Featured Institution

University of Colorado, Boulder

The University of Colorado Real Estate Center, a high-caliber academic real estate program for graduate and undergraduate students attending the Leeds School of Business, prepares students to be leaders in the real estate industry. The Center fosters partnerships between the University and the CU Real Estate Council to create dynamic and relevant dialogue that will further land use-related research and develop meaningful internships and jobs for students.

The University of Colorado Real Estate Center recently announced the appointment of Susan Watts as Executive Director, to succeed Byron Koste. Watts is a nationally recognized leader in sustainable development who brings to the Center a unique combination of 25 years in senior management for The Bonita Bay Group, Collier Enterprises, WCI Communities, and Westinghouse Communities in California, Arizona and Florida, as well as experience in academia teaching at the University of Arizona in the School of Renewable Natural Resources.

“Susan’s background in academia, her thorough knowledge of the real estate industry and commitment to sustainability make her the ideal candidate to lead the CU Real Estate Center into its exciting next chapter,” said Byron Koste, Founding Director of the Center, who is credited with building the 12-year-old program into a first-tier real estate program.

“During the past decade, the Center has evolved into a driving force in real estate education nationally. I look forward to working with the dedicated members of the CU Real Estate Council, led by incoming Chairman Sherman Miller, the CU Real Estate Foundation, and the top-notch faculty, to provide the skill sets necessary for the next generation of students entering an industry that is focused on sustainable development. It’s a challenging world and our students need to have the vision and creativity to make a difference,” said Watts.

The University of Colorado offers a world-class community of faculty, staff, scientists, students and facilities. CU is a top ten US public research university, the only American Association of Universities institution in the Rocky Mountain Region, has four Nobel Laureates, many MacArthur, Fulbright and Packard Fellows, dozens of members of National Academies, and world-renowned joint research institutes with national labs/agencies such as NIST, NOAA, NCAR and NASA. The university is also home to numerous research centers and faculty research groups in chemistry, physics, biology, engineering, business, social sciences, journalism and law that are directly involved in work on renewable and sustainable energy issues. Many of these projects are in conjunction with The Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute.

The Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI) was launched as a campus initiative in early 2006 to become an international force in solving the energy challenge through research, education and technology commercialization. Based on extensive faculty input, CU determined that a successful initiative must be highly interdisciplinary, integrating the University’s extensive research in renewable and sustainable energy with its strengths in climate and environmental science, behavioral studies, policy analysis, and entrepreneurship. RASEI reflects this integration with a three-pronged approach that emphasized discovery, transformation, and entrepreneurship.