Judging the strength and rigor of the curriculum is a task staff feels is best left to experts in the field. They have used an evolutionary strategy to create this program one systematic step at a time, building on strengths and minimizing risk. I strongly feel that that the curriculum in the proposed program and the method for organizing it are appropriate for an emerging field such as cognitive science. Staff examined program quality indicators embedded in the proposal. Such indicators include admission, transfer, retention, and graduation standards, professional requirements, and assessment processes.
All indicators suggest a quality program.
Need The need for the proposed program is best determined by the past demand for graduates of similar existing programs across the country and by the anticipated demand as expressed by the major employer groups of graduates government, companies, industry, and academia. Graduates of the University of Colorado at Boulder in other disciplines, who have added to their portfolio of experience and training by accessing the courses and activities provided by the Institute of Cognitive Science, have been readily hired across the spectrum of employers, based in part on the cognitive science dimension of their portfolio. For example, of forty-one recent Ph.D. graduates who had some involvement with the Institute of Cognitive Science, forty were employed in one of the major employer groups. Several companies and industries in Colorado have expressed intentions to hire graduates of the proposed program. The growth for computer science and for uses of computers involves knowing how to apply computational capability or principles to some applications or to science itself.