The University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus is the campus containing the University of Colorado's health sciences-related schools and colleges, such as the University of Colorado School of Medicine, the CU School of Pharmacy, the CU College of Nursing, the University of Colorado School of Dentistry, and the Colorado School of Public Health, as well as the graduate school for various fields in the biological and biomedical sciences. Official branding guidelines require the short hand "CU Anschutz", instead of the commonly misused "CU AMC".
The campus is located on a portion of the former Fitzsimons Army Medical Center. After the base was decommissioned in 1999, the campus became known as the Fitzsimons Medical Campus, or simply "Fitzsimons." The name of the portion of Fitzsimons that houses the university facilities was changed to its current name in 2006 after the Anschutz family donated $91 million to construct the Anschutz Centers for Advanced Medicine, which include the Anschutz Outpatient and Cancer Pavilions, and the Anschutz Inpatient Pavilion, all located on the campus. The remainder of the former base is now called the Fitzsimons Life Science District and includes a 184-acre (0.74Â km2) Colorado Science and Technology Park, the Children's Hospital, the future Veterans Affairs hospital, and a residential/retail town center known as 21 Fitzsimons.
History
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University of Colorado Health Sciences Center
The University of Colorado created the Department of Medicine and Surgery in September 1883 in the Old Main building on the Boulder campus. This department granted its first degrees in 1885.
By 1892, the last two years of classes were taught in Denver because the larger population afforded more practical experience. This triggered a turf battle with the private medical school at the University of Denver, and the resulting legal battle went all the way to the Supreme Court of Colorado. In 1897, the Supreme Court found that the charter of the University of Colorado restricted it to teaching in Boulder.
Then in 1910, University of Colorado persuaded the legislature to amend the state constitution, allowing the university to move its medical school back to Denver. In 1911, the School of Medicine merged with the private Denver and Gross Medical College to form a larger school with a more comprehensive program, thus paving the way for the medical school to move permanently to Denver.
In 1925, the U.C. School of Medicine moved to a campus on 9th Avenue and Colorado Boulevard in Denver. This eventually became the modern University of Colorado Health Sciences Center (the Anschutz Medical Campus in the long run).
In 1947, the University of Colorado Hospital assumed responsibility for patients referred to it from the Denver General Hospital. The state paid for their care, and medical and nursing students got instruction.
In 1995, Fitzsimons Army Medical Center was put on the Base Realignment and Closure list by Congress. Officials from the Health Sciences Center, the University of Colorado Hospital, and the City of Aurora presented a proposal to the Department of Defense to utilize part of the decommissioned Army medical center as an academic health center for the University of Colorado.
In 2004, the first medical school laboratories moved from Denver to the research towers on the Fitzsimons grounds. Then in 2006, the Fitzsimons campus was renamed the "Anschutz Medical Campus" in recognition of the large donations of money from Philip Anschutz and his wife Nancy Anschutz.
By the end of 2008, all of the academic and research operations of the University of Colorado at Denver health sciences schools and colleges had been relocated from their older campus in Denver to the new Anschutz Medical Campus, joining the University of Colorado Hospital and the Children's Hospital (Colorado).
Merger with the University of Colorado Denver
In the summer of 2004, the University of Colorado Denver and the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center merged to create the University of Colorado Denver and Health Sciences Center ("UCDHSC"). As a result, the University of Colorado encompassed three institutions, down from four.
On October 29, 2007, the board of regents voted to rename UCDHSC as the "University of Colorado Denver." The branding covered both the Anschutz Medical Campus and the Denver Campus. This was reportedly a source of frustration for the City of Aurora, whose representatives felt slighted that the location of one of the university's two campuses is not reflected in the university's name. Officials agreed to add "in Aurora" to the "University of Colorado Denver Anschutz Medical Campus", referring only to one half of the university, but this was an unsatisfactory solution, and one state senator proposed the moniker "University of Colorado Denver/Aurora". In January 2010, the University of Colorado removed the word "Denver" from the Anschutz Medical Campus, referring to it only as University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. In 2014, the University of Colorado appointed separate chancellors for the University of Colorado Denver and the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, effectively separating the two campuses. However, the campuses remain administratively consolidated and offer some dual campus programs offered under the moniker University of Colorado Denver | Anschutz Medical Campus or CU Denver/Anschutz for short.
Anschutz Medical Campus
The University of Colorado Hospital, a teaching hospital affiliated with the University of Colorado, opened its new $644 million, 820,000-square-foot (76,000 m2) facility at the Anschutz Medical Campus in 2007. The Children's Hospital, with 1,400,000 square feet (130,000 m2), opened in 2007 to the south of the campus. U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs Hospital broke ground in August 2009 but the projected opening date in 2013 was missed. In 2014, the half-finished hospital was hundreds of millions of dollars over budget and the Veterans Administration (VA) was found to have breached its contract with the construction company. The U.S. Civilian Board of Contract Appeals declared the project had grown outside the scope of the Congress-approved budget due to the unrealistic expectations of the VA.
Academic profile
On the Anschutz Medical Campus, the University of Colorado houses the School of Dental Medicine, the School of Medicine, the College of Nursing, the School of Pharmacy, Colorado School of Public Health, and the Graduate School. The graduate school at the Anschutz Medical Campus offers 26 MS and PhD degrees in the biomedical sciences, and its programs feature highly in various national rankings (see Rankings).
School of Pharmacy
The University of Colorado's School of Pharmacy (SOP) began in 1911 as a division of the School of Medicine in Boulder. It became an independent college in 1913 and a school in 1957. It received its accreditation in 1938-1939 and awarded a B.S. in Pharmacy degree in 1995-1996 when it received a full accreditation status awarding the Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) degree by the ACPE. In 1986, the School of Pharmacy was administratively transferred to the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver. The physical transfer from Boulder and final consolidation of faculty, staff and students was completed between August and November 1992. In 2008, the school moved to the Anschutz Medical Campus, and is involved in teaching, research and public/professional service in the practice of pharmacy, the pharmaceutical sciences, molecular toxicology, and pharmaceutical outcomes research. 30% of its class is from out of state. In 2008, the NIH awarded $7,271,657 and $19,056,438 in grants towards the SOP and Pharmacology department, respectively. In the Spring of 2010, the school moved into its new building, the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences also on the Anschutz Medical Campus.
Research
In 2007, more than $373 million in research and training grants and contracts was awarded to CU Anschutz Medical Campus researchers. In 2012, more than $179 million was awarded by the National Institutes of Health to CU Anschutz researchers. The university is considered by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education to have "very high research activity" with a basic classification of Research Universities (RU/VH) (very high research activity). The core laboratories in the research complex, at the Anschutz Medical Campus, include mass spectrometry, X-ray crystallography, electron microscopy, a 900 mega-hertz nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer, flow cytometry, DNA array and peptide protein chemistry.
Rankings of on-campus programs
The Chronicle of Higher Education ranks the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus as having the top 10 Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index in the United States in the fields of biomedical sciences, developmental biology, human and medical genetics, oncology and cancer biology, structural biology and toxicology, the graduate programs of all of which are on the Anschutz Medical Campus. Academic programs on the campus feature in a number of rankings in U.S. News & World Report's America's Best Graduate Schools, 2009. The University of Colorado ranks 4th among American medical schools for primary care, and 27th among medical schools for research. The graduate school ranked 48th in the biological sciences in 2007. The University of Colorado School of Nursing ranked 15th in the nation in 2007, while among Nurse Practitioner programs, the university is ranked 8th, 5th, and 3rd in the areas of Adult, Family, and Pediatric, respectively. The medical school is ranked 6th in the specialty of family medicine and the School of Pharmacy is ranked 23rd in the nation.
Campus profile
The Anschutz Medical Campus hosts the Research Complex towers, the Barbara Davis Diabetes Center, the Nighthorse Campbell Native Health Building, centers of the University of Colorado Hospital, and the Health Sciences Library. The Children's Hospital and the University of Colorado Hospital are to the south of the campus. The campus hosts administrative and teaching functions, as well as clinical and research programs. There are approximately 530 medical students, 110 dental students, 880 graduate students, and six hundred and sixty full-time faculty in clinical and basic sciences at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.
Enrollment
There are 2,954 students enrolled at University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Of these, 430 are undergraduate students (10% male, 90% female), 1,026 are graduates (27% male, 73% female), and 1,498 are enrolled in first professional courses (41% male, 59% female). 17% of the student population at the Anschutz Medical Campus are an ethnic minority.
Library
The library on the Anschutz Medical Campus is the largest health sciences library in Colorado, with more than 32,000 e-journals. The library opened in late 2007 with 2 Information Commons, 30 group study rooms, and wireless internet connectivity throughout the library. The facility includes collection storage with a reading room as well as indoor and outdoor private and team study spaces, administrative offices, reference services, classrooms, a conference center, a learning resource center, systems-database support, education and health informatics support, and a History of Medicine rare book collection.
Architecture and layout
The Anschutz Medical Campus is a 227-acre (0.9Â km2) campus for the University and the University of Colorado Hospital. All of the facilities on the campus, with the exception of the former Fitzsimons Hospital (referred to as 500 Main, or "Building 500"), are new construction. A series of distinct quadrangular zones on the campus governs its architectural design: the research quadrangle, consisting of the three Research Complex towers, features a contemporary glass and metal design, Research Complex I and II were designed by Fentress Architects in association with Kling Stubbins; the education quadrangle is characterized by a brick aesthetic; and the core quadrangle is located on the central axis of the campus, and anchored by Building 500. The 116,000-square-foot (10,800Â m2) medical library is located along the center quadrangle of the campus, and was designed as a joint venture between Davis Partnership Architects of Denver and Centerbrook.
The combined 578-acre (2.3Â km2) of the Anschutz Medical Campus and the Fitzsimons Life Science District is undergoing a $4.3 billion renovation and transformation into the largest medical-related redevelopment project in the United States. The 184-acre (0.7Â km2) Colorado Science + Technology Park in Aurora is being developed directly adjacent to the health sciences areas of campus, providing opportunities to collaborate with biotechnology companies and their resources. The remaining acres of the former military facility are dedicated to commercial, hospitality, retail, and residential development.
The Anschutz Medical Campus consists of three zones: an education zone with facilities for training in the medical and health-related fields, a research zone that houses the graduate programs, and a clinical care zone with the University of Colorado Hospital and The Children's Hospital, the University of Colorado School of Medicine's primary adult and pediatric hospital partners, nearby.
On-campus and neighboring buildings
University of Colorado Hospital is an adult and pediatric partner hospital of the University of Colorado School of Medicine. The hospital shares the Anschutz Medical Campus with the University of Colorado School of Medicine, as well as its schools of Nursing, Pharmacy and Dentistry. It is the only academic hospital in the Rocky Mountain region. The hospital buildings on the campus include the Anschutz Inpatient Pavilion, the main 400+ bed hospital; the Anschutz Outpatient Pavilion, which houses many of the hospital's clinics; the Anschutz Cancer Pavilion, which houses the clinical services of the University of Colorado Cancer Center; the Rocky Mountain Lions Eye Institute; and the Center for Dependency, Addiction and Rehabilitation (CeDAR). The providers at the University of Colorado Hospital are also faculty members at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.
The Children's Hospital is affiliated with the CU School of Medicine and offers pediatric medical training programs. It is the primary pediatric hospital partner of the CU School of Medicine. The hospital is built on the Fitzsimons Life Science District, south of the Anschutz Medical Campus.
The Nighthorse Campbell Native Health Building houses the Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health. T " The 3-story building contains outpatient and long-distance medical consultation services, and houses the Programs for Public Psychiatry, and the TeleHealth/TeleEducation Program Office and Resource Center.
References
External links
- University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus Homepage
