Winter 2008

U N I V E R S I T Y O F

MAGAZINE

N I V E R S I T Y O F
A G A Z I N E
UN I V ER S I T Y O F
MAGAZINE
UNIVERSITY
MAGAZINE

Saving Seph
 Office of the Chancellor
Contents
Features

Dear Readers: 24 Million Dollar Man

Donald Sturm (LLB ’58) is an expert at making money—and
These days, a conversation about college athletics is bound to conjure up a variety of images. Surely one of these is giving it away.
associated with the purity of sport—the whole notion of young men and women of exceptional talent developing their By Richard Chapman
gifts, working hard to be the best that they can be, competing solely for the love of it. That’s an image deeply rooted in
our humanity, bound to our common drive for excellence and belief in possibility. It fits well with the whole notion of 28 Back to School
personal growth as a core element of the college experience. Baby boomers have become the new ‘seniors’ on campus.
By Doug McPherson
There is another image, though, that arises all too often. This is an image in which big-time college athletics is inextri-
cably linked to big money, big media, flexible integrity and glitz. Far too many Americans might say that these things
are simply the accoutrements, perhaps even the prerequisites, of success in college sports.
32 Saving Seph
Faith fuels alumna Lori Ware in her battle to save her son’s life.
By Janalee Card Chmel
Over the course of the last 10 years since DU returned to NCAA Division I athletics, our Pioneer athletes have
shown that that assumption is completely false. Our teams compete, and win, at the highest levels of competition.
This past year, they won the NCAA championship in skiing (our 19th), participated in 12 NCAA championship
38 Education Reimagined
The Marsico Initiative has transformed DU’s undergraduate arts
tournaments and won seven conference titles out of 17 varsity sports. One student-athlete won two individual NCAA
and sciences curriculum.
championships, 13 students-athletes were named All-Americans, one was an Olympian, and eight of our coaches By Tamara Chapman
won conference coach of the year honors. Our Pioneers won the Directors Cup as the best division I–AAA athletics
program in America and were ranked in the top 25 among all 331 Division I programs by Sports Illustrated.
Departments
At the same time, our student-athletes posted a cumulative grade point average of 3.29 and a graduation rate of
92 percent (if one takes into account those students who transferred to other institutions). Thirteen were named 44 Editor’s Note
academic All-Americans, and more than 100 (about a third of the total) made the Dean’s List at DU, an achievement
that requires a GPA of at least 3.75. As a group, Pioneer athletes participate in a host of outreach and service projects 45 Letters
every year, including helping to move our new first-year students into the residence halls on Labor Day each fall.
These young men and women serve as role models for their fellow students and for countless kids in the community 47 DU Update
who follow Pioneer sports. 08 News  Nagel Hall opening
11 Academics  Community service
Our athletics programs at DU have very high integrity, in keeping with our larger institutional culture. We’ve not had 14 Q&A  Peg Bradley-Doppes
a major NCAA rules infraction. That’s because our sports programs are focused on the development and well-being
16 Sports  Water polo
of the individual student, as an athlete and a person.
19 Research  Death penalty
All of this is what collegiate athletics is really supposed to be about—the purity of sport and the nobility of competi- 21 People Ultra runner
tion, the discipline of the athletes a reflection of an overall inner strength that leads to success in academics and, 22 Views  Buchtel Tower
ultimately, to lives of purpose and significance. Here at DU, we’re proving that the fundamental idea is still valid, that
it’s still possible to compete and win at the highest levels with high-integrity programs and athletes who are as serious 43 Alumni Connections
about their studies as they are about competing on the field. I hope that you are as proud of our Pioneers as I am.

Online only at www.du.edu/magazine:

Arts  Music recording curriculum
History  Town of South Denver

news • events
Office of the Chancellor
• sports • community
On the cover and this page: Seph Ware. By Wayne Armstrong. Story on page 32.
Mary Reed Building | 2199 S. University Blvd. | Denver, CO 80208 | 303.871.2111 | Fax 303.871.4101 | www.du.edu/chancellor
2 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008 University of Denver Magazine Update 3
 U N I V E R S I T Y
Editor’s Note
MAGAZINE
w w w. d u . e d u / m a g a z i n e
U N I V E R S I T Y O F
Volume 9, Number 2
M A G A Z I N E
UN I V ER S I T Y O F
MAGAZINE
UNIVERSITY
Working for the University of Denver Magazine, Publisher
MAGAZINE
I’m constantly reminded of how remarkable our DU Carol Farnsworth
family is. Of course, the students, faculty and staff Managing Editor
on campus are tremendous, but it’s the alumni who Chelsey Baker-Hauck (BA ’96)
Assistant Managing Editor
most amaze me.
Christine Cole (MPS ’07)
In this job, I meet or hear from alumni
Associate Editor
nearly every day. They send class notes and share Tamara Chapman
memories and bits of nostalgia. They forward news
Editors
Richard Chapman
of family members and fellow Pioneers. I’ve formed
Brenda Gillen (MLS ’06)
friendships with those who call or write regularly and
Michael Richmond
Kathryn Mayer (BA ’07)
look forward to hearing their updates and feedback. Editorial Assistant
Most of the news alumni share eventually winds up Samantha Stewart (’08)
in the pages of the University of Denver Magazine or in Creative/Brand Strategist
Jim Good
our online news publication DU Today (www.du.edu/today).
Art Director
The backgrounds of our alumni are as diverse as their life callings.
Craig Korn, VeggieGraphics
They are following their passions and living lives of meaning and purpose.
Contributors
Their stories recharge me. Jordan Ames (BA ’02) • Wayne Armstrong •
You’ll read about some of those remarkable, inspirational alumni in Jim Berscheidt • Dave Brendsel •
Janalee Card Chmel (MLS ’97) • Kristal Griffith •
this issue, including solar energy pioneer George Lof (page 57), 94-year-old Jeff Haessler • Linda McConnell •
dynamo Marion Downs (page 44), benefactor and trustee Donald Sturm Doug McPherson • Jeff Nishinaka •
Marc Piscotty • Sarah Satterwhite •
(page 24) and Ryan Greenawalt, national board director of the Log Cabin Chase Squires • Janna Widdifield •
Republicans (page 56). Carrie Wigglesworth
You’ll also read about alumna Lori Ware (page 32), whose son, Seph, is Editorial Board
Chelsey Baker-Hauck, publications director •
pictured on our cover. He has a fatal form of muscular dystrophy, and Lori
Jim Berscheidt, associate vice chancellor for
is in the fight of her life to save him. I had the great pleasure of meeting university communications • Thomas Douglis
Lori and Seph when they visited campus in August. Seph’s gigantic spirit (BA ’86) • Carol Farnsworth, vice chancellor for
university communications • Sarah Satterwhite,
and Lori’s love, faith and passion have moved all of us who have worked senior director of development/special assistant
on that article. I find myself thinking of them often and praying for their to the vice chancellor • Amber Scott (MA ’02) •
Grace Stanton (PhD ’79), executive director of
family. creative/brand strategy • Laura Stevens (BA ’69),
I hope that the stories in this issue leave you feeling inspired, informed, director of parent relations
entertained and connected to your DU family.
Please keep the stories coming.
Printed on 10% PCW recycled paper
The University of Denver Magazine (USPS 022-177) is
published quarterly—fall, winter, spring and summer—by
the University of Denver, University Communications,
Chelsey Baker-Hauck 2199 S. University Blvd., Denver, CO 80208. The
University of Denver (Colorado Seminary) is an Equal
Managing Editor Opportunity Institution. Periodicals postage paid at Denver,
CO. Postmaster: Send address changes to University of
Denver Magazine, University of Denver, University
Advancement, 2190 E. Asbury Ave., Denver, CO 80208.
4 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008
O F
OF
Connections
What pleasure I receive from receiving and
reading the University of Denver Magazine.
I received my MBA in 1961; so much has
happened to the University in the past 47
years. It is great to be kept current on the
growth of the University and all of the
accomplishments being acknowledged by
others.
The fall 2008 issue was very enjoyable,
particularly the story on Josef Korbel. The
school he headed was still growing when I
was a student, but it had already developed a
reputation for excellence.
C. Russell Nickel (BSBA ’59, MBA ’61)
Lacey, Wash.
I am very happy to be receiving the
DU magazine; it is a wonderful magazine
and reminds me of my youth and the won-
derful time we spent at DU.
It has been about 60 years since I was a
DU student in the mechanical engineering
department’s temporary wood building. We
were, at the time, about 50 Iraqi students
sent by our government. All of us had a
wonderful academic and social education,
which helped us in working in Iraq at very
high levels. None of us (as I remember)
entered the Saddam Ba’ath Party, and none
of us had criminal records (as was usual for
some others during the Saddam regime). All
of us believed in democracy, human rights
and social well-being.
I am not a politician, but I can’t forget
(with the majority of the people of Iraq)
the great help of the U.S.; without it, we
could not be rid of the worst dictator in the
history of the world. Saddam’s regime was
dangerous not only for Iraq but also for the
rest of the world.
I hope and dream to visit our beauti-
ful DU and Denver again some day. My
best regards to our dear teachers and fellow
graduate friends.
Hamdi Touqmatchi (BS ’52)
Amman, Jordan
Gender identity
I was reading the
letters written in
response to the new
gender identity clause that was put into
effect on DU’s campus [Letters, fall 2008].
It’s interesting that students are con-
sidered deviant when in fact they are trying
to make the world a more equal and just
place for all individuals, regardless of sexual
orientation or gender identity. It might be
considered PC to say “transgendered,” but
to provide a safe place for individuals to use
the restroom—or feel comfortable in their
own skin—on a college campus is not devi-
ant, but actually humane and decent.
Students today live in a world that is
changing, and with that change comes edu-
cation. Today’s modern movement is for
equality for the GLBTIQ community, when
back in the ’60s and ’70s the movement was
for race and gender equality. It’s admirable
that DU is a campus where individuals can
be themselves and not have to worry about
hiding who they really are like so many
individuals have had to do in the past.
I applaud DU for its effort to make its
campus a safe environment for all, regard-
less of race, gender, sexual orientation or
gender expression. You might be joining
the “Eastern and California universities” in
their move for equality, but really you are
standing up for humanity and the decency,
concern and compassion that should be
shown to all.
And by the way, I am a straight female
who is proud of what my University has
done for the equality movement.
Lauren Johnston (MSW ’07)
Denver
Ben Cherrington
As a 1948 graduate majoring in international
relations, I was pleased to note the recogni-
tion given to Ben Cherrington in the tribute
to Dr. Josef Korbel [“Remembering Joe”] in
the fall 2008 issue of the magazine.
Letters
Dr. Cherrington, who headed
the International Relations
Department and the Social
Science Foundation hired
Dr. Korbel and laid the groundwork upon
which the Graduate School of International
Studies, now the Korbel School, was
constructed. One of the founders of the
United Nations Economic and Social
Council (UNESCO), Dr. Cherrington
was a prominent internationalist of the
World War II era. He was an advocate
of collective security, the fostering of
international organizations, the maximum
use of diplomacy in the settlement of
disputes, and the building of international
partnerships as a keystone of America’s
world role.
In today’s terms, Dr. Cherrington
would, I believe, be among the advocates
of soft-power and collective arrangements
vis-à-vis the more unilateral use of military
power that has characterized so much of
our recent foreign policy. As such, he would
most likely disagree quite strongly with Dr.
Condoleezza Rice, the school’s most promi-
nent graduate whom Dr. Korbel mentored,
as to many of the policies she advocated
or supported as national security adviser
and secretary of state. But Dr. Cherrington
would honor her service, be proud of the
recognition she and other graduates have
brought to DU, and be especially gratified
by the development of the international
studies program and the standing of the
Korbel School as one of the great interna-
tional education programs in America. He
was a gracious gentleman and devoted to the
University.
Allan Howerton (BA ’48, MA ’51)
Alexandria, Va.
Send letters to the editor to: Chelsey Baker-
Hauck, University of Denver Magazine, 2199 S.
University Blvd., Denver, CO 80208. Or, e-mail
du-magazine@du.edu. Please include your full
name and mailing address with all submissions.
Letters may be edited for clarity and length.
University of Denver Magazine Letters 5
 9 Wind energy
10 Alumni symposium
13 Arts calendar
15 Athletics archive
17 Education dean
18 Library grant
20 Fall harvest
23 Investment course

Bring some Pioneer spirit to your holidays

Feng Li, Getty Images

On Sept. 12, DU alumna Allison Jones (pictured) clinched a silver medal in the women’s cycling time
trials at the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games with a time of 44:42.88. Jones entered the race ranked
third in the world. In addition to taking home a silver, Jones (BSME ’07) placed sixth in the 500K time
trial in the velodrome, marking a personal best. Beijing was her fourth visit to the Paralympics, where
she also competes as a skier.

6 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008 University of Denver Magazine Update 7

 Top News
DU’s newest residence hall opens
By Jordan Ames U.S.News & World Report ranks Volunteer Spotlight

DU in nation’s top 100 Harold Beier

After 19 months of construction and anticipation, Nagel Hall opened Aug. 21. The 150,000-square-foot, five-story,
356-bed facility provides much-needed space and modernizes the University’s housing stock. Dressed in his ever-

Nagel Hall’s first three floors house sophomores in four-person suites with two bedrooms and a shared bathroom. The
fourth and fifth floors have apartment units for juniors and seniors. Each fully furnished apartment includes a kitchen, living
room and four single bedrooms. Upper floors feature expansive views of the mountains, Denver skyline and DU campus.
The building was designed to encourage upperclassmen to remain on campus, says Mike Furno, associate director of
housing operations. “Having a mixture of sophomores, juniors and seniors together helps diversify the campus,” Furno says.
“Upperclassmen have experience and a maturity and academic focus that contributes a richness to the campus community.”
DU Trustee Ralph
Nagel and his wife, Trish,
contributed $4 million to
spearhead the nearly $40
million project. Ralph,
an accomplished artist,
contributed works from
his collection to be dis-
played throughout the
building. At his request,
a residential room with
studio space has been
designed for an artist-
in-residence program
being developed in coop-
eration with the School of
Art and Art History.
To lessen the
structure’s environmen-
tal impact, architects
Wayne Armstrong
Wayne Armstrong
U.S.News & World Report’s annual college rankings for undergraduate
present crimson and gold
education, released in August, again placed the University of Denver among
apparel, Harold Beier
the nation’s top 100 universities. DU ranked 89th, tied with the University
(BA liberal arts ’47) is the
of California-Riverside, the University of Kansas, the University of Nebraska-
very picture of Pioneer
Lincoln and the University of Vermont.
pride. Members of the
DU’s ranking is based on its Carnegie Foundation category as a
campus community also
doctoral/research university with high research activity. U.S.News & World
know him as DU hockey’s
Report collects data on as many as 15 indicators of academic quality within
biggest fan.
each category. DU ranked high for its freshman retention rate (88 percent),
Although he retired
its acceptance rate (74 percent) and its percentage of full-time faculty (75
21 years ago, Beier has
percent).
spent his golden years
Universities ranked by U.S.News & World Report include 262 national
hard at work. Despite
public and private universities that offer a wide range of undergraduate
the endless hours he
majors, as well as master’s and doctoral degrees. The magazine weighs
spends on the computer
75 percent of a school’s ranking by objective criteria and 25 percent on
as the archivist for the
a school’s academic reputation as determined by a survey of university
DU Hockey Alumni Asso-
administrators.
ciation, Beier will be the
—Dave Brendsel
first to tell you that the years have been better than gold. They’ve been
crimson and gold.
Since varsity hockey’s inaugural year in 1949, Beier has dedicated
University purchases wind himself to the program by hosting numerous breakfasts, luncheons
and post-tournament receptions and founding the Hockey Alumni
energy credits Association.
Beier says necessity prompted him to create the association. He be-
In September, the University purchased wind credits from Florida lieved that in order to perpetuate the characteristic spirit of DU hockey,
Power & Light Energy, the nation’s top wind project developer. former coaches, players and staff had to stay involved.
The “green power” purchase is like a carbon credit. By buying “It helps players to know alumni are involved and behind them and
Renewable Energy Certificates, DU can offset its total electricity usage and rooting for them,” Beier says.

incorporated an energy- support the development and increased production of wind power.
efficient heating and The new commitment is for 15 million kilowatt hours of wind power
during each of the next two years. DU uses about 48 million kilowatt hours
cooling system, operable
of electricity annually, so the wind credits will offset about 31 percent of the
windows, a copper roof made of 90 percent recycled materials, low-water-use faucets, dual-flush toilets, and low-VOC paint
University’s consumption.
and carpet glues. A kilowatt hour is the amount of electricity ten 100-watt light bulbs use
The University’s signature structural masonry, which is designed to last well beyond 100 years, was created from region- in one hour.
ally sourced bricks. The project’s general contractor, GH Phipps Construction, recycled the construction debris, diverting up to The purchase is a joint partnership between the University and its
75 percent from landfills. students, who each contribute about $6 of their quarterly student fees to
The University has submitted the project to the U.S. Green Building Council for Leadership in Energy and Environmental buy wind energy credits. The total annual cost of the purchase is about
Design (LEED) Gold certification. $75,000.
University Architect Mark Rodgers took care to design a building that not only fits into the surrounding landscape, but Prior to the expiration of the wind-energy contract on July 31, students
also serves as an open, central point of activity on campus. decided to reduce their commitment to the program so they could support
“Nagel Hall is meant to be a building like Grand Central Station—a crossing point of campus,” he says. “It’s designed to be energy-efficient lighting. In response, Chancellor Robert Coombe agreed
much more than a place where people sleep.” to make up the funding so DU could continue the wind program at the
original level.
In addition to students, Nagel Hall also houses academic research space, offices and classrooms for the Department of
The new green power purchase is being made through the
Psychology and classrooms for the Center for Teaching and Learning.
Environmental Protection Agency’s Green Power Partnership, which “sup-
“So much learning happens in between class,” Rodgers says. “A university is built around the premise that better, more ports the development of new, renewable energy in the United States.”
effective learning happens when students, faculty and staff interact.”
—Richard Chapman
8 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008
A sports fan through and through, Beier not only understands the
importance of community for a sports program, he also understands
the importance of camaraderie for an athlete’s development.
In 1967, when then head coach Murray Armstrong asked Beier if
he would house a player, Beier responded, “No Murray. I won’t take just
one, I’ll take two or three.”
Beier also understands the importance of preserving the program’s
history. In 2001, Beier donated a roomful of hockey memorabilia to the
DU Archives.
In 2005, Beier received DU’s Randolph P. McDonough Award for
service to alumni. And in 2006, the athletic department recognized
Beier for his invaluable service to DU hockey by installing him as a
special inductee into the University’s Athletics Hall of Fame. Although
Beier no longer houses hockey players, he and his siblings provide sup-
port to the program through the Beier Family Endowed Hockey Scholar-
ship.
Hockey’s biggest fan, however, has endowed far more than money.
By working tirelessly to keep hockey alumni interested and involved in
their alma mater, Beier has helped to create a legacy of camaraderie that
will continue to benefit the program for seasons to come.
—Samantha Stewart
University of Denver Magazine Update 9
 Academics

Alumni reconnect with University at second

Blending business and compassion
By Doug McPherson
DU by the Numbers
annual symposium
“We like to think the
2007–08
campus coffee
EMBA could stand for Executives Making Bold Achievements.
That’s exactly what two students in DU’s Daniels College of Business Executive MBA (EMBA)

Wayne Armstrong
program are doing: boldly sharing their business acumen with women in India who desperately need the help.
success of the University is
measured by the success of statistics The story starts in 1996 when Katie Kramer visited India and saw firsthand a Dalit village, home for women who are
deemed outcasts from society.
our alumni,” Chancellor Rob-
ert Coombe told the multi-
generational capacity crowd
9,261 “I was so touched by what I saw—the profound poverty—that it changed my life and influenced my career choice
to enter the nonprofit sector, and it fed my deep desire to help other people,” says Kramer, an EMBA student and vice
Pounds of coffee beans used
at DU’s second annual Alumni president and assistant executive director of the Boettcher Foundation, a Denver nonprofit.
Symposium Oct. 3–4. “We Fast-forward 11 years. Kramer enters DU’s EMBA program and meets fellow student Flo Mostaccero, who had gotten
really need to be an asset to
you throughout your life.”
8 involved with Women with a Cause, a nonprofit that teaches sewing and business skills to Dalit women so they can sell
Espresso machines what they make and earn a living.
The symposium is one “Funny how life comes full circle sometimes,” Kramer says.
way DU is trying to do that. Kramer and Mostaccero joined forces as part of the EMBA’s community service component and unleashed a flurry
The free event provides an
opportunity for alumni to
333,396 of help for Women with a Cause. They developed a
12-ounce cups of coffee sold marketing feasibility study, an inventory tracking
exchange and explore ideas,
system, clothing tags, statistical analyses on
intellectually reconnecting
with the University through
keynote lectures and faculty-
The Alumni Symposium featured a session on the steel drum. From left:
percussion major Michael Van Wirt, Diana Talamas (attd. 1988–89
$516,763 merchandise pricing, consumer research, a sales plan
and a customer relationship management system.
Coffee sales revenue They also helped organize an event with EMBA
led courses. and 1995–96) and Arlene Sibrell (BA ’50, MA ’64).
Nearly 200 symposium volunteers from DU that raised nearly $100,000 to
participants attended five class sessions, choosing from 33 lecture topics. “Hard Choices for America”
featured former Colorado Govs. Dick Lamm and Bill Owens—Lamm is a professor and Owens is a senior
10 help build a sewing center in India.
Now they’re recruiting other EMBA students
Campus coffee shops
fellow at DU—who shared their opinions on the difficulties facing the nation. Other topics included Mo- to improve the organization’s financial systems and
town, trauma psychology, Chinese nationalism and privacy issues. Internet sales.
“I used to feel disconnected from the University,” said Anita Khaldy (BA ’86), but this weekend “Katie and Flo have helped in more ways than I
changed that.” ever imagined,” says Susan Kiely, CEO and founder of
Compiled by Nori Yamashita, general
—Samantha Stewart manager of Sodexo at DU Women with a Cause. “They’ve done so much.”
Mostaccero—president of Pearl Development

Linda McConnell
Co., an oil and gas engineering firm—says she got
Latino Center presents report to Congress Katie Kramer (left) and Flo Mostaccero
involved because of her “personal need to help other
women.”
DU’s Latino Center presented a report on the state of Latinos in the United States to members of Congress on Sept. 23. The report calls for “I’m a chemical engineer by degree and have
comprehensive immigration reform and the establishment of a presidential commission on Latino issues. always worked in male-dominated industries and professions … but have always felt a strong need to connect and give back
The report, authored by the DU Latino Center for Community Engagement and Scholarship and sponsored by Fundación Azteca America, was released to women,” she says. “When I heard about Women with a Cause [and] … women helping women to help themselves, it just
Sept. 15. It includes detailed policy recommendations for the incoming administration and members of Congress. seemed [to] fit exactly with my passions.”
Maria Salazar, lead author of the report and a professor at DU’s Morgridge College of Education, says the most compelling recommendation is the need Mostaccero has never been to India but hopes to go with Kiely next year.
for various Latino organizations nationwide to collaborate on important Latino issues, funneled through a presidential commission. A united effort, she says, Kramer says she’s been involved in nonprofits her entire career and that helping Women with a Cause was “the perfect
would ensure a strong Latino voice in the new administration. intersection for my interests … partnering with a business to help women become economically self-sufficient.
Additional recommendations include: increasing access to quality education, health care and economic services; investing in Latino community “I love the business model—it teaches the women in India a trade so they can support themselves and their families,”
development as a means of promoting self sufficiency; increasing linguistically and culturally relevant practices in education, health care, economic access,
Kramer says. “They’re taking their earnings and educating their children and providing loans to the men in the village to
immigration reform and political engagement; enacting federal legislation to protect Latinos against discriminatory and predatory practices; and advancing
help them become self-sufficient, too. Talk about a positive cycle.”
comprehensive and humane immigration reform.
Kramer credits Mostaccero for “the perfect tagline” that captures the spirit of Women with a Cause: “Teach a Woman
The report found that Latino communities want to be self-sufficient and contribute to U.S. society. However, Latinos face major challenges in accessing
education, health care and economic services. The lack of immigration reform widens disparities and limits progress. to Sew and a Village Blossoms.”
DU’s Latino Center completed exhaustive research on Latino issues through community forums and consultation with several local, state and national “Being a part of something that’s creating positive change is so fun and empowering,” Kramer says. “Flo and I are both
Latino groups. thankful for this opportunity.”
>> Read more and download the report at www.du.edu/today. >>www.womenwithacause.com
—Dave Brendsel >>www.daniels.du.edu
10 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008 University of Denver Magazine Update 11
 Winter Arts Calendar
DU installs natural gas pump Planting project

Jeff Haessler
December
on campus 4 The Nutcracker, International Youth Ballet.
DU’s facilities management department is living up to the University’s “Pio-
7:30 p.m. Additional performances Dec. 5
at 4:30 and 7:30 p.m.; Dec. 6 at 12:30 p.m.
neer” spirit by installing what’s believed to be the first compressed natural gas Gates Concert Hall.
(CNG) vehicle refueling station on a Colorado university campus.
5 Granny Dances to a Holiday Drum, Cleo
The natural gas “pump,” a fueling station for a growing fleet of maintenance Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble. 7:30 p.m.
and other vehicles that run on natural gas, offers DU a cleaner and less-expen-
Additional performances Dec. 6, 12, 13, 19
sive way of powering vehicles. Unlike building a gasoline station, which requires and 20 at 7:30 p.m.; Dec. 6, 7, 13, 14, 20 and
a storage tank, the natural gas station draws from the underground pipes that 21 at 2 p.m. Byron Theatre.
6 Solstice Celebration, Turtle Island Quartet.
crisscross the city already.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy’s list of CNG fueling stations 7:30 p.m. Gates Concert Hall.
nationwide, DU is the first university campus in Colorado to build a station. 13 Midwinter Song—Christmas Around the
Allan Wilson, DU’s director of building services, introduced drivers to the station in September. World, Sound of the Rockies. 2 p.m. and
Building on a $180,000 grant from the Denver-based Strategic Environmental Project Pipeline Foundation—a nonprofit dedicated to a cleaner environment 7:30 p.m. Gates Concert Hall.
and clean energy—DU converted a dozen campus vehicles to natural gas, although the vehicles can still run on gasoline when needed. 14 Holiday carillon concert. 3 p.m. Williams
The University has gone on to convert three more vehicles on its own—at a cost of about $12,000 each—and is planning to convert at least two more. Carillon.
16 Christmas Around the World, Lori Line and
Since 2007, burning natural gas instead of gasoline has kept more than 9.5 tons of carbon out of the atmosphere and cut fuel costs by at least $12,000, Wilson
says. her pop chamber orchestra. 7:30 p.m. Gates
With the new pump station, which draws gas off existing lines and compresses it in a holding tank for rapid dispensing, DU departments can run vehicles at Concert Hall.
the equivalent of paying $1.05 a gallon for gasoline. 21 O Holy Night, Denver Brass. 2:30 p.m., Gates
Concert Hall.
—Chase Squires
31 Countdown with the Denver Brass. 4 p.m.
and 9 p.m. Gates Concert Hall.
January
8 Paul Soldner exhibition. Through Feb. 22.
Myhren Gallery.
9 “Flo’s Underground” jazz combos. 5 p.m.
every Friday through March 6.
The University of Denver Presents
The Iznaola Transcriptions. Ricardo Iznaola
Denver Public Schools Superintendent Michael Bennet and a panel of Jubilee Concert. 7:30 p.m. Hamilton Recital
Hall.
education experts discussing K–12 reform from their points of view 18 Flutist Leone Buyse. 3 p.m. Hamilton Recital
Hall.
Feb. 9, 2009, 7 p.m. 28 Cellist Richard Slavich and friends.
7:30 p.m. Hamilton Recital Hall.
June Swaner Gates Concert Hall
12 Lamont Symphony Orchestra. 7:30 p.m.
Hamilton Recital Hall. adds trees to
13 The Playground, Lamont artist in residence.
Noon. Hamilton Recital Hall. campus
14 Either/Orchestra with Ethiopian guests.
7:30 p.m. Gates Concert Hall. The University of Denver campus
is getting a little greener in celebration
19 Post-News Pen & Podium Series: Carl
Hiassen. 7:30 p.m. Gates Concert Hall. of the 100th anniversary of the Daniels
College of Business.
String and wind chamber ensembles.
7:30 p.m. Hamilton Recital Hall. The Daniels Centennial Trees
project aims to plant 100 different trees
21 Bourbon Street Brass, Denver Brass.
7:30 p.m. Additional performance Feb. 22 at across campus by April 2009. The col-
2:30 p.m. Gates Concert Hall. lege is soliciting donations to cover the
22 Organist Gerhard Weinberger. 3 p.m. cost of the trees and to endow a Dan-
Hamilton Recital Hall. iels Centennial Scholarship.
String and wind chamber ensembles. The project grew out of a desire
7:30 p.m. Hamilton Recital Hall. to celebrate the college’s history, create
a fund to help students in the future
23 Carl Roth and Mark Patterson, bassoon
and trombone. 7:30 p.m. Hamilton Recital and to support Denver Mayor John
Hall. Hickenlooper’s Tree by Tree initiative.
24 Lamont guitar ensembles. 7:30 p.m. Hickenlooper’s plan aims to plant one
Hamilton Recital Hall. million trees in the Denver metropoli-
25 The Climb, Lamont faculty jazz combo. tan area in the next 20 years.
7:30 p.m. Hamilton Recital Hall. The first campus
26 The Three Penny Opera. DU theater and tree—a “baby blue-
eyes” spruce—was
music school production. 7 p.m. Additional
performances Feb. 27 and 28 and March 5, 6 planted in June in
and 7 at 7 p.m; Feb. 28 and March 7 at 2 p.m. honor of Daniels
Byron Theatre. Dean Emeritus
28 David Dorfman Dance, underground. Bruce Hutton.
7:30 p.m. Gates Concert Hall. Sixty-
three other
March trees have
2 “Jazz Night,” Lamont jazz ensembles. since been
7:30 p.m. Gates Concert Hall. planted.
3 The Playground, Lamont artist in residence. Each tree is
Noon. Hamilton Recital Hall. being marked

Newman Center for the Performing Arts, 2344 E. Iliff Ave. 29 The Playground, Lamont artist in residence.
7:30 p.m. Hamilton Recital Hall.
America’s education system faces many challenges. Some critics contend that 30 Lamont wind ensemble. 7:30 p.m. Gates
our public school system needs a radical overhaul, while others recommend Concert Hall.
incremental reform. Virtually everyone agrees that there are more questions than
31 Los Angeles Guitar Quartet. 7:30 p.m.
answers in this important policy arena. Join the discussion as the University of
Gates Concert Hall.
Denver’s 2008–2009 Bridges to the Future series, which is free and open to the
public, looks at the future of education in our complex society.
February
4 “Jazz Night,” Lamont jazz ensembles.
7:30 p.m. Gates Concert Hall.
RSVP at www.du.edu/bridges after 1/5/09. 6 Violinist Linda Wang with pianist Alice
For those without Internet access, please call Rybak. 7:30 p.m. Hamilton Recital Hall.
303.871.2357. Free parking is available in the 11 Guitarist Leonardo Lozano. 7:30 p.m.
Newman Center garage.
Hamilton Recital Hall.
iStock
Lamont percussion ensemble. 7:30 p.m.
Gates Concert Hall.
4 Men’s and women’s choirs. 7:30 p.m. Gates
Concert Hall.
5 Transforming Traditions: Contemporary
Chinese Art from the Logan Collection.
Through April 26. Myhren Gallery.
6 Bach: The Four Lute Suites. Ricardo Iznaola
Jubilee Concert. 7:30 p.m. Hamilton Recital
Hall.
8 Lamont chorale and wind ensemble.
4 p.m. Gates Concert Hall.
For ticketing and other information, including a full
listing of campus events, visit www.du.edu/calendar.
with an arbore-
tum inventory
tag designating it as a gift of the Daniels
College of Business.
The scholarship will be awarded
on April 25, 2009, at an event capping
the yearlong anniversary celebration.
Planned activities include a five-mile
run/3K walk, an alumni barbecue and
the planting of the 100th tree.
For more information or to
donate to the Daniels Centennial Fund,
e-mail givetodaniels@du.edu.
—Jordan Ames

12 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008 University of Denver Magazine Update 13

 Q&A
Athletics Vice Chancellor Peg
Program gives parents a night off Resort partnership creates
Bradley-Doppes on athletic success Interview by Doug McPherson learning laboratory
A free child care
program at DU allows The Outrigger Hotel and Resort family expanded with a new

Q What does it mean to

the University to have
such a successful athletics pro-
gram?
We also embraced a “One DU” approach. All of our programs
are valuable; athletics is very much a part of the academic
mission here. Our student-athletes graduate faster than non-
parents of children with
special needs to enjoy a
night out without the kids.
partnership between the Hawaiian hotel chain and the School of Hotel,
Restaurant and Tourism Management (HRTM) at DU’s Daniels College
of Business.
student-athletes. We are very proud of the fact that we are part “Night Owls” is held at Richard “Doc” Kelley, Outrigger Enterprises Group’s board chair
of the DU community. We’ve made a very conscientious effort the University’s Fisher Early and a DU trustee, dedicated the Richard Kelley/Outrigger Reservations

A I would be the first one

to say that athletics is
not the most important thing
to connect with our alumni, our faculty and staff, and most
importantly our students as we build this.
Learning Center on the
first Friday of each month.
The program is staffed by
Laboratory on the DU campus in June.
The laboratory in the HRTM building will allow up to six student
interns at a time to work paid part-time shifts. They’ll take phone, Web
We are blessed with a beautiful campus, great faculty,

Carrie Wigglesworth
about a university at any level. trained volunteers, who are and fax inquiries from Outrigger customers and group booking agents.
incredible alumni. This is a place where we have been able to
However, it’s the most visible. matched one-on-one with The students will be paid for their time, and their work hours will
attract some of the best young coaches, retain the best seasoned
I would look at the national a child. Nine events have count toward HRTM’s 1,000-hour work requirement.
coaches and have created an esprit de corps that there is a sense been held since the service The partnership is one of two agreements between Outrigger
exposure from this past year’s
of energy and commitment. There is a universal feeling of, “It’s began in April, and more than 100 children from 52 families have participated. and university hospitality programs, and the only such arrangement on
success in a very positive light.
great to be a Pioneer.” Children with moderate to severe special needs—from infants to 12-year-olds— the U.S. mainland.
We have 17 programs, and 12
and their siblings are eligible to participate. Outrigger’s customer contact center fields 3,000 inbound phone
of those programs went to the
For more information on participating or volunteering, e-mail nightowls@ calls, 1,000 faxes and several hundred Internet customer chats each
NCAA tournaments. We have

Q du.edu. day through a Web-based system.

Wayne Armstrong

What do you expect the coming year to bring in terms

eight coaches of the year, six
conference championships. We
have been able to demonstrate
leadership at the conference
level, at the regional level and, certainly, at the NCAA level. I
think as ambassadors for the University, as educators and lead-
ers, we have a responsibility to show the rest of the world that
the University of Denver is a very special place.
We hope to be able to prove over the years to come that this
was not just a “flash in the pan”—that we have the right values,
—Jim Berscheidt —Jordan Ames
of athletics?
A I envision the same type of success and even greater. I
think there is such a momentum here—such an incredible
sense of energy and passion—that there was no sense or feeling Pioneers Top 10 Athletics teams up with library to preserve
of, “Oh, we’ve reached it.” It was “This is incredible.” And if this Most common historic photos
is incredible, can you imagine how truly great we can be when we
have everything hitting on all cylinders? I think we are just get- cars on campus DU’s library and athletics department are teaming up to tackle a huge archival project: digitizing
ting started. We are a work in progress. We are much harsher on thousands of sports-related photos, videos, electronic media broadcasts, press releases, statistics, rosters
ourselves than anyone else has to be so that, for us, it’s wonder- and other documents.
1. Subaru

DU Archives
the right work ethic, talented staff, outstanding student-athletes ful to see the hard work of the coaches and of the staff and the The goal is to organ-
who have a shared vision of having greatness here at DU. This student-athletes be realized. 2. Toyota ize, archive and preserve
the items, some of which
is an incredible university with top-notch faculty and incredible We strive to become the No. 1 basketball program in the
3. Honda go back to the late 19th
alumni who aspire to be the very best they can be. Rocky Mountain region, to maintain our national success in
century. One photo is
hockey and to overall have an extremely successful broad-based 4. BMW of the 1891 DU sailing
program. But as we go forward, we continue not to worry about club.
5. Audi
Q What factors have contributed to DU’s athletic
success?
the outcome. We worry about the process—recruiting and
retaining the top talented students and staff, making sure we are
doing things the right way, making sure we graduate our student-
6. Volvo
Some 150,000 ath-
letics and recreation pho-
tos, along with hundreds

A We have implemented a pretty significant strategic plan

that started three years ago. We have worked at fully fund-
athletes. It is important to remember that this is the seventh
consecutive year that we’ve won the Sun Belt academics trophy.
7. Jeep of historical documents
and electronic media ele-
ing all 17 of our programs. The philosophy of that was if we can
Many of our programs are ranked nationally in their team GPAs,
8. Mercedes ments in various formats, will be vetted over the coming months. All digitized items will go into a single
fund our programs to the NCAA limit—that is where all of our system searchable by team, sport, year or individual. The project will be ongoing.
so they are national All-American teams. We’re doing it the right 9. Ford
competition is—we would become more successful and therefore, The effort also will include displaying historical photographs in the Ritchie Center concourse and
way, not just winning, but winning and graduating very bright
more visible and have the ability to raise more money. We’ve offices, on electronic scoreboards and in DU print publications.
young men and women. 10. Chevy
been able to do that. Those with historical athletic material or those who may be able to help identify and date items can
Compiled by DU parking enforcement officers contact University Archivist Steve Fisher at 303-871-2328 or sfisher@du.edu.
Chris Meyer, Josh Mason, Kleo Pomeroy and Jeff
Jeffers —Doug McPherson

14 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008 University of Denver Magazine Update 15

 Sports
Polo, pool-style Wartgow named interim dean at DU installs locks, introduces

Wayne Armstrong
By Doug McPherson

Morgridge College video to maximize campus safety

Something’s going on under the water
in the pool at the El Pomar
Natatorium. Above the water, it all looks rather fun—competitive,
Former Denver Public Schools (DPS) Superintendent Jerry Wartgow
will serve as interim dean of DU’s Morgridge College of Education while
As students returned to some buildings on campus this fall, they noticed a
new safety feature on virtually every door. During the summer, thumb latches
yes—but definitely fun. the search continues for a new dean, Chancellor Robert Coombe and were installed on classroom doors so they can be locked from the inside with
Provost Gregg Kvistad announced in August. Wartgow started on Sept. 3. one action.
Beneath the surface, though, is a lot of kicking, scratching, hold-
Former Dean Ginger Maloney left the position this summer after The locks are another in a series of initiatives designed to keep faculty, stu-
ing, poking and even pulling on swimsuits. Above the water a whistle
seven years. She will remain with the college as director of the Marsico dents and staff as safe as possible in the event of a shooting on campus.
pierces the humid air. No doubt, a referee has spotted one of those
Institute for Early Learning and Literacy, which began this fall. The University also has purchased rights to use a new training video that
infractions. The offender is sent off to the penalty box for a 20- “The Morgridge College is one of the few named education schools will show the campus community what to do if there is a gunman on campus. All
second stretch. in the country, and soon we will break ground on its new building,” says DU students and employees are encouraged to view the video, which is avail-
Welcome to water polo—University of Denver style. Kvistad. “It’s important we have strong leadership during this crucial time able through the Campus Safety Web site. It’s only available to individuals with a
One thing that’s not going on under the water: feet touching the and that we do not rush the national search currently under way. We are DU identification number, which needs to be entered prior to viewing.
bottom. For much of an hour, players swim the length of the “field” grateful that Jerry has agreed to lead the college while we search for a new University officials also hope that incoming students and new employees
back and forth. dean.” will register for the Critical Incident Notification System (CINS). Text, e-mail and
“It’s a workout,” says Ben Kincses, an international business The college recently completed a $35 million fundraising campaign, voice messages are sent through CINS for emergency situations that include
major from Hungary who played the sport as a kid. “On average, a which includes construction costs associated with the new building, shootings, tornado warnings and a fire on campus, or for snow closures.
player swims about 1.5 miles in a game.” three endowed faculty positions, and the creation of new institutes and Students, faculty and staff can register by logging in to their account through
scholarships. MyWeb. After logging in, select “personal information” and “notification prefer-
Players describe water polo as a mix of soccer, basketball, ice
Wartgow was an educator for 40 years, including four years as head ences” to enter contact numbers.
hockey, wrestling and rugby.
of DPS. He left that position in 2005. Wartgow graduated from DU in —Jim Berscheidt
Ouch. It does get rough.
1972 with a PhD in education.
“Players get poked in the eye, take hits to the face, and there’s
bleeding sometimes,” Kincses says.
Plus, there’s plenty of yelling. When the word weak echoes off
—Jim Berscheidt

Religion

&
the walls, it means somebody on the “weak side” of the defense is
Disaster psychology students American Music
open and possibly able to score. The words we’re up or we’re down
mean they’re up or down a player because of a penalty.
The sport pits two teams of seven players each (six “field” play-
ers and one goalie) against each other. The aim is simple: Score more
put what they learn into practice Climate Change Opera
On her birthday, Linda Baker arrived in Belize City, Belize—not to cel-
goals than the other team. The playing area is 30 meters by 20 meters; the floating goals are one meter high and three meters ebrate but to volunteer for the Pan American Health Organization. It was a
wide. part of her summer internship for the DU International Disaster Psychology
The ball can only be caught and thrown by one hand. When a team gains control of the ball, it has just 35 seconds to Program.
shoot. The circumstances were difficult; two weeks prior to her arrival, tropi-
Kincses started the DU water polo club in 2005. By the start of the 2006–07 school year, he had a team of 25 sanctioned cal storm Arthur had flooded much of the country’s eastern coast. Baker, a
second-year graduate student, says there were numerous injuries and seven
by the Collegiate Water Polo Association.
fatalities due to flooding.
In that first year, DU hosted the Rocky Mountain Conference Championship and placed a respectable third of seven
Baker and fellow student Alyson Welch worked with the World Health
teams from Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.
Organization, helping train psychiatric nurse practitioners about how patients
Today about 25 students, both men and women, play water polo throughout the school year; 14 play competitively would normally react in a disaster and helping develop a national mental
in eight games during the fall against other schools such as the University of Utah, University of Colorado, Utah State health disaster plan.
University, University of Wyoming, the Colorado School of Mines, U.S. Air Force Academy and Colorado State University. The International Disaster Psychology Program at the Graduate School
Maura Shandley, a junior from Illinois who played in high school, says she “fell in love with the sport immediately” of Professional Psychology develops partnerships with governmental and
because of the team aspect. nongovernmental agencies, working with communities affected by disaster Film

Art
“It was such a great change from swimming. It’s absolutely challenging,” Shandley says. “We’ve had several people come to create the internship possibilities for students.
out who’ve never played, and they all loved it. Many even stuck with it the entire season and became key players.”
Katie Bernell, a sophomore from Texas, says a friend urged her to try it.
Currently, international disaster psychology students have opportuni-
ties to work with the Pan American Health Organization, a division of the
Politics
“More or less I tried it to see if I could tread water for more than five minutes,” Bernell says. “I kept afloat … gained some World Health Organization, in Belize and Jamaica or with a variety of non-
skills and made some great friends.” governmental agencies in Bosnia.
—Kristal Griffith

16 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008 University of Denver Magazine Update 17


Bologna program to address
concerns over urban life
In 2008—and for the first time in human history—most people on the planet will
live in cities. Given this monumental transition, societal concerns about the long-term
sustainability of urban settlements, and urban life in general, are at an all-time high.
The University of Denver-Bologna International Center for Civic Engagement
(ICCE), an international venue for research and study, has received a multi-institution,
$180,000 grant from the European Union-United States Atlantis Program to develop
and implement an international “Excellence in Mobility” project to address problems
confronting contemporary cities.
The project will create a curriculum shared among four partner institutions—
the University of Denver, Portland State University, University of Bologna and the
University of Nottingham—focused on the study of social and natural transformations
of urban areas in Europe and in the United States.  school districts to attend the event and other activities before and after
The program will include an exchange of 48 undergraduate students and some
teaching faculty equally divided among the partner institutions. The project brings
together students and scholars from across the social sciences, natural sciences and
humanities to develop interdisciplinary perspectives on urban problems and to work
toward sustainable urban futures.
Teresa Conley, a marketing professor at the Daniels College of Business, will lead
a course in the spring. Students attending the grant-funded program will take classes
on the Italian language, The Role of Business in Civic Engagement, and Democracy
and the City: Moving Towards an Engaged Citizenship. They also will participate in
a civic engagement practicum to apply classroom learning into real-world situations
utilizing the civic backdrop of Bologna.
—Jordan Ames
Library program gets federal grant of nearly $1 million
The University of Denver Morgridge College of Education Library and
Information Science Program and its partners—DU’s Westminster Law Library and
the Sturm College of Law—will recruit and educate 10 new law librarians, known as
the Law Librarian Fellows, thanks to a grant of $999,360 from the Federal Institute
of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).
The grant was one of 31 awards given to institutions nationwide as part of a
$20.3 million initiative of the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program.
Partnering with law librarians on outreach initiatives from the State of Colorado
Supreme Court Library, the law librarianship students will participate actively as
members of the Rural and Small Practice Attorney Library Support Center at DU.
They will be assigned a list of clients and provide legal reference, document
retrieval and other services under the guidance of Westminster law librarians. Clients
will include rural attorneys, academic and public libraries with legal collections, rural
government agencies, and nongovernmental legal organizations serving low-income
individuals and families.
IMLS is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s 122,000
libraries and 17,500 museums. The institute’s mission is to create strong libraries
and museums that connect people to information and ideas.
—Jim Berscheidt
18 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008
Research
Bridges to the Future series
Crime and punishment
By Kristal Griffith
focuses on education’s future
A crowd of nearly 1,400 heard author, educator and activist
Parker Palmer discuss challenges facing America’s education
system as the seventh year of Bridges to the Future kicked off in
September.
The theme of this year’s Bridges lecture series is “A Nation Still
At Risk: The Future of Education.”
Palmer, founder of the Center for Courage and Renewal, told
the crowd that trust needs to be put back in the education system
and all educators need to explore self-knowledge, no matter their
spiritual beliefs, in order to be better practitioners.
DU invited teachers and administrators from 13 Front Range
Palmer’s address in order to engage them in the conversation.
Denver Public Schools Superintendent Michael Bennet is
scheduled to appear with a panel of educators Feb. 9 to continue
the discussion surrounding K-12 reform. Reservations for the free
event will be taken after Jan. 5.
DU also is producing a series of one-hour television specials on
education in partnership with Rocky Mountain PBS. The series will
feature Bridges speakers. The first segment will air in December.
Visit the Bridges to the Future Web site at www.du.edu/bridges
for additional information.
—Kristal Griffith
iStock
New research by Scott Phillips, DU associate
Wayne Armstrong
professor of sociology and criminology,
delves into racial disparities in death penalty cases in
Harris County, Texas. The research suggests that the
district attorney was more likely to pursue the death
penalty against black defendants and on behalf of white
victims.
The study, “Racial Disparities in the Capital of Capital
Punishment,” was published in the Houston Law Review
this fall.
“Conventional wisdom holds that the race of the
victim is pivotal,” Phillips says. “But current research
suggests that the race of the defendant and victim are
both pivotal.”
Phillips studied whether race influenced the district
attorney’s decision to pursue a death trial or the jury’s
decision to impose a death sentence against defendants
indicted for capital murder in Harris County, which is
in the Houston area. He spent several years looking at
more than 500 capital murder cases that occurred from
1992–99.
“Harris County is the capital of capital punishment,”
Phillips says. “If Harris County were a state, it would rank
second in executions after Texas.”
While Phillips’ research shows a clear racial disparity
in the district attorney’s decision to seek the death
penalty, the professor is not accusing the district attorney
at the time, John Holmes Jr., of being racist. Scott Phillips
The office has a long-standing practice of removing
the race of parties from the memo that the district attorney uses to decide whether to seek death.
“Discrimination implies purposeful action,” Phillips says. “I am certain that the Harris County D.A. does
not intend for race to influence the process. Nonetheless, it appears that it does.”
In fact, the percentage distribution suggests that the district attorney sought the death penalty against
black and Caucasian defendants at the same rate. However, the racial disparity is found when looking at the
nature of the crime because black defendants committed murders that were less serious, according to objective
measures. After controlling for the nature of the crime, the findings demonstrate that the odds of the district
attorney pursuing a death penalty trial were 1.75 times higher against black defendants than Caucasian
defendants.
“To impose equal punishment against unequal crimes is to impose unequal punishment,” Phillips says.
Phillip’s work was highlighted in April by reporter Adam Liptak in The New York Times. The American
Constitution Society (ACS) distributed a brief on his work to its members in October.
Emily Chatterjee, the national program law fellow for ACS, says Phillips’ work ties into their mission to
ensure human dignity, individual liberties, genuine equality and access to justice in American law.
“Phillips’ work investigating racial disparities in capital punishment and his proposals for how to help limit
such disparities very much falls under our mission,” Chatterjee says. “It is important that research like this is
highlighted for ACS members and shared as widely as possible.”
University of Denver Magazine Update 19
 People

Students harvest produce to help local food banks

The master of faster
By Doug McPherson

More than 70,000 people across Colorado enjoyed fresh produce in

Don’t judge Chase Squires until you walk a mile—no, scratch that—until you run 100 miles in his shoes.

Wayne Armstrong
September thanks in part to volunteers from the University of Denver. Squires, a DU senior public affairs specialist and University of Denver Magazine writer, is what you call an
Seven undergraduate and graduate students, led by University ultradistance runner—the folks who use a marathon to get warmed up and often run 100 miles.
Chaplain Gary Brower, spent a day at Petrocco Farms in Brighton, Colo., For those counting, that’s just a little jaunt from DU’s campus to CU-Boulder’s campus, back to DU, and, uh, back to CU.
cutting and boxing cabbage in a gleaning project for COMPA Ministries. “I think a lot of folks think we’re nuts,” Squires says.
The cabbage was distributed to 170 shelters and food pantries in the You might not pick Squires out of a crowd as someone who could run 100 miles, or even one mile for that matter. He’s
Denver metro area and across Colorado.
5-foot, 4-inches tall, thinning on top and weighs in at about 150. He’s a self-described 42-year-old “desk jockey, nothing
During harvest season (September and October), COMPA works
special.”
with volunteers from local churches, civic agencies and community

Wayne Armstrong
“I’m not an athlete, just some slug who’s
groups to harvest fresh produce donated by area farms. The organization
supports the acquisition, production and distribution of healthy food too dumb to quit when his whole body hurts
to the “working poor” to help promote self-sufficiency and prevent and his mind tells him to call it a day.”
homelessness. But that gets at the message Squires
The DU group joined nearly 100 other volunteers. In just two and a wants most to impart: “You can do this.”
half hours, the volunteers had cut and packed enough cabbage to fill three He’s kind of an evangelist for the sport
flat-bed trailers and a 24-foot van. of ultrarunning, the father of farther, the
Brower organized the DU contingent as a way to unite students pastor of faster. “I really believe that people
from across campus to work toward a common cause. cheat themselves if they say, ‘I could never
—Jordan Ames do that.’ Heck, did you try? I’ll bet you never
tried!”
The key, he says, is to get three miles
under your belt “until you think that’s
nothing.”

Elsbeth Williams
found a world of opportunity at DU.
From there, you just build on the miles.
Maybe five at first, then seven, then 10.
“Before you know it, 18 miles isn’t that
far,” he says.
Squires himself entered the sport slowly.
As a double major in music and international studies,
In 2001, he weighed 205, ate a lot of pizza,
Elsbeth Williams was able to mix and cultivate her
burgers and fried chicken and nursed a
passions. Her DU experience included study in
France, Vienna and a service-learning trip to India. cholesterol level north of 300.
His wife signed him up for a YMCA class. “I went in, walked 20 minutes on a treadmill and thought I was going to die.”
“My global perspective was enhanced at DU But he kept at it. From 20 minutes to 30 minutes, then jogging. First two miles, then three. About 18 months later he
thanks to the opportunities I received and bagged his first marathon in 4 hours, 30 minutes. He was hooked. Four months later he broke four hours. “That’s when I got
a scholarship funded by Gwen VanDerbur serious,” he says.
Mitchell (Law ’54).” And today he’s completed several 100-mile races. The most recent was in February 2008: the Rocky Raccoon 100 in Texas.
– Elsbeth Williams, BM, BA, MA, 2007 He’ll race in Hawaii’s HURT 100 in January.
What’s it like to run 100 miles (which takes Squires 28 hours, on average)?
Find out more about Elsbeth and how you can “From about midnight on … you see some weird things. I start hallucinating from sleep deprivation.”
help students like her. One time he says he looked down at a puddle at 3 a.m. and saw a duck sitting in it next to a miniature statue of the
Stanley Cup. “Weird. By the time the sun comes up, I’ve got 10 or 20 miles to go and I just want to finish. My body hurts and
Visit us at www.giftplanning.du.edu it’s slow going.”
Nevertheless, he likes it. “You know what? It’s fun.”
And he adds that ultras are typically in “wild and fantastic” settings.
Innovative. Dynamic. On the move. Office of Gift Planning
800.448.3238 or 303.871.2739 “There’s a saying in the sport: ‘Thanks to ultrarunning, I’ve thrown up in some of the world’s most beautiful places.’”
www.giftplanning.du.edu E-mail: gift-planning@du.edu

DUMag_Fall08GiftPlngAd_FINAL.indd 1 10/14/08 11:11:03 AM

20 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008 University of Denver Magazine Update 21
 Views
All that remains
Photograph by Wayne Armstrong Class of 2012 sets high
academic standard
This fall DU welcomed 1,145 new first-year, first-time students
hailing from 44 states and 26 nations.
More than 42 percent of the new students were in the top tenth
of their high school class, and more than 75 percent were in the top
quarter. SAT and ACT scores were higher than ever, and the mean high
school GPA was 3.66. Ninety-seven freshmen are enrolled in DU’s
Honors Program, up from 61 last year.
The Class of 2012 is “the most capable new class we have ever
had,” Chancellor Robert Coombe said in his September Convocation
address.
Admission criteria for the class also were tougher than ever. More
than 7,144 students applied for DU’s freshman class; just 64.4 percent
of those were accepted.
Female students comprise 55.8 percent of the class, and 15.5 per-
cent of the new students are domestic minorities. More than 52 percent
are from out of state, and 6 percent are international students.
—Media Relations Staff
Students get lessons from
topsy-turvy market
On Monday, Sept. 29, DU students in the Marsico Investment Fund
course watched $21,000 disappear from their investment portfolio in the
wake of the stock market’s historic plunge of 777 points. That was real money,
not play money as in stock market simulations.
Before Monday, the fund was at $524,000. But on Monday, it plummeted
to $503,000. Then on Tuesday, it rose to $514,000.
Course instructor Mac Clouse says the class is a “great teaching
experience.” His students are having to look at “defensive stocks” that can do
well in a down economy.
Some of those picks include Proctor & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson
because the students anticipate that consumers will still buy products such as
soap, shampoo, toothpaste and Band-Aids.
Another stock is CXW, a private corrections facility builder. “The idea is
that when times get tough, people turn to crime,” Clouse says.
As bad as losing $21,000 sounds, it’s not the worst students have seen. In
the two years after the dot-com bust, the portfolio lost $290,000.
—Doug McPherson

Nanotech conference offers up

big plans for tiny things
Some of the world’s top innovators in nanotechnology descended
on the Cable Center in July for the first annual Nano Renewable Energy
Summit. The event focused on the nexus where research on a molecular
level—nanotechnology—meets the quest for renewable energy.
Potential uses for nanotech breakthroughs in renewable energy
include: new methods of producing biofuels; new materials to help
produce and transmit power through wind turbines; lighter and stronger
materials to make autos more fuel efficient; glass for office buildings and
cars that dissipates heat from the sun; and new ways to gather solar
energy that would make solar power a viable, cost-effective alternative.
The only common thread is the minute nature of the work, crafting
these breakthroughs from the smallest of particles.
Rahmat Shoureshi, dean of DU’s School of Engineering and
Computer Science, told the assembly of educators, researchers,
government leaders and business professionals that the University has
added 22 faculty members interested in research and development of
nanotechnologies in computer science and engineering fields. DU plans
to offer a graduate program focusing on nanotech issues within three
years, he said.
Not a bad field to consider, if former U.S. Secretary of Transportation

The cornerstone of the Memorial Chapel was laid in 1910, but it wasn’t until December 1917 that the building was Rodney Slater’s numbers are right. At the conference, Slater said
commercial applications and other investments in the broad field are
dedicated in honor of those who died in World War I. Only one of the chapel’s original four towers remains;
expected to make nanotechnology a $2 trillion industry by 2015.
the rest of the building was destroyed by fire in 1983. Today, the Buchtel Memorial Tower houses DU’s Victory Bell—moved
—Chase Squires
from Old Main—which tolls for Commencement.

22 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008 University of Denver Magazine Update 23

DU_Alumni_Du_Today_1/4page.indd 1 7/1/08 1:26:11 PM
 By Richard Chapman
Photography by Marc Piscotty
Million Dollar
Donald Sturm (LLB ’58) is an expert at making money—and giving it away.
W
hen the man whose name sits atop diplomas at the
Sturm College of Law showed up at DU in 1955 to
begin classes, the law school dean looked at him and
blustered: “What are you doing here?”
Don Sturm was four months late for class.
Sturm may have said he was there so he could get out of
the Army three months early.
Or that he chose law because he didn’t want to be a doctor,
dentist or accountant.
Or because of nifty murder trials he’d stopped off to watch
on the way home to Brooklyn after cruising through liberal arts
courses at City College of New York.
Sturm doesn’t remember what he actually replied, only that
it was the right answer. He had a letter of admittance to DU,
military benefits, a 1947 Mercury he’d bought for $200 and
driven from an Army base in Alabama, and an intellectual engine
“revving” for the law.
“I was a class of one,” recalls Sturm, now a 76-year-old DU
trustee. “But it worked out. I caught up. I went through in two
years and two months.
“The GI Bill paid for tuition, fees, books, but you couldn’t
live off it. So I worked. I took the bar exam in December 1957,
found out I passed on Valentine’s Day 1958, finished course
work a few weeks after that. I was sworn in and I left.”
Sturm was debt free but dollarless. Fifty years later, he
sits at the head of a financial group that owns 42 banks with
24 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008
$2.2 billion in assets, employs more than 850 people and has
loans out totaling $1.7 billion. He’s been on and off the Forbes list
of the 400 richest Americans and has involved himself in so many
businesses he can’t remember the number.
He earned a master of laws degree in taxation from NYU,
litigated for the IRS across a nine-state region and earned his way
to the vice chairmanship of Peter Kiewit Sons, one of the largest
employee-owned companies in the nation. (Kiewit’s Colorado
credits include the Eisenhower Tunnel, Glenwood Canyon and
the T-Rex project in Denver.)
Sturm helped pull Continental Airlines out of bankruptcy,
came an eyelash from owning the Denver Nuggets, Colorado
Avalanche and Pepsi Center, and was instrumental in helping
Colorado and other western states rebound from the savings and
loan crisis of the 1980s and ’90s.
He runs a $60 million philanthropic foundation whose
gifts, when combined with the charitable endeavors of his
companies, provide about $4 million a year to communities
across five states.
Sturm has given nearly $30 million to the University of
Denver, where his name graces Sturm Hall, a major academic
building that houses social sciences and humanities programs. His
other DU namesake, the Sturm College of Law, enrolls more
than 1,200 aspiring lawyers. He has served on the DU Board of
Trustees for 16 years and in spring 2008 received the prestigious
Evans Award for professional achievement and service to DU.
University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008 25
 N
ot bad for someone who calls himself “just a kid
from Brooklyn.” For someone who grew up in a one-
bathroom, ground-floor duplex that the family lived in
to get a break on rent. For someone whose family cooked meals
on the coal furnace in the basement, never took a vacation and
couldn’t afford a car. For someone who grew corn in the backyard
during World War II and didn’t learn to drive until he was 23.
But someone with a drive to excel, who plotted, sacrificed and
pushed himself to do well, then went out and did it.
“Get good education from good schools,” Sturm urges. “Get
good experience. Get into some professional activity. Invest your
time, hard work and money. Work in something that doesn’t seem
to be work, [something] that’s fun.”
And give back to society in ways where you can see the
results.
“I think anybody could do what I did,” he says. “I really
believe that.”
If only Sturm’s father, Mark, had been born under a luckier
star.
“My father worked his heart out for his family,” Sturm says
reverently. He was a “self-taught guy” who had emigrated from
Austria to the U.S. as an 8-year-old raised by an aunt. He saved,
invested and rose to prominence as a restaurant manager, then lost
everything in the crash of 1929.
“I remember once he took me to Sheepshead Bay when I
was 10 years old to show me property he once owned,” Sturm
says. “He wound up working as a waiter. Until he died, that’s
what he did. He hated what he did, but he did it to provide for
his family.”
The elder Sturm also scraped together $50 a month to help
his son through law school at DU. Decades later, dad’s sacrifice is
a cobalt blue memory that can still redden Sturm’s no-nonsense
eyes. The rich, stentorian voice with which he hammers together
multimillion-dollar business deals quavers. The tough-guy image
that people presume about him falls away.
“Don is completely devoted to his family and extended
family,” says Susan Sturm, 25 years his junior and married to
Sturm since 1987. The couple has two teenagers, and Sturm has
two older children from a previous marriage.
“He gets that [devotion] from his father, who grew up with
nothing and yet used so much of what little he had to take care of
other family members,” Susan adds. “That’s a very deep, important
part of Don: loving his family and helping them in all ways.”
The Sturms have helped more families than just their own.
Some 100 families own homes today because of funding the
couple provided. The Sturms have given money to fund 14 charter
schools and helped libraries, the Children’s Hospital, Denver Art
Museum, Boy Scouts of America and myriad charities in the states
where they do business: Kansas, Missouri, Colorado, Wyoming
and Arizona.
They’ve even created a religious support group called Judaism
Your Way, which provides services and assistance to interfaith
26 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008
couples like the Sturms and to Jews who don’t wish to affiliate
with area synagogues. Events the group ran for High Holy Days
last year attracted 1,700 people.
“We talk a lot at the family dinner table about gifts we’re
making and what the purpose of them is,” says Susan, a former
Foreign Service brat who as a child lived in Peru and West
Germany for a time and who spent three years with the Central
Intelligence Agency after graduating with honors from Princeton.
A savvy businesswoman, she serves as CFO of the holding
company that controls the couple’s 42 banks.
“Our kids work every single summer,” she says, adding that
they’ve exposed their children to poor villages in Kenya and
hospitals in Costa Rica. They’ve even taken a field trip to the
Brooklyn neighborhood where Don Sturm grew up.
“[Don] wanted his kids to see the circumstances that he grew
up in, that [those circumstances] were much more hard-scrabble,
much more hand-to-mouth than the way they’ve grown up.”
T
he turning point in Sturm’s humble past may have been in
1964 on a nondescript Midwestern morning in Nebraska.
That was the day he found the answer to a $35 million
problem and his career took off.
While working as an IRS attorney in Omaha, Sturm had
caught the eye of Peter Kiewit, the highway construction mogul
once dubbed by Forbes magazine “the Colossus of Roads.” Kiewit
hired Sturm as a tax attorney and asked him to get the company
out from under a $35 million tax deficiency the IRS said the
company owed.
Sturm was 32.
“I woke up [that morning] and said, ‘Wow, is that right?’ I
ran to the office to see if I was right, and I was. I thought about
something that nobody else thought about.”
Sturm’s epiphany turned a $35 million obligation into a $5
million refund.
The IRS answered by retroactively revoking the ruling the
young attorney had used as the basis for the reversal.
Sturm pushed back.
“It took a year to get them to revoke the revocation,” he
says proudly. “Then they made the payment. I was king of the
road.”
Being king brought greater responsibility at Kiewit and the
freedom to go beyond taxes. It led to the chance to negotiate
lucrative coal contracts and acquire and manage Fortune 500 level
companies. Each became a real-world business experience that got
Sturm’s feet wetter and better. The efforts also helped push Kiewit
down the road to immense success.
The company didn’t forget. Kiewit had a long tradition of
rewarding key employees by letting them buy shares of company
stock. Sturm bought as much as he could. He borrowed money to
buy stock. He bought a house fully financed so he could spend his
money on stock.
Susan and Donald Sturm
“We had a cleaning lady who asked if it was against my
religion to buy furniture,” he laughs. “I sacrificed quality of life to
build a nest egg.”
The strategy paid handsomely.
Sturm’s ownership share eventually amounted to 11 percent
of the company, which at the time he left in 1991 was making $400
million in his unit alone.
Eight years previous, Sturm had invested in his first bank, a
small family owned operation in Macomb, Ill. It wasn’t lucrative,
but it taught Sturm banking. Four years later, he bought a bigger
bank in Cheyenne, Wyo.
When Kiewit decided to sell off Continental Group, a Fortune
500 company Sturm had acquired and managed and believed in,
Sturm saw the profitable sale through, then cashed his chips.
He walked away with a lot of money—about $160 million,
according to Forbes.
At the time, the nation’s banking system was a mess. Banks
and savings and loans, also known as thrifts, were losing money or
failing, investor confidence was teetering, government supervision
was poor, and in some cases managers ended up in handcuffs.
The collapse of Silverado Savings and Loan by itself cost
taxpayers $1.3 billion of the estimated $124.6 billion taxpayer
bailout the federal government spent to resolve the crisis.
Sturm found himself in the middle of all this armed with a
banking background, business experience, a reputation for honesty
and a wad of cash.
“The deals were so wonderful you couldn’t pass them up,”
Sturm recalls. “All the crappy loans I gave back to the government
and they gave me cash—100 cents on the dollar.
“I bought two failing banks, four failed thrifts and one failed
bank in eight months.”
Sturm later bought one bank in Kansas City for $1—“and I
overpaid!”
The bank was failing, its shareholders wanted out and several
people involved previously had gone to jail. They offered the
shares to Sturm for $1. He took the offer, pumped in $5 million
to keep things afloat and turned the bank around in two years.
Today, the bank makes $4 million to $5 million annually and
operates as Premier.
“Colorado was really flat on its rear end,” recalls Susan,
who worked hand-in-glove with her husband. “There wasn’t a
solvent bank in the state when we came in and started buying
financial institutions … There were situations where we were
the only bidder. They had a lot more to sell than there were
people to buy.”
But like phoenixes rising from the ashes, the banks returned
to health and began reinvesting in their communities, which
Susan says has made the couple “pleased and proud.”
Along the way were some missteps. Sturm lost a lot of
money in the WorldCom collapse, where at one time he owned
5 percent of the company, and in Level 3 stock, where his stake
was nearly $600 million, according to Forbes. He’s had to fend off
lawsuits aimed at his deep pockets, deflect untold schemes and
solicitations, and settle a 1988 insider-trading dispute with the
SEC from which he had never traded or profited.
But none of that deterred him from pursuing his three
principal priorities: family, work and charity. Plus Nebraska
football, Yankees baseball, Final Four basketball, fashionable ties
and 20 laps in the pool nearly every day.
Among things nearest his heart is DU, which Sturm has
served vigorously since former Chancellor Dan Ritchie recruited
him for the Board of Trustees in 1992.
Today, Sturm’s drive is to raise money for DU scholarships,
expand the number of donors, and improve the law school’s
ranking and bar passage rate. He chairs the trustees’ Bar Passage
Committee and has expressed strong feelings about the issue that
haven’t always been well-received.
Unafraid to mince words, Sturm is pressuring the law school
to accept stronger students, offer more financial aid, toughen
standards, help students who struggle, emphasize excellence over
opportunity, and tweak the curriculum to achieve greater business
and international exposure.
“I’m sure people at the University, particularly at the law
school, think I’m a pain in the ass,” he says with a laugh.
Susan Sturm contends that it’s just Don following his
managerial instinct to walk inside the factory, roll up his sleeves
and make things better.
“Don doesn’t see any point in warming a chair,” she says,
emphasizing how proud of DU he is when he’s on campus and
watching things hum.
“My concern in addition to rebuilding the campus is quality
of education,” Sturm says. “The product is not a building, not a
football field or a basketball court. The product is the education
that you provide the student. At the end of the day, that’s the
key.”
University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008 27
 J
Baby boomers have become
the new ‘seniors’ on campus

By Doug McPherson
Photography by Wayne Armstrong

BacktoSchool
Jackie Brown is 54. She has a part-time job. She has a mortgage. And tonight, she has home-
work: a case study paper on how to help a teenage girl who was physically abused by her father
and who is now fighting depression and anxiety because she’s about to leave a foster home she’s
known since puberty.
Brown wears a University of Denver sweatshirt and a smile. She’s happy. Very happy.
“When I’m in class and I’m asked to share my experiences, that makes me feel really good,”
Brown says. “It makes me feel accomplished. I feel like my life and my dreams have collided; I’m
just really happy.”
She has plenty to be happy about. Her dream and life are wrapped tight as a rope.
Brown, who grew up in Indiana, says she always wanted to live in Colorado, have a full-time,
on-campus college experience and learn how to help the elderly. Today she has all three.
A couple of years ago, Brown began some soul-searching about a more fulfilling career. For
most of her life she worked in management information systems technology in the steel and bank-
ing industries.
Then, last year, Brown heard from a friend about DU’s PROGRESS program (Providing Real
Opportunities for Gero-Rich Experience in Social Work Services) for students interested in geriatric
social work. She applied to the Graduate School of Social Work, was accepted, packed her bags,
left her banking job and is now a full-time college student working on her master’s degree.
“A lot of the professors are around my age, which is nice. And the students have taken me in,
too,” she says. “I just blend in with the rest of them.”

28 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008 29

B
Brown’s not alone. Baby boomers—those age 44 through 62—are
blending in with their colleagues on college campuses throughout the
country.
The U.S. Department of Education reports that in the last decade
the number of baby boomers heading back to school has jumped by
20 percent to nearly 2 million. And officials predict those numbers will
keep rising as boomers opt for books over bingo.
The trend is palpable at DU, which hosts 800-plus boomers
today, according to the school’s Office of Institutional Research.
That’s not surprising to U.S. Census folks, who say Denver has a
burgeoning baby boom population that will reach 300,000 people ages
55–64 in fewer than two years. Some have even dubbed Denver the
boomer capital of the United States.
That may explain why over the last year the Executive MBA pro-
gram at the Daniels College of Business witnessed the largest enroll-
ment jump in its history.
The obvious question: Why are boomers going back to class?
Some want a promotion, a bigger paycheck or some kind of career
change or advancement.
“Education is a lifelong process now,” says Daniels Assistant Dean
Barbara Kreisman, Executive MBA program director. “It’s very appar-
ent via research and reality that people need to garner new skills every
few years nowadays to stay current in their profession or to be able to
change careers as theirs may become outdated and irrelevant.”
Kreisman says Executive MBA students range in age from 30 to
65. “Even some of the older students have been seeking skills which
could be applied in their next careers,” she says.
30 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008
Karen Newman, a Daniels professor who has researched genera-
tional trends, says boomers aren’t the only generation to return to col-
lege after their teen years. “Previous generations often did it because,
for one reason or another, they did not get a chance to go to college
or get all the way through college when they were younger,” she says.
Now, because of increased access to higher education, Generation Xers
[those born from 1965 to about 1980] are more likely to return to col-
lege or go to college for the two reasons above rather than just to say
they did it.”
Another phenomenon causing the return of boomers to the class-
room, Kreisman says, is telecommuting—people who feel isolated
working from their homes. “We have more and more students enroll-
ing who say they not only need new skills, but they want to be a part
of something—they want collaboration and stimulation they can’t get
working alone.”
She adds that for many boomers, college played an important role
in their lives during the 1960s. “As a result, there is data that shows
many boomers are returning to the campuses to engage in more dia-
logue and learning,” she says.
But increasingly, boomers themselves are reporting that they want
more than just more money or a spacious corner office. They want
to make a difference. They want to tackle the big problems: illiteracy,
poverty, race relations, child abuse and education.
Kreisman has seen the trend in her MBA students. “Absolutely,
there are folks here who want to find value in what they do,” she says.
“They’re seeking purpose because many have lived lives in a corporate
environment focused on profits, and that left some of them unfulfilled.”
W
What boomers really want is meaningful work, and more than
two-thirds want to take part in lifelong learning, according to a 2007
study sponsored by the Rose Community Foundation, which gives
grants for health, education, aging and other causes.
And another study from the Met Life Foundation and Civic
Ventures, a nonprofit organization that focuses on issues of aging
Americans, found that half of adults between ages 50 and 70 said they
are interested in taking jobs now or in the future that help improve the
quality of life in their communities.
Brown herself is an example of this growing network. She
explains that a trip to the hospital kindled her need for more meaning-
ful work.
A few years ago, she says, she took her mother to the hospital for
a checkup and noticed an elderly lady there alone. “That just kind of
stuck with me,” she says. “It was so sad; somebody needed to be with
her. It’s just not right. We treat the elderly like all of the sudden they
just appeared here, but they’re people. They have histories.”
Brown says her goal is to help the elderly through policy and
advocacy. “I think that’s the way I can make a bigger impact,” she says.
“Policy is the forum where the rules are made and where attitudes are
changed.”
Lynn Gangone, dean of DU’s Women’s College, says she’s seeing
more and more older students who are “truly interested” in changing
the world through advocacy and are earning master’s and doctoral
degrees in fields such as social work, law and education—“fields
where they believe they can make a difference.”
The typical Women’s College student is a late-boomer born in
the early 1960s, Gangone says. “They’ve grown up as women deeply
engaged in their communities as volunteers. They understand that the
achievement of the baccalaureate degree is not just for career purposes,
but for life.”
And even though the bachelor’s of business administration
remains the most popular degree at the Women’s College, Gangone
says, the school is seeing more interest in the law and society major,
which is tailored specifically for students interested in understanding
how law matters in people’s lives, how people’s lives matter in law, and
how law empowers and constrains individuals, groups, organizations
and communities.
Tiffani Lennon (JD ’04), who teaches law and society, says many
of her boomer students are passionate about affecting change and plan
to use their degrees to do just that.
“Our students walk into the classroom with substantial skills,
truly diverse perspectives and the passion to ignite change,” Lennon
says.
B
Back to that Rose Foundation study, which also found that boom-
ers actively seek many sources—friends, the Internet, churches, non-
profits and colleges—where they can learn how and where to put their
efforts to work for good.
And therein lies an opportunity, the study suggests, for organiza-
tions to develop a clearinghouse of resources. Perhaps a college could
offer a series of courses to give individuals information they need to
make informed decisions about options in community service.
DU is on the case. In fact, the Rose Community Foundation has
given DU’s University College—which offers continuing profes-
sional studies for older students—a $5,000 grant to study what such a
clearinghouse might look like and how it might work, according to Jim
Davis, the dean of University College.
University College offers master’s degrees, certificates and an un-
dergraduate degree completion program. But it also supports the Osher
Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI)—a 600-member program that
offers non-credit, eight-week classes for those ages 55 and “better”—
and the Enrichment Program, which features short, non-credit courses
on topics including literature, art, history, contemporary issues and
science. Each session attracts about 900 students, many of whom are
boomers.
The Rose grant, Davis says, is helping University College create a
center for life transition that will match people’s civic advocacy inter-
ests with community resources and needs. Other center services will
include skill courses so visitors can make an easier transition from an
industry to the nonprofit sector. “They might learn about fundraising
or project management,” Davis says. “We’ll design a series of courses to
help these transitions.”
The college has applied for a second Rose grant to develop a busi-
ness plan for the program, and Davis says he expects the center will
open by September 2009.
The Women’s College continues to stretch its welcome mat for
older students by introducing academic certificates, including one in
leadership that emphasizes social change and advocacy. The school is
also developing leadership skills in students by placing them in area
nonprofits.
“I believe that as we widen our certificate offerings and our scope
of non-degree programs, we’ll see a lot more boomers at the college,”
T
Gangone says.
To Davis, older students seeking to do good has a lot to do with
the way they see retirement.
“I think boomers are thinking differently about retirement today;
they aren’t going to settle for the old definitions of retirement,”
Davis says. “They want something more—continue their employ-
ment, make lateral moves or move from work into volunteering. It’s
a generation not content with stuffing envelopes. They want to make
a true difference.”
That makes sense to Brown, who plans to graduate in June 2009.
“I could have stayed in my banking job and kept making money,”
she says. “I was making good money, and I knew I was going to take a
big pay cut in social work. And I like golf, and I have a retirement fund.
But there’s more out there for me.”
Brown, whose course work involves several internships, worked
with the local Alzheimer’s Association last spring. “I loved talking with
senior citizens; there’s a lot of living history there.
“The way our society is today, it makes the world smaller. I think I
can make a difference.”
She gives a short laugh.
“I was thinking, you know, it’s not going to be too long before I’ll
be getting old—I guess it’s an investment in my own future, too. ”
University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008 31
 Saving
By Janalee Card Chmel
Photographs by Wayne Armstrong

Seph
Faith fuels alumna Lori Ware in her battle to save her son’s life.

H “He will be dead by the time he’s 18. Take him home and love him.”
With those words, a doctor threw Lori (Watkins) Ware (MBA ’89) into the
fight of her life: The fight for her son’s life.
Just weeks after Hurricane Katrina struck the Louisiana coast, Lori’s
3-year-old son, Joseph, was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy
(DMD), an incurable genetic disease that destroys a body’s muscles. It is
fatal; children with Duchenne typically die in their late teens.
At the very moment Lori received what she calls “the death sentence
on my baby,” she had the instinctive reaction that would guide the rest of her
life.
She fought back.
She challenged.
She told doctors, “That’s not good enough.”
Today, Lori believes she can help her son to “avoid the wheelchair,” that
he “will grow to be a man.” But her battle is one that entails buying time for
her son, staying on top of worldwide research efforts, and, at the heart of it
all, massive amounts of prayer and faith. She frequently tells people in her
friendly Southern accent, “You know as well as I do that God’s gonna take
care of this.”
So far, God seems to be fulfilling Lori’s expectations. Lori and Seph Ware

32 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008


L B
ori was raised in West Monroe, La., a town of approximately
150,000 people about 300 miles northwest of New Orleans.
She’s married to Joe Ware, whom she’s known since high
school, and she has two daughters—Hannah, 13, and Mallori, 12—in
addition to son Joseph (they call him ‘Seph’ because there are already
so many Joes, Joeys and Josephs in the family).
Monroe is a small town built around the Ouachita River. The
humid climate supports enormous trees and plants with leaves the
size of car tires. Lori’s home rests on eight acres of a 20-acre plot
that’s been in the Watkins family for generations. Her parents live
next door on the same plot of land.
When Seph passed his first birthday and months kept ticking
by with no sign of him walking, Lori became concerned. Everyone
around her kept saying he was fine and that she should relax. But,
exhibiting a trait that would later guide some of the biggest decisions
of her life, Lori ignored the people who “thought I was crazy” and
took Seph to physical therapy when he was 15 months old.
Physical therapist Melanie Massey agreed that Seph was
developmentally delayed and began strength training. The
therapy seemed to work and, by the time Seph was 17 months
old, he was walking. He could not run, but Lori believed that
would come.
Then one day Joe was wrestling with Seph and noticed some-
thing: When Seph was on his back and Joe would push his legs up
34 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008
Seph and physical therapist Melanie Massey
toward his head, Seph would grimace. Joe couldn’t get his son’s legs
farther than a 90-degree angle without causing Seph pain.
Lori thought that was odd, so a few days later, she mentioned it
to the doctor.
“He said to me: ‘You don’t normally see that in a child unless he
has muscular dystrophy, which he doesn’t, but you might want to ask
your physical therapist about it.’”
Two days later, Lori saw Massey, who confirmed that she saw
signs of the disease in Seph. Lori learned that there was a simple
blood test for the disease, so on Oct. 5, 2005, she and Joe took Seph
in for the test. They believed the results would take several days.
Two hours later, the Wares learned that their son had muscular
dystrophy.
By this time, Lori had done enough research on the Internet to
know the disease has no cure and can be fatal. She knew that Seph
could have one of two main types of muscular dystrophy: Becker’s,
a slow-progressing version of the disease in which boys grow to
become men and even into old men; and Duchenne, a fast-moving,
highly lethal form of the disease in which boys typically die in their
teens.
Seph’s blood test only revealed that he had muscular dystrophy,
not which kind. For the rest of the story, Seph needed a DNA test.
The next day, Joe and Lori took Seph in for that test, but those results
would take weeks.
Seph and members of First Baptist Church of West Monroe in prayer
oys with Duchenne or Becker’s muscular dystrophy—very
few girls get these types of MD—have a problem with their
body’s production of dystrophin, the ‘glue’ that holds muscle
cells together. Boys with Becker’s muscular dystrophy produce
small amounts of dystrophin, so their bodies can typically maintain
functionality for much longer. Boys with Duchenne, however, pro-
duce no dystrophin, which causes such rapid muscle deterioration
that they are usually in wheelchairs by the time they turn 9. As the
disease progresses, they lose the use of their arms, and then their
respiratory and cardiac muscles deteriorate, typically causing death
before age 20.
During those painful weeks of waiting for DNA results, Lori
recalls a co-worker repeatedly saying, “Lori, let’s just pray it’s not the
‘D’ one. You’ll be OK if it’s not the ‘D’ one.”
On Oct. 24, Lori and Joe went to the clinic to hear the news:
Seph had Duchenne.
“I was set up for Becker’s because the doctor kept saying it had
to be Becker’s, so when he told me Duchenne, I crumbled,” recalls
Lori, who still cries at the memory. “I said, ‘What does that mean?’
and he said, ‘He will be dead by the time he’s 18.’”
The Wares asked what they could do for Seph. “He said, ‘Take
him home and love him.’ He gave us no options, no standard of
care.”
Lori looks back on that moment as a common snapshot of what
many parents face when they learn that their son has DMD. One
mother told Lori that their doctor said their son would be “short and
fat and he will die.”
“And then doctors get mad when they have a crying mama in
their office,” Lori says.
Although muscular dystrophy is the most common lethal
genetic childhood disease, there is so little awareness of it that even
doctors who should be experts in the field lead families to believe
there is no hope.
But Lori believes there is hope.
T
he primary source of that hope is faith in God. Raised in a Bap-
tist church—her great-grandmother was a charter member—
Lori frequently discusses God’s power to deliver a miracle for
Seph. Barring a miracle, Lori says she can accept that Seph will be in
heaven if he dies before her, though she cries every time she consid-
ers it.
“It’s a God thing,” she says. “Without my faith, I would have
nothing. No hope.”
Joe also relies on his strong faith and says he tries to enjoy every
day without worrying about what the future may hold.
“That boy gives me such joy today, and he does every day,” says
Joe, tearing up. “He makes me so happy now. I don’t want to be sad.
I want to be happy … There will be plenty of time to be sad.”
Lori also found hope through the Parent Project Muscular
Dystrophy Web site—parentprojectmd.org—and its founder, Pat
Furlong.
After learning of Seph’s “death sentence,” Lori e-mailed the
organization. Within an hour, Furlong herself called Lori.
Furlong lost her two sons to Duchenne within six months of
each other in the 1990s. She, too, had faced a doctor who told her
there was no hope for her sons and, she says, at that moment, “I
turned into a terrorist.”
“I’m usually a very reserved, consistent person,” says Furlong.
“But I lost that side of myself that very day. I pulled that doctor by his
tie up to my nose and I said, ‘If I have to choose today who lives and
dies, you are on the top of my list.’”
The doctor told Furlong she was “overreacting,” to which she
responded, “I will overreact about my children until the day I die.”
She’s held to that promise.
Today, Furlong is the executive director of the Parent Project,
an organization she established when she realized that research into
her sons’ disease was sparse at best, that researchers weren’t com-
municating with one another and that there was no standard of care
for boys with DMD. In her quest, she traveled the globe on her own
money, lied to get into doctors’ offices, tricked renowned scientists
into chairing research panels, and demanded that experts come up
with options for “these lost boys.”
Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy now is a multimillion-dollar
fundraising, awareness-building, advocacy and research-generating
organization with its finger on the pulse of the field’s hottest research
and best doctors.
University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008 35

But when Furlong called Lori, it was one mom to another.
“The first words out of her mouth were, ‘How are you?’” Lori
recalls. “Well, my baby had just received a death sentence. I dis-
solved.”
In that initial conversation, Furlong quizzed Lori about Seph’s
DNA, his genetic codes and her plans for treatment. She also gave
Lori hope.
“Pat said, ‘You need to know that your son will grow to be a
man,’” Lori says. “She told me that there was a lot of research com-
ing down the pike. It was the first time I had heard that.”
Furlong asked Lori where she was taking Seph for treatment.
Lori simply said, “You tell me to go anywhere in the world and I
will go. Where do I take my baby?”
Furlong recommended Dr. Brenda Wong at Cincinnati
Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Lori immediately booked an
appointment and made travel plans. But again, she had to ignore
people around her. Just as when she first took Seph for physical
therapy, Lori continued to face doctors and acquaintances in Monroe
who thought she was grasping at straws.
“People kept looking at me like I was crazy,” Lori remembers.
“One doctor told me that Cincinnati would just waste my money
and use my son as a guinea pig.”
But Lori was undaunted and in December 2005, she and Joe
took Seph to see Wong.
Wong is credited with establishing and running one of the coun-
try’s most progressive DMD medical centers. She has gathered ex-
perts from 17 specialties—ranging from cardiology and neurology to
endocrinology—to comprehensively treat each of her now 500-plus
patients.
“It’s the most amazing place of hope,” says Lori. “When I’m
there, I feel like it’s going to be OK.”
36 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008
Seph and his dog, Max
Both Wong and Furlong believe that there will be a treatment
for DMD patients, but they differ in how soon they think it will
come. Wong points to several drugs that are in or near clinical trial
phases, and she believes there may be a useful treatment—but not a
cure—within four to five years.
Furlong, however, seems to believe a treatment is further away.
“I believe that, within the next three to four years, doctors will
be able to rule some things out and rule some things in.”
Ruling in and ruling out is not a cure, and to Lori, that’s just not
fast enough for Seph.
S
eph, who is 6, is about the size of a 4-year-old, but what he lacks
in height, he makes up for in a hyper-speed imagination. Com-
ing home from an errand with Mom, he races inside, dons his
Superman cape, races back outside in his socks, climbs into his kid-
size, battery-powered, Caterpillar-brand truck and does laps around
the driveway.
If Seph sees a pen and paper, he is physically unable to stop him-
self from drawing space aliens.
His gigantic brown eyes seek attention from everyone in a room
as he explains the role that each person will play while he “saves the
village from the evil bad guy space monster aliens.”
It’s unbearable, Lori says, to think of him in a wheelchair,
to think of him unable to feed himself, to think of him unable to
breathe.
“Most days, it’s easy to just go along in a routine and forget the
bigger picture,” Lori says. “But then reality slaps me in the face and
washes over me like a bad smell.”
So, in addition to her duties as mom, public school teacher and
lifesaver, Lori is an awareness-builder.
“Part of getting Seph the best medical treatment that I can is through
building awareness,” she says. “The reason 70 percent of pediatric cancers are
curable today is because people raised awareness.”
“I cannot be passive,” she adds.
Lori attends annual Parent Project conferences, where she makes it a
mission to meet the doctors who are working on treatments for DMD. She
has made business cards with Seph’s picture on them and hands them out to
the doctors.
“This is my son, Seph,” she tells them. “He is the reason you must keep
working for a cure.”
Lori also goes to Washington, D.C., to work with Parent Project lobby-
ists and to speak with representatives from every state.
She has helped raise money for other families facing the disease. She
once approached a nonprofit in her hometown to raise money for a Roma-
nian family who wanted to take their son to Wong. She raised $11,000 from
one meeting and two radio broadcasts.
“That was God,” she says, brushing off any credit for herself. “You don’t
raise $11,000 from 30 minutes of effort without God’s help.”
While Lori’s journey with DMD is extraordinary and, by her own
measure, “a nightmare,” she also lives the life of a typical mom. She teaches
special education at West Monroe High School. Hannah and Mallori have
diverse interests and, of course, no driver’s licenses, so Lori is their chauffeur.
Seph attends weekly physical therapy, and Lori helps care for her ailing dad.
Twice a year, Lori takes Seph to Cincinnati. During her most recent
visit, she received news that cemented her faith in a miracle.
Seph surprised Wong. He is actually improving.
Lori maintains a Web site about Seph—www.caringbridge.org/visit/
seph—and, from Cincinnati, she wrote that Wong was “very impressed Duchenne muscular dystrophy: The facts
with how well Seph is doing. His time getting off the floor with no hands
Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is the
DECREASED by one second ... to most of you that may not be a big deal,
most common fatal genetic disorder diagnosed
but for us it is HUGE!!!”
She went on to explain that Seph would begin taking human growth in childhood, affecting approximately 1 in every
hormone (HGH) and that “Dr. Wong really believes that as good as Seph is 3,500 live male births (about 20,000 new
doing now, with the addition of the HGH, it will be YEARS before we see cases each year). Duchenne can be passed from
any significant DMD signs. YEAH, YEAH, YEAH, THANK YOU LORD!” parent to child, but approximately 35 percent of
cases occur because of a random spontaneous
L
mutation. Because the Duchenne gene is found
ori admits that all of her efforts amount to one goal: Buying time for
on the X-chromosome, it primarily affects boys. It
Seph. The longer she can keep him walking, the more of a chance he
occurs across all races and cultures.
will have when the cure is discovered.
DMD results in progressive loss of strength
Until then, Lori believes Seph should get to be a normal 6-year-old boy,
and is caused by a mutation in the gene that
as much as his body allows. He recently played on a T-ball team that took
the league championship. As her little boy shuffle-ran into home plate and encodes for dystrophin. Because dystrophin is
turned to give her two thumbs up, Lori’s blue eyes welled up and she said, absent, the muscle cells are easily damaged. The
simply, “Isn’t that beautiful?” progressive muscle weakness leads to serious
Then, she sighed, believing each moment was proof of her favorite medical problems, particularly issues relating to
scripture—Jeremiah 29:11.
the heart and lungs.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to pros-
Although there are medical treatments that
per you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
may help slow its progression, there is currently
For more information on DMD, visit Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy at no cure for Duchenne.
www.parentprojectmd.org. To follow Lori and Seph’s story, visit www.caringbridge.org/ —Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy
visit/seph. See a slideshow of Seph and his family at www.du.edu/magazine.
University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008 37
 Education
By Tamara Chapman
“Broad and deep learning, especially at
the undergraduate level, is fundamentally
important for a well-lived life.”

Reimagined
—Gregg Kvistad, provost

The Marsico Initiative has transformed DU’s

undergraduate arts and sciences curriculum.

In 2002, DU alumni Tom and Cydney Marsico presented the University of

DU’s Old Main, paper sculpture by Jeff Nishinaka
Denver with a $10 million gift to be spent over five years and directed toward the
intensification of the undergraduate arts and sciences programs.
Made with no strings and few provisos, that gift launched an experiment—dubbed
the Marsico Initiative—in which DU faculty devised an undergraduate experience
reflecting their highest ideals and best ideas. It resulted in a host of new programs and
significant curricular change, all while expanding educational opportunities for students
across the disciplines. It added 24 new tenure-track faculty positions and 20 lecturers
to key programs and created a number of new centers designed to reinforce academic
priorities.
“It was a bold act of philanthropy,” says Provost Gregg Kvistad, one that resulted
in a “renovated and renewed” undergraduate program. Just as important, he adds, it
conveyed a powerful message to students, faculty and alumni: “that broad and deep
learning, especially at the undergraduate level, is fundamentally important for a well-
lived life.”

38 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008 39
 “We really
wanted to
generate
J Just seven years ago, the Marsico Initiative was little
more than a dream deferred, a half-formed notion
that great things could be accomplished, if and when,
when and if.
“When I was appointed provost by Chancellor
Dan Ritchie in 2001,” Chancellor Robert Coombe
excitement recalls, “he and I began a long dialogue, which extends
about the arts to this day, about moving the academic enterprise
and sciences. at DU forward. In those early days … we talked
frequently about where the greatest challenges and
It really was opportunities were to be found among the many units
a cultural and programs of the University.”
transformation Ritchie shared these conversations with Tom
Marsico, founder and CEO of Marsico Capital
that we had in Management, who had expressed interest in
mind.” supporting an academic initiative. “Dan asked
—George Potts, which unit I thought we should propose for such an
initiative, and I responded that … it should be for a
psychology professor
major advance in the arts and sciences disciplines,”
Coombe explains. “My reasoning was that if we were
going to be a great university, we had to have top-of-
the-line programs in these disciplines. These were
the disciplines in which we had an extraordinary
opportunity to blend a learning environment
characterized by small classes and close student-
faculty interactions, like those found at the very best
liberal arts colleges, with great faculty and nationally
competitive scholarship of the sort found at the best
research universities. Our students could have the
best of both worlds.”
Before the Marsicos would commit to funding,
they wanted reassurance that their money would be
spent on significant changes. Coombe was charged
with fleshing out DU’s game plan. “To start this pro-
cess, I appointed an ad hoc ‘idea group’ of about 20
faculty members from the arts and sciences disciplines
to think through some initial ideas. We met for several
weeks, bouncing ideas off one another. There were
some really good thoughts, but the whole thing just
wasn’t congealing,” he recalls.
“At the next meeting, I told the group that I
thought we were being insufficiently bold, and asked
that each person put forward a single big idea, no matter
how off the wall, right then and there. We went around
the table, and each person spoke. There were some
pretty wild thoughts, or at least they seemed so at the
time. I remember in particular that Gregg Kvistad’s idea
was that classes be limited to 15 students, and everyone
laughed. How could such a thing be possible?”
Once sights were set sufficiently high, and
once the Marsicos issued a green light, the
University plotted its strategy for maximizing
the opportunity. Coombe and Kvistad—then dean
40 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008
of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences—believed
that the faculty should play the lead role in shap-
ing the initiative. After all, Kvistad says, “Curricular
change, programmatic change, has to fundamentally
involve the faculty, who do the conceptualization,
who do the tinkering, who are responsible for the
curriculum.”
Faculty leadership took the form of a steering
committee made up of 12 members elected by their
peers from the three divisions at the center of the
initiative—arts and humanities, social sciences, and
natural sciences and mathematics. The committee
also included a handful of administrators appointed by
Coombe.
Psychology Professor George Potts chaired that
steering committee for the first three years of its
existence. The first summer, committee members met
frequently to define what they wanted to accomplish.
“We really wanted to generate excitement about the
arts and sciences. We wanted to stimulate this intellec-
tual community. … It really was a cultural transforma-
tion that we had in mind,” he recalls.
Given the amorphous nature of transformation
and the problematic dynamics of committees, the
Marsico group could have floundered indefinitely try-
ing to reach agreement on goals and strategies. Com-
mittee member Michael Keables, currently acting dean
of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, feared just that.
“Large committees tend to be fairly dysfunctional,”
he says. “They take a long time to reach consensus.
Sometimes they never reach consensus. But there was
a commitment from this group to make this work.”
Potts attributes that commitment to faculty
enthusiasm. “Faculty have been saying for a long time
that it is wonderful that we are getting donations for
buildings, but we really need money for programs,” he
explains. “I felt from the start a real responsibility to
show that when you do that, good things happen.”
The committee was also encouraged by the
institution’s promise to develop permanent funding
for the initiative’s best ideas. That meant the com-
mittee could contemplate long-term proposals, even
those that involved hiring additional faculty and staff.
According to Kvistad, “The message from central
administration was, you produce a good program,
and we will find ways to fund it.” Keeping that
promise meant scrupulous review of expenses and
revenue. To fully fund the Marsico Initiative, the
University added $4.4 million to the base annual
budgets of the divisions involved.
Thanks to faculty engagement and the promise
of continued funding, consensus came early, with
steering committee members settling on a handful of
priorities and creating a “cell”—or subcommittee—
for each. The cells focused on enriching the first-year
experience; fostering intellectual depth; expanding
opportunities for experiential learning; enhancing
writing and rhetorical skills across the four undergrad-
uate years; and developing quantitative reasoning skills.
A sixth cell was created to assess the effectiveness of all
programs introduced under the initiative.
The cells were charged with developing pro-
grams related to their topics. “We went with the pilot
approach,” Keables says, noting that the committee
asked the arts and sciences faculty to submit proposals.
In keeping with the freedom given the steering
committee itself, Keables says, “we issued a call to
faculty with minimal guidelines.” That way, the
committee could encourage experimentation and risk-
taking. To ensure the proposals supported initiative-
related objectives, the steering committee required that
each include a mechanism for assessment.
Proposals were submitted by the dozens, some
from individual faculty members, others from individ-
ual departments and still others from interdisciplinary
groups eager to collaborate. Throughout the proposal
evaluation and pilot phase, the steering committee
sought input from the entire faculty. “One of the
things that we decided very early on was that we had to
keep faculty involved through every stage,” Potts says.
To foster transparency, the committee launched a Uni-
versity intranet presence, where all relevant materials
were posted for review.
Once the programs were piloted and evaluated,
the steering committee recommended several for
permanent funding. Recommendations were based
on program effectiveness and on the scope of their
impact. As Keables notes, “A lot of it came down to
bang for the buck: Put your money where it will have
the biggest impact.”
As Kvistad sees it, the bang has exceeded expec-
tations. “This is, I believe, a textbook case for how
academic, especially curricular, change needs to
occur,” he says. “It happened at the University of
Denver only because the faculty embraced the chal-
lenge of transforming the undergraduate experience
and believed that the University would find the
resources to make that happen if they actually did it.
Boy, did they do it.”
T
Thanks to the Marsico Initiative, today’s undergradu-
ate students plunge into learning even before classes
start.
Their education kicks off with an academically
rich orientation period, continues with a topic-focused
first-year seminar, gains steam with required writing
and rhetoric classes, develops quantitative reasoning
skills through an emphasis on numeracy and reinforces
new knowledge through experiential learning opportu-
nities. And that’s just the Reader’s Digest version.
Much of the initiative’s focus centered on the
first-year experience. That’s because the first year is so
important in terms of establishing expectations and set-
ting tone, Potts says. “If you are going to transform the
culture, you have to start from the beginning.”
At the Discoveries orientation program, students
begin interacting with faculty, enjoying presentations
about academic topics and meeting with the instruc-
tor who will lead their first-year seminar. Where the
previous orientation program emphasized social and
extracurricular activities, Discoveries reminds students
they are embarking on an academic journey.
That message is reinforced in a new first-year
seminar, capped at 15 students. This seminar replaced
the required Campus Connection class, originally
offered for one hour per week during the student’s
first quarter. Under the Marsico Initiative, the seminar
was expanded to a four-hour course focusing on
a topic to be examined thoroughly. According to
Keables, this move alone made a huge difference in
the quality of the student’s introductory year.
He should know. Having taught Campus Con-
nection classes and the new first-year seminars (his
focus is on environmental issues), he finds vast dif-
ferences between the two. Real depth simply wasn’t
possible with the Campus Connection courses, where
the 60 minutes per week were too often spent helping
students acclimate to University life. The four-hour
seminar, on the other hand, allows instructors to guide
students through challenging topics, showing them
how to approach college-level work.
“One thing it has done is it hits the students, from “It hits the
the time they walk in the door, with the message that students, from
academics are important,” Keables explains. As proof,
Keables points to the change in attendance during his
the time they
office hours. Today, he sees many more of his first-year walk in the
students more often. They arrive with fewer questions door, with the
about how to drop a class or change a grade and more
questions related to academics. Not only that, they
message that
often continue their relationship with him long after academics are
the seminar has ended. important.”
According to Kvistad, that kind of relationship
—Michael Keables, acting
makes the DU experience transformational. The new
seminar puts a caring professor in a central role at a dean of Natural Sciences
critical time, when they can serve as teacher, mentor, and Mathematics
advocate and adviser. The professor can also demon-
strate the pleasures of discovery fueled by intellectual
passion and curiosity. “This relationship is intended to
University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008 41

“The curricular
changes wrought
by the initiative
demonstrate the
seriousness of
the University’s
commitment to
liberal learning.”
—Gregg Kvistad, provost
42 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008
last the entire year,” he says. “As it happens, because we
are human, it goes on longer than that.”
The Marsico Initiative also replaced first-year
English classes with a two-quarter writing and rhetoric
sequence. To develop and administer that sequence,
the University launched a comprehensive Writing
Program, directed by Doug Hesse, a nationally
recognized expert on writing pedagogy and author
of the Simon and Schuster Handbook for Writers.
Recruited from Illinois State University, Hesse was
charged with creating a program that treats writing
both as a discipline and as a foundation of serious work
in other disciplines.
Hesse began by building a team of 19 full-time
lecturers—all experts in writing and rhetoric, all versed
in DU’s ambitious goals for student achievement.
Members of the writing faculty collaborate with one
another and the rest of the faculty about the best prac-
tices for developing writing skills. They deploy those
practices in more than 70 first-year classes offered each
quarter and capped at 15 students. This approach dif-
fers dramatically from traditional writing programs,
which typically enlist adjunct instructors who often
have little sense of institutional priorities. By contrast,
all of DU’s writing lecturers are full-time faculty, and
their chief priority is working with students.
Writing efforts at all levels and in all majors are
supported by a new Writing Center directed by Eliana
Schonberg. In addition to tutoring students, the center
lends support to professors teaching writing-intensive
classes for juniors and seniors. These classes—another
component of the Writing Program—are offered in the
core curriculum and throughout the majors. Tutoring
also is available to graduate students.
Finally, says Hesse, the Writing Center aims to
create a writing-appreciative culture on campus, not
just through rigorous instruction but also through pro-
gramming that showcases different kinds of writing.
“Our goal is to get people to see the whole breadth of
writing,” he explains, adding that today, DU students
of every major are writing far more than they were just
five years ago.
The Writing Program is attracting national recog-
nition for its thorough approach. In 2008, it became
one of only 23 programs internationally to have earned
a Certificate of Excellence from the Conference on
College Composition and Communication.
Other programs implemented under the Marsico
Initiative are equally ambitious. For example, a series
of math foundations courses, proposed by the math
faculty for non-science majors, aims to develop quanti-
tative reasoning skills. Focusing on topics like cryptog-
raphy, these courses are designed, Potts says, to explore
48 Class notes challenge
49 Book bin
the math behind the topic while helping students be-
come “numerically wise.” A quantitative reasoning lab-
53 Reunion recap
oratory, installed in Sturm Hall, offers state-of-the-art 54 Pioneer pics
software to help students develop their analytic skills.
Outside the classroom and the laboratory, a Visit- 55 Alumni director
ing Scholars Program helps create what Chancellor
Coombe calls a campus culture “bubbling and perco-
58 Announcements
lating” with ideas. The program brings experts from
all over the world to campus to share their insights
with students. Stays range from two days to a couple
of quarters. Long-term visitors generally teach or
co-teach at least one course. All visitors are asked to
engage undergraduates in lectures, special programs
and activities.
The Visiting Scholars Program provides opportu-
nities, Keables notes, for undergraduate and graduate
students to interact with some of the thinkers who are
shaping their fields. In fall quarter, the program (in
conjunction with the Department of Mass Communi-
cations and Journalism Studies, the Center for Multi-
cultural Excellence and Partners in Learning) brought
filmmaker Beverly Seckinger to campus for a panel
discussion on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender
issues and a screening of her documentary Laramie
Inside Out—a chronicle of how her hometown reacted
to the murder of gay University of Wyoming student
Matthew Shepard.
To foster experiential learning, an Arts and Sci-
ences Internship Program develops opportunities for
students to test their knowledge and develop their skills
in a work setting, while an Undergraduate Research
Center, currently under development, will promote
hands-on research opportunities with faculty members.
Among its many responsibilities, it will coordinate
funding for undergraduate research projects and sup-
port students working on capstone and Honors thesis
projects.
Complementing the University’s emphasis on
internationalization and study abroad, a Language
Center, also under development, will make it easier for
students to prepare for a future in the global market-
place. By 2009, the center is expected to host a Summer
DU Archives
Intensive Language Institute.
Reviewing the initiative’s accomplishments,
Kvistad takes pride in their sweep and ambition. “The In the 1950s, students who lived on campus paid $249 for room and board each quarter. Today, room and
curricular changes wrought by the initiative,” he
board starts at $1,960 per term. What did you pay for student housing during your DU days? Please share your
explains, “demonstrate the seriousness of the Univer-
sity’s commitment to liberal learning—not to one memories of living on campus.
discipline, to one profession, or to one body of
knowledge, but rather to developing the capacity of
each student to think broadly and deeply, to write with
skill, to understand quantitative data, to view the world
as a classroom, and never to stop learning.”
University of Denver Magazine Connections 43
 The classes
1945 1949 1950 Connoisseur Sandy Sardella
Virginia (Collins) Bill Smyth (BFA ’49) of Littleton, Colo., Robert Larson (BA ’50, MA ’53) received Stanley Wonderley
Putnam (BFA ’45) began exploring photography in the eighth the Western Writers of America’s Spur Award (BA ’50) of Lakeview, When Sandy Sardella got her

Wayne Armstrong
of Lakewood, Colo., grade. In 1946 Bill established his first for the best Western biography of 2008 for Ore., is the author business degree from DU, she expected
received the Legend commercial photo studio in Englewood, his book Gall: Lakota War Chief (University of six books and to spend her work hours helping cli-
of Dance in Colorado Colo. In addition to his career as a Realtor, of Oklahoma Press, 2007). Robert graduated wrote a syndicated ents with their finances. A tax degree
award from the Bill also worked as a freelance photographer from DU Phi Beta Kappa and received his column, “Kids Are nearly two decades later further deep-
Carson-Brierly Dance for the Rocky Mountain News, the Denver PhD in Western history from the University My Business,” which ened her ties to the world of numbers.
Library. Virginia was Post, the Englewood Herald and the Littleton of New Mexico. Robert worked as a teacher appeared in 40 But life has a funny way of turn-
both an organizer and Independent. He continues to display and sell and administrator for Denver Public Schools newspapers from 1974
ing out. Back in 1989, Sardella (BSBA
the first president of the Denver Civic Ballet his photographs. and taught at the University of Northern to 2004. Stanley, who also worked as a third-
statistics ’68, MT accounting ’83) and
and one of three founders of the Colorado Colorado for 30 years. Although retired, grade teacher and curriculum coordinator,
currently teaches at the Portland State her husband were tired of his odd work
Concert Ballet. She also directed and taught Robert continues to research, write and
in her own ballet school for many years. lecture about the American West. He lives in University Graduate School of Education. hours and her business trips getting
Denver with his wife, Peggy. He has been married to his wife, Ellen, for 59 in the way of their life together. She
years and has three grown daughters and five started looking for a business to buy
grown grandchildren. and ended up opening an art gallery.
“I had no experience in retail,

Trailblazer Marion Downs
For her upcoming birthday, 94-year-old Marion Downs (MA
audiology ’51) says she plans on going skydiving—again.
Even as she approaches the century mark, Downs—who went
skydiving for the first time to celebrate her 90th birthday—rarely
allows her age to interfere with her desire for adventure. She
admits, however, that in her younger years she almost let negative
thoughts and habits prevent her from enjoying life.
Twenty-two years ago, Downs believed she was going to die.
Both of her parents died at age 72, and so Downs had prepared
herself to follow suit. Her physician pointed out, however, that
Courtesy of Marion Downs
1954
Philip Fox (LLB ’54) of Beverly Hills,
Calif., bought an insurance company that
concentrates on seniors. Philip is having a
great time traveling for clients and visiting
his 11 grandchildren, who all live outside
California—some in New Zealand. He says
he has no plans to retire soon.
1956
Richard Berry (BSBA ’56) logged more than
10,000 railway miles on a recent six-week trip
around the world, including a journey from
and I had no idea what I was doing,”
Sardella says. “I rented a small place for
a year to see if I’d like it. Eighteen years
later, here I am.”
Sardella may have tentatively
stepped into the art world, but today
she’s firmly grounded as owner of
Pismo Fine Art Glass with galleries
in Denver’s Cherry Creek shopping
district, Beaver Creek, Vail and Aspen.
The four galleries feature jewelry,
beads, furniture, paintings and sculp-
ture created by some of the glass

world’s biggest names.

advances in modern medicine unavailable to her parents could now London to Vladivostok, Russia, via the Trans-
Local artists had warned Sardella against focusing on glass when she first opened her
prolong her life well past the age of 100. Siberian route. Between trips Richard enjoys
mixed media gallery, but she noticed that the more glass she offered, the more she sold.
Ironically, Downs says, at the time, the information his retirement in Diamond Head Beach,
Hawaii, with his wife, Bette. Since glass was the art form she loved best, in 1995 she made it her primary focus.
frightened her because she had no idea how to navigate the next
One of Sardella’s business strategies is to offer a wide range of works, from small,
phase of her life.
affordable pieces to expensive, museum-quality works.
“In the 80s you get ambushed by all sorts of physical problems that you aren’t prepared to deal with,” Downs says. “If you don’t enjoy
life you don’t want to live to be 100.”
1958 “People can enjoy Dale Chihuly and not be intimidated by the gallery because they
John Manesis (BA ’58) know there’s something they can afford,” Sardella says. “I think it makes us more accessible.
Like so many other times in her life, Downs dealt with uncertainty by striding forward, one day at a time.
practiced medicine We’ve tried really hard to keep the quality high regardless of the price range.”
“You can always tell the pioneers,” Downs says, “because they’re the ones with arrows in their backs.” in Fargo, N.D., for The gallery has carried works by renowned artist Dale Chihuly for 16 years. The
Without a road map to aging gracefully, Downs invested herself in a common-sense philosophy: “If you are fit physically then you are 22 years. Since his relationship was critical when a fire in one of the gallery’s previous Cherry Creek locations
fit mentally.” retirement in 1996, forced the business to relocate the week before Christmas 2004. The new location had a
Despite high-blood pressure, arthritis and other physical ailments, Downs religiously engaged in daily exercise—including skiing and John has concentrated
one-man show featuring Chihuly in April 2005, which helped reestablish the business.
tennis—and relied on reading and crossword puzzles to keep her mind sharp. on his poetry. His
Sardella says a show with an artist of Chihuly’s stature usually takes a couple of years to set
Not only has this regimen carried her through to her 94th birthday, it has enabled her to maintain a high quality of life—something second poetry book,
Other Candle Lights up.
Downs says she could never sacrifice.
(Seaburn Publishers As a former financial consultant, Sardella hasn’t forgotten her business background,
Downs, who believes she’s learned enough about life to pass that knowledge on, published a book—Shut Up and Live! (Avery,
Group, 2008), was published in June. John’s but credits it with helping her succeed.
2007)—expanding upon her recipe for longevity. Downs hopes that her advice will benefit readers by inspiring them to take responsibility
poems explore memory and themes related “I enjoy this a lot more,” she says. And when she describes what she sees in glass, you
for their lives.
to his medical career and Greek-American begin to understand.
Downs is looking forward to taking another 17,000-foot plunge because for her, life simply isn’t fulfilling if she doesn’t have yet
heritage. John and his wife, Bess, live in Fargo “It’s amazing to see what can be done with glass,” Sardella says. “It’s the beauty, the
another challenge to overcome. and spend summers in Sun City, Calif. color, the reflective nature of it, the fluidity. It’s kind of magical.”
—Samantha Stewart
—Brenda Gillen

44 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008 University of Denver Magazine Connections 45

 1960
Anita West (BA ’60, MA ’62, PhD ’69)
worked at the University’s Denver Research
Institute for 25 years; she published
extensively on mathematical solutions to
engineering problems and educational
technologies. In 1984, Anita became director
of the institute, retiring as senior scientist
Shopkeeper Harvey Miller
Harvey Miller (JD ’72)
emerita in 1989. Anita now is a board
member for the DU Retiree Association and
volunteers as a math tutor for Denver Public
Schools. She also has returned to her love of
music and piano. She still lives close to the
DU campus.
1962
Diana Etheridge (BA ’62) of Merritt Island,
Fla., has self-published Cook-n-Rhyme With
Kids, a cookbook full of healthy recipes
that tell a story. Diana’s daughter, Juliana
(Etheridge) Sasson (BFA ’92), illustrated
the book. Diana began writing the cookbook
when her daughters were young and, at the
urging of her husband, decided to publish
it for the benefit of her granddaughters and
all parents and kids who love to cook.
>>www.cook-n-rhymewithkids.com
1963
1966
David Erickson (JD ’66) of Denver is the
principal at the law firm David L. Erickson
LLC. He also is the official historian for
the Colorado Bar Association (CBA). In his
capacity as historian, David wrote the book
Early Justice and the Formation of the Colorado
Bar, which the CBA published this year. Law
Week Colorado featured David and his book in
its May 26 issue.
1967
Ted Kleisner (BSBA ’67) of Hershey,
Pa., president and CEO of Hershey
1970
Jerold Waltman (MA ’70) of Hewitt, Texas,
published a book, Minimum Wage Policy in
Great Britain and the United States (Algora,
2008). Jerold is a political science professor at
Baylor University.
1971
Tamie (Walker) Bulow (BA ’71) of
Colorado Springs, Colo., was named best
up-and-coming meeting professional by
Colorado Meetings and Events magazine. Tamie
worked for 25 years as a sales representative
for Riedell Skates and managed ice arenas for
for 16 years as a K–12 library coordinator.
Alma has held numerous professional
offices, including president of the Arizona
Chapter of the Special Libraries Association
and editor of Learning and Media, the official
magazine of the Pennsylvania School
Librarians Association.
1973
Christopher Dunn (BA ’73) of Atlanta
was appointed to general manager of NSF
International’s Beverage Quality Program.
For the past four years Christopher served

iStock
has never been much of a Howard Kellough (BS ’63) of Scottsdale, Entertainment & Resorts Co., participated 13 years before becoming an event planner as president of his company DunnWorks
tea drinker. So what makes a Ariz., joined Davis LLP as a partner and in the 54th Annual National Security for the American Birding Association. Her LLC, a consulting firm that provides services
longtime lawyer who doesn’t member of the firm’s national tax group. Seminar, held at the U.S. Army War College new career has allowed her to add numerous to beverage and consumer package goods
drink tea open a tea shop? The Howard received his law degree from the in Carlisle, Pa. One of the purposes of the entries to her bird-sighting list. industries.
University of Saskatchewan Law School in seminar is to give War College students
desire to brew a balanced life.
1966. Prior to joining Davis LLP, Howard the opportunity to hear various citizens’ Thomas Jasin
“The stress of practicing law
can be pretty overwhelming,” says
was chair of the Canadian Tax Foundation viewpoints on defense and security matters. 1972 (MS ’73)
and the National Tax Section of the Canadian As a participant, Ted attended seminars and Alma Howell (MA ’72) of Phoenix retired (pictured on left)
Miller, who’s been practicing law for Bar Association, and co-chair of the Joint discussed national security issues. from Intel in January after more than 17 received NASA’s
more than 25 years. “I didn’t want to burn Committee on Taxation. years as a senior information specialist and Outstanding
out.” research manager. Prior, Alma worked at Leadership
For two years, Miller and his wife, Nenita, ran Arizona State University for three years and Medal on June 9
a small tea shop on the weekends in July and August out of their vacation home—a 1964 at Bensalem School District in Pennsylvania in recognition
re-purposed old general store—in Eagles Mere, Penn. When they saw an open storefront Cynthia (Facer) Clark (MA ’64) of McLean,
during a walk in their Lancaster, Penn., neighborhood, he thought, “Let’s take this a little Va., is the administrator of the national
more seriously.” agricultural statistics service for the United
States Department of Agriculture. Previously,
In 2004 they opened the Pemberley Tea Shop just two blocks from their home.
Cynthia lived in London where she worked as ChanCellor’s
Miller works full time at the tea shop and practices law part time after the shop closes in
the late afternoon.
the executive director of methodology for the
Office of National Statistics.
InnovatIon Fund
Funding innovation • Funding ExcEllEncE • Funding du
Although the shop is named for the Pemberley estate in Pride and Prejudice (one of
Nenita’s favorite books), the shop’s décor is not the typical Victorian high-tea style. Glory (Muskat)
“People have described it as ‘fusion,’” Miller says of the blended modern and classic Weisberg (BA ’64)
food and surroundings. of Englewood, Colo.,

the tradItIon
The remodeled warehouse space has exposed beams and pipes, lots of natural was one of five
light, and while it’s decorated with some tea-themed items, it has a mix of local art and women who received
the Triumphant
unconventional furnishings.
“We don’t do frou-frou,” Miller laughs. “But it’s very homey and comfortable.” Women award from ContInues WIth You
The 1,500-square-foot shop serves 50–60 varieties of loose tea, plus baked goods
the Excelsior Youth invest in the future, invest in our students
Center at their annual gala on May 30. Glory
(prepared by Miller), sandwiches, soups and other café fare.
received the award for overcoming obstacles The Chancellor’s innovation Fund, supported by
“I never drank tea before opening the shop because I never really liked it,” Miller and succeeding in her chosen field. She has your annual gift, strengthens scholarships and
confesses. “Like most people, I was forced to drink plain Lipton tea when I was sick. But worked for The Villager of Greenwood Village, priority programs for our students.
there are 2,000–3,000 types of tea, so there is so much variety.” Colo., for 23 years, currently as the society
Running the shop also has given the Millers some “deeply enjoyed” time together. editor. She writes a weekly column called
“For 30 years, she went off to teach and I went off to do law, and we never got in a “GloryUs Goings On” in addition to writing
To contribute to du, please visit
situation where we got to work together,” says Miller, who recently celebrated his 35th and photographing for the publication.
wedding anniversary. She and her husband, David, have five
grandchildren.
www.giving.du.edu
Miller says his favorite time of day is at 4 p.m. when the shop closes and the couple
enjoys a pot of tea together. They’ve even made a game of it.
“The person who makes it tries to surprise the other, and you get three guesses to
name the tea. It really sharpens your skills,” he says. University Advancement
—Janna Widdifield 2190 E. Asbury Ave., Denver, CO 80208
303.871.4677 800.448.3238

46 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008 ChancellorsFund2_DUMagAd_FINAL.indd 1 10/14/08

University of Denver Magazine 10:58:56 AM 47
Connections

of his service as director of the Robotic
Lunar Exploration Program and chair of
the NASA Project Review Standards Panel.
He also provided oversight management
on deep space missions, served as a review
board member and provided support to the
agency’s earth science mission. Thomas lives
in Lancaster, Pa.
1974
Stephen Holden (BA ’74, MSBA ’76)
has been named president of Davis Vision
Inc., one of the nation’s largest vision care
1979 Kynewisbok
companies. Stephen has past experience as a
president and a founding board member of
the National Association of Vision Care Plans.
Prior to his appointment at Davis Vision,
headquartered in Plainview, N.Y., Stephen
lived in Edwards, Colo., and served on the
board of Small Champions, a charitable
foundation that provides programs for young
children with diverse disabilities.
Condoleezza Rice (BA ’74, PhD ’81) and
Michelle Kwan, a junior international studies
major at DU, represented the United States
at the closing ceremony of the Olympic
Games in Beijing on Aug. 24. Condoleezza
and Michelle were part of a seven-member
delegation. Michelle is the State Department’s
American public diplomacy envoy.
1978
Susan Carr-Templeton (BSBA ’78) of
Oak Brook, Ill., launched Stafford Wells
Advisors, a wealth management firm catering
to investors with $1 million to $10 million
in assets. Susan also worked as a senior vice
president with William Blair & CO and CEO
of Templeton Associates Ltd.
Craig Moodie
(BA ’78) of
Franklin, Mass.,
published the
young-adult novel
Seaborn (Roaring
Brook Press,
2008). Craig is the author of five other novels,
including The Sea Singer and Salt Luck. After
college Craig worked on a commercial fishing
boat, an experience that has inspired many of
his books.
48 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008
Class notes challenge
1980
Rod Jahner (MBA ’80) of Wake Forest,
N.C., recently returned to the U.S. after
spending 10 years in Singapore, where he
served as commissioner of the Singapore
American Football League. Rod now works
as an executive recruiter for Sports Group
International, placing middle and senior
managers in the sporting goods industry.
Sharyl Peterson (MA ’80, PhD ’83) of
Fruita, Colo., wrote a book, The Indispensable
Guide to Pastoral Care (Pilgrim Press, 2008).
Christian Century listed Sharyl’s book as one
of Pilgrim Press’ top-five best-sellers in its
May 6 issue.
1984
Deirdre McKay (BA ’84) works as a museum
educator at Stepping Stones Museum for
Children in Norwalk, Conn. Deirdre
previously worked as a journalist and art
teacher in Manhattan. She now lives in Rye,
N.Y., with her teenage children, Wiley and
Isabel.
John Shugrue (BA ’84) joined Reed Smith
LLP as a partner in its Insurance Recovery
Group in the firm’s Chicago office. John
graduated from the University of North
Carolina School of Law with honors in 1987.
He started his career at Jenner & Block and
became a partner with the firm in 1995. Prior,
John was the managing partner for Morgan
Lewis’ Chicago office.
Class of 1979: You’re up! A lot has
happened in the last 30 years, and we want
to catch up with as many of you we can. Your
classmates want to hear from you, too!
What have you been up to? Share photos
and family news, discuss your travels and
hobbies, or reminisce about your time at DU.
You can post your note online at www.
alumni.du.edu, e-mail du-magazine@du.edu or
mail in the form on page 57. Class of ’79 notes
will appear in the summer issue. We’ll randomly
select a prize winner from all entries received
by Feb. 1.
Mary (Chihoski) Sparks (BSBA ’84) of
Dolores, Colo., graduated from Fort Lewis
College in April with a bachelor’s degree
in accounting and finance. Mary is now an
accountant.
1990
Sharon White (PhD ’90) wrote the book
Vanished Gardens (University of Georgia Press,
2008), which takes readers on a journey
through some of the past and present gardens
of Philadelphia. Vanished Gardens received the
Association of Writers and Writing Programs
Award for Creative Nonfiction. Sharon also
is the author of a collection of poetry, Bone
House, and a memoir, Field Notes: A Geography
of Mourning. She lives in Philadelphia and
teaches writing at Temple University.
1991
Jennifer (Newberry) Hogan (BFA ’91)
celebrated the first anniversary of her art
business, Seahorse Designs. Jennifer also has
worked as an artist for various companies,
most notably as a graphic design project
manager for North Face and a consultant
to the Arts Council of Northwest Florida
in Pensacola. Jennifer lives and works in
Alexandria, Va.
?
Book bin
Financial trouble nearly destroyed the University in the 1980s,
Which Pioneer enjoys
but just a decade later DU began the most dramatic physical trans-
skydiving?
formation in its history.
A new book, Built for Learning (University of Denver, 2008),
The answer can be found
traces DU’s architectural renaissance and tells the story of
somewhere on pages 43–58 of
Chancellor Dan Ritchie, architect Cab Childress and the other
this issue. Send your answer
people who made it possible.
The substantial hardback includes hundreds of photos of
to du-magazine@du.edu or
University of Denver Magazine,
University of Denver campus landscapes and architecture, begin-
2199 S. University Blvd, Denver,
ning with DU’s first buildings constructed more than a century ago
CO 80208. Be sure to include
and continuing through to the campus of today. Its 200-plus color-
your full name and mailing
drenched pages explore Ritchie and Childress’ quest “to build a
address. We’ll select a winner
sustainable and future-focused environment that will serve students and the community for generations to
from the correct entries; the
come.”
winning entry will win a prize
The book describes not just architectural features, but the ways that those features enhance student
courtesy of the DU Bookstore.
learning and benefit the community—how and why the University looks the way it does today.
The limited-edition book, dedicated in memory of Childress, is peppered with the late architect’s
Congratulations to Cheryl
notes and drawings and provides unique insight into his vision and collaboration with Ritchie.
Nygaard (BS ’82) for winning the
“Our job is to bring light into dim places,” Childress said. “It’s not a matter of tearing things down.”
fall issue’s pop quiz.
This book is available at the DU Bookstore and www.dubookstore.com.
—Chelsey Baker-Hauck
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DUMagazineAd_Fall08_FINAL.indd 1
University of Denver Magazine Connections 49
10/9/08 9:58:49 AM
 1993
Angela (Rubel) Boots
(BSBA ’93) has been
working in various
capacities of real estate
for the past nine years,
most recently leas-
ing retail space for
Highwoods Properties
in Kansas and Missouri. Angela lives in Kansas
City, Mo., and spends her spare time travel-
ing, writing, running marathons and working
toward her real estate broker’s license and
certified commercial investment member des-
ignation. Angela and her husband, Brian, wel-
comed a baby boy, Finley, on April 24.
1995
Angel Cortes (MA ’95) earned a doctorate in
history from the University of Notre Dame.
He is an assistant professor of history at Holy
Cross College and lives with his wife, Marcy,
and sons, Bernal and Tobias, in South Bend,
Ind.
Class Notes Challenge: 1998
Mulyadi Alamsjah (BSBA ’98) is the
founder of PT Asian Pak Chem, a self-
adhesive tape manufacturer; PT Goldfox
Group International, a trading company;
and PT Embrio Graha Makmur, an interior
design company. Mulyadi lives in Tangerang,
Indonesia, with his wife, Caroline, and sons,
Vincent and Ryan.
Tara Beiter-Fluhr (MA ’98) was appointed
to Colorado’s Sheridan City Council in
January 2008. Tara also works as a staff tax
analyst for Qwest Communications, focus-
ing on the correct billing of taxes for cus-
tomers. She lives in Englewood, Colo., with
her son, Nicholas.
Matt Branaugh (BA ’98) relocated to
Wheaton, Ill., with his wife, Sarah, and two
children, James and Mattea, in 2006 to take
a job with the Christian magazine publisher
Christian Today International. In January
Matt became the editor of Your Church
magazine. Prior, Matt worked as a business
reporter and editor for the Daily Camera in
Boulder, Colo. Despite the geographic relo-
cation, Matt says he has remained a fan of
Colorado athletics, especially DU hockey.
50 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008
1996
Rodney Broome (MTEL ’96) recently
returned to Kabul, Afghanistan, after
recovering from back surgery at his home in
Lone Tree, Colo. Rodney is a mentor to the
Minister of Defense Installation Management
Division of the Afghan army.
Bonnie Clark (MA ’96) of Denver is a
historical archaeologist at DU. Bonnie’s
current research into the history of the
American West has garnered the attention of
several publications nationwide, including the
San Francisco Chronicle.
Josh Stone (BA ’96) is a meteorologist at
WMBD 31 in Peoria, Ill. After graduating
from DU, Josh got a master’s of science
degree in broadcast meteorology from
Mississippi State University. He began his
broadcasting career in Grand Junction, Colo.,
where he was named “Best Weathercaster” by
the Colorado Broadcaster’s Association; he
later worked in Sioux Falls, S.D. Josh also is
working toward a private pilot’s license.
Gary Compton (MM ’98) is the chair of
the fine arts department at an independent
school in the Tampa Bay, Fla., area. Gary
received his PhD in music education from
the University of Southern Florida in 2006.
In addition to his teaching and administra-
tive duties, Gary also maintains an active
performing career as a trumpet player. He
lives in Wesley Chapel, Fla., with his wife
and two daughters.
Allison (Noblett)
Coyne (BA ’98) and
her husband, George,
celebrated their fifth
wedding anniversary
this year with a 12-day
trip to Ireland. Allison
received a master’s
degree in early childhood special education
from George Mason University in 2003
and works as a special education teacher for
Arlington Public Schools. George works as
a psychotherapist. Allison and George live
in Alexandria, Va., with their 2-year-old son,
Jackson.
1997
Tania (Gabriel) Garcia (BA ’97) of
Camarillo, Calif., was promoted to director
of development and alumni relations at
California State University, Channel Islands.
1999
Lori Asher (JD ’99) of Shelbyville, Ind., had
a baby girl, Sophia. Lori and her husband,
Brian, are also the proud parents of three
boys—Bryce, Luke and Aidan.
Geoffrey Deweese (JD ’99) of Fayetteville,
N.C., was appointed group judge advocate for
the only active duty psychological operations
group in the Army. Geoffrey earned an
LLM in military law from the Army Judge
Advocate General’s Legal Center and School
at the University of Virginia. As a group judge
advocate, Geoffrey oversees a staff of 14 and
provides legal advice on all areas of military
law. Geoffrey also is on “jump status,” which
means he occasionally parachutes from
helicopters and airplanes.
WINNER!
Joshua Holmberg (MBA ’98)
of Littleton, Colo., wrote the book The Teen’s
Guide to Personal Finance (iUniverse, 2008).
Joshua hopes that the book will help teens
and adults avoid financial pitfalls and take
advantage of the time they have to build
wealth through goal-setting, saving, investing
and maximizing tax advantages.
Matthew Neal (BA ’98) of Hutchinson,
Kan., is chief of police for the Halstead
Police Department in Kansas. Matthew
served for seven years with the Hutchinson
Police Department as a patrol officer, school
resource officer, gang enforcement officer
and hostage and crisis negotiator. Matthew
also serves as a consultant and trainer for a
Dallas-based law enforcement and leadership
training company.
Anita Wesley (MA ’98) of Denver has been
appointed philanthropy adviser to the Rose
Community Foundation, where she will
assist donor families with their philanthropic
work. Prior, Anita was a project coordinator
for the Colorado Blue Ribbon Commission
for Health Care Reform and director of
annual giving and major gifts for the Denver
Health Foundation.
Entrepreneur
William Lee (JD ’99) moved back to Denver
to work as an expert witness for real estate
transaction and mortgage finance lawsuits.
Renee Pepys Lowe For the past three years William worked as
an executive for a Clearwater, Fla., real estate
developer and ran the company’s mortgage
Renee Pepys Lowe, lending subsidiary.
Stephanie Hager Photography
founder, president and CEO
of CoCaLo Inc., has been in Chad Rogers (BSBA ’99) of Malibu, Calif.,
the juvenile retail business is on the Bravo cable channel show “Million
since she was a kid. Her Dollar Listing,” which gives viewers an inside
mother was a pioneer in the look at three prominent Los Angeles Realtors.
concept of coordinated baby Chad received his real estate license at the age
of 18 before graduating from DU.
bedding in the early ’70s
and included Pepys Lowe
and her three siblings in the 2001
entrepreneurial endeavors.
But while her mother
Bharat Chowrira (JD ’01) of San Francisco
joined Nektar Therapeutics as chief operating
may have paved the way in officer and head of the PEGylation business
children’s room decor, Pepys unit. Previously, Bharat worked for Merck &
Lowe (BSBA ’87) is blazing Co. as the executive director of worldwide
her own trail today. licensing and external research.
Pepys Lowe started
CoCaLo from scratch in Khalid Rosa (BS ’01, MAS ’08) of Denver
graduated from DU with a master’s
1998, and it quickly became
of applied science degree in computer
one of the most prominent
information systems. Khalid plans on
infant bedding designers completing additional graduate work in
and manufacturers in the database administration and information
industry, with products sold systems security.
at more than 400 retailers, including JC Penney, Babies ‘R’ Us, Kohl’s and the Burlington
Coat Factory. Katherine Schaff (BA ’01) of San Francisco
“Our job at CoCaLo is to make life easier for moms and to give them the tools received a master’s degree in public health
to create the most beautiful nursery possible for their baby,” says Pepys Lowe, who from the University of California, Berkeley,
in spring 2008. Katherine is employed by the
works closely with her mom-led team (24 of her 27 employees are mothers) to create
Alameda County Public Health Department,
fashionable room collections.
where she focuses on eliminating public
“It’s all about the way that we apply color, pattern and theme ... that’s what sets us
health inequities.
apart,” she continues. “When we take 11 different fabrications and textures and prints
and colors, our designs become very eclectic, and many buyers would never think of
putting that all together.”
After majoring in retail and marketing at DU, Pepys Lowe spent a few years
2002
Joseph Labrecque (MA ’02) of Thornton,
working for Robinsons-May department stores before joining her mother’s business, Colo., and his wife, Leslie, are proud to
NoJo. When the company sold in 1996, she received offers from Martix and OshKosh announce the birth of their baby girl, Paige,
to design and produce children’s bedding lines under their brands. born on Aug. 19.
But, it wasn’t long before she had created her own licensed brand, CoCaLo Baby—
Lauren (Hachmeister) Metz (BSBA ’02)
named for her two daughters, Courtenay and Catherine.
opened a boutique, Delish Demure, in
Pepys Lowe’s entrepreneurial spirit isn’t the only family value she’s continued.
Greenwood Village, Colo., in August after
Near her home in Southern California, she is involved with Orangewood Children’s
two years of preparation. Lauren opened the
Foundation for abused and neglected children. On a national level, she sits on the board
store hoping to put Denver on the fashion
and executive committee of K.I.D.S. (Kids In Distressed Situations)—meeting needs of map. Lauren’s love of fashion began when she
the 13 million children in the U.S. living below the poverty level. lived in London while studying abroad and
“I have grown up in a family where it was important to give back,” she says. working for Burberry.
>>www.cocalo.com
—Janna Widdifield
University of Denver Magazine Connections 51
 2003
Gayle Herde (PhD ’03) and her husband,
Bryan, celebrated their 30th wedding
anniversary in July. In addition to her
practice as a litigation consultant, Gayle
joined her husband’s company, Integrity
Services Group, to do communication
research. They live in Centennial, Colo.
Lauren Kisser (MBA ’03, MS ’03) of
Seattle reached the summit of Mt. Rainier
on July 8. The climb took Lauren three
days, which she describes as both exhausting
and exhilarating. Lauren also raised $5,334
to support the Fred Hutchinson Cancer
Research Center for the Climb for Breast
Cancer.
Joy Zarra (MA ’03) of Wheat Ridge, Colo.,
won a regional Emmy award July 20 for
best community/public service campaign.
Joy, who has worked as a juvenile diversion
counselor for the past five years, created
the campaign, “Uninterrupted,” to address
Chancellor’s
Innovation Fund
Funding Innovation • Funding Excellence • Funding DU
The Tradition
Continues With You
invest in the future, invest in our students
The Chancellor’s Innovation Fund, supported by your annual gift,
strengthens scholarships and priority programs for our students.
To contribute to DU, please visit
www.giving.du.edu
University Advancement
2190 E. Asbury Ave., Denver, CO 80208
303.871.4677 800.448.3238
52 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008
the communication gap between adults and
adolescents. Joy plans to continue working
school science in Flandreau, S.D., and
Ryan works as a project engineer at Verasun
Reunion recap
with teens and media in an effort to expand Energy in Aurora, S.D., where the couple Last March, Arthur Saunders (BA ’73) of Wayzata, Minn., participated in a reunion of 20 Beta Theta Pi fraternity brothers (pictured below left).
the project globally. resides. Participants traveled from seven states—Florida, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Wyoming, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Virginia—and from across Colorado
to attend the annual home hockey series against DU archrival Colorado College. The group also participated in the 2008 Beta Theta Pi initiation cer-
Abrian Suazo (BA ’04) has lived in Madrid,
2004 Spain, for the past two years. She teaches at
emony, spent time reminiscing over old pictures and videos and gathered at the Retreat Bar, owned by fellow reveler David Lowe (BSBA ’75). Randle
Loveland (BSBA ’72) of Vancouver, Wash., organized the weekend.
Katherine Johnson the American School of Madrid, where she
(BS ’04) of Littleton, co-directs the high school drama program
Colo., graduated in May and teaches singing lessons. She also is a
from the University member of the British Theater Madrid
of Southern California Players. Living in Spain has given Abrian
with a doctor of dental ample opportunity to travel throughout
surgery degree. Katie Europe, Asia and Africa.
lives in Pocatello, Idaho,
where she is completing Bryan Villano (BSBA ’04) of Deerfield, Ill.,
a one-year advanced education residency in returned from Israel after six months abroad.
general dentistry. While in Israel, Bryan worked for Arava
Power Co., a solar power utility company.
Elizabeth (Johnston) McMillan (BS ’04) The company hopes that its first power
and Ryan McMillan (BSME ’05) are happy field, to be completed this year, will provide
to announce their marriage on June 7 in 10 percent of Israel’s total power using
Brookings, S.D. Elizabeth teaches middle photovoltaics.
In June several members of the University of Denver Chicago alumni chapter participated in “Chicago Cares,” an annual philanthropic event to
support Chicago’s public schools. DU’s Chicago group spent the day repainting a portion of an elementary school. Pictured above right (back row,
from left): Nicholas Sauer (BA ’05) of North Barrington, Ill.; Adam Sauer, junior business major; Adam Gunzberg (BSBA ’93) of Chicago; Tim Heath (BA
’98, MTEL ’03) of Chicago; Julia Brennan; Kevin Friduss (BA ’05) of Chicago. Front row (from left): Jonathan Brosk (BSBA ’05) of Chicago; Aimee Marx
(BA ’07) of Northbrook, Ill.
Career corner
Q: I’d like to work abroad. How do I go about finding a job in another country?
A: If you’ve set your sights upon finding a job overseas, there are some things to consider before you
send a résumé to lands unknown:
• Employment rates are not the same in every country. Research the country’s embassy Web site to find
statistics.
• In some countries a basic knowledge of the language is important, while in others, the fact that English is
your first language is a bonus.
• L iving standards, and therefore pay levels, are not the same in every country. Your travel costs could exceed a
local person’s annual salary.
• Y our cultural competency about the country you’ll be living in may not match your new supervisor’s, or vice
versa. It may be difficult to adjust to social mores.
• W ork-abroad programs are only available during certain times of the year and within a specified time of your
graduation.
• P ersonal safety in the country you’ll be working in varies; research reports on illnesses, traffic accidents and
theft.
iStock
• Check with alumni who are from the country you want to work in for networking opportunities.
The Daniels College of Business Suitts Center for Career Services can assist graduate alumni with international job searches; call 303-871-2154. Undergraduate
alumni should contact the DU Career Center at 303-871-2150.
Tips reprinted from the March 2007 NACE Journal with permission of the National Association of Colleges and Employers, copyright holder.
University of Denver Magazine Connections 53
 Pioneer pics Alumni Director Jeffrey Howard
Gerald Cortinez (BFA ’84) and husband David Chase of New York
City pose with a copy of the University of Denver Magazine at Uluru (Ayers Jeffrey Howard has been named executive director of alumni relations at the University
Rock) while on vacation in Australia in March 2008. While there, they of Denver. He joined DU in the fall from the U.S. Olympic Committee, where he worked as the
attended the 30th celebration of the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in Sydney director of education and outreach programs in corporate communications.
and spent a week in Melbourne. Howard returns to DU after nearly a decade; he previously was assistant athletics director for
Nancy (Schniedwind) Duffy public relations, coordinating media relations during DU’s transition to Division I athletics and
the construction of the Ritchie Center.
(BA ’70) of Hillsborough, N.J., stands
“Returning to DU in a capacity to help further engage the University’s alumni and advocate
with her son, Pat Duffy (BSBA ’06) of
for the many great programs and initiatives under way on and off campus is a great personal and
Vernon, Conn., in front of the Roman
professional opportunity,” Howard says. “I am a believer in lifelong learning, and the chance to
Colosseum while on a family vacation. return to an environment that fosters that philosophy at such a high level is exciting. I am truly
As you pioneer lands far and proud to join a staff and campus community that inspires excellence in so many different areas of
wide, be sure to pack your DU gear and strike a pose in front of a national monument, focus.”
the fourth wonder of the world or your hometown hot spot. If we print your submission, Howard brings extensive experience in project management, marketing and public relations
you’ll receive some new DU paraphernalia courtesy of the DU Bookstore. to his new role at DU. During his time with the U.S. Olympic Committee, Howard oversaw
Send your print or high-resolution digital image and a description of the location to: significant programming in alumni relations, education and athlete career transition services. His
Pioneer Pics, University of Denver Magazine, 2199 S. University Blvd., Denver, CO 80208, experience also includes coordinating programming and publicity both internally and externally.
or e-mail du-magazine@du.edu. Be sure to include your full name, address, degree(s) and Howard graduated from Metropolitan State College in Denver with a bachelor of science in sports information and reporting. He
year(s) of graduation. holds a master’s degree in sports organization management from Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 in France. Howard is married to DU
alumna Gerri Gomez-Howard (MA ’93), and the couple has three children.
—Sarah Satterwhite

Deaths 1970s
Katharine Dodge (MA ’70), Denver, 5-27-08
Stephen Schuyler (JD ’71), Denver, 7-16-08
1930s
Do you ever
Doug Phillips (JD ’73), Denver, 7-15-08
Gerald Lovins (BS ’31), Santa Fe, N.M., 7-7-08 Carolyn Crain (MA ’74), Arcadia, Calif., 5-8-08
Burton Smead (BA ’34, JD ’50), Hope, Maine, 1-13-08 Randall Bruns (MBA ’77), Beaverton, Ore., 5-24-08
Dorothy Wilcox (MA ’77), Longmont, Colo., 8-14-08 wonder what your alma
1940s mater has been doing
Dorothee (Comnillo) Peterson (BA ’46, MA ’72), Aurora, Colo., 1980s since you left?
5-22-08 Mary Murray (MT ’85), Greeley, Colo., 7-10-08
William Hockett (MBA ’49), Mount Dora, Fla., 2-1-08 Rick Hall (JD ’87), Omaha, Neb., 6-15-08
Come to a DU on the Road event and
Wayne Roush (BA ’49, MA ’51), Little River, S.C., 2-5-08
J. Daniel Smith (BS ’49), Fairfax, Va., 6-26-08 1990s find out. University representatives
Jonathan Kindred (BA ’93, MS ’97, MSF ’97, JD ’97), Leawood, Kan., will travel to cities this winter and
1950s 5-19-08 spring to provide an update on campus
William Pryich (BS ’50), Rock Springs, Wyo., 6-20-08
W. Lynn Smith (MA ’52, PhD ’54), Denver, 6-11-08 2000s developments and the vision and goals
Natley Breningstall (BSBA ’53), Denver, 5-19-08 Narendar Barry (JD ’04), Albuquerque, N.M., 7-19-08 behind them. All DU alumni are invited
Stan Miles (BS ’53), Centennial, Colo., 6-23-08 to enjoy an evening of food and drinks
Randell Ericson (BSBA ’55), Roswell, N.M., 3-21-08 Students with fellow classmates, faculty and staff.
John Grow Jr. (BS ’55), Denver, 5-30-08 Devany Carroll, senior psychology major, Cape Elizabeth, Maine, 8-18-08
Look for us this winter and spring
1960s Faculty and Staff as we travel to the following cities:
Tom Richardson (BA ’61, MA ’63), Grand Junction, Colo., 6-5-08 Ann “Lee” Albi (BA ’48), admissions office (retired 1986), Denver, 6-25-08
Atlanta, GA
Jay Spangler (BSBA ’61), North Highlands, Calif., 5-22-08 Eric Arnold, history professor emeritus, Denver, 8-6-08
Las Vegas, NV
William Sparks (MA ’62), Lubbock, Texas, 6-15-08 George Boyd, associate vice provost of internationalization, Denver, 9-2-08
San Diego, CA
Esau Ali (BFA ’63), Ingleside, Wash., 5-13-08 Marie Younkerman (BA ’07), assistant to the director in the Daniels
Seattle, WA
Thayer Rudd Jr. (BSBA ’69, MBA ’70), Hinsdale, Ill., 7-16-08 College of Business statistics department, Lakewood, Colo., 7-8-08
For more information, please visit
Friends www.alumni.du.edu/DUontheroad
Johnston Livingston, husband of longtime DU Trustee Pat Livingston, or call 1.800.871.3822.
Denver, 9-29-08

54 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008 WinterOTRad_FINAL.indd 1 University of Denver Magazine 2:16:30 PM 55
Connections
11/10/08
 2005
Brent Brackle
(MBA ’05) recently
won the annual FTI
Denver Office Golf
Tournament. Brent
works at FTI Consulting
as a senior consultant
and lives with his wife, Lindsay, and dog,
Bailey, in Arvada, Colo.
Christine Fuhrman (MSW ’05) moved
to Gardner, Kan., to work as the director
of transitional living programs at TLC for
Children & Families. Prior, she worked at
Third Way Center in Denver.
Cash Parker (BA ’05) of Boulder, Colo.,
received a juris doctorate in May from the
University of Colorado, Boulder. Cash was
elected to the Order of the Coif and also
was a member of the CU team that won
the national championship at the American
Constitution Society’s Constance Baker
Motley National Moot Court Competition.
2006
Matt Carle (attd. 2003–06) of Anchorage,
Alaska, has been traded from the National
Hockey League’s San Jose Sharks to the
Tampa Bay Lightning.
Carolyn Munoz (BA ’06) of Englewood,
Colo., is in charge of public relations and
marketing for the Colorado Run for Congo
Women. The run/walk/hike benefit aims
to raise money to provide physical and
emotional aid for Congolese women who
have survived sexual violence. Carolyn and
her fellow volunteers are part of a global
movement that has partners in 10 states and
four countries.
2007
Yvonne Guzman (BBA ’07) of Thornton,
Colo., is working toward her MBA with
a specialization in international business
at Regis University. Yvonne works for a
global investment company and hopes that
many more career paths open up after her
graduation in March 2009.
2008
Peter Mannino (BSBA ’08) of Farmington
Hills, Mich., has signed a one-year, two-
way, free agent contract with the National
Hockey League’s New York Islanders. Peter
56 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008
Pioneer
generations Inventor George Lof
Republican Ryan Greenawalt Proud. This word describes Julianne
On Parkway Drive in the Englewood, Colo., neighbor-
hood of Cherry Hills, a piece of history is for sale. Years ago,
(Rose) Hennings’ (BSBA ’82) feelings about her however, the technology which makes this item distinct was
Ryan Greenawalt (BSBA ’02) is
Joseph Moran
senior vice president at Jefferies & family’s Pioneer legacy. of little interest or value to anyone other than its owner.
Courtesy of George Lof
Co., a publicly traded bond firm on A Colorado native, Julianne’s family ties to That’s because the heating system employed in the
Wall Street, where he works in the the state go back more than 100 years when her house on Parkway Drive—although powered by clean,
Fixed Income Group serving the needs great-grandparents chose to homestead at the renewable energy—was too expensive compared to other
of public entities. foot of the Rockies. sources of fuel.
He also is a founding member The first member of Julianne’s family Completed in 1957, George Lof’s home at 6 Parkway
of DU’s Young Alumni Endowed to graduate from the University was her Drive has the distinction of being the oldest known solar home.
Scholarship Fund and one of its Lof (BSCHE ’35) designed and constructed the house’s solar-energy heating system, which pro-
grandmother, Bertha (Boyd) Reed (BA ’49,
biggest donors. He was raised vides between one-half to two-thirds of the total heat, after building a similar residence in Boulder,
MA ’50), who was 50 years old at the time and
Catholic, loves sports and is a Colo.
working full-time as a teacher. One year later
passionate member of the Republican Lof first became involved with solar energy while earning a master’s degree from the
Bertha’s daughter Alice (Reed) Siddeek (BA
Party. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He later pursued solar-energy research at the University of
’50) obtained her degree from the University.
And he is gay. Colorado, directed the Industrial Research Institute at DU and worked for Colorado State University
Julianne’s pride for the accomplishments
Greenawalt says he spent until 1999 as a professor and director of the university’s Solar Energy Application Laboratory.
of her mother and grandmother stems from the Lof also designed, manufactured and installed home solar-heating systems for the Solaron
several years learning how to “be
fact that they both earned degrees during a time Corp. The efficiency of solar energy, however, could not offset its considerable expense in the minds
Republican and be gay.” His path led
him to the Log Cabin Republicans, a when relatively few women did. She concedes of government, researchers and the public. Consequently, interest and progress in the field of solar-
political organization that champions that she’d be nothing but proud should her energy dwindled for several decades.
Republican fiscal values as well as 16-year-old daughter choose to attend DU. Today, however, “we are now at a point where solar is going to move ahead,” Lof says. “Instead
equality. Although Alice lives in Casper, Wyo., and of having to make solar cheaper, what needed to happen was for other fuel sources to become more
“I am socially liberal and fiscally Julianne lives in Littleton, Colo., mother and expensive.”
daughter enjoy discussing what they read in the Now, with green energy all the rage, the rows of solar panels on Lof’s roof could make the oldest
conservative,” says Greenawalt.
“I believe in controlling your own University of Denver Magazine. known solar residence more valuable in the eyes of potential buyers.
destiny, limited government, free —Samantha Stewart —Samantha Stewart
markets. That being said, I believe
the party is headed down the wrong
path because it is focusing on social issues, things that the government shouldn’t be
involved in.”
Greenawalt is now the organization’s national board director and chairs its New
York state political action committee.
Contact us
Of course, he frequently must respond to people who wonder how he supports a Tell us about your Name (include maiden name)
party that seems hostile to his lifestyle, but again, this incongruous piece fits once he
career and personal DU degree(s) and graduation year(s)
explains his perspective.
accomplishments, awards, Address
“Ninety percent of the gay community is focused on supporting the liberal
agenda,” he says. “We need people on both sides of the aisle to support equal rights.”
Greenawalt is equally passionate about serving and supporting his alma mater. He
births, life events or
whatever else is keeping
City
State ZIP code Country
has given nearly $25,000 to the Young Alumni Endowed Scholarship Fund and serves you busy. Do you support
on its board. Phone Fax
a cause? Do you have
“I want to help people in need, whether those people are students or people who E-mail
any hobbies? Did you just
have no rights.”
return from a vacation? Let Employer Occupation
—Janalee Card Chmel
us know! Don’t forget to What have you been up to? (Use a separate sheet if necessary.)
send a photo. (Include a
self-addressed, postage-paid
envelope if you would like
is expected to make his professional debut Question of the hour: What do you think is the biggest issue facing higher education today?
Post your class note online at www.alumni.du.edu,
next season with the Bridgeport Sound e-mail du-magazine@du.edu or mail in the form on your photo returned.)
Tigers of the American Hockey League. page 57.
Post your class note online at www.alumni.du.edu, e-mail du-magazine@du.edu or mail your note to: Class Notes,
University of Denver Magazine, 2199 S. University Blvd., Denver, CO 80208.
University of Denver Magazine Connections 57
 ANNOUNCEMENTS
Lifelong Learning
OLLI DU’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute
is a membership program designed for men and
women age 55 and “better” who wish to pursue
lifelong learning in the company of like-minded
peers. Members select the topics to be explored
and share their expertise and interests while
serving as teachers and learners.
>>universitycollege.du.edu/learning/viva/
Enrichment Program Noncredit short
courses, lectures, seminars and weekend
intensives explore a wide range of subjects
without exams, grades or admission
requirements.
>>universitycollege.du.edu/learning/ep/
Get Involved
The Denver Scholarship Foundation, which
helps students overcome obstacles to education
by offering tools and flexible scholarships to
participating Colorado post-secondary schools,
including DU, is looking for volunteers for a
variety of projects. Contact Alan Jimenez (BA ’84,
JD’ 87) at alanjayjimenez@hotmail.com for more
information.
Mark Your Calendar
Founders Day The March 5 gala will honor
alumni award winners and raise funds for
scholarships.
>>www.alumni.du.edu/Participate/Founders
DU on the Road Find out what your alma
mater has been doing since you left. See if DU is
coming to a city near you.
DU Photography Department
>>www.alumni.du.edu/DUontheRoad
Volunteer Days Provide assistance to
the homeless community April 24 at Project
Homeless Connect, held on the DU campus.
For more information, contact Katie Symons at
303-871-3332.
Contact us
University of Denver Magazine
2199 S. University Blvd.
Denver, CO 80208
du-magazine@du.edu
303-871-2776
58 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008
Nostalgia Needed
If you have ideas for nostalgic topics we could
cover in the magazine, please send them our way.
We’d love to see your old DU photos as well.
Pioneer Generations
How many generations of your family have
attended DU? If you have stories and photos to
share about your family’s history with DU, please
send them our way!
Calling All Experts
We’re trying to get to know our alumni better
while developing possibilities for future articles.
Please send us your ideas. We would especially
like to hear about readers who:
• are farmers or ranchers
• were DU Centennial scholars
• are members of the Class of 1979
• are involved in hospice/palliative care
• served in the Peace Corps
• are experts in early childhood education
Career Connections
Pioneer Alumni Network Join other
Denver area alumni for free networking events
each month.
>>www.alumni.du.edu
Essayists Wanted
The University of Denver Magazine is accepting
proposals for reflective, first-person essays
on any subject (600 words in length) for
possible publication. Opinion pieces will not
be considered. Materials submitted will not be
returned.
Stay in Touch
Online Alumni Directory Update your
contact information, find other alumni and
“bookmark” your alumni friends and classmates.
You also can read class notes and death notices.
Online class note submissions will automatically
be included in the University of Denver Magazine.
>>www.alumni.du.edu
University of Denver Magazine Connections 59
 Miscellanea
Centenary celebration
Wayne Armstrong

This Colorado license plate was procured for Chancellor Chester Alter in 1963 as a Christmas present to celebrate the University’s impending
100th anniversary in 1964. Gov. John Love (BA ’39, LLB ’41) authorized the Department of Motor Vehicles to change Alter’s vehicle registration
slip to “DU-1964” after the department had denied an earlier request. The 45-year-old license plate is part of the University Archives.

60 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2008