Center for Identity & Inclusion

To provide services to support underrepresented students and to promote a diverse and inclusive campus for all students, faculty, and staff.

We are:

• A vital source for helping underrepresented students to persist, thrive, and graduate.
• A home away from home that facilitates students' academic, personal, and social development.
• A recognized leader in offering activities to the campus community to enrich cultural awareness.
• A valued partner with other units on campus that provide services for student success.
• A bridge that connects students to the campus, external communities, and their future as alumni of the University of Colorado Denver.

Community

CII recognizes that collaborations with faculty, staff, and external partners are essential to strengthening and sustaining an inclusive campus. By working together, we provide engagement opportunities for historically underrepresented students and create a home away from home. 

Social Justice

CII recognizes that striving for a more socially just society is critical to the success and livelihood of our students. We enact social justice as a process and a goal towards a vision for a society where people from all social groups have equal access to resources and opportunities and feel physically and psychologically safe and secure.

Learning & Scholarship

CII recognizes that some voices have historically been excluded in the academy. We advance CU Denver's educational mission by providing counter-narratives and raising awareness of untold stories to foster critical thinking and reflection about issues that impact marginalized communities. CII serves as an academic partner that values excellence in scholarship, in order to retain and graduate underrepresented students at CU Denver while also promoting lifelong learning. 

Resilience

CII recognizes that many of our students have developed resilience because of the challenges they have and/or currently endure. CII affirms, supports, and strengthens underrepresented students and their processes of adaptation in the face of adversity, trauma, threat, and other sources of stress. CII staff endeavors to model and embody resilience while teaching students to be agents of social change. 

Leadership

CII recognizes the lack of diversity in key leadership roles in higher education and other contexts in the United States. CII empowers student leaders while encouraging them to challenge the ways society continues to marginalize underrepresented populations. CII offers leadership programs to prepare students to become change agents on campus, in society, and in their prospective careers.​

During the late 1960s, there was widespread public outcry and activism for greater access to higher education for underrepresented populations. Since its inception in 1969, CII has served thousands of students, helping them to persist, thrive, and graduate. Similar to many universities in the U.S., our institution developed Educational Opportunity Programs (EOP) during the Civil Rights era as higher education opened its doors to members of underrepresented groups. The CU Denver EOP played a vital role in the outreach and recruitment of underrepresented students.  EOP originally started with support services for students who self-identified as Hispanic and American Indian. A few years later, student support services for students who self-identified as Asian American and Black were developed.

In an effort to increase the retention of underrepresented students, EOP offered academic advising, cultural programming, mentorship, scholarship assistance, and admissions assistance. EOP also founded the Pre-Collegiate Program at CU Denver to help increase access to higher education for underrepresented students. The Ethnic Studies department was spearheaded by the directors at EOP, they often taught some of the courses. Due to the success and impact of the Pre-Collegiate Program and Ethnic Studies department, they eventually developed in their own program or department.

In the summer of 2012 the programs for American Indian, Asian American, Black, and Hispanic Student Educational Programs and Outreach, changed their names to American Indian, Asian American, Black, and Hispanic Student Services to reflect the work each program was and continues to do. Hispanic Student Services changed the name of the program to Latin@ Student Services in 2014 to be more inclusive of the diverse community. In 2016, Latin@ Student Services changed their name to Latinx Student Services due to feedback from the students who wanted the program name to be more inclusive.

In the summer of 2017, EOP changed its name to the Center for Identity & Inclusion (CII) to reflect the programs and services offered at CU Denver and evolve with the students' needs. 

CII remains an integral part of CU Denver as the only unit whose programs focus explicitly on American Indian, Asian American, Black, and Latinx students. The proportion of undergraduate students of color at CU Denver has increased each year since 2005. In the fall of 2019, 58% of new freshmen were students of color.