, known as FortZED.
CSU is home to several critical natural resource and outreach centers and programs:
- The Colorado State Forest Service is headquartered on the foothills campus of Colorado State University. It maintains 17 district field offices throughout Colorado. These locations offer Colorado's citizens an easily accessible source of professional and technical forestry assistance coupled with educational outreach.
- Colorado Water Resources Research Institute (CWRRI), an affiliate of Colorado State University, exists for the express purpose of focusing the water expertise of higher education on the evolving water concerns and problems being faced by Colorado citizens.
- CSU touches every Colorado county through 59 Extension Centers. It is the only university in the state that serves Colorado’s young and old, urban and rural, as well as agriculture communities to new energy technologies. These centers are resources for the community by delivering the latest research and local education, including natural resource management, nutrition, gardening and commercial horticulture, and introducing the latest agricultural production technologies. The CSU Extension 4-H program is the largest in the state reaching more than 100,000 young Coloradans annually, more than half in urban communities. No other Colorado university has this reach around the state.
Faculty
A Colorado State University veterinarian who is a pioneer in veterinary communication and the human-animal bond recently was recognized with a national award as the Companion Animal Veterinarian of the Year by the American Veterinary Medical Association.
Former CSU Professor Robert Cavarra was responsible for making CSU home to one of the 25 greatest organs in the world, the internationally renowned Casavant organ.
National Academy Members:
Dr. Barry Beaty
University Distinguished Professor of Microbiology, Immunology, and Pathology
National Academy of Sciences
Dr. Thomas Vonder Haar
University Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science
National Academy of Engineering
Dr. Larry Roesner
Professor of Civil Engineering
Harold H. Short Endowed Chair for Urban Water Infrastructure Systems
National Academy of Engineering
Dr. A. Ray Chamberlain
Professor of Civil Engineering
National Academy of Engineering
Dr. Jack Cermak
University Distinguished Professor Emeritus in Fluid Mechanics and
Wind Engineering
National Academy of Engineering
Dr. Marshall Fixman
University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Physical Chemistry
National Academy of Sciences
Dr. George Seidel, Jr.
University Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Sciences
National Academy of Sciences
Sustainability
Colorado State placed second in the nation in the Grand Champion competition for RecycleMania, finishing with a cumulative recycling rate of 51 percent of the total waste generated on campus - up from 41 percent the previous year. CSU also finished fifth in the country in the Waste Minimization Category.
The prestigious Rocky Mountain Institute in Snowmass has selected Colorado State University for a national study on best practices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on college and university campuses.
The CSU Live Green Team shared its expertise in and its commitment to recycling by helping achieve an 85% diversion in resource recovery at the Democratic National Convention August 25-28, 2008.
CSU has been highly ranked and recognized for its green efforts as part of Princeton Review's listing of Colorado State - one of the best 368 colleges in the new 2009 edition of its annual guide.
CSU is internationally known for its research developing clean energy solutions including alternative fuels, clean engines, photovoltaics and other solar energy production capabilities, "smart" grid technology, wind engineering, water resources, and satellite-based atmospheric monitoring and tracking systems. A list of sustainability areas of research excellence, visit http://www.green.colostate.edu/research.aspx
Colorado State’s leadership in research into alternative energy solutions dates to the 1960s. Now, faculty members in all CSU colleges – from Liberal Arts to Engineering – are developing solutions to solve some of the world’s most challenging environmental problems. A list of CSU firsts in sustainability can be found here http://www.green.colostate.edu/greenfirsts.aspx