Professional Documents
Culture Documents
UN I V E R S I T Y O F D E N V E R 1 0 . 2 0 0 9
Inside
• New board chair
• L eo Block remembered
• Engineering whiz
• Bike-sharing program
• B asketball duo
istockphoto.com
Wayne Armstrong
Time Warner Cable), chairman of the National Cable Television Vice Chancellor for University
Association and on the boards of eight public companies. He is Communications
Carol Farnsworth
a founder or co-founder of six cable TV networks, including the
Editorial Director
Food Network, Northwest Cable News and E! Entertainment. Chelsey Baker-Hauck (BA ’96)
At DU, Myhren has served on several trustee committees, sequentially chairing the Univer-
Managing Editor
sity’s audit, finance and budget, and faculty and educational affairs committees. Myhren and his Kathryn Mayer (BA ’07)
wife, Vicki, are the principal supporters of the Victoria H. Myhren Gallery in the Shwayder Art Art Director
Building. Craig Korn, VeggieGraphics
Burns, a DU board member for 28 years, served as chairman from 1990 until 2005 and Community News is published monthly by the
again from 2007 until Aug. 31, 2009. An icon of Denver’s business, civic and professional sports University of Denver, University Communications,
2199 S. University Blvd., Denver, CO 80208. The
community, she is president and CEO of the D.C. Burns Realty and Trust Co. and president and University of Denver is an EEO/AA institution.
owner of the Burnsley Hotel in Denver. She will continue to serve on the board.
The Joy Burns Arena at the Ritchie Center and the Joy Burns Plaza in the Newman Center
for the Performing Arts were, in large part, made possible by her generosity. The Franklin L. Burns Contact Community News at 303-871-4312
School of Real Estate and Construction Management is named for her late husband. or tips@du.edu
To receive an e-mail notice upon the
Peter Gilbertson (BA ’75), founder and CEO of Anacostia & Pacific Co., joins Myhren and publication of Community News, contact us
Burns on the board as new member. with your name and e-mail address.
—Media Relations Staff
2
Redesigned DU homepage headlines
Wayne Armstrong
branding initiative
A new brand strategy is at the heart of the redesigned DU Web site that launched
Sept. 14.
The homepage (www.du.edu) now has links for different audience groups
and top-level pages that focus on prospective students. But the Web site is just one
component of a larger initiative to bring focus and clarity to the University’s vision to
be a great private university dedicated to the public good.
“This effort is intended to be a logical extension of our vision, values, mission and
goals statements, one that further clarifies them for the University community and
gives them voice for a much broader audience,” Chancellor Robert Coombe wrote in
an August memo to deans and administrators.
“Our goal is to develop greater visibility for DU as an action leader, as an institution
that proactively addresses the great issues of our day,” Coombe wrote. “We need to
tell our story well, with many examples.”
The strategy calls for the University to focus its internal and external communication
on DU’s efforts to improve the human condition. The University community has the
opportunity to validate DU’s “action leadership” with “DU Something 365,” a page on
the new Web site dedicated to sharing stories about the research, scholarly, service
and creative endeavors that provide tangible proof of DU’s positive impact on the
world.
Students, faculty, staff and alumni are invited to submit their own stories and
photos directly to “DU Something 365” by clicking on the “Submit your story” button.
Those submissions also will be routed for possible use on DU Today or in other
campus publications.
The action-leadership message also is on display in new campus light-pole banners
that highlight some of the many ways students and faculty are “DU-ing something” to
improve the human condition. Stories related to the banners appear on DU Today,
DU365 and elsewhere on the DU Web site.
—Media Relations Staff
and a passion for learning,” says Scott Lumpkin, associate vice chancellor in University
Advancement.
Block (BA ’35) met Smith in 1985, when Block attended his 50th reunion at DU.
“He invited me to visit him in San Antonio, an invitation which I accepted, and those visits
continued both there and in Denver,” Smith says.
Block contributed $1 million for the first fully funded chair at the University.
“[The chair] brought a series of visiting professors to DU for 20 years, beginning with
former Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm,” Lumpkin says. Lamm has remained at DU as executive
director for the Institute for Public Policy Studies.
“Because of its timing, this gift and the addition of Lamm to the faculty represented a real
and morale-boosting enhancement for our academic community at a critical juncture in our history,” Smith says.
In 2008, Block permanently assigned the chair to the Josef Korbel School of International Studies.
Block was the founder and owner of Block Distributing Co., now called Republic National Distributing, which became the largest wine and
liquor-distributing outlet in south Texas.
—Kathryn Mayer
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Alumna named first Hispanic president of American Library Association
Camila Alire (MLS ’74) fondly remembers her first experience in a library.
“I was in grade school, and I went with my friend who had a library card,” Alire says. “The first book I ever
checked out was The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss.”
Today, Alire is the first-ever Hispanic to serve as president of the American Library Association (ALA), the oldest
and largest library organization in the world. She was elected this summer to the 2009–10 term by the association’s
65,000-plus members.
“It is such an honor to lead the association,” says Alire, who’s been dubbed by Hispanic Business Magazine as
one of the 100 most influential Hispanics in the country. “And as the first Hispanic ever elected to the ALA presi-
Courtesy of Carmila Aire
Wayne Armstrong
Denver launched a free bicycle-sharing program with high-tech bikes available on request
for all-day use.
The DU Undergraduate Student Government — in partnership with local businesses,
the city of Denver and DU academic departments — launched the bike-lending program,
which allows students, faculty or staff members to check out one of 20 new bikes from
Nelson or Centennial residence halls with just a Pioneer card. The bikes can be used all day
until 7 p.m. and come with a lock and helmet.
The program will be free through the winter and early spring, eventually folding into a
citywide Denver bike-sharing network that will station some 600 bikes at self-service, solar
powered kiosks all over the city. DU is expected to have at least two kiosks on campus.
“It’s really a perfect solution for a lot of students like me who don’t have a bike,” said
student senator Dillon Doyle. “I wouldn’t use a bicycle every day, but if I could just borrow
one, I’d use one once a week to run errands or buy groceries.”
Senior Antoine Perretta, undergraduate student body president, said there had been a
good amount of buzz on campus already and students were eager to get rolling.
The bikes, designed to be durable, safe and easy to operate, sport baskets that can
hold up to 25 pounds, tail lights powered by the motion of the wheels, and seats that adjust
to fit riders with the flick of a lever. Locks are built into the bikes so they can’t get lost or
left behind. Bikes will be kept in specially marked racks outside the residence halls where
they are loaned out.
The program is the product of student involvement. Driven by Zoee Turrill (BA international studies ’09) and Mary Jean O’Malley (BA jour-
nalism, political science ’09) with the student government last year, Doyle and other students have picked up the effort this year. Provost Gregg
Kvistad said student enthusiasm made what was what made the dream a reality. Students raised $50,000 to offset costs.
Kvistad tested out one of the bikes and found it rode “smooth as silk.”
“I hope everyone on campus — that includes faculty and staff — uses these,” he said.
>>www.youtube.com/watch?v=08SELScHNoM
—Chase Squires
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High performance
Engineering student puts her academic pedal to the metal
Wayne Armstrong
career into high gear at the University of Denver.
In January 2009, the first-year student set her
sights on a prestigious and highly selective automotive
engineering program in Germany, the cradle of high-
performance car production. Despite the long odds,
she was accepted into the National Science Foundation
(NSF) program before the end of her first academic
year. She was on her way.
“It was a little overwhelming,” she says. “We had
to be there May 28 — my classes weren’t even over —
but all the professors here were so excited for me and
worked with me. I even took one final exam while I was
in Germany.”
Classen, who dreams of a career designing high-
performance automobiles (for Porsche, she hopes), was
one of eight American students selected to participate
in the NSF’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates
program.
“The whole idea is to get undergraduates the
valuable research experiences they’ll need to get into
graduate school,” Classen says.
And the 19-year-old mechanical engineering major
already has her eye on graduate school and beyond.
Engineering Professor Dan Armentrout, who
joined mathematics Professor Richard Ball in writing
letters of recommendation for Classen, says he admired
her determination and ambition when she came to him
with the idea of applying for the NSF program. But he didn’t want her to expect too much at the start. Competing applicants for the
program came from schools like MIT and Cornell.
“She came to me with this great idea to go to Germany and learn about automotive design, but it’s a very difficult program and for
someone who just came to college, it’s a lot to ask,” Armentrout says. “It took me by surprise. But she’s one of those students who takes
the toughest you can give her and asks for more.”
Classen was assigned to a laboratory research project at the Technische Universität Darmstadt (the Technical University of
Darmstadt), south of Frankfurt. There, she was immersed in a computational fluid dynamics program and oversaw 10 super-fast
computers that ran models for a device that would allow for particle flow testing, using automotive soot as a particulate.
The work was demanding, and at times the formulas she worked with overwhelmed the computers, requiring modifications and
adaptation in midstream. But, she says, it also was rewarding and engrossing.
“[It’s] really right on the edge of what a computer can do today,” Classen says. “Being over in Germany and being so close to all the
super cars that I’ve fallen in love with, it was just so exciting to see them and be that close to that work. I’m just even more motivated.”
Classen toured Germany with family for a week after the eight-week program ended; she returned home at the end of July. By
mid-August she was already lined up for core classes in engineering and says she’s a bit disappointed she won’t be taking a mathematics
course this fall.
Now in her second year at DU, Classen says she’s amazed how her life and DU seemed to cross paths at the right time. When she
began searching for a college, she only applied to DU at her mother’s urging, with her eyes on some place far away from Colorado.
Ultimately, a visit to DU’s School of Engineering and Computer Science convinced her to enroll.
“It really was tough for me to decide what I wanted to do. I applied to 11 schools in nine different majors,” she says. “I was really
confused when I started the process. I think math and science is really what interests me the most. Now, I can’t imagine myself anywhere
else.”
—Chase Squires
5
H1N1 influenza cases reported on
campus
At least 91 percent of college campuses in the U.S. are
reporting cases of H1N1 influenza, and DU is among them.
In preparation for onset of the disease on campus, DU officials
spent the summer discussing the illness, but they warn the
University community not to be overly concerned about it.
“It’s important for everyone to understand that H1N1 is
receiving a lot of attention right now, but there’s no need to
panic if you or someone you know is diagnosed with the virus,”
Bobby Wenner
Students document volunteer service in seasonal flu but both can lead to hospitalization and, in some
cases, death.
Peru Sick students are encouraged to “self-isolate” until flu
symptoms have passed and they should not return to class until
The phrase “think globally, act locally” didn’t quite cut it for four first- at least 24 hours after their fever resolves without the use of
year students. Tylenol or ibuprofen. This period of time will usually be three
Bobby Wenner, Andrea Fitch, Sam Gerk and David Kloeckner started to five days, Alexander says.
volunteering during their first quarter at DU as part of the “Serve to Lead, In addition, health officials are making several
Lead to Serve” component of the Pioneer Leadership Program (PLP), recommendations this flu season as the risk of H1N1 increases
which requires its first-year students to spend at least 40 hours serving local in the Northern Hemisphere:
organizations.
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The four students interned with Project C.U.R.E., a Denver-based
nonprofit that ships donated medical supplies and equipment to developing
nations. After serving with the organization for a year, Wenner, Fitch, Gerk
and Kloeckner — majors in international studies, business and marketing,
biology, and international studies and Spanish, respectively — decided to act,
rather than just think, globally.
To realize this ambition, the students conceptualized a film about Project
C.U.R.E.’s Clinics program for the organization’s Web site. The program
sends teams of medical professionals abroad to provide free medical care to
communities in developing countries.
Project C.U.R.E staffers gave the idea the green light, and the students
obtained funding for the trip from DU’s Student Scholar Travel Fund. In June,
they traveled to Lima and Pucusana, Peru, accompanied by a 10-person
team of volunteer doctors and nurses.
“The team participants were thrilled to have the students on this trip,”
says Jean Feist, director of C.U.R.E. Clinics.
On the first day of the trip, the medical team held a health fair in Lima’s
Pamplona Alta slum, which is home to 300,000 of Peru’s poorest people.
The experience brought the realities of poverty into sharp focus for the 1.) Wash your hands thoroughly and frequently.
students. 2.) Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue, sleeve, or
“You can read and see as much as you want about poverty in books elbow when sneezing or coughing.
and movies, but it’s hard to really know what it means until you’re able to 3.) Watch for signs of flu symptoms, including a temperature
experience it first hand,” Wenner says. greater than 100 degrees and a sore throat and/or
When they weren’t filming their experience or interviewing the medical a cough. Other symptoms may include headache,
team, the students guided people through the health fair, taught kids how fatigue, body aches and a runny nose.
to wash their hands and eat right, accompanied doctors on house calls and 4.) Anyone with flu-like symptoms should consider
spoke at community events. Kloeckner also served as a translator for the calling their health provider. In most cases, health care
medical team. instructions can be given over the phone and a doctor
The video, which the students plan to complete during fall quarter, will visit can be avoided. The Health and Counseling Center
demonstrate what they learned from their service: that the global aims of is available only to students.
local nonprofits can be achieved through service work at home and abroad. >>www.du.edu/flu
—Media Relations Staff
—Samantha Stewart
6
Brotherly love
Lewises inseparable in name and much more
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[Events]
October