A Partnership with Aurora

(May 2014) A new partnership between the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and its neighbors in Aurora and Denver is designed to improve health and opportunity in the community.

The Community-Campus Partnership (CCP) will create a virtual and physical hub for convening and connecting efforts between the campus and community groups.

The partnership will receive start-up funding of about $1 million over three years from the chancellor’s office, the School of Medicine and the Denver Foundation. Other schools and departments across campus and the City of Aurora are providing various in-kind contributions to this effort.

“This is a win-win situation,” says Lilly Marks, University of Colorado’s vice president for health affairs and executive vice chancellor of the Anschutz Medical Campus. “Nurturing our relationship with our neighbors is one of the pillars of this campus.”

CCP Director Robert McGranaghan, MPH, senior instructor in the Department of Family Medicine, says the partnership is founded on qualities such as equity, mutual respect, sustainability and responsiveness to health-related problems.

“Working together with those around us, I believe we can improve the health of our community,” says McGranaghan. “But this effort also will make us better at the research, teaching and clinical care that are integral to our campus.”