Update on Kennedy Mountain Campus Associate Vice Chancellor Role

Dear DU community members, 

As you know, the University has been engaged in a search process for an associate vice chancellor for the James C. Kennedy Mountain Campus. This individual will have key administrative and leadership responsibilities, including ensuring the Mountain Campus becomes a vibrant hub of the DU 4D Experience. Because this is a brand-new position, throughout the search process we have been able to refine the scope of this role to best support the 4D Experience and our goal of offering all our students the most accessible and engaging experience possible across all their dimensions—academic, wellbeing, and character and careers and lives of purpose. 

As such, and after much consideration, we have expanded the responsibilities of the new AVC role to include providing leadership on recreation specifically, both on our campus here in Denver, and on the Kennedy Mountain Campus. Of course, until this point, recreation was housed under Athletics and Recreation. Shifting recreation under the purview of this new role further strengthens the University’s commitment to a holistic education across all four dimensions. 

The title for the role will henceforth be updated to associate vice-chancellor of the James C. Kennedy Mountain Campus, wellness and recreation. As described previously, the position will report to the Chancellor, and will be an important new addition to the Chancellor’s cabinet. The updated position and description will be available online tomorrow. 

Once hired, the new AVC will help lead programming and facilities at our urban campus as well as the Kennedy Mountain Campus in close partnership with colleagues across DU, including faculty members, student affairs and DEI professionals, the 4D Experience team, and many more. By combining these roles, our students will benefit from a seamless recreational and wellness experience that knits together all they enjoy about our programming and curriculum here in Denver, as well as the new and exciting opportunities they will have at our Rocky Mountain campus. 

Finally, an additional benefit to this model is that it will allow our new vice chancellor for athletics to keenly focus their attention and energies on our Division I athletics program and non-recreation operations of the Ritchie Center.  Our new vice-chancellor will lead the renamed Division of Athletics. 

I look forward to sharing the results of the AVC search as soon as possible. 

Sincerely, 

Jeremy Haefner 

Chancellor