University of Colorado at Boulder

The University of Colorado at Boulder (CU or CU-Boulder) is the flagship university of the University of Colorado system. With its unique Tuscan sandstone architecture and its location nestled under the Flatiron rock formations of Boulder, the campus is considered to be one of the most beautiful in the United States.

CU has produced a number of astronauts, Nobel Prize laureates, and respected academics, but also has a reputation as a party school.

In 2004, the CU football department was accused of facilitating alcohol use and sex to sell its program to recruits. At least four women have come forward to allege sexual assault by football players and/or recruits. The head football coach, Gary Barnett, was put on administrative leave, but later reinstated. A grand jury report leaked to the press in March 2005 suggested that athletic department employees were directly involved in providing sex for recruits, and there were even two reported cases of sexual assaults against female trainers.

In 2005, CU ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill was the center of a controversy involving an essay he penned on September 11th, 2001. The essay, "On the Justice of Roosting Chickens," drew comparisons between some of the workers in the World Trade Center and Adolf Eichmann, the man largely responsible for the logistical operations of German concentration camps. The essay was largely a condemnation of American foreign policy in the decades before September 11th, particularly with regard to Iraq.

CU is home of the Alferd Packer Grill, supposedly the only campus eatery in America named for a convicted cannibal.