The Association for Undergraduate Education at Research Universities (UERU, pronounced "You-Roo") was established as the Reinvention Center in 2000 following the 1998 publication of the Boyer Commission report, Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America’s Research Universities. Shirley Strum Kenny, chair of the Boyer Commission and President of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, concluded that the Commission’s vision could best be implemented by creating a national network of research universities committed to strengthening undergraduate education. Originally hosted by Stony Brook University, the organization has relocated twice, first to the University of Miami in 2007 and then to Colorado State University in 2013, where it currently resides.
Since its founding, UERU has evolved into an action-oriented network of UVPs and others who work collaboratively to advance change on their campuses. In 2021, UERU received a $1.9 million grant from Ascendium Education Group, the largest philanthropic grant in the organization's history, to support an innovative Curricular Analytics Project to validate the relationship between curricular complexity and student success. In 2022, with support from the Raikes Foundation and the Suder Foundation, UERU published The Equity/Excellence Imperative: A Blueprint for Undergraduate Education at Research Universities, in both print and open-source ebook formats. Over 20,000 copies were downloaded to over 14,000 unique IP addresses in the Report’s first 15 months of availability. A Johns Hopkins University Press open-source volume, The Equity/Excellence Imperative in Action (expected in 2025 with support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation), will build upon Boyer 2030 Report provocations and illustrate changes taking place at dozens of UERU member and non-member institutions alike.