University of Colorado Boulder
public university in Boulder, Colorado, United States, and flagship of the University of Colorado System
The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado, United States. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University of Colorado system. CU Boulder is a member of the Association of American Universities, is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and has been referred to as a Public Ivy.
The university consists of nine colleges and schools and offers over 150 academic programs, enrolling more than 35,000 students as of January 2022. In 2021, the university attracted the support of over $634 million for research and spent $536 million on research and development according to the National Science Foundation, ranking it 50th in the nation. It receives the most NASA astrophysics technology grants of all academic institutions and is the only university in the world that has sent instruments to all planets in the Solar System.
The Colorado Buffaloes compete in 17 varsity sports and are members of the NCAA Division I Big 12 Conference. The Buffaloes have won 28 national championships: 20 in skiing, 7 total in men's and women's cross country, and 1 in football. The university has produced 10 Olympic medalists. Alumni, faculty, and researchers have included 12 Nobel Prize laureates (of whom 5 were affiliated with the university when the prizes were awarded), 10 Pulitzer Prize winners, 11 MacArthur Fellows, 1 Turing Award laureate, 20 astronauts and 2 associate justices of the United States Supreme Court.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “University of Colorado Boulder” as public university in Boulder, Colorado, United States, and flagship of the University of Colorado System. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as public university in Boulder, Colorado, United States, and flagship of the University of Colorado System. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q736674. VIAF identifies the subject as 282471350. The Library of Congress control number is n81059815. Authority coordinates are 40.007, -105.267. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1876, 2022 and 2021.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
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Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “University of Colorado Boulder”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow University of Colorado Boulder primary sources, University of Colorado Boulder archive and University research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “University of Colorado Boulder”?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “University of Colorado Boulder” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.