Human Scale University

Colorado Mesa University aspires to be a Human Scale University—that is, we seek to build a scaled model of the world we wish to see. This world we envision requires finding future leaders, innovators, creators and changemakers; getting them here on campus, welcoming them and supporting them as they begin their journey together learning from one another. We are not shaping the minds of our future leaders — their minds are not ours to shape.

This future is not an echo chamber where we surround ourselves with people who think like us, look like us, worship like us or vote like us. We must commit to being a place where we seek out and welcome students and colleagues from all walks of life. This future is one where we can humbly disagree with each other’s ideas without animosity or hate. To achieve this ideal, we must commit to listening to one another, being in relationship and being in community with one another.

At Colorado Mesa University students are not dwarfed by high-rise residence halls. People hold doors for each other, look each other in the eye and say hello. Students aren't lost in a lecture hall of 400 students taught by a teaching assistant they've never met under a professor they'll never know. Our students are in a classroom with 20 to 30 other Mavericks, sitting with a professor who is an expert in her field and who knows their names. And successful students succeed in the classroom with the care and competence of our professionals outside of the classroom in financial aid, admissions, residence halls, athletics and performing arts, and the rest of our offices across campus.

We all intuitively understand the interconnectedness of our lives. Let’s acknowledge that we need everyone at this great place rowing in the same direction if we are going to thrive in the future, if we're going to do right by our students, if we're going to build a Human Scale University, a university that reflects the complexity and diversity of our country and honors the dignity of the individual people who comprise it.

Across campus our jobs may be different but our work is the same. Do you know someone at CMU who epitomizes the character of Human Scale? Nominate them for the Human Scale Award.