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Next year’s budget and the ChatGPT Edu contract were the two main topics discussed during President Todd Saliman’s appearance at the April 23 Boulder Faculty Assembly (BFA) meeting.

The 2026–27 budget

Last week,��the Board of Regents approved a proposed 2026–27 budget, which included a 2.5% faculty and university staff pool for salary compression, retention and adjustment funds and a 1% merit pool for eligible faculty and university staff. That was less than the CU system initially asked from the state, Saliman said, but was reflective of the state’s budget shortfall and the increase approved for state employees.��

At the state capitol, CU also worked to oppose other proposed cuts that would affect CU. Altogether, while things weren’t what system hoped, “They could’ve been a lot worse,” Saliman said.

Saliman added that the work the BFA and the provost have been doing related to the Chancellor’s Task Force on Faculty Salary, which was discussed in both the��March ���Ի���early April meetings, is in addition to the state and regent actions and will be implemented as envisioned by the task force.

The CU system continues to advocate for higher education funding, Saliman said, as well as legislation on important issues like concurrent enrollment. However, Colorado legislators’ hands are tied by existing budgetary rules that limit how much funding lawmakers have to allocate.

“We do have good support on both sides of the aisle for higher ed funding but (there’s a) limited capacity to say yes. Until there’s an intervention by the voters of Colorado, I don’t expect what I just talked about (the underfunding of higher education) to change dramatically,” said Saliman. “It’ll change from year-to-year, and some years will be better, and some years will be worse, but the big improvement—that’s going to take voter intervention.”

ChatGPT Edu contract

AI was also a broad point of conversation, particularly the recently announced ChatGPT Edu contract. Saliman particularly thanked the faculty and the shared governance bodies for providing so much feedback. System brought concerns about the contract language in particular to Open AI, the corporation that owns ChatGPT, and was able to amend the contract for clarity, particularly around the language that ensures no CU data from faculty, staff or students is used to train their large language model.

BFA members in attendance raised concerns about the role, or lack thereof, that shared governance played in the general decision-making process, and Saliman said while he responded by directing campuses to establish AI work groups that include shared governance, the different campuses were already making changes to ensure collaboration.

“At the system level...we (Faculty Council and the Office of the President) work together really well, and I feel like we take the feedback seriously and we make changes based on the feedback that we get.”

Chancellor Justin Schwartz, who also was in attendance, agreed, adding, “We have good examples of (the BFA and administration) working well together, and we’re going to continue to engage frequently and bring things up as soon as we can.”

Additional points of conversation included��, broken down by major, that CU system had collected across the campuses, as well as��, when adjusted for inflation, than five years ago.

Employee health and well-being initiative��

The employee health and well-being initiative was launched in July 2025 by the chancellor to better address the needs of faculty and staff, which is part of one of the four��institutional priorities (fostering the success of all students, faculty and staff).��

Since then, Associate Vice Chancellor for Health and Well-Being Jess Doty, who presented to the BFA, and her team have been gathering feedback, expanding resources and piloting new initiatives��like the��Well-being Innovators Network ���Ի���CU Recharge.

Doty said that six broad themes emerged from that feedback, including the need for:

• Customized well-being strategies for colleges/schools and departments integrating practices into existing structures
• Belonging and connection
• Improved access to recreation and physical activity
• Expanded counseling, including family counseling
• Career coaching and training or development on embedding well-being into departmental culture
• Financial literacy, wellness and support tools

In order to address the themes, Doty said her office is working to:

• Expand mental health support and preventative care
• Advance the sense of belonging by increasing the number of opportunities for connection and community
• Research-to-practice innovation with the goal of creating a national model for evidence-based workforce well-being practices
• Improve the employee experience by making programs, resources and support processes easier to understand and access

“We, as a division, are here to provide faculty and staff with meaningful support and systems for education, tools and strategies to enhance the overall well-being,” said Doty.

In other BFA action

• The BFA convened a special assembly meeting on April 16, open to all members of the Faculty Senate, to discuss generative AI use on campus. The meeting mostly consisted of an open comment period where faculty discussed their concerns—and some optimism—for AI both broadly and on campus.
• The BFA voted to approve the three different motions introduced during last month’s meeting, which included an update to the Faculty Affairs Committee charge, a recommendation to establish generative AI-use guidelines and resources, and a series of changes to the BFA bylaws and standing rules.
• Two notices of motions were introduced to be voted on in the fall: an update to the campus operations and resources committee charge and an update to the BFA standing rules to improving representation for large units.
• Deb Palmer from the School of Education was announced as the new chair-elect of the BFA. She will replace David Paradis, who will become the new BFA chair on July 1.

Learn more about the BFA and previous actions on��the BFA website.