¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ

The confidence of Colorado business leaders again dipped slightly going into the fourth quarter of 2015, but remains in positive territory, according to the Leeds Business Confidence Index released today by the University of Colorado Boulder’s Leeds School of Business.

Thousands of ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ-Boulder family members will begin arriving on campus Thursday and Friday for Family Weekend 2015, where they will visit their student’s campus home, attend classes and presentations, tour the campus and Boulder and cheer on the Buffs as they take on the Oregon Ducks on Saturday night.

Members of the extended campus community are invited to join Fall Convocation , an annual event celebrating faculty achievements. Presentations including "A New College for a New Century: The College of Media, Communication, and Information" and "Explore Mars or Explore the Earth? ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ Does Both!" begin Oct. 2 at 10 a.m., and the tenure and promotion awards ceremony begins at 1:30 p.m. All events are in the Center for British and Irish Studies, 5th floor, Norlin Library.

By this point in the semester, if you're a first-year student, you’ve probably written papers and taken the first tests of your college experience at ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ-Boulder. Are you getting the grades you expected or were hoping for? If not, the good news is it’s not just you—a lot of fellow students are facing the same challenges. The better news is that improving your classroom experience and your grade is possible, and the first steps are only a few clicks away.

Faculty and staff members at the University of Colorado Boulder seeking funding for projects involving entrepreneurship or a problem-solving mindset are invited to submit proposals for the new ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ-Boulder Campus Entrepreneurship Seed Awards .

Football season is ramping up this time of year, and I like it. Don't miss the Buffs vs. Ducks on Saturday and the Broncos vs. Vikings on Sunday. And remember: Tuesdays are Taco Tuesday at most Mexican restaurants in downtown Boulder.

"Round and Round Up and Down: A 31st Century Child's Guide to Spirals or The Time Traveler's Bathroom Reader" is a kid-friendly and adult-friendlier performance that winds through the imagination by way of science, mathematics, storytelling and dance. The show runs Saturday Oct. 10 and Sunday, Oct. 11, at Fiske Planetarium. Both performances start at 7 p.m.

¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ Theatre & Dance continues its 2015-16 season with "The Otherland," an MFA dance concert created by Bailey Anderson and Rosely Conz. Their show—which runs Oct. 16-18 at the Charlotte York Irey Dance Theatre on the ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ-Boulder campus—explores through contemporary dance what it means to be a stranger in one’s everyday world.

A Computing by Design symposium aimed at helping educators weave computer science principles throughout the K-12 curriculum will be held Monday, Sept. 28, at the STEM-focused Timberline PK-8 , 233 E. Mountain View Ave., in Longmont.

The National Science Foundation has awarded separate grants of $2.5 million to the University of Colorado Boulder and $1.1 million to the University of Colorado Denver to expand and study the campuses’ Learning Assistant Program.