Metropolitan State College of Denver

Metro State is a comprehensive four-year college on the Auraria Campus in downtown Denver.  Founded in 1965, Metro State has grown to more than 23,000 students and educates more undergraduate Coloradans than any other institution in the state. One of the largest public baccalaureate colleges in the country, Metro State has experienced steady enrollment increases in 12 of the past 13 years. The College has the second-largest undergraduate student population in Colorado and more than 317,000 Coloradans have taken classes at Metro State for career advancement and personal enrichment.

Metro State empowers students to create their own success by providing relevant academic experiences through its unique attributes:

• An individualized and relevant education in urban Denver.
• High-quality academics and an unsurpassed faculty that add up to Colorado’s best value in education.
• Connections and choices that only a large urban college can offer.
• A four-year degree that impacts our students’ lives and their communities.

Metro State boasts more than 67,000 alumni, nearly 80 percent of whom stay in Colorado after graduation. These graduates fuel Colorado’s economy as teachers, business owners, pilots, scientists, nurses and more and enter graduate school to study medicine, law and other disciplines requiring advanced degrees.

A Foundation of Excellence
Metro State has built a solid foundation of excellence, as evidenced by its recent successes:

• Metro State’s Center for Urban Education, a partnership with Denver Public Schools, is expanding the supply of well-qualified teachers for Denver’s high-need middle and high schools.
• Students in the College’s Urban Leadership Program are training, through academic and experiential learning, to become the skilled leaders of Colorado’s future.
• Metro State’s off-campus Center for Visual Art, recently relocated to 965 Santa Fe Dr. in the Santa Fe Arts District, offers exhibitions from leading-edge national, even international artists such as Christo and Jeanne-Claude. In addition, the award-winning CVA serves as an interactive art laboratory for Metro State students and the larger community.
• Exemplifying the excellence of our faculty, three of Metro State’s photojournalism professors have won the Pulitzer Prize.
• The nutrition program recently received a $260,000 USDA grant to improve the nutritional care of the Latino community.
• The Aviation and Aerospace Program is a founding partner of the Academy for the Development of STEM-Related Careers, which is designed to position Colorado as a leader in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education.
• The Roadrunners boast two individual national championships in track (2009) and four national team championships (women’s soccer in 2004 and 2006 and men’s basketball in 2000 and 2002). The College’s athletic teams capped off their most successful year in school history in 2009 by finishing 13th nationally in the Division II schools of the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

A Bold Goal of Preeminence
Toward achieving its long-term goal of becoming the preeminent public urban baccalaureate college in the nation, Metro State is undertaking a number of new initiatives:

• Metro State received authorization from the Colorado State legislature in 2009 to add master’s programs to its degree offerings. Initially, the College plans to offer master’s degrees in accounting, teacher education and social work, beginning as early as fall 2010.
• The College is working toward doubling its Latino enrollment to 25 percent, to attain the federal designation of Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) within the next 10 years. HSI status brings funding opportunities that benefit all students.
• Metro State is pursuing construction of two new buildings on campus: the Student Success Building and the Hotel and Hospitality Learning Center (HLC). Indicative of the Metro State student body’s capacity for creating its own success, students voted to increase their fees to pay for the Student Success Building, which will house all student support services in one convenient location. The HLC will consist of a fully functioning, privately operated hotel, along with a learning center for students studying hospitality, tourism and events management.
• The Center for Urban Connections is tracking the many ways in which Metro State is fulfilling its role as an urban land grant institution through service and outreach and exploring new ways to engage with the greater Denver community so as to provide the best in service-learning opportunities for our students.
• The First Year Success Program places freshman who are first-generation college students in small learning communities to offer them the support they need to succeed and continue on to their sophomore year.

A Core Value: Diversity
Metro State attracts a diverse student body. Classrooms provide a rich mixture of age groups, socioeconomic classes, ethnic backgrounds and lifestyles. Students of all ages go to Metro State, from 16 to 70 and beyond. The median age is 23.

Metro State enrolls the highest number of students of color of all four-year colleges in the state--more than 5,700 in spring 2010, nearly 25 percent of the student population. One in three African Americans and one in four Latinos seeking undergraduate degrees in Colorado are doing so at Metro State.

Metro State has been highlighted in national publications for its diversity:

• Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education consistently ranks Metro State among the top 100 colleges and universities in the nation for graduating Latino students. For 2008, the college was ranked No. 86 in the country in graduating Latino students.
• Diverse: Issues in Higher Education ranks Metro State among the top 100 institutions in the nation in awarding baccalaureate degrees to students of color.

Metro State is ranked first in the state among public four-year colleges for the ethnic diversity of its faculty, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education (2009). Currently, 23 percent of full-time faculty members are people of color.

Academics
Metro State offers 54 major fields of study and 82 minors and awards bachelor of science, bachelor of music, bachelor of arts and bachelor of fine arts degrees through its three schools:

• Business
• Letters, Arts and Sciences
• Professional Studies

A teaching institution, Metro State’s average class size is 19. The top 10 majors/programs by enrollment in fall 2009 were:

1. Management
2. Biology
3. Criminal Justice and Criminology
4. Psychology
5. Art
6. Accounting
7. English
8. Marketing
9. Human Performance and Sport
10. History

In addition, there were 2,230 students seeking teacher licensure in fall 2009.

To best meet the needs of its students, the College holds day, night and weekend courses at the downtown Auraria Campus and at its two suburban satellite campuses, Metro South and Metro North. The College also offers an extensive number of online courses. General Studies requirements can be taken entirely online and 17 majors can be completed through a combination of online, weekend and evening courses.