2010 Spring: University of Denver Magazine

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Check out the spring issue of the University of Denver Magazine, where you can read about Lou Gehrig's disease, immigration reform, the most outside-the-box classes at DU and more.

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Spring 2010

U N I V E R S I T Y

O F

MAGAZINE

N I V E R S I T Y A G A Z I N E

O F

UN I V ER S I T Y O F MAGAZINE

UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE

Can immigration be reformed?

Office of the Chancellor

Contents
Features

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Dear Readers: In the world we live in today, new ideas and new information are generated in ways that are not constrained by simple categories or traditional labels. Our creativity responds to the complexity of our lives as we strive to develop effective solutions to the multidimensional problems and issues of our time. Universities are no exception. Over time they have become extraordinarily complex organizations, their curricula and scholarship reflecting our dynamic, ever-changing world. And so it is at DU. When I first came to the University as a faculty member in 1981, I was appointed to what was then the Department of Chemistry. Within a few years, our department changed its name to Chemistry and Biochemistry to reflect the interdisciplinary degrees we had begun offering. In the Division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, this was followed by new degree programs in molecular biology, cognitive neuroscience, ecology and conservation biology, environmental chemistry, geographic information science, atmospheric physics, and more. In a similar manner, our School of Engineering and Computer Science (which for years offered graduate and undergraduate degrees in electrical, mechanical and computer engineering and computer science) developed new interdisciplinary degree programs in bioengineering, materials science, mechatronic systems engineering (a combination of electrical, mechanical and software engineering), nanoscale science engineering, and game development. The most important and difficult issues of our day often are a subtle blend of science and society, the possible solutions requiring an integration of quantitative thinking with social, political, economic and cultural understanding. As a consequence, interdisciplinarity at DU is not limited to science and technology. The boundaries that for so many years have distinguished our professional schools from one another have begun to fade as the world’s businesses, governments and nonprofits demand multi-talented individuals with a broad spectrum of abilities. Today, we are developing truly integrated degree programs between the Daniels College of Business and the Korbel School of International Studies, between Daniels and the Sturm College of Law, and between Sturm and Korbel. Additional interdisciplinary programs link the School of Art and Art History with programs in digital media studies and computer science, a host of departments in the humanities with the Iliff School of Theology, and the many, many departments and programs that together comprise our approach to international education and internationalization of the University. There may be no better example, though, than a new focal point developing around the study of aging in America. Our work in this area blends a host of research programs in the molecular life sciences, the Eleanor Roosevelt Institute for biomedical research, and bioengineering with social science research and education in the Graduate School of Social Work and the Morgridge College of Education. Also included are the Daniels College of Business and the Sturm College of Law. The focus on aging is supported by our strong partnership with Denver Health, where we share a number of collaborative research programs. Because of this multidisciplinary, collaborative approach, we will be able to directly translate new ideas and research results into real applications that extend and improve the lives of the aged and their family members. We certainly do live in interesting times, but one thing remains constant in the face of complexity and change: Here at DU, we don’t put artificial boundaries around the minds of our students and faculty members. We continue to be more open minded, more nimble, more entrepreneurial than most other colleges and universities. As a consequence, we graduate men and women who can lead the change, their lives creating a better world for all of us. That has always been our mission.

Hope for Healing
DU researcher Dan Linseman is starting to unravel the mystery of Lou Gehrig’s disease.
By Lisa Marshall

28 32

Can Immigration Be Reformed?
A DU panel of experts thinks so. They’ve drafted an immigration road map for the nation.
By Chase Squires

In a Class by Themselves
DU instructors get creative with out-of-the-ordinary courses.
By Kathryn Mayer

Departments

44 45 47

Editor’s Note Letters DU Update 8 News Legal institute 11 Arts Actress Regan Linton 13 Academics Spectator to citizen 14 History Western painter 16 Sports Performance psychology 17 Q&A Women’s College dean 20 People Peter Funt 23 Essay What’s next? Alumni Connections

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On the cover: Pei Gei Xie (front) and other students in a citizenship class in San Francisco recite the Pledge of Allegiance. In December, DU’s Strategic Issues Program released a report that lays out 25 recommendations for immigration reform; read the story on page 28. Photo by Paul Chinn/San Francisco Chronicle/Corbis. This page: Works by Western artist Allen Tupper True (attd. 1899–1900) are on display at the Denver Art Museum, Denver Public Library and Colorado History Museum through March 28; read the story on page 14. Timber Jacks (left) courtesy of Melanie and Dave True.

Office of the Chancellor Mary Reed Building | 2199 S. University Blvd. | Denver, CO 80208 | 303.871.2111 | Fax 303.871.4101 | www.du.edu/chancellor

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University of Denver Magazine Spring 2010

University of Denver Magazine Update

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U N I V E R S I T Y

O F

Editor’s Note
It’s not easy to refuse a wolf that wants to lick you in the mouth. After the obligatory sniffing, a thorough face licking is their way of saying, “Welcome, human.” The animals are large and forceful; to deny them would be taken as an offense. The dexterity of their tongues is remarkable; a wolf can somehow lick you in the mouth and up the nose at the same time. I know. I had the rare and wonderful opportunity to interact with wolves
Wayne Armstrong

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 Number 3 Volume 10, O F M A G A Z I N E

Letters
OF

UN I V ER S I T Y O F MAGAZINE

Carol Farnsworth

Publisher A Z I N E MAG

UNIVERSITY

Managing Editor

Chelsey Baker-Hauck (BA ’96)
Assistant Managing Editor

Family values

Greg Glasgow
Associate Editor

Tamara Chapman
Editor

Kathryn Mayer (BA ’07)
Editorial Assistants

and wolf dogs—and submit to several enthusiastic lickings—while reporting for the profile of alumnus Steve Shaffer you’ll find on page 41. Shaffer is a longtime volunteer at a wolf sanctuary, and his dedication to volunteerism is a trait he shares with many of his fellow alumni. In the University of Denver Magazine, we strive to share as many stories as possible of alumni, students, faculty and staff who are working to improve their communities and their world. You’ll find several such stories in this issue. DU folks are working toward judicial reform (page 8), empowering people through self-expression (page 11), training to be community organizers (page 13), changing lives through laughter (page 20) and drafting a road map for immigration reform (page 28). Don’t miss “Hope for Healing”—a researcher’s inspirational journey to help those with Lou Gehrig’s disease—on page 24. Our readers have noticed the “public good” trend in our coverage. In our summer 2009 survey, we asked several questions about readers’ perceptions of DU. Based on what they read in the magazine, more than 91 percent of respondents said that DU, its students and alumni are making a positive impact on the world. That is the message we’ve been trying to send, and our fabulous, selfless DU community makes it easy by providing an endless supply of inspiring stories. If you haven’t already, please share yours.

Elizabeth Fritzler • Laura Hathaway (’10) • Samantha Stewart (BA ’09)
Staff Writer

Richard Chapman
Art Director

Craig Korn, VeggieGraphics
Contributors

Regarding your article “Full House” [winter 2009], I disagree that it is evident or a foregone conclusion that the gay and lesbian lifestyle is without long-term societal impact. The article does not address some of society’s concerns that the lifestyle is biologically unhealthy, for example. There are also cultural and religious sectors who find the lifestyle abhorrent. The entire Muslim world and much of the fundamental Christian community will never accept it as a choice that God wants us to make. These beliefs should not be ignored. Laws may support gays’ rights to marry and have families, but society at large may be affected in different ways for many more years to come.
Ronald Munoz (MOTM ’02) Littleton, Colo.

Jordan Ames (BA ’02) • Wayne Armstrong • Jim Berscheidt • Janalee Card Chmel (MLS ’97) • Kim DeVigil • Kristal Griffith • Jeff Haessler • Kate Johnson • Lisa Marshall • Doug McPherson • Martin Quigley • Steve Schader • Bethany Sewell • Chase Squires
Editorial Board

Chelsey Baker-Hauck, editorial director • Jim Berscheidt, associate vice chancellor for university communications • Thomas Douglis (BA ’86) • Carol Farnsworth, vice chancellor for university communications • Jeffrey Howard, executive director of alumni relations • Sarah Satterwhite, senior director of development for research and writing • Amber Scott (MA ’02) • Laura Stevens (BA ’69), director of parent relations

I want to congratulate the University of Denver Magazine for the wonderful articles on DU alumna Ellie Schafer and full-time lecturer Geoffrey Bateman. It was a great pleasure to read both articles. I am encouraged to know that the University is accepting of families from all sexual orientations. It is time to openly celebrate the lives and accomplishments of all our University community. I hope that Colorado and the country very soon will provide all families the equal rights and protections we all deserve.
Mariana Enríquez-Olmos (PhD ’02) Denver

fact that human reproduction proceeds from one male and one female (even when done artificially in a laboratory) says all that needs to be said about the natural order of the family. It is not “hate speech” for me to hold the view I do on this topic; it is my right as an American citizen. And this view is the one held by the vast majority of people in virtually every society throughout human history (or held at least until a society goes into moral decline, thus precipitating its demise). It is no more hateful than it would be to say that alcoholics have great value as human beings but some of their behavior is propelled by physiological and/or psychological dysfunction. Those involved in homosexual behavior are to be treated with dignity, as are all human beings. But that does not mean homosexuality itself must be accepted as right, predetermined, or inevitable—a fact attested to by several former homosexuals I personally know or have heard speak, including two who entered heterosexual marriage and a third in a heterosexual dating relationship possibly headed to marriage.
William Brown Monument, Colo.

I was pleased to see the article on author Sandra Dallas [Connections, winter 2009]. I had recently read and enjoyed her book Prayers for Sale. I enjoyed reading about her background and the fact that she is a DU graduate. I’m looking forward to more of her stories.
Freya Vratny Oakes (BSBA ’73) Aurora, Colo.

Alumni author

There is a surprising gap in the interview with Sandra Dallas which manages to omit or ignore her long association with The Denver Post. While author Greg Glasgow cites her BusinessWeek stint, her longer association has been as the Western history book reviewer for the Post—a worthy and far-sighted appointment by the late L. Stanton Peckham quite early in her career. Sandra has long been the insightful heir to Caroline Bancroft in matters Denver and the West.
Glenn Giffin (MA ’67, Denver Post book editor, 1989–99) Denver

Global warming skeptic

Printed on 10% PCW recycled paper

Chelsey Baker-Hauck Managing Editor

The University of Denver Magazine (USPS 022-177) is published quarterly—fall, winter, spring and summer—by the University of Denver, University Communications, 2199 S. University Blvd., Denver, CO 80208-4816. The University of Denver (Colorado Seminary) is an Equal 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 80208-4816.

I am very disturbed, but not surprised, by the intentional disregard in your winter 2009 edition of the clear boundary between moral and immoral sexual behavior. No matter how many well-written, well-presented articles you produce, attempts to normalize that which is aberrant do not make it natural. The

I always enjoy your magazine but [the winter 2009] issue is fantastic. I applaud your in-depth articles on Ellie Schafer [“Welcome to the White House”] and the Lusero family [“Full House”]. It was brave of you to publish them and they make me so proud of our school. I am an Obama fan and this just made me all the happier to know that the Obamas walk the walk in addition to talking the talk. It is wonderful to read about the challenges and successes of these people.
Jane Ringer (BS ’89, MT ’91) Englewood, Colo.

Permit me to share a little political incorrectness with the green advocates and green gripers who commented on the “Going Green” article [fall 2009]. As a student at DU in the mid-’60s, I regularly read articles in national publications regarding the impending peril of global cooling. Thus, I take a skeptical view of global warming, which I count a fraud, an easy rallying-ground for those with socialist political agendas. My question is whether there is any comparable skeptic on the faculty of the University of Denver—for the sake of open discourse and diversity, of course. Were such a hypothetical professor to dare to write an article debunking global
University of Denver Magazine Letters

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University of Denver Magazine Spring 2010

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warming, breathes there a University of Denver Magazine editor with the courage (and accrued emergency savings) to print said article? Just wondering.
Don Burgess (MA ’67) Fort Worth, Texas

Ready, aim …

Homeplace

I just finished reading the essay that Ms. Baker-Hauck wrote [“Homeplace,” winter 2009]. What a beautiful tribute! It brought me to tears reading about her grandparents and the reminiscing of family. The writing was beautiful and the descriptions of Oregon were vivid. How lucky she is to have such wonderful memories. Thank you for including such a touching essay in your magazine.
Melissa Richards (MBA candidate) Parker, Colo.

Regarding the DU law clinic article [“DU law clinic sues feds over Rio Grande headwaters,” Update, fall 2009], it was disappointing to see that the DU law students were challenging prairie dog shoots. We could go over the same ground proshooters have voiced many times, but instead I’ll give a couple of personal experiences. My dad grew up in west Texas. Shooting prairie dogs was as much a part of life in the 1940s as it is today. I grew up thinking the goal was to eradicate the troublesome rodent, but nothing could be further from the truth. I did most of my prairie dog shooting in the ’70s and ’80s, rarely traveling to Texas now. My first experience is of a rancher who was watering pasture for his cattle and prairie dogs moved in. In this case he wanted us to eliminate all the rodents.

After several days we had killed all but two pairs. Around 2006 I was surprised to learn that my dad was having the prairie dog lady transplant prairie dogs onto his farm! The land is currently in the land bank and not in cultivation. Prairie dogs will not stay on cultivated land, as there is not a dependable source of food. His reasoning was that a population of prairie dogs would provide for good shooting and create some habitat for coyotes and hawks.
Stephen Johnson (BA ’79) Aurora, Colo.

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Smoking ban Helping Haiti Bar passage rate Lacrosse coach Donor spotlight

Send letters to the editor to: Chelsey BakerHauck, University of Denver Magazine, 2199 S. University Blvd., Denver, CO 80208-4816. Or e-mail [email protected]. Include your full name and mailing address with all submissions. Letters may be edited for clarity and length.

Issues. Ideas. Action.
A Celebration of DUing. | 13 May 2010 | TEDxDU.com
Courtesy of Lawrence Argent

DU art Professor Lawrence Argent and Scott Rella, a Vail, Colo., based artist, collaborated on “are you listening…,” an exhibit of seven ice sculptures along Gore Creek Promenade in Vail Village. Argent is well-known in Denver for I See What You Mean, a giant blue bear sculpture outside the Colorado Convention Center. He is taking a similar approach in Vail by creating renderings of the human ear that stand more than 6 feet tall. The sculptures are illuminated at night with energy-efficient LED lighting.
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University of Denver Magazine Spring 2010 University of Denver Magazine Update

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Top News

Justice O’Connor partners with DU institute to reform judicial selection
By Doug McPherson

DU goes smoke free
Under a new policy that went into effect Jan. 1, smoking is prohibited nearly everywhere on the University of Denver campus and on University-owned or operated buildings or grounds. Exceptions include city-owned streets and sidewalks that surround or cut through University property, plus two areas near the Ritchie and Newman centers. The policy makes it clear that DU is committed to the health of the community, says Katie Dunker, assistant director of health promotion at the Health and Counseling Center, who spearheaded the policy over the past two years. Dunker emphasizes that the new policy—approved by the Board of Trustees—was driven by health concerns. The primary goal is to reduce involuntary exposure to secondhand smoke on campus, she says. University officials say the campus community will be asked to conform to the new policy just as any other, but they emphasize DU student Trang Luong, a senior marketing major, the smoking ban is not an administrative cudgel. Fines and tickets designed a distinctive blue logo to remind students of will not be issued. Rather, DU will trust smokers to respect the the University’s new smoking policy as the campus community returned to DU after the holidays. policy and the campus community to be sensitive to smokers. In addition to banning smoking, the new policy bans tobacco product advertisements, prohibits sponsorship of groups or events that promote tobacco use, and outlaws distribution, sale or sampling of tobacco products or merchandise. The designated smoking area at the Ritchie Center will vary by event, officials say, so smokers should check with ushers or staff before going outside to light up. At the Newman Center, the smoking area will be off York Street south of the loading dock and north of Knudson Hall, says Steve Seifert, executive director of the Newman Center.
—Media Relations Staff
Chase Squires

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has chosen the University of Denver Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS) as home base to mount a national effort to reform the way judges are selected. She will chair the O’Connor Judicial Selection Initiative, made up of judges, business and nonprofit executives, and lawyers who will try to persuade states to choose judges based on merit rather than direct elections. O’Connor and IAALS officials see eye-to-eye on the issue and believe electing judges is at best problematic, and at worst simply wrong. “The United States Supreme Court recently issued two opinions that turn up the heat on judicial elections,” says Rebecca Love Kourlis, IAALS executive director and a former Colorado Supreme Court justice. “There is more reason now than ever before for states to consider changing their system.” The group’s work will focus on making judges more than “politicians in robes,” O’Connor told The New York Times. O’Connor has fought for reform on the issue since the 1970s, when as an Arizona state legislator she helped create a merit selection system for judges. Last summer Kourlis asked O’Connor if she thought the time was right to move on the issue nationally. O’Connor said yes, and since August 2009 Kourlis has been building the initiative, which was announced in December. “[O’Connor] saw fit to connect with DU; she could have gone anywhere she wanted, but I like to think she chose IAALS because of our reputation for getting things done,” Kourlis says. “She’s a can-do kind of person herself.” Kourlis says that their recommendations include four steps: nomination of judges by people (not predominantly lawyers); appointment of judges by a governor; objective evaluation of those judges; and “retention elections” in which the public votes on whether the judge remains in his or her position. “These are steps that keep money out of the picture and are nonpartisan,” Kourlis says. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, left, with Rebecca Love Kourlis IAALS was founded in 2006 to create a more effective and user-friendly justice system, saying the current model is fraught with outdated rules, excessive costs and delays, lack of transparency and a politicized judicial selection process. IAALS tackles large-scale projects. One such effort was to modernize the rules of civil procedure, which are the road map of the U.S. legal system. The institute, in collaboration with an American College of Trial Lawyers task force, released a set of reform recommendations that some states have begun to apply. IAALS reports that 33 states have elections for judges at some level. Initiative participants have begun meeting and offering interested states, including Nevada, public education support and policy reform resources. Dallas Jamison, IAALS director of marketing and communications, says she sees “great synergy” between O’Connor and IAALS. “Judicial selection has been a core issue at IAALS since our inception, so we believe combining Justice O’Connor’s passion and expertise with our own track record in this area is a winning combination.” >>www.du.edu/legalinstitute
University of Denver Magazine Spring 2010

Former

DU’s Chester M Alter Arboretum
Acres of land

125

Identified trees

2,000

More than 100 Fewer than 20
Arborists Groundsworkers

Species represented

1

Compiled by arboretum director Martin Quigley

DU professor translated book by 2009 Nobel Prize winner
Sieglinde Lug, a professor emerita at the University of Denver, helped introduce the writing of 2009 Nobel literature prize winner Herta Müller to English-speaking countries. Lug translated Müller’s 1999 story collection, Nadirs (University of Nebraska Press), from German to English. Müller, a German author, was awarded the Nobel Prize on Oct. 8. “It’s really wonderful that a book that is so powerful will get more attention now,” Lug says. Nadirs is based on Müller’s childhood experiences in Romania. She describes a troubled life where violence and corruption are prevalent under the oppression of the state. Lug made final revisions to the book while she was teaching a Techniques of Translations course at DU. She mentions four of her students in the afterword. Since the announcement of the Nobel Prize, Lug has received e-mails from some of those students. “The students were quite helpful in making suggestions,” she says. “It is wonderful that they heard about this.” Lug taught German, comparative literature and women’s studies at the University of Denver from 1978 to 2005. She acted as the director of the women’s studies program from 1995–99.
—Kristal Griffith

Steve Schader

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Jeff Haessler

Arts

Daniels students give back with DenverKarma.com
It began as a simple idea batted around by University of Denver MBA students—a Web site that links young professionals with local nonprofits. In October, the idea became a reality with the official launch of DenverKarma.com, an online network for Denver residents to learn about service opportunities at select nonprofits. The site even allows volunteers to sign up for opportunities that match their interests. The site was created by MBA students (pictured, left to right) Adam Post, Kristin Reid, Blair Taylor and Justin Raddatz as part of their coursework at the Daniels College of Business, which asks its students to create a project to raise social or fiscal capital that benefits the community. The idea was to find one “gap”—an area of the Denver community that would benefit from additional service and support—and create a project that would raise awareness for it, Post says. With advice from Amy Venturi, director of community relations for law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, and Steve Sander, director of marketing for the city of Denver, the team identified four “community gaps” that affect Denver citizens: health and well being; homelessness and poverty; arts, culture and recreation; and youth education and mentoring. They sent applications to around 70 Denver nonprofits that provide services that help fill those gaps. Eleven nonprofits—including Big Brothers Big Sisters of Colorado, the Denver Rescue Mission, the Park People and Colorado Youth At Risk—were selected to participate. Each organization has pledged to offer DenverKarma volunteers at least one volunteer opportunity per quarter and may advertise opportunities through the Web site.
—Jordan Ames

PHAMALY matters
By Kate Johnson

The

WONDER WHAT YOUR ALMA MATER HAS BEEN DOING SINCE YOU LEFT ?

Do you ever

On the Road

Come to a DU on the Road event and find out. University representatives will travel to cities this winter and spring to provide an update on campus developments and the vision and goals behind them. All DU alumni, friends and parents are invited to enjoy an evening of food and drinks with fellow Pioneers, faculty and staff. Look for us this winter and spring as we travel to the following cities: Aspen, CO Albuquerque, NM Minneapolis, MN Stamford, CT Tampa, FL
For more information, please visit www.alumni.du.edu/DUontheroad or call 1-800-448-3238, Ext. 0

accident that nearly ended Regan Linton’s life has instead transformed it. In 2002, when Linton was a junior in college, she was in a car accident that caused an upper-chest-level spinal cord injury. Though people sometimes find her perspective hard to understand, Linton—who uses a wheelchair for mobility—says the injury has “enhanced my life in so many ways. The challenges I’ve experienced have been nothing compared to what I’ve gained.” Linton, now a master’s student in social work at DU, was encouraged by a friend to join the Physically Handicapped Actors and Musical Artists League (PHAMALY) two years after her accident. The Denver-based nonprofit theater company features actors with physical and/or developmental disabilities. Though Linton had been active in music and theater for most of her life, when she went on stage five years ago for her first PHAMALY production, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, it was nervewracking. “I was rolling on stage, feeling like the biggest idiot in the world, dancing on stage in my wheelchair,” she says. “It was a scary experience, but after the first few minutes, it was like any other performance. Everything else melts away.” In summer 2009, Linton starred as Aldonza in PHAMALY’s production of the musical Man of La Mancha, which garnered stellar reviews and sold out several nights of its four-week run. The role netted Linton a Denver Post Ovation Award for best actress in a musical. After that she was featured in PHAMALY’s Vox Phamalia, an original writing workshop and performance that ran for five shows to sold-out audiences. PHAMALY’s philosophy is to incorporate actors’ disabilities into its productions. “Disabilities are now a huge creative opportunity for us,” says Linton, who also has appeared in PHAMALY productions of The Wiz, Our Town and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, among others. “We don’t focus on them, but we don’t ignore them, either.” One scene from Man of La Mancha incorporated Linton’s disability to huge effect. When Linton’s character was assaulted in the play, her attackers took her wheelchair and left her stranded. Linton sang her key solo while pulling herself across the stage with her arms—an intense, difficult sight for many viewers. “You could hear a pin drop. You really felt an audience connection,” Linton says. The Denver native credits her experiences on stage with turning her life around. “PHAMALY opened my world again,” she says. “It allowed me to become confident as a person with a disability.” Linton’s disability also inspired her to begin a career in social work. After her accident, “it was the first time in my life I’d really experienced marginalization,” she says. “It really opened my eyes to the social injustice around me—the discrimination that exists, not just toward people with disabilities.” This new awareness led Linton to enroll in the Graduate School of Social Work, where she’s focusing on community work and interning for Yoga for the People, a nonprofit that teaches yoga to underserved populations. When she graduates, Linton wants to integrate social work with the performing arts, using self-expression to empower people in all kinds of disempowered groups, not just people with disabilities. “I want to help people find their personal voice through theater,” she says. >>www.phamaly.org
University of Denver Magazine Update

Courtesy of Adam Post

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Wayne Armstrong

University of Denver Magazine Spring 2010

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Academics

Rosetta Stone offers online language option
DU students still can take traditional foreign language classes such as Spanish, French, German and Italian, but those looking to delve into more exotic languages like Pashto, Farsi and Tagalog have another resource: Rosetta Stone, an online language-learning program that is available for free to all DU students, faculty and staff through the Penrose Library Web site, www.du.edu/ penrose. “I was getting a lot of requests from the [Korbel] School of International Studies to get language CDs because they wanted to learn different languages from around the world,” says Arts and Humanities Reference Librarian Peggy Keeran, who purchased Rosetta Stone for DU two years ago. “But they wouldn’t circulate and it would be too limiting. So I started to look to see if I could find an online solution.” That’s when Keeran discovered Rosetta Stone, a “dynamic immersion” system that combines images and interactivity to teach additional languages in much the same way people learned their first language. To date, more than 3,700 people have used the program at DU, including graduate students and researchers who use it before traveling to foreign countries. Purchased on their own, the Rosetta Stone programs cost more than $200 per language.
—Greg Glasgow

Sense of community
By Greg Glasgow
Wayne Armstrong

Jeff Haessler

The

Campus community pitches in for Haiti
The DU Grilling Society raised more than $1,000 at a fundraiser for Haitian relief efforts on the Driscoll Lawn on Jan. 19, seven days after the earthquake that devastated the capital city of Port-au-Prince. Also on Jan. 19, the University hosted a panel discussion on Haiti and a memorial for earthquake victims. The panel included Lynn Holland, a DU lecturer; Ed Morgan, who helped found the Colorado Haiti Project; and Figaro Joseph, a PhD student from Haiti who is enrolled in DU’s Korbel School of International Studies. DU raised more than $12,000 in donations, which went directly to the Lambi Fund of Haiti, a nonprofit dedicated to building democracy and sustainable development in Haiti.
—Media Relations Staff

Students turn out for ‘Day On’ to honor MLK
Nearly 300 University of Denver students—including the men’s lacrosse team and the Delta Sigma Pi business fraternity—participated in a “Day On” day of service Jan. 18 in celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. “At DU, we have many programs that teach the importance of public service and service learning, and this is something that, as a student, I value tremendously,” says senior Javier Ogaz. “Historically, we look to Dr. King as a great figure who chose to live his life in the service of others.” Ogaz and a group of students spent the morning painting an entranceway at the Serenity Learning Center, a school for children and young adults with developmental delays. Students volunteered for four hours at a variety of community partner sites across Denver, including the Boys & Girls Club-Owen Branch, Serenity Learning Center, Sun Valley Youth Center, Urban Peak and Volunteers of America. In addition, more than 130 students picked up trash in the DU neighborhood. Following the morning activities, DU provided volunteers with lunch. Students also participated in a reflection session that encouraged them to think about their experience and how it helped the group, community and city. The event was organized by the University’s Student Life division.
— Jordan Ames

University of Denver always has prepared students to become leaders in business, law and other academic fields. A new sequence of courses offered through DU’s Center for Community Engagement and Service Learning (CCESL) aims to prepare students to become leaders in their communities as well. Titled Spectator to Citizen, the three-course series teaches students to identify problems in their immediate communities—and how to take steps to solve the problems they find. “As lofty as it sounds, we’re hoping to create stronger, healthier communities,” says CCESL Associate Director Frank Coyne. “And in order to do that, we create stronger, more engaged citizens. So instead of graduating commodities to be swallowed up by the workforce, we are graduating students Students in the Spectator to Citizen course studied how people in urban settings use art forms like graffiti who are thinking critically about issues and to express their public voice. As part of the hands-on course, they painted some graffiti of their own. becoming problem solvers and engaged citizens.” The first class in the series, Community Organizing, focuses on the basic community organizing principles created by legendary author and organizer Saul Alinsky. The CCESL staff trained at the Chicago-based Gamaliel Foundation, which once employed Barack Obama. “Community organizing is when the community—the people who are living and experiencing problems in their community—get together and make a plan as to what they need to happen in that community,” says CCESL Associate Director Jenny Whitcher. “They do that through building relationships and building community with city government officials and others and then dialoguing and meeting with them one-on-one to talk about how do we work together.” In the School-Based Civic Engagement class, students focus on education, applying community-organizing concepts to issues in Denver public schools. Coyne, who teaches the course, hopes that some of the students will go on to participate in Public Achievement, a separate CCESL program in which DU students serve as mentors to kids in public schools. “Several students who took my class were really interested in urban education and interested in becoming teachers,” Coyne says, “so this was a way of testing their ground and getting DU students hands-on experience with the issues facing urban education.” The final class, Denver Urban Issues and Policy, brings students into the larger Denver community to study issues such as homelessness, poverty, education and housing. It culminates in a spring break immersion project that lets students spend more time off campus, interacting directly with local nonprofits and government groups. For their 2009 immersion project, Spectator to Citizen students worked with Senior Support Services, the African Community Center, the Denver Rescue Mission and youth shelter Urban Peak. “What was best about the immersion week was that we were empowered to lead the week in whatever way we wanted,” says junior Cameron Lewis, who went through the inaugural Spectator to Citizen sequence in the 2008–09 school year. “We were given free rein to pick the issues that were important to us, and all of the contacting of nonprofit organizations or government officials, that was all left up to us. For me, personally, that was an experience I had yet to have in college, to be given the power to lead something in that way.” That’s the whole point, CCESL staffers say—to make students aware that they have the power to make change in their communities. “Too many people are upset about what’s going on in their communities and doing nothing about it because they don’t think they can or they don’t have the time,” Whitcher says. “We’re teaching students concrete public skills that they can use, and telling them you absolutely can do it. Use this, and keep doing it. The hope is in 20 years they’re still doing this kind of work and not only volunteering at Christmas.”

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Courtesy of the Victoria Tupper Kirby Collection

History

True West
By Greg Glasgow

The

work of Western artist Allen Tupper True (attd. 1899–1900) ranged from the very small to the very large, and an exhibit at three different Denver-area art institutions shows just how big his scope truly was. “Allen True’s West,” running through March 28 at the Denver Art Museum (DAM), the Denver Public Library and the Colorado History Museum, features illustrations, paintings, murals and more by the Colorado native and DU alumnus who was once among the best-known Western artists in the country. The exhibit divides the artist’s work into three categories at three locations: Illustrations, appropriately, are on display at the library; murals (and studies and photographs of murals) are at the history museum; and True’s fine art paintings are at the DAM. The exhibit’s three curators all are DU alumni as well: Peter Hassrick (MA ’69) at the DAM, Alisa Zahller (MA art history ’97) at the Colorado History Museum and Julie Anderies (MA art history ’06) at the library. Born in Colorado Springs and raised in various parts of the American West—including Denver and southern Texas— True began his art career shortly after leaving DU in 1900. Impressed with his artistic aptitude, his family sent him to the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C. After a year there, True applied and was accepted to Howard Pyle’s school of illustration in Delaware, where he began creating Westernthemed illustrations for books and publications such as The Saturday Evening Post and Outing Magazine. But True’s heart remained in the West, says Hassrick, director emeritus of the DAM’s Petrie Institute of Western American Art. “Even though he was studying in Wilmington, Del., he writes his parents on a number of occasions and says, ‘Someday I’ll come back and I’ll make a play for being the great Western painter,’” Hassrick says. “‘I’ll make our Western heritage that I’m so proud of the heart of my creative production.’”

Courtesy of Joan True McKibben

Homesteaders, 1917

Jicarilla Spring, 1913

The Trappers, 1911

And while illustrations paid the bills, True started setting his sights a little higher. “Early on, he begins to get a little frustrated with that printed page thing because it’s so ephemeral,” Hassrick says. “People would open the page and read it and see his picture and then flip the page, and that would be the last they’d ever see of it. He wanted something that would endure.” So True turned first to easel paintings—more than a dozen of which are on display at the DAM as part of the exhibit—and then to murals, one of the most enduring and public art forms of the first half of the 20th century. He decorated the state capitols of Colorado, Wyoming and Missouri, the Denver City and County Building, the Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph Building and many other structures. Expanding on the Western motifs that characterized his illustrations and paintings, True developed different concepts for different spaces. For the Colorado capitol, he created eight pieces that showed the importance of water in the West, from a trio of gold panners to a modern hydroelectric plant. Colorado National Bank got Indian Memories, a tribute to American Indian life prior to the arrival of European settlers. “Illustrations reach a number of people, but the impact of mural work in architectural settings—as public art and the messages they convey—he believes that to be the most important medium to him,” Zahller says. “He sees them as being a permanent fixture that are part of the building that people can see and experience and learn from.” >>www.history.denverlibrary.org/AllenTruesWest
University of Denver Magazine Update

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Courtesy of the Collection of Jan and Frederick Mayer

University of Denver Magazine Spring 2010

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Sports

Psyched up
By Kristal Griffith

Q&A

common for college athletic programs to provide the best coaches, trainers, nutritionists and health science experts to their student-athletes. Now, DU student-athletes also have access to a full-time sport and performance psychologist. DU is one of about 12 programs in the country to offer the service to its students. Steve Portenga is the director of sport psychology for DU’s Division of Athletics and Recreation and an adjunct professor of sport and performance psychology in the University’s Graduate School of Professional Psychology (GSPP). Peg Bradley-Doppes, vice chancellor for athletics and recreation, says it’s just part of the personal care DU offers all its students. “We have a student-centered management philosophy,” Bradley-Doppes says. “Our vision is to actively create, promote and sustain an environment in which each participant is challenged and supported in pursuit of personal growth in the areas of sports, wellness and recreational activities.” Portenga has been at DU for several years developing the GSPP sport and performance psychology program. He became a full-time staff member in athletics in summer 2009. He says sport psychologists work with athletes to help them understand how to translate what they do in practice to competition. “We work to have a quality practice where the student-athletes become consistent,” Portenga says. “That way during competition their bodies know how to perform.” Portenga has been working with athletes for years. He helped the U.S. track and field team in Berlin as it trained for the 2012 Olympics. During a recent practice with DU’s Nordic ski team, Portenga emphasized why student-athletes should prepare deliberately. “You have to commit to the course, focus on the future, have a target and keep your eyes on it,” he told the team. Portenga gave students a handout on which they could evaluate their preparedness. Hennie Kashiwa, assistant Nordic skiing coach at DU, and head coach David Stewart have Portenga DU Sport and Performance Psychologist Steve Portenga works on a team-building exercise with volleyball working on relaxation and visualization techniques with players Bri Zimlich, center, and Lyndi Johnson. the team. Kashiwa says many of his student-athletes are familiar with sport psychology techniques because they compete on national and international levels. However, Kashiwa says, it is important DU offers this service to its student-athletes as well. “Elite-level programs around the world are beginning to understand the significance of sports psychology, and I think that it is great that we are a part of that high-level, forward-thinking group,” Kashiwa says. Portenga also works with the coaches to incorporate mental conditioning into their practices. “We have met a few times one-on-one to go over mental training concepts,” Kashiwa says. “I feel like these meetings have given me some good new coaching tools for both competition and training.” Portenga is passionate about helping athletes. When he first moved to Colorado, he planned to attend law school and took up coaching temporarily. He loved coaching so much, he changed his life’s path. He says his goal is to help student-athletes achieve their dreams. “The biggest reward is seeing the giant smile on someone’s face when they’re able to do something in competition that they’ve had to work hard to achieve,” he says. >> Watch a video interview with Steve Portenga at www.youtube.com/uofdenver

It’s

Women’s College Dean Lynn Gangone on the future of women’s education
Interview by Kim DeVigil

What is unique about the Women’s College (TWC) of the University of Denver? TWC is one of 55 single-gender colleges in the United States and the only one in Colorado and the Rocky Mountain region directly serving the women who live and work here. While this is our centennial year and it is appropriate that we celebrate and reflect on the achievements of the past century, our goal is to be here for the next 100 years. So the focus of TWC, and my personal focus, is to lay the foundation for long-term sustainability while we continue to meet the ever-changing needs of women in a dynamic and changing world. As more women in our state become business owners, policy makers, political leaders and philanthropists, our job is to provide resources to help women achieve their goals.

Q A

Q A

With women comprising almost 60 percent of today’s college students, is there still a need for women’s colleges or centers? I am often asked about the continued need for a single-gender institution. It’s simply a matter of having an option. When women’s institutions were founded in the late 1800s, it was because there was not a place for women in many of the higher education institutions that are now coed. At the time, women’s colleges not only filled the gap, they were the only choice. Today, the decision to attend a women-only college is one of many options that could include historically black colleges and universities or Hispanic-serving or religiousfocused higher education institutions. The degree and certificate programs at TWC are presented in an evening and weekend format to meet the balancing act required of many women. Additionally, women’s colleges and women’s centers give students a place to practice leadership, so they can move on to have an impact in a world largely shaped by men. In mixed settings, it is difficult for women to bring the whole of who they are to the table. But conversations among women can address the interplay among professional, personal, family and relationship issues. Women still need woman-friendly spaces to find their voice, and the world needs women’s voices. With women constituting only 18 percent of the positional leaders across all sectors, there’s still a role for women’s colleges to prepare the next generation of leaders. What will be your legacy?

Wayne Armstrong

Wayne Armstrong

Q A

How important are global women’s issues to TWC?

So many of the challenges faced by women around the world are also challenges faced by women in Colorado. The empowerment of women and girls globally is the issue for the 21st century, and education is the key. We have several projects we are working on to expand and continue building our ties internationally to create an array of options for our students as well as expand understanding of global issues for women and girls. This includes our relationship with Project Education Sudan and our sponsorship of Ayak Anguei School for Girls in southern Sudan. We also recently received a grant from DU’s Office of Internationalization to create study-abroad opportunities for Women’s College students that include a community-based research project in Gulu, Uganda, in partnership with the Women’s Global Empowerment Fund and Gulu University.

Q A

When we built our new building [the Merle Catherine Chambers Center for the Advancement of Women, opened in 2004], we built it with the notion that it would be standing a century from now. We intend to live up to the expectation of the structure by continuing to educate women who live and work in Colorado and prepare the next generation of women leaders. Our TWC students and alumnae are amazing women balancing so much to get that degree. I want to continue to have a place for them, for their daughters and for their daughters’ daughters.

Lynn Gangone was named dean of the Women’s College of the University of Denver and associate clinical professor of higher education in spring 2007. She is a nationally known writer and speaker on gender equality, with expertise in women’s education and educational equity, as well as leadership development and career advancement for women in higher education.

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Pioneers Top 10

Circulating DVDs at Penrose Library
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. The Motorcycle Diaries (2004) No Logo: Brands, Globalization, Resistance (2003) Crash (2004) Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) Bowling for Columbine (2002) Fargo (1996) Big Fish (2003) Girl With a Pearl Earring (2003) Amelie (2001)

DU bar passage hits highest rate in years
Leaders at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law were beyond pleased when the initial results of the July 2009 Colorado Bar Exam passage rates were released in October. Results moved even higher after appeals of the exam results were complete. In the final tally, released Nov. 17, DU’s passage rate hit 91 percent—the highest DU passage rate in years. The program saw its passage rate dip below 60 percent a few years ago in a February exam, so the rate completes a turnaround that law Dean Martin Katz, appointed in February, believes is just the beginning. The law school also is relishing another dose of good news. The national magazine Super Lawyers’ newest law school rankings, issued in November, ranked Sturm 53rd in the country and No. 1 in Colorado. Achieving the new high in bar passage didn’t come by accident, Katz says. The school has worked for two years on building the passage rate by admitting students who have the best chance of succeeding in law school and passing the bar, and by creating a program dedicated to passage. Students are encouraged to devote the two months between graduation and the July bar exam to study and test preparation. Off campus, they are encouraged to avoid full-time work and dedicate themselves to study. On campus, faculty conduct classes and lectures multiple times each week, followed by mock exams, writing assignments and personal coaching.
—Chase Squires

Lacrosse Magazine names DU coach person of the year
Lacrosse Magazine named DU head men’s lacrosse coach Bill Tierney its 2009 person of the year. Tierney arrived at DU during the summer of 2009 after a 22-year career as the head men’s lacrosse coach at Princeton, where his tenure included six national championships. Tierney says he had other job offers throughout the years but chose to come to DU to help grow the sport in the West, which was a factor in the magazine selecting him for the honor. “Bill Tierney’s move to Denver was just what lacrosse needed as it continues to grow from coast to coast,” Lacrosse Magazine editor Paul Krome wrote in the article about the coach. “The best part of us naming Tierney the Lacrosse Magazine person of the year is that he considers the distinction a call to action—that’s an encouraging perspective for lacrosse fans everywhere coming from a six-time NCAA champion and National Hall of Fame coach.” Tierney is 272–93 as a college head coach. He led the U.S. national men’s lacrosse team to the 1998 world championship and was inducted into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 2002. >>www.DenverPioneers.com
—Media Relations Staff

10. Gattaca (1997)
Compiled by Access Services Librarian Bethany Sewell

DU athletes score high with Graduation Success Rate
Ninety-three percent of University of Denver freshmen studentathletes who entered college in 2002 earned their degrees, according to the latest NCAA Graduation Success Rate (GSR) data. DU bested the NCAA Division I overall GSR of 79 percent by 14 percentage points. DU’s student-athlete four-class average was 76 percent; the general DU population averages 73 percent. “Academics have always been the No. 1 priority at DU,” says Peg Bradley-Doppes, vice chancellor for athletics and recreation. “Our goals are to excel in the classroom and in competition. Our coaches are committed to bringing the best student-athletes to the DU campus. Our academic success is critical to our long-term strategic plan.” Women’s gymnastics, lacrosse, skiing, soccer, swimming and diving, tennis and volleyball achieved perfect 100 percent scores. Men’s soccer, swimming and diving, and tennis were perfect as well.
—Media Relations Staff

Tim Head, Mile-High Photography

2010 Lacrosse Home Schedule
Mar. 6-7 Mar. 6 Mar. 7 Mar. 13 Mar. 27 Apr. 3 Apr. 9 Apr. 11 May 2 DU FACE-OFF CLASSIC Penn 1:30pm Lehigh 1:30pm Canisius 7:00pm Air Force 1:00pm Hobart 1:00pm Bellarmine 7:00pm Quinnipiac 11:00am Loyola TBA

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SAVE $3 A tICkEt!
MAR. 27, VS AIR FORCE DU ALUMNI tICkEtS jUSt $6 For your tickets call 303.871.2389. Not valid at Ritchie
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For more DU Lacrosse news go to DenverPioneers.com
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People

‘Camera’ man
By Greg Glasgow

National report ranks DU third for undergraduate study abroad
The University of Denver ranks third in the nation among doctoral and research institutions in percentage of undergraduate students studying abroad, according to the 2009 Open Doors report. The report, which was released in November by the Institute of International Education (IIE), reflects data from the 2007–08 academic year and shows DU sent 73.6 percent of its undergraduates to study abroad. Nationally, just over 1 percent of all enrolled undergraduates studied abroad. Only Pepperdine University and the University of San Diego ranked higher than DU. The IIE reports the top destination for students in 2007–08 was the United Kingdom, followed by Italy. At DU, Italy is the top destination, followed by Spain and Australia. DU offers more than 150 study-abroad programs in 58 nations. Through DU’s Cherrington Global Scholars program, students have the opportunity to study abroad while paying their tuition and fees to the University. DU also helps students with some additional costs such as transportation and fees for visa applications and insurance. According to the 2009 Open Doors report, U.S. students are studying abroad in record numbers. Study abroad increased by 8.5 percent to a total of 262,416 students in the 2007–08 academic year. The top three major fields of study for students, according to the report, are social sciences, business and management, and humanities. >>www.opendoors.iienetwork.org >>www.du.edu/intl/abroad
DU students abroad in Italy —Kristal Griffith

of the proudest moments in Peter Funt’s career came in 1967, when he interviewed Martin Luther King Jr. on his DU radio show. Another came in 2004, after Funt (BA ’69) had taken over for his father, Allen Funt, as host of the hidden-camera TV series “Candid Camera.” In a segment called “The Green Kid,” Peter Funt visited an elementary school to talk to a group of second-graders about a new boy with green skin who would soon be joining their class. He asked the kids if they anticipated any problems. “Among those I spoke with is a girl who says she knows what this kid might be in for, because when she came to the area from Turkey she only spoke Turkish and not much English,” Funt says. “She had a very hard time making friends and was teased until she learned English and then things changed for her, so of course she’d like to be this new boy’s friend so he could get over that hurdle.” “The Green Kid” played on the air as a 4½-minute segment, but so many teachers and administrators contacted Funt about the discussion of tolerance that he turned it into an hourlong DVD for classroom use. It’s currently used in more than 2,500 schools. As it turns out, “Candid Camera” has lots of real-world applications. College sociology and psychology classes show selected clips to demonstrate principles of human behavior, corporations use footage as part of their training materials, and the show’s nonprofit arm, Laughter Therapy, sends free “Candid Camera” DVDs to critically ill people. At DU, Funt was a mass communications and journalism major, working on the Clarion and at KVDU. After graduation he worked at Denver-based KHOW radio and at the ABC Radio Network in New York before becoming an arts and leisure writer for The New York Times. In the early ’80s he launched the national cable-TV-industry magazine On Cable. In 1987, Funt started co-hosting “Candid Camera” with his father, who had created the show in the late ’40s. After Allen Funt had a debilitating stroke in 1993 (he died in 1999), Peter took over hosting duties full-time. The most recent iteration of “Candid Camera” ended in 2004, but Funt currently is in talks to bring it back to television in 2010. Despite a glut of hidden-camera shows in recent years, he still sees a need for the original program’s feel-good ethos. “There’s a certain purity about ‘Candid Camera,’” he says. “The underlying premise of the show is that people are essentially wonderful—and worth studying because of that. The sequences we do—even though some certainly apply a certain element of stress to a person—in most cases the person is not only happy in the end, but a hero, in a way, in terms of what their behavior shows. “We’ve always come at it from the idea that we believe people are wonderful and we’re out to confirm it. Our imitators and other shows, whether it’s Jamie Kennedy or ‘Spy TV’ or ‘Punk’d,’ often seem to come at it from the opposite perspective, which is that people are stupid, and we’re going to find ways to underscore that.” While he waits on the future of “Candid Camera,” Funt, 62, has returned to his journalistic roots, regularly penning op-ed columns for The Boston Globe and other daily newspapers. (A selection of his columns is available on the “Candid Camera” Web site, www.candidcamera.com.) “The funny thing is that the process of coming up with an idea for a column or a ‘Candid Camera’ sequence is essentially the same thing,” he says. “I just live my life with eyes and ears perhaps a little bit wider open than some people. Whatever bothers me or seems off kilter or in need of parody—or on a serious subject, in need of examination—in the past I had done a sequence about it. Now I write a column about it.”

One

Courtesy of Kelli Uldall/Carmel Magazine

Courtesy of Mark Lopez

China Rising

The University of Denver Presents

The next Bridges to the Future event will occur during the spring academic quarter. Please visit www.du.edu/bridges for program information.
Most people in the U.S. know very little about China, yet the country may soon become the No. 2 economy in the world. As a result, China will play a larger role in international affairs and take on other new responsibilities of a rising world power. But it also is feeling the pain of rapid industrialization and growing international engagement. Join the discussion as the 2009–10 Bridges to the Future lecture series at DU explores the myths, realities, and challenges for America of China Rising.

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Donor Spotlight

Essay

Rosie and Dick Meyer
It’s easy to say the University of Denver was an important part of Rosie Meyer’s life. Meyer, who died Oct. 30, 2009, at age 82, earned a psychology degree from DU in 1949. She met her husband, Dick (BA ’51), at DU, her brothers also were alumni and her granddaughter currently is studying for a master’s degree at the University. Meyer’s father, Elwood Murray, was a professor in DU’s speech communication department and was “legendary” in the speech communication field. Like many other DU professors at the time, Murray lived in the Observatory Park area, so Rosie practically grew up on the DU campus, says Scott Lumpkin, associate vice chancellor in University Advancement. Meyer’s dedication to the University was unquestionable, Lumpkin says, and it carried on for her entire life. In 2004, when DU was raising money for its new hotel, restaurant and tourism management building, Rosie pledged $1.5 million to the project. The kitchen in the school—the “hub” of the building—was named the Richard and Rosalind Meyer Family Kitchen. “Dick and Rosie wanted the kitchen named for their family, not just the two of them,” Lumpkin says. “They viewed their philanthropy as an extension of the entire family.” The kitchen was important to the Meyers, in part, because it honored Dick’s achievements in the food service industry. He chaired a food service management company that had contracts with universities in 39 states. Dick Meyer died in 2002. “She was so proud to see the contribution … and especially to see the impact the Meyer Kitchen was having on our ability to educate our students in a professional facility,” says David Corsun, director of the School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management. “These were people whose values and ideals fit with the University,” Lumpkin says. “They are the kind of people students should have as examples. Dick and Rosie were exactly that—they were generous, moral people who were extremely dedicated to their family and their university.” Meyer also was instrumental in creating two endowed funds in the Department of Human Communication Studies to honor her parents, Elwood and Emma Murray. The funds were established in 1991 and 2001, respectively.
—Kathryn Mayer
Courtesy of Shelly Landaal

What’s next?
By Janalee Card Chmel

I turned 40. While I’ve never been one of those women who gets wound up about aging (everybody’s doing it!), I did find myself pondering one nagging little question over and over: What’s next? My life had taken me on a path that, considering who I thought I would be when I was in college, surprised me. I had not become an actress. I had not become a tortured writer. I had not become a 4-inch-heel-wearing business executive. I had become a married woman and a mom. At the age of 40, I was working from home as a freelance writer, doing the laundry, providing good meals to my family, making sure I was there when the kids were sick and spending summers juggling freelance clients as I took my girls on mountain hikes. I had become a rather traditional woman. Over the course of my growth into this life, I went through several bouts of the independent woman’s fear: Am I a sellout? Am I giving up part of myself? What about the dreams of success as I had once defined them? But when I was completely and utterly honest with myself, I knew I was happy! Like, deep-down, giggle-for-no-reason, roll-around-on-the-floorwith-babies happy! And as my daughters grew they gained independence from me, and I was able to see beyond my daily chores and my freelance deadlines to start wondering: What’s next? A friend and I started a little company called MA! (motherhood with attitude), dedicated to supporting other moms as they faced the ridiculously hard yet rewarding journey of motherhood. I started writing for myself again—journaling, blogging and rediscovering the creative flame I thought I had surrendered with my business suits. And I turned 40. As I’ve said, I don’t care about aging per se. For me, turning 40 with a great husband and two daughters ages 6 and 8 meant I was regaining some control over my life. I could again think about my dreams and goals with a bit more ability to act upon them. And then … A. Third. Child. Yes, this was an absolute surprise. And I did not take the news gracefully. I can probably best illustrate the impact this had on my mental state with a few snapshots: me collapsed on the bathroom floor; me on the phone, screaming at my husband, “Yes! I said I’m pregnant!”; me calling the doctor and begging her to tell me all about false-positive results with at-home pregnancy tests; me taking two more tests the next day; me sitting at the bottom of the stairs where the girls couldn’t see me, crying my eyes out and muttering obscenities. The thing that surprised me, though, throughout all my tantrums, was the small light somewhere inside me that just kept bouncing around, sighing Mother and Baby by Hyacinth Manning pleasantly, saying, “A baby! Oh my goodness! I get to have another baby!” As the days turned into weeks, I realized I had a rock-solid answer to my nagging question, What’s next? In fact, I realized I had many beautiful answers. A new baby smell. Snuggles. Chasing another naked bottom around the house before bath time. Reading Goodnight Moon. Long walks with a stroller. I also know myself well enough to anticipate that I will go through a few more tantrums of my own as I surrender what was a quick glimpse at more independence. But at the same time, I believe the answer I’ve received to my question is absolutely the one I was supposed to receive. I am a mother! I can handle what’s next.
Janalee Card Chmel (MLS ’97) is a Denver-based freelance writer. She and her husband welcomed daughter Mae Marie in late January.

Recently,

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Corbis

DU researcher Dan Linseman is starting to unravel the mystery of Lou Gehrig’s disease.

F

or 56-year-old David Virden (BA ’71), it started with a hoarse voice and a weak leg—two seemingly benign symptoms that marked the start of a dizzyingly swift downward spiral. Within a year, the competitive cyclist and father of three would be walking with a cane

and unable to speak. Six months later, he’d require a wheelchair. Soon after, he’d lose his ability to swallow and breathe on his own. All this while his sharp mind and “larger than life” spirit remained intact. “It was terrible to watch, just awful,” recalls Christine (Godshall) Virden (BA ’71), who bid her husband goodbye on Aug. 29, 2008, 22 months after he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). “He was still the same person on the inside, but nobody knew it on the outside.” Such stories are par for the course among the roughly 6,000 people diagnosed annually with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), an insidious illness in which motor neurons in the spinal cord and brain self-destruct, leading to paralysis and death within two to five years. With only one minimally effective drug on the market, a dearth of research funding and relatively little interest among pharmaceutical companies in finding a cure, ALS historically has been considered a death sentence. “There’s not much help out there, except helping you die,” says Jody Hubbard, who lost her “soulmate,” Floyd Hubbard, to ALS just 10 months after he was diagnosed. “Hope is not a word we heard much.” But in the first-floor lab of DU’s Seeley Mudd Science Building, one professor, a dozen students and 100 sick white mice are working hard to change that. Armed with $2.4 million from the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and a stack of proposals for more grants from various agencies, researcher Dan Linseman has devoted the last three years to unraveling the mysteries of Lou Gehrig’s disease. The bulk of his work aims to identify some of the intra-cellular mechanisms by which apoptosis— or programmed cell death—occurs in ALS, in the hope that drug makers might someday use the information to develop better treatments. (The only approved drug extends life roughly three months.)
University of Denver Magazine Spring 2010

Hope for
By Lisa Marshall

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DU researcher Dan Linseman and PhD student Heather Wilkins are investigating the root causes of ALS.

But well aware of the lack of time patients face, he’s also looking at more accessible potential remedies, such as antioxidant compounds in certain nutrients, that could provide relief even sooner. Meanwhile, he’s also exploring the role that environmental factors, such as exposure to toxins or rigorous physical strain, might play in fueling the disease. “The more we can figure out about what is killing the motor neurons, the more likely we will be able to mitigate this disease,” says Linseman, an assistant professor of biological sciences at DU and a senior researcher with DU’s Eleanor Roosevelt Institute. “I would never say ‘cure.’ But if we could say to someone, ‘You have ALS, but you’ve got six to 10 years ahead of you and the first five won’t be so bad,’ that would be a big advance.”

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fter eight years of working for the Upjohn pharmaceutical company (which he left after being assigned to investigate hair loss remedies), Linseman returned to school at the University of Michigan to get a PhD in neuropharmacology. He landed in Colorado in 2000 on a postdoctoral fellowship with the VA Medical Center, where he began researching apoptosis, specifically in Parkinson’s disease. But in 2006, he shifted his focus to ALS. “Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s have a lot of people working on them and have tons of funding and a lot of approved therapies that at least mitigate the symptoms,” says Linseman, a 44-year-old father of two. Meanwhile, “ALS strikes people in their 50s, in the prime of their lives, when they are most productive at work and have their families, and it strips away all of their dignity. It has one drug that doesn’t work very well, and there isn’t nearly as much funding.” In 2008, the National Institutes of Health allocated $43 million to ALS research, down slightly from 2006, when $44 million was granted. That’s compared to $152 million for Parkinson’s and $169 million for multiple sclerosis, which has similar rates of incidence (roughly 8,000 new cases annually). Many family members lament that because ALS patients die so quickly, there are fewer of them affected by the disease at any given time (roughly 30,000) so researchers and drug companies have little incentive to invest in treatments for them. That means doctors can offer little solace when delivering the grim news. “We left the office that day stunned and in a fog, like, ‘Where do we go from here?’ There aren’t any options,” says Jody Hubbard of the day her husband got the news. “It’s frustrating. There’s no money in it, so it doesn’t get much attention in the research world unless someone takes it to heart.” In the past decade researchers have pinpointed mitochondrial oxidative stress as a key culprit in ALS (as well as many other neurodegenerative diseases). In essence, mitochondria inside the cell—in the process of making energy—also produce potentially harmful byproducts called free radicals that can eat away at cells, doing damage. In a
University of Denver Magazine Spring 2010

Wayne Armstrong

healthy person, a built-in antioxidant called glutathione comes to the rescue, mopping up those toxic free radicals before they can wreak havoc. But in the ALS patient, it appears, there isn’t enough glutathione to do the job. Starting with this knowledge base, Linseman—in concert with several undergraduate and graduate students—is working to move the dial forward, trying to better understand the molecular mechanisms of oxidative stress and the pathway between it and motor neuron death. In a groundbreaking paper in the October 2007 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, he and his colleagues pinpointed a family of “good” proteins—called Bcl-2 proteins—as key in helping usher glutathione into the mitochondria to quell oxidative stress. His team has since identified another group of “bad” proteins (a sort of wicked stepsister in the Bcl-2 family called BH3 proteins) that seem to have the opposite effect, inhibiting Bcl-2 function, keeping glutathione from doing its work and thus fueling oxidative stress. During recent laboratory tests in mice with ALS, Linseman and his students found that astrocytes (helper cells that neighbor motor neurons) were riddled with BH3, or “bad” proteins. “Astrocytes are normally good neighbors to the neurons, but in ALS they go haywire and secrete toxic substances,” Linseman explains. He believes BH3 proteins could be to blame, essentially turning good neighbors into murderers. “If that were true, and we could figure out the pathways that lead to the increased expression of these proteins in the astrocytes, we could create inhibitors that could block that pathway.”

“I would never say ‘cure.’ But if we could say to someone, ‘You have ALS, but you’ve got six to 10 years ahead of you and the first five won’t be so bad,’ that would be a big advance.”
a mutation of a specific gene called SOD1, or superoxide dismutase. What about the other 98 percent of ALS sufferers? Linseman believes environmental exposure may play a role. He points to research showing that military veterans, dating back to the Vietnam War, are far more likely to get ALS, and they tend to get it at an earlier age. One study conducted at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center found that more than three times as many Gulf War veterans developed ALS as would be expected in the general population. Another study, published in 2005 by Harvard

romising stuff, but Linseman concedes it could take years before this idea leads to a new drug. So while he works to understand how to get rid of the “bad guys” (the BH3 proteins), he also is exploring ways to reinforce the “good guys” (glutathione and Bcl-2). In March, he’ll begin feeding his ALS-afflicted laboratory mice a dietary supplement derived from whey protein, a precursor to glutathione, in hopes that it might slow the progression of the disease. He’ll also be looking at a compound called kuromanin (from black rice) and callistephin (from strawberries). Both are powerful antioxidants that seem to protect neurons from death, even when Bcl-2 is in short supply. Linseman says he’s not ready to endorse any particular dietary supplement, and he stresses that the Food and Drug Administration doesn’t regulate them, as it does drugs. But he’s hopeful. “That piece is much more straightforward and has the potential to come up with a therapeutic option more quickly,” he says. “I think it will work.” Aside from looking for new treatments, Linseman is keenly interested in just what causes ALS. Between 5 and 10 percent of ALS patients have some family history of the disease, and of those about 20 percent (or 1 to 2 percent of all ALS cases) are blamed on

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researchers, found that men with any history of military service in the last century are at a 60 percent greater risk than men who did not serve. “Could it be exposure to heavy metals, pesticides or insecticides?” Linseman asks. There also is a hypothesis that sudden, significant physical exertion (think basic training) could have an impact on motor neurons, he says. “Think about taking a guy like me, a couch potato, and throwing him into a situation where he is physically going to the max all the time. There is some evidence that could cause delayed damage to motor neurons.” Linseman currently is applying to the Department of Defense for a grant to see if mice with the mutant SOD gene (which causes ALS) deteriorate more quickly when exposed to certain toxins or extreme physical exhaustion. The other big question: Could such environmental factors cause ALS in a healthy mouse? If so, that could lead to the development of an entirely new model for studying ALS: Instead of using mice who have the disease due to a faulty gene when studying new drugs (a practice that has proved unsuccessful time and again), researchers could study new drugs in mice that got the disease from something else (like the vast majority of people who have it). “We only have one animal model for ALS, and that probably influences the outcome of clinical trials,” says Heather Wilkins, 23, a first-year PhD student who is working with Linseman on a paper for the PBS program “Nova.” She notes that numerous drugs that showed positive results in the mice with mutated SOD genes showed no results in humans with the disease. In one case, it even made the disease worse. “We don’t have a model for the sporadic form of the disease. That’s the problem,” Wilkins says. Lucie Bruijn, chief scientist with the California-based ALS Association, says that increased funding as a result of the recent federal economic stimulus plan already has helped fuel a surge in interest in ALS, with numerous new clinical drug trials and research projects under way on multiple fronts across the country. She credits Linseman and others like him for “contributing to a better understanding of the disease and its treatments.” “It is an extremely exciting time for ALS, with so many more scientists who did not work in this area before now working on the disease,” she says. Linseman too is optimistic, but when asked how soon his work may lead to changes for people suffering from the disease, he is cautious: in his lifetime, for sure. In the next decade, probably. He wishes it could be faster. “I can only say to them, ‘Hang in there.’ We’re working on it,” he says, looking at a computer screen full of e-mails from concerned loved ones, including Hubbard and Virden. How does that make them feel? “Hopeful,” Hubbard says. “Finally hopeful.”
>>Watch a video about Dan Linseman and his ALS research at www.youtube.com/ uofdenver

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Can immigration be reformed?
A DU panel of experts thinks so. They’ve drafted an immigration road map for the nation.
By Chase Squires

To navigate new lands, travelers need a map. To construct skyscrapers, builders need a blueprint. And to craft effective national immigration reform policy, a nonpartisan University of Denver panel may be just what the country needs. Led by Director Jim Griesemer, DU’s Strategic Issues Program (SIP) each year sets out to see whether 20 leaders from varied backgrounds can examine an issue facing the state of Colorado or the nation in depth and then develop solutions through consensus. In 2009 the panel sought to develop a pragmatic solution to the multitude of issues entangled with immigration, both legal and illegal. The result is the panel’s report, Architecture for Immigration Reform: Fitting the Pieces of Public Policy. “The question of immigration policy remains one of our most intractable issues,” the report states. “It has become a Gordian knot that even bipartisan attempts of recent years have failed to untie. It is a knot pulled ever tighter on one end by immigration advocates and on the other by immigration opponents.”

Released in December, the 49-page report lays out recommendations for reform built around a central notion that any new policies should be “grounded in creating economic and social benefits to the nation as a whole while maintaining national security.” Griesemer says developing priorities and a central theme— the betterment of the country—helped bring focus to an issue that has been the topic of rancorous debate everywhere from talk radio to Congress. “It’s intended to look at the problem in a practical way,” Griesemer says. “There is no silver bullet that is going to deal with this problem because it’s so complicated. If you fix one part and not the other, you’re just going to switch the problems around.” The SIP panel was composed of experts in business, government and education, including beer magnate and former Republican U.S. Senate candidate Pete Coors (MBA ’70) and Polly Baca, a former Democratic state senator and a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. Over a six-month span, panelists heard from more than 30 speakers—leaders in health care, venture capital, education, law enforcement, labor and immigration policy, as well as Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter and former Colorado governors Richard Lamm and Bill Owens. “I applaud the University of Denver’s Strategic Issues Program for its impressive work on the 2009 immigration panel,” Ritter said after the report was released. “Once again, DU has tackled one of the most challenging public policy issues of our day and demonstrated the ability to assemble a diverse group of stakeholders to develop recommendations in a thoughtful and bipartisan manner.” Among the panel’s recommendations are calls for tighter borders, simplified visa categories, government English language classes coupled with English language proficiency requirements for permanent residency, and a mechanism for those here illegally to register with the government and begin a process for legal residency.
University of Denver Magazine Spring 2010

Cristian Peña V´zquez a

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U.S. Representative Jared Polis, D-Colo., says he supports the latter recommendation. “I have long advocated that a pathway for undocumented immigrants to seek earned legal status and citizenship is essential to securing the safety of our nation’s borders and businesses,” he says. “Colorado’s immigrants help boost our labor and consumer markets, expand the workforce and drive our economy. Real, longlasting immigration reform must include a pathway to earned legal status and citizenship for the millions of immigrants who have made lives for themselves and their families in the United States.” The panel also recommended a secure national ID card for all employees, something Owens, a Republican, said he would support. “I’d like to see a verifiable national ID so that we can identify who among us are citizens, who among us are here legally, and almost by definition, those who aren’t here legally don’t have a card,” Owens told the panel in April 2009. “It is possible to make such a card that is verifiable and very difficult to counterfeit.” The report was distributed to more than 6,000 policy makers, business and political leaders and interested organizations, including every member of Congress. And it was met with enthusiasm in regional and national media. Denver Post columnist Tina Griego wrote, “What this nonpartisan panel has done over many months is give us a way to talk about how we talk about immigration reform. It did so by introducing the rational to the irrational, by proposing an overarching goal.”

Meanwhile, Post editorial writer Dan Haley called the report an “effective blueprint for what bipartisan legislation might look like.” “Much of what the panel came up with makes sense,” Haley wrote. “The border needs to be more secure. Immigrants need to learn to speak English. And employers, who shouldn’t have to play immigration cop, need a secure and reliable system to weed out legal from illegal when hiring.” Denver author Helen Thorpe is another who thinks the SIP approach makes sense. Thorpe explored the immigration issue in her 2009 book Just Like Us: The True Story of Four Mexican Girls Coming of Age in America, which was named an Oprah Book Club pick and one of The Washington Post’s top books of 2009. Thorpe, wife of Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, based the book on her personal relationships and experiences with four young women originally from Mexico and living in Colorado. The story follows the girls from high school through college. The girls had varying degrees of legal status, from illegal immigrant to full citizenship. Three of them attended and graduated from DU. “I am often asked at book readings what my recommendations would be for policy change,” Thorpe says. “It’s phenomenal to have a resource like the DU report to point people toward—and when they want to know what changes I would recommend, that’s where I send them. “I’m delighted to be able to steer people toward a document that offers so much helpful advice about how to move forward.”

Paul Jeffrey

With rumblings beginning on Capitol Hill late in 2009 that immigration could be the next big Congressional issue after health care and the economy, the report is well timed to become part of the debate. “If there were a simple answer to the question of immigration, the issue would have been resolved long ago,” the report concludes. “An effective immigration policy is about applying enlightened selfinterest to capture a national opportunity. It is about creating benefit to the United States in a highly competitive global economy. In the

process of benefiting the United States there is also the ability to provide opportunity to talented people from other countries who can contribute to a stronger, more vital American society. “Immigration policy need not be a win-lose game between the nation and prospective immigrants.”
The entire report—as well as a list of panelists, speakers and videotaped recordings of presentations—is online at www.du.edu/issues.

Recommendations
• Recognize global migration as an opportunity, not a reality to be ignored. • Immigration policy should deliver economic, social and other benefits to the United States. • Immigration priorities should place U.S. interests first. • Goals for immigration should be, in this order: national security, social vitality, economic advantage, family unification and refugee relief. • Federal laws should define appropriate roles for state and local government. • Congress should create a process that shares implementation of immigration policy with state and local governments and prohibits unfunded federal mandates.
Matt Nager/Redux

• Employment-based visas should be issued after consulting with states and employers. • The annual diversity lottery should be eliminated, transferring those visas to the convertible visa category. • The U.S. should continue efforts to strengthen its borders and fund border protection agencies at effective levels. • Employers should be recognized as allies and be provided tools necessary to support immigration policies. • An electronic employee eligibility status verification, such as E-Verify, should be made permanent and its use required. • A secure national ID card should be required for employment.

• English language classes should be offered, and English proficiency should be required for permanent residency status. • The government should create temporary work visas for seasonal and short-term employment. • After establishing a secure national employment ID card and an electronic verification system for employers, a provisional legal status should be created for those already here illegally. • Federal, state and local public benefits for illegal immigrants should be limited to those services currently allowed by law and should not be expanded.

• The total number of employment-based visas should be increased and then be managed annually based on economic conditions.

• The government should create a visa category for immigrants with superior education, experience, skills or talents. • Congress should create a time-limited provisional legal status program for those already here illegally. • Family-based immigration should not be numerically capped, but should be managed through the number of employment and refugee visas issued. • Limitations should be placed on immigration based on family ties, and for all purposes, “family members” should include only the spouse, unmarried minor children and parents.

• Reforms should be comprehensive, comprehensible, simple and transparent. • The visa system should be simplified to just eight visa categories. • Congress should establish an independent immigration management commission.

Bill Shatto

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DU instructors get creative with out-of-the-ordinary courses.

CLASS BY
University teaching and learning has come a long way in the past few decades—just ask psychology Professor Emeritus Bernie Spilka. “When I arrived in 1957, classroom practices were not only more traditional, but much more formal,” he says. Male faculty wore jackets and conservative shirts and ties in the classroom. The dominant teaching method was lecture with questions and comments. And expulsions from a course were common for poor behavior or improper dress. But during the 1960s, things started to change: New, more active faculty with new ideas were introduced to the University. “We became more motivated to try different ideas and methods,” Spilka says. “Simple lecturing was still present but markedly
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By Kathryn Mayer Illustrations by Steve Schader

THeMSeLveS
reduced. The ‘old guard’ was retiring and dying off, and DU changed radically and much for the better.” And DU’s progress hasn’t slowed down since. Now, many courses are anything but traditional. Think classes taught via satellite. Think reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban for homework, or comparing two different kinds of sauvignon blanc during class. All this while some students “dress up” for class in sweatpants and flip-flops. Oh, how times have changed. We asked students and academic departments around the University about some of their coolest and most outside-the-box courses. Here’s a sampling.

Why Do We Fall in Love?

Instructor: Professor Howard Markman, psychology Lovin’ it with Dr. Love: Markman, commonly referred to as “Dr. Love,” teaches this course in addition to running a couples clinic in DU’s psychology department, writing bestselling books about relationships and appearing on talk shows. The gist: The class looks at the science of love—falling in love, staying in love and repairing love—with the aid of stateof-the-art research from experts. Tough love, baby: Students come into the undergraduate core class thinking it will be an easy “A,” but it’s anything but—there’s a lot of work. It’s an advanced-level psychology course, after all. When students teach the teacher: Students have to end the course with their own research and a presentation on a subject of their choice. “Early on, students conducted a lot of research on using the Internet to meet people before I became acquainted with [the concept],” Markman says. Best part: As part of a Valentine’s Day assignment, students can interview their parents about aspects of their relationship, including their favorite love song. Students can make a CD of their own favorite song and their parents’, then write an essay about the similarities between the two.

Wine Festival

Instructor: Eric Lane, director of operations, School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management The gist: Students have six to eight weeks to plan and execute two world-class wine events. Students assume various administrative, sales and marketing, and operational positions for the remainder of the class. A newbie: Fall 2009 was the first time the undergraduate course was offered. Because the class—and the festival—was considered a smash success, it will be offered each fall going forward. A welcome difference: It’s all about “real-life” work. Students don’t have to worry about lectures, tests or writing papers. They are evaluated instead on their personal contributions, their reflections and the collaborative “bible” they produce detailing what went into the event. Why it’s cool: Students get to eat great food, try fine wines and then participate in really high-class events. They interact with vendors, campus entities and guests during the course of the events, Lane says. The question students are asking: How are we going to pull this off in such a short time?
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Heavy Metal and the Re-Enchantment of Modern Life

Sustainability and Human Society

Instructor: Jarl Ahlkvist, lecturer in the arts, humanities and social sciences The gist: The undergraduate course uses heavy metal and culture as a lens through which to examine ways in which modern life is “disenchanted,” or devoid of mystery, and the possibilities for “re-enchanting” our individual and collective experiences, Ahlkvist says. Welcome to the dark side: Heavy metal’s key themes and iconography are concerned with the unknown, the deviant and the taboo. “Heavy metal discusses openly, often in vivid detail, things that mainstream culture prefers us not to: death, mutilation, hypocrisy, environmental/nuclear devastation, suicide, genocide, sexual/violent crime, obsession, abuse and alienation,” Ahlkvist says. What the homework looks like: Listening to a range of heavy metal music, from Black Sabbath to Mastodon; watching documentary, biographical and concert films; analyzing album cover artwork and song lyrics; attending a metal performance; and participating in the virtual “headbanger” scene online. If you like this: Try Ahlkvist’s other class, the History of Progressive Rock.

Instructor: Lisa Dale, lecturer in the arts, humanities and social sciences The gist: It’s considered a “gateway” class designed to introduce undergraduate students to all facets of sustainability. It’s all part of DU’s new sustainability minor. Part of a bigger picture: After completing the course, students can select sustainability classes that complement their majors. The last part of the minor is a capstone, where students work in a group setting to complete a project. Join the club: DU is one of a growing number of universities in the country to offer such a program based on sustainability. Get it while it’s hot: “I used to walk into my classes and students didn’t know what sustainability was,” Dale says. “Now, it’s the buzz. It’s in the papers, in the news, every day.” In case you were curious: Sustainability is defined as meeting the needs of the current generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Paranormal Phenomena

C-SPAN Distance Learning

Instructor: C-SPAN contributor Steve Scully The gist: The undergraduate class—taught via broadband stream—offers a chance to learn about the government, the media and their relationship with each other not from a social sciences professor or a textbook, but from people in the field. Why it’s popular: This is the only distance-learning course of its kind in the country. DU students also connect with students from Pace University, George Mason University and the University of the District of Columbia. “DU students have a front row seat to history,” Scully says. A chance at fame: Classes often are aired on CSPAN3. Whom students interact with: Senators Bob Dole and George McGovern, veteran journalist Helen Thomas, Fox News correspondent James Rosen and former White House Chief of Staff Thomas “Mack” McLarty have all been guests. And that’s just a small sampling. When politics are funny: Scully is known for lightening the mood by ending classes with clips of Jon Stewart and “Saturday Night Live” political skits. An opportunity unmatched: “At one point a student asked Newt Gingrich if he would ever consider running for president,” says Erin Conroy (BA journalism ’06), who took the class in 2005 and now works for the Associated Press in New York City. “A journalism major at the time, I remember recognizing this as a rare opportunity many accomplished reporters would envy.”

Instructor: Chip Reichardt, psychology professor The gist: By studying ghosts, UFOs and other fringe occurrences, students learn to think about alternative explanations for events. Why it’s outside-the-box: “Not many courses in college address paranormal phenomena, even though people are really interested in the topic. The reason is that faculty don’t believe in paranormal phenomena, with good reason,” Reichardt says. “We need to teach students how to think, and I use the course for that purpose.” A meaningful experience: “The class talked about the state of the human mind and how easy it is to come up with false conclusions based on limited evidence and preconceived beliefs. It was an elective core class, but it changed the way I think,” says Jesus Corral (BA international studies ’07). What the homework looks like: Writing about angels, ghosts, near-death experiences, UFOs, life after death and ESP.

Dead Sea Scrolls

Introduction to Book Publishing

Instructor: Elizabeth Geiser, English lecturer Motto: People still love books. The gist: The course introduces students to every aspect and function of book publishing. Why it’s outside-the-box: Students meet top executives in each phase of the publishing process. As a final “exam,” they interview a key executive to discuss and examine how a particular book from that company actually got published. What the homework looks like: Creating ads for books; going to Denver’s famous independent bookstore, the Tattered Cover, for book readings and signings; learning to proofread and edit; and attending a symposium featuring an author and the editor who edited his or her book. A world where editors are praised: At a past symposium, best-selling thriller author Stephen White told students that his editor actually mapped out a room he described in one of his books and told White that if he kept it the way he described, he’d have his character walk right into the wall. Fun fact: The University of Denver hosts one of two graduate-level publishing institutes in the country. Geiser was the director of the exclusive Denver Publishing Institute for 33 years.

Instructor: Alison Schofield, assistant professor of religious studies An expert in the field: Schofield belongs to a select group of scholars who study the Dead Sea Scrolls. Who’s taking it: Undergraduate and graduate students. The gist: Students study the Dead Sea Scrolls, a cache of more than 900 manuscripts dating from B.C. 250 to 68 A.D. that were discovered in caves along the Dead Sea between 1947–56. The scrolls offer a rare window into early Judaism and Christianity. Why it’s popular: Nothing is as intriguing as a conspiracy theory—unless it’s multiple conspiracy theories. “It addressed something that in today’s society has a lot of misconceptions and myth-like qualities about it,” says Victoria Jaramillo (BA journalism ’08). Why it’s outside-the-box: In the digital imagery lab, students get to examine and manipulate high-resolution images of the scrolls to see what hidden secrets they can find. “There are only a few schools on the planet with access to these digital resources on texts and artifacts that are still under current debate,” Schofield explains. Best part: “It involves a lot of hands-on work, allowing students the opportunity to read and try to interpret the scrolls for themselves,” Jaramillo says. “This was particularly interesting in comparison to classes where all the legwork is done for you.” The question students are asking: Who wrote the scrolls?
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Book bin Pioneer pics Death notices Pop quiz Announcements

Topics in Literature: Harry Potter

Popular Poetry: YouTube, Hip-Hop, Bob Dylan and the Beats

DU Archives

Instructor: Jenn Zukowski Boughn, University College lecturer Who’s taking it: It’s an arts and culture graduate course offered sporadically through University College (intended for Muggles). The gist: Finding out everything you ever wanted to learn about Harry Potter and understanding the cultural importance of the work as a modern epic. Why it’s popular: Students are reading the Harry Potter series—and getting graduate credit for it. Isn’t that reason enough? Students may be surprised to learn: There were many fantasy novels written about wizards’ schools before J.K. Rowling’s series, and Rowling alludes to other literature in her writing. Young at heart: In addition to reading all seven Harry Potter books, students must also read books such as Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. What the homework’s like: One assignment is to complete a folklore scavenger hunt, finding the origins of folklore (such as turning men into pigs, a grail quest, Merlin, rats and centaurs) and locating their existence and relevance in the Harry Potter series.

Why it’s outside-the-box: The course tackles topics that aren’t typically taught in academic settings, such as the role of popular music in forming subcultural identities, or the role of YouTube in expanding the realm of poetry, Daniels explains. Best part: “I was impressed by my students’ ability to treat rather familiar topics, such as the Black Eyed Peas or Bob Dylan, in such new, invigorating and intellectually stimulating ways,” Daniels says.

Forensic Pathology

Instructor: David Daniels, lecturer in the University Writing Program The gist: The first-year seminar focuses on 20th century popular poetry and song lyrics. Why it’s popular: Students can talk about something that affects their everyday lives—such as hip-hop songs—in an intellectual way, of course.

Instructor: Professor Phillip Danielson (PhD ’96), biological sciences The gist: The undergraduate class focuses specifically on the investigation of sudden, unnatural, unexplained or violent deaths. Students learn how to determine the cause of death, the identity of the deceased, the nature and severity of injury, and the timing of the injury relative to the time of death. What students are learning: Decomposing bodies, blood spatter, knife wounds, ligature marks, fingerprints, DNA charts, skulls and bones are popular conversation topics. Elementary, my dear Watson: “Long ago, it was the author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who had a considerable influence on popularizing the use of scientific crime-detection methods through his fictional character Sherlock Holmes,” Danielson says. “It was in the stories of Sherlock Holmes that the public was introduced to the fields of serology, fingerprinting and firearm identification long before the value of these techniques was recognized and accepted by the criminal justice system. More recently, TV shows like ‘CSI’ have continued this tradition and in the process have attracted a mass audience to the field.” Grossology 101: A former student said she couldn’t eat anything during the class. Perhaps it had something to do with the real human skull that sat on Danielson’s desk.

A group of five former Denver Tramway conductors pose aboard a car on the University Park line during the last night of tramway service in 1950. From left to right: Dewey Flint, Alfred Nelson, John Gorsush, Philip Gilliam and Francis Van Derber. When the company extended its South Pearl Street line to reach the then-remote campus in the late 1890s, DU was nicknamed “Tramway Tech.” If you have Tramway Tech memories or photos you would like to share, please let us know.

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University of Denver Magazine Connections

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The classes
1945
Margaret “Peggy” (Anderson) Ribbing (BA ’45) of Denver started her teaching career in Lakewood, Colo., where she instructed up to 46 third-graders at a time. In 1984 she retired from teaching after 28 years.

San Francisco and a daughter in London. Robert and Joan enjoy traveling and have been to Europe, China and Southeast Asia. Shirley Mott (BS ’50) of Aurora, Colo., was honored with Kappa Delta’s Order of the Pearl award in recognition of her contributions to the sorority. The award is one of the top two honors conferred by the organization, with fewer than a dozen individuals selected each year.

Denver; Jimmie Lou (Howe) Richardson (BA ’55) of Keswick, Va.; Carol (Unruh) Harguth (MA ’80) of Denver; and Richard Olson (BA ’64) of Centennial, Colo., while on an ASD Cultural Exchange trip to Italy. The mission of the exchange program is to promote cultural understanding through sports.

1959

Alan Cook (BSBA ’59) of Morro Bay, Calif., renewed his contract as show director for three major arts and crafts shows on California’s central coast.

1961

Spiro Fotopulos (BSBA ’49, JD ’54) of Aurora, Colo., is mourning the loss of his wife, Harriet, who died on May 20, 2009.

1955

1950

Robert Lewers (LLB ’50) of Wayne, Pa., retired in 1989 as vice president and general counsel of Sun Refining and Marketing Co. He and his wife, Joan, have four children who live in the Philadelphia area, a son in

Alvie Willis (BSBA ’55, MA ’70), center, of Denver met fellow DU alumni Joanne (Howard) Kouris-Bell (MSW ’54) of

1963

Book bin
William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County—the Southern setting for classic novels such as Absalom, Absalom!, As I Lay Dying and The Sound and the Fury—is a fictional place, but as fictional places go it’s one of literature’s most enduring locales. Faulkner based Yoknapatawpha on the northeast corner of Mississippi where he lived and worked, and while the land around Lafayette County (as it’s known in the real world) has changed significantly since Faulkner wrote about it in the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s, photographer George Stewart (MA librarianship ’67) was able to uncover some of the area’s hidden treasures for Yoknapatawpha, Images and Voices: A Photographic Study of Faulkner’s County (University of South Carolina Press, 2009). The book combines 84 black-and-white photographs of Lafayette County and nearby areas with passages from Faulkner’s writing. “Attempting to find tangible clues to [Faulkner’s] county can be exciting but also daunting, sometimes tentative and even misleading,” Stewart writes in his acknowledgements. “I hope, however, that my photographic study is not only about Faulkner’s private Mississippi but also a Faulknerian interpretation.” Stewart’s footnoted commentary on the photos delves into the history of Lafayette County and the relationships between Yoknapatawpha and the real world. Beneath a stark image of a cell door in an old Mississippi jail, for instance, is an excerpt from Faulkner’s Sanctuary about a prisoner singing to himself after the sun has set; below that Stewart writes that Faulkner “believed that a jail was ‘the true record’ of a county’s human history. He felt that the old Oxford (Jefferson) jail, built in 1871, had been carefully and tastefully constructed.” Yoknapatawpha captures an all-but-vanished American South, from stately antebellum homes to ornate graveyards full of crumbling stones, ancient-looking stands of forest to humble church interiors. Stewart, a retired academic librarian who now lives in Georgia, took the photos between 1989 and 1999. In his foreword, Robert Hamblin, director of the Center for Faulkner Studies in Cape Girardeau, Mo., writes that he finds Stewart’s book superior to previous volumes that attempted to capture Faulkner’s world in photos. “Stewart’s work strikes me as more balanced, more comprehensive, and more consistent with Faulkner’s artistic design and purpose,” he writes. “… [T]he black and white photography seems perfectly suited to Faulkner’s somber, tragic vision.”
—Greg Glasgow

Marlow Ediger (EdD ’63) of North Newton, Kan., was reappointed as external examiner of PhD theses for Alagappa University in Karaikudi, India. He recently published articles in College Student Journal, American Technical Education Association Journal, Edutracks, Reading Improvement, MSTA Journal, Connecticut Journal of Science Education and Education.

1975 Kynewisbok

1949

Frank Swancara Jr. (BA ’57) of Cedaredge, Colo., climbed Leon Peak on Colorado’s Grand Mesa. Frank, who retired from the U.S. Forest Service, enjoys hiking and skiing, which he credits with keeping him young.

1957

Margaret Jackson (BFA ’61) of Sedona, Ariz., published Patterns and Pathways (BookSurge Publishing, 2009), which features more than 40 years of nature photographs. Margaret worked as a graphic artist at De Anza College in Cupertino, Calif., for 26 years.

Class notes challenge

Class of 1975: A lot can happen in 35 years, and we want to catch up with as many of you as we can. Your classmates want to hear from you, too! What have you been up to? Share career and family news, discuss your travels and hobbies, or reminisce about your time at DU. You can post your note online at www.du.edu/alumni, e-mail [email protected], or mail in the form on page 45. Class of ’75 notes will appear in the fall issue. We’ll randomly select a prizewinner from all entries received by June 1.

1965

1964

Richard Fields (JD ’64) is a semi-retired senior partner for Moffatt Thomas Barrett Rock & Fields in Boise, Idaho. He also is a past president of the Idaho State Bar and the initial chairman of the advisory council for the new Concordia University School of Law. Badi Foster (BA ’64) of Alexandria, Va., was appointed president and CEO of Phelps-Stokes Fund, a foundation that serves the educational needs of AfricanAmericans, Native Americans and the rural and urban poor. He previously held several positions at Harvard University, including chairman of the Hispanic Study Group, assistant director of the Kennedy Institute of Politics and visiting professor of African-American studies. Badi received his master’s and doctorate degrees in political science from Princeton University. He and his wife, Juanita, have two sons, Nabil and Qasim.

Ronald Cohen (BA ’65, JD ’68) of Denver remains in the private practice of law in Adams County, Colo., and is now in his 27th year as judge of the Northglenn Municipal Court. He enjoys collecting coins and Colt and Winchester guns, restoring a 1965 Buick Riviera, and traveling with his wife, Eloise.

1972

Floyd Esquibel (MA ’72, JD ’75) of Cheyenne, Wyo., is a democratic member of the Wyoming State Senate. He previously served in the Wyoming State House of Representatives for 11 years. Floyd has three children and three grandchildren. Ralph Turano (JD ’72) is an attorney at the Colorado State Patrol Academy, where he teaches a variety of legal courses to recruits, field troopers and civilian staff and provides legal consultation to the chief, command staff and field supervisors. He also provides legal training and advisory services for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. Ralph and his wife, Vicki, have been married for 38 years and live in Westminster, Colo. Their son, Brad, teaches Spanish at Horizon High School in Thornton, Colo.

1967

Harry MacLean (JD ’67) of Denver published The Past is Never Dead: The Trial of James Ford Seale and Mississippi’s Struggle for Redemption (Basic Civitas Books, 2009). The book weaves together the trial of ex-Klansman Seale for the murder of two young black men in 1964 and Mississippi’s efforts to overcome its past.

1971

Gene Tang (BSBA ’71, MBA ’75) owns 1515 Restaurant in Denver. For the ninth year in a row, 1515’s wine list received Wine Spectator’s “Award of Excellence.” In August 2009, Gene traveled with a select group of sommeliers from the United States to the Russian River Pinot Forum. While there, he had the opportunity to work firsthand with some of the nation’s top winemakers and growers.

1973

Richard Dehncke (JD ’73) of Greenwood Village, Colo., practices personal injury and wrongful death cases, teaches classes at the National Institute of Trial Advocacy and was recognized as a Colorado Super Lawyer. He and his wife, Kim, have two daughters in college. Last summer Richard completed a 10-day Outward Bound sea-kayaking trip in the Puget Sound in response to a challenge from his daughters.
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W. “James” Foland (JD ’73) practices civil trial and workers’ compensation law at Foland, Wickens, Eisfelder, Roper & Hofer in Kansas City, Mo. His son, Michael Foland (BSBA ’08, MS ’08), graduated from the officer candidate program at Fort Benning, Ga., and will receive advanced training in military intelligence at Fort Huachuca, Ariz. Wilford Hahn (JD ’73) of Huntington, Ind., is a senior partner at Matheny Hahn Denman & Nix, where he focuses on estate planning, commercial litigation, personal injury, Social Security, disability and workers’ compensation. In November 2009, Wilford was recognized by the outgoing president of the Indiana State Bar Association with a presidential citation for his contributions to the profession of law. Harlan Pelz (JD ’73) of Denver is the director at Fairfield and Woods PC. He has devoted more than 30 years to litigating in state and

federal courts and handling complex commercial litigation in trial courts and arbitration forums in Colorado and other jurisdictions.

consulting firm. He also is a trustee of the Suburban Hospital Foundation, where he serves as chair of the finance committee.

management and informatics for developing enterprises. He also has been appointed vice chair of the Daniels College of Business alumni advisory board. Theodore Merriam (JD ’78, LLM ’82) practices tax defense law in Denver with the Merriam Law Firm. He and his wife of 27 years, Donna, live in Golden, Colo. The couple has two daughters, both of whom are in college. Dennis Wolf (MBA ’78) of Monte Sereno, Calif., joined the board of directors for BigBand Networks. Dennis serves on the boards of directors for Codexis and Quantum Communication and has served in financial management roles at Apple and Sun Microsystems.

Rescuer Steve Shaffer
Steve Shaffer has found his heaven on Earth. His personal piece of paradise is WOLF—a rescue organization and sanctuary near Fort Collins, Colo., that is home to 30 captive-bred wolves and wolf dogs. WOLF’s 180 acres of pine and aspen forest are a sanctuary for Shaffer, too. For the past decade, Shaffer (BSBA accounting ’72) has been volunteering at the facility— feeding animals, cleaning and maintaining their enclosures, working to rehabilitate them, conducting educational outreach and chairing the nonprofit’s finance and accounting committee. “Steve goes way beyond the average volunteer,” says sanctuary founder Frank Wendland. Shaffer, a semi-retired CPA and entrepreneur, even relocated from Littleton, Colo., to be closer to the sanctuary, where he now volunteers at least three days each week. Working with wolves is emotionally satisfying, Shaffer says, and it lowers his blood pressure and blood sugar, too (he has Type II diabetes). “I don’t even miss DU hockey since I’ve been up here,” Shaffer says, walking slowly toward a forested enclosure. He’s greeted by excited yips from Merlin and Luna; a wolf dog named Arkte peers warily from a brush-shrouded perch high on the hill. “It makes my day when they come up to the fence,” Shaffer says, noting that when they arrive at WOLF, many animals are sick, malnourished and wary of humans. Arkte’s story is typical, he says: She spent six years confined to a travel kennel because her owner couldn’t manage her dominant personality. “They can challenge authority; that’s a big reason people can’t keep them as pets,” Shaffer says. “They trained me pretty quickly, though.” The Humane Society of the United States considers wolf dogs to be wild animals and advocates for an international ban on their private possession, breeding and sale. Although they make notoriously difficult house pets and are illegal in some states, wolf dog puppies are still widely available. But many are abused and neglected, winding up chained in backyards or penned in garages, Shaffer says, noting that thousands of wolf dogs are killed in the U.S. every year. WOLF has helped rescue more than 7,500 animals since its founding in 1995. “It’s a place for these animals to go where they won’t be euthanized due to the ignorance of people,” Shaffer says. Shaffer shares WOLF’s mission of education as a measure of prevention. “You may think it’s cool to have a wolf dog as a pet, but you’re not doing the animals any favors,” he admonishes. “You don’t know what you’re in for.” He learned firsthand. Shaffer says he became “hooked” on wolves years ago after “inheriting” Cheyenne, a wolf dog, from his ex. Cheyenne’s ashes are scattered at WOLF, and Shaffer says that eventually, his will be, too. “I have a great admiration, love and respect for [wolves],” Shaffer says. “If I could spend all of my time up here, I would.” >>www.wolfsanctuary.net >>See a video of Steve Shaffer and WOLF at www.youtube.com/uofdenver
—Chelsey Baker-Hauck

1974

Steve Marsh (BA ’74) co-authored the book Don’t Die Broke (Agate B2, 2009), with David Reindel and Fran Tarkenton. Steve resides in Centennial, Colo.

1976

Jay Emler (JD ’76) of Lindsborg, Kan., received an MA in security studies, homeland security and defense at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., in September 2008. David Wexler (BS ’76) of Gaithersburg, Md., was elected president of the Washington, D.C., Estate Planning Council in June 2009. David is a principal at Greenberg, Wexler & Eig LLC, an insurance and benefits

Marla Ottenstein (BA ’77) of Naples, Fla., launched Professional Organizer Florida, a fullrange organizing service. As a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers, she also offers comprehensive home-sales preparation in addition to home and office decluttering services.

1977

1978

Social director Jon Williams
Jon Williams (BA psychology ’76) is bringing civility back. Sixty years ago, Williams’ parents—a pair of professional dancers who had worked with Arthur Murray and Fred Astaire—founded Jon D. Williams Cotillions, which provided dance instruction and social-etiquette training to children in the Colorado Springs area. Williams took over the company in the early 1980s and expanded it from six to 50 programs nationwide, including a spring cotillion at DU’s Cable Center. The Denver-based company now teaches more than 10,000 people a year. In addition to the cotillion dances for kids in elementary and middle school, JDW Social Education Programs also offers social training for high school students, colleges and businesses. Participants learn everything from table manners and interview techniques to communication skills and customer relations. “The demand is huge,” Williams says. “More businesses are recognizing the role that social skills play in regard to their employees and how to deal with their clients. More colleges are adding it to their core curriculums. It’s added value for young people going out in business. Parents are recognizing it. When you see all the problems we’re dealing with today, whether it’s from the politicians or it’s from our celebrities or just general bad behavior, we’re losing our sense of civility.” Boys come in jackets and ties, girls in dresses and gloves—more because of clammy hands than any sense of fashion, Williams explains—getting a dose of etiquette while they learn to dance. “We’ll have them do the jitterbug, and in between the jitterbug we’re talking to them about a character scenario—what would you do in this situation?” Williams says. “And then we’re going to do some salsa. So they’re still thinking that over and they’re having fun, but they’re not in a lecture situation. They’re learning things subliminally in the process of having fun.” Williams says he hears from former students about how the cotillion prepared them for the big events to follow: dating, college and job interviews, business meetings. “Social skills are not about how you hold a cup of tea with your pinky stuck out or how to use a fingerbowl; it’s about substance and character,” he says. “You’re seeing what’s happening on the corporate levels today—quite often character and ethics are missing. Social skills are the tools that bring out the best in us if we’re good at them.” >>www.cotillion.com
— Greg Glasgow

1981 1982

Joan Rosenthal (BSBA ’81) owns Marigold Catering in Cleveland. She earned an MBA from Cleveland State University.

Courtesy of Jon Williams

Annie (Rosset) Huston (BA ’82) of Denver co-founded Columbine Design, Landscape Architects and Contractors, located in Englewood, Colo.

H. Gordon Roberts (MSJA ’82) of Catasauqua, Pa., passed the 20-year milestone in his position as the limited jurisdiction court administrator for the Lehigh County Courthouse in Allentown, Pa. Recently, Gordon traveled to Russia with his wife, Valerie, and their three sons. The trip re-created a similar one 33 years earlier during which he and Valerie met.

1984

Barbara Meikle (BFA ’84) of Tesuque, N.M., owns an art gallery with fellow artist Aleta Pippin and produces oil paintings in a style she describes as “expressive impressionism.”

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Wayne Armstrong

John Hale (MBA ’78) of Hagerstown, Md., is the principal and founder of MINDWEST Strategies, a Washington, D.C., based consulting firm providing communications,

1980

David Simmons (BA ’80, JD ’85) of Denver manages a bilingual immigration law office. He is an adjunct professor at the Sturm College of Law, where he teaches immigration law in Spanish, and he was named a Colorado Super Lawyer in 2008 and 2009. David and his wife, Neri, have two children, Chester and Laura.

University of Denver Magazine Spring 2010

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pump up your

pioneer

Founders Day Awards
Wayne Armstrong

1985

spirit this

spring!

Bookstore

University oF Denver

Shop for your new spring clothing at www.dubookstore.com or call 800-289-3848.

regular store Hours
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The University of Denver will celebrate the accomplishments of its community members with the 2010 Founders Day Awards, which will be handed out at a gala reception March 4 at the Seawell Grand Ballroom in the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. Mike St. John (BSBA ’81) will receive the Randolph P McDonough . Award for Service to Alumni. The award is named for Randolph McDonough, DU alumni director from 1934–63; it was first presented in 1986. St. John’s many DU volunteer activities General George Casey have included serving as an alumni mentor, conducting Ammi Hyde interviews of prospective students and serving on the Alumni Association Board, the Alumni Admission Council and the Daniels executive Advisory Board. The Distinguished Service to the University Award will be presented to Tyrone “Ty” Mills, associate director of campus safety. Since coming to DU in 1972 following his discharge from the U.S. Army, Mills has dedicated himself to making campus safer. He oversaw installation of the “blue light” emergency telephones at DU and created the annual “Safe Walk” around campus and the “Safe Ride” shuttle that provides transportation for people on campus after hours. Mills also oversees campus safety training and the Rape Aggression and Defense Class for students, faculty and staff. Meyer Saltzman (BS ’58) is the recipient of the Community Service Award, first presented in 1973. Founder of the accounting firm Saltzman Hamma Nelson Massaro LLP Saltzman has , chaired the boards of directors of National Jewish Health and the Caring for Colorado Foundation. He serves on the boards of the Denver Zoological Foundation, where he is vice-chair of finance, and the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame. Saltzman also is a member of Colorado Concern, a political action committee for improving the economy, education and quality of life in Colorado. The Ammi Hyde Award for Recent Graduate Achievement will go to Nora Heitmann (BA ’00). Recipients of this award, first presented in 1993, must have earned a DU undergraduate degree in the previous 10 years and demonstrated professional achievement. Heitmann, a new accounts manager for Denver-based Forward Logistics Group, is consistently the company’s top-ranked salesperson—a feat made all the more impressive by the fact that she has been working just two days a week after coming back from maternity leave in winter 2008. Heitmann also has served on DU’s Alumni Council, Founders Day Selection Committee, Alumni Advisory Board and Mile High Alumni Chapter. Former Ambassador Cindy Courville (MA ’80, PhD ’88) will receive the Professional Achievement Award, first given in 1973. Courville served as the first U.S. ambassador to the African Union from 2006–08. Prior to her appointment, Courville was a special assistant to President Bush and senior director for African affairs at the National Security Council. The evans Award—the University’s highest alumni honor—will be presented to General George Casey Jr. (MA ’80), who was sworn in as the 36th Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army on April 10, 2007. He previously served as commander of the Multi-National Force in Iraq, overseeing a coalition of more than 30 countries. First awarded in 1951, the evans Award, named for University Founder John evans, recognizes alumni who have demonstrated professional achievement, humanitarian service to the community and continuing interest in the University.
— University Communications Staff

Margaret “Peggy” O’Neill-Jones (MSS ’85) of Golden, Colo., teaches technical communication and media production at Metropolitan State College of Denver. She also serves as the Western regional director for the Library of Congress’ Teaching With Primary Sources Program.

Frequent Flyer Lisa Hogan
It’s probably safe to say there are few people who are equally comfortable trying a case in a courtroom and flying through the air, waiting for someone to catch them by their ankles. But flying through the air as a member of the Westminster-based Imperial Flyers trapeze and circus arts club is nothing new for University of Denver Sturm College of Law alumna Lisa Hogan (JD ’84). She also juggles, holds a radio disc jockey license and dabbles in fire-eating. Hogan’s path to the trapeze began years ago. After earning a degree in political science at the University of Oregon, she mulled two career paths. One would send her to Barnum & Bailey Circus School, the other to law school. Hogan was so serious about performing in the circus, she delayed her entrance into Sturm to await word from Barnum & Bailey, which eventually turned her down. Hogan spent a year in the mountains working as a disc jockey and then started law school. It turned out to be the right choice. In October, Hogan, 51, was honored through the DU Law Stars program for alumni professionalism. “I guess I’ve always been up for anything,” Hogan says between practice swings from a platform 23 feet above a field in the Denver suburbs. After DU, Hogan began her legal career with the Denver district attorney’s office before taking a job with the law firm of Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber and Schreck. After 17 years with the firm, she took a job as vice president of litigation for Level 3 Communications. After helping the firm through a period of tremendous growth, she returned to private practice with Brownstein, seeking a broader range of challenges and more time in the courtroom. It was during her time with the district attorney’s office that friends lured her into a loose-knit band of trapeze enthusiasts organized through the downtown YMCA. She says it was love at first swing, even when she suffered painful muscle tears on her second day with the squad. There was no turning back, she says. “It seems like I have always been leaping off of something, hoping to make a catch or not die trying, keeping lots of complex objects up in the air, stumbling and trying to make it look like it was on purpose, getting wrapped up and twisted around and upside down,” she says, “and trying not to let them see me sweat.”
—Chase Squires

1986

Kathleen Negri (JD ’86) of Denver was selected as a health and aging policy fellow. The program, which will require her to live in Washington, D.C., for one year, aims to provide professionals with the experience and skills necessary to affect policy and ultimately improve the health of older adults. Kathleen has worked as an elder law attorney in private practice since 1994. Debra Wilcox (JD ’86) of Littleton, Colo., is vice president and project manager for Bye Energy Inc., which pursues clean energy projects for general aviation, including bio-derived aviation fuels and an electric propulsion system for small aircraft. She was selected to join forces with 33 business and community leaders across Colorado in the 2009 National Renewable Energy Laboratory energy executive leadership program.

Jeff Haessler

1988

www.dubookstore.com

Duncan DeVille (JD ’88) has been appointed adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University. Duncan continues to lead the anti-money laundering/anti-terrorist financing program at Booz Allen Hamilton in Washington, D.C.

1989

Janet Martin (MBA ’89) is president of Boulder, Colo., based design firm Communication Arts. She has served as chair of the Boulder Chamber of Commerce board and the Design Futures Council board of advisers. In 2005, Janet was inducted into the Boulder County Business Hall of Fame.

1990

J.J. Fraser (JD ’90) of Golden, Colo., has spent 18 years of practice with insurance defense firms, with 10 years on the defense side and eight years on the claimants’ side. Lynne Sholler (JD ’90) practices employment law in Durango, Colo. She enjoys skiing, hiking and whitewater rafting and is working on a legal fiction novel.

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BS-004_SpringAd.indd 1

Quotable notes
Thank you to everyone who responded to the fall issue’s question of the hour: Who was your favorite professor and why? “Professor Arnold Withers, anthropology department. He was my major professor and adviser. He went out of his way to create opportunities for his students beyond the classroom.” Frank Swancara Jr. (BA ’57) Cedaredge, Colo. “Jimmy Johnston. A regular guy and wonderful teacher.” Alan Cook (BSBA ’59) Morro Bay, Calif. “Peter Adler was without question my favorite professor. He made learning and sitting in a classroom interesting and fun. He was able to communicate to a classroom of young people in a way that a lot of other professors could not.” Keir (Maloney) Wark (BA ’92) Chester, Vt. “Dr. Toni Linder—her support and encouragement.” Ann Petersen-Smith (PhD ’07) Aurora, Colo.

1991

Jeffrey Hedberg (MIM ’91) is the chief executive officer for Multi-Links Telecommunications’ subsidiary in Nigeria. Jeffrey previously held the same position with Cell C South Africa.

1996

1992

Richard Levin (JD ’96) of West New York, N.J., joined SecondMarket as general counsel, chief compliance officer and secretary to the board of directors. Richard previously worked with BIDS Trading L.P., an alternative trading system owned by 12 leading investment banks.

Pioneer pics
James Candelaria (JD ’97) poses in front of victoria Falls in Livingstone, Zambia, in October 2009. James is the U.S. Department of Justice’s resident legal adviser to the country of Zambia. He is there to implement the Women’s Justice and empowerment Initiative, an agreement between the United States and Zambia to provide technical assistance to Zambian prosecutors and judges on the prosecution and adjudication of gender-based violent crimes. James is holding the DU volleyball shirt his daughter, Deryn, received at DU’s summer volleyball camp. As you pioneer lands far and wide, be sure to pack your DU gear and strike a pose in front of a national monument, the fourth wonder of the world or your hometown hot spot. If we print your submission, you’ll receive some new DU paraphernalia courtesy of the DU Bookstore. Send your print or high-resolution digital image and a description of the location to: Pioneer Pics, University of Denver Magazine, 2199 S. University Blvd., Denver, CO 80208-4816, or e-mail [email protected]. Be sure to include your full name, address, degree(s) and year(s) of graduation.

Keir (Maloney) Wark (BA ’92) and her husband, Matt, welcomed their son Colby on April 16, 2009. The family resides in Chester, Vt.

1997

Janalee (Card) Chmel (MLS ’97) of Denver had her company MA! (Motherhood With Attitude) profiled in the October 2009 issue of Redbook magazine. MA! offers gift items and support for moms. Janalee lives in Denver. Patrick Linden (BSBA ’97, MSF ’01, JD ’01) of Denver joined Sherman & Howard as a member in business practice. He represents sports organizations in their sponsorships, television, financing and naming rights transactions. Patrick also is a licensed player agent with the National Football League Players Association.

1994

Tod Gilbertson (MSLA ’94) was named executive director of McKinley Irvin, a large firm in the Northwest focusing exclusively on family law. Tod lives in Sumner, Wash., with his wife and four children. Marianne Goodland (MS ’94) of Englewood, Colo., married Jeffrey Scott on Sept. 19, 2009. A week prior, she won the Longs Peak Scottish-Irish Festival harp competition in Estes Park, Colo.

Pin pals
Like the more than 1,000 students who graduated from DU with her in June 2009, Caitlin Shea (BSBA ’09) walked away from the Commencement ceremony with a souvenir: a tiny crimson and gold alumni pin. The new grads were instructed to carry the pin with them to give to a fellow alumnus, were they ever to run into one. “They said if you ever meet an alumni you give them this pin and it’s really a way of keeping our tradition alive,” Shea says. She didn’t know how good her chances were of ever running into a DU alum, but she liked the sense of connection the pin represented. Two days after graduation, however, she met Doug Michel (BA ’51) and his wife, San, in the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Shea and her family were traveling to Canada to embark on an Alaskan graduation cruise, while the Michels were returning to their home on Maui. “They started talking to my family, and my graduation from DU came up,” Shea says. “The look on Doug’s face was priceless. He laughed and said, ‘Well, the funny thing about that is that I am a DU alum too!’” Doug Michel told Shea of his service in World War II and how he came to DU on the GI Bill. Michel also served as president of the DU Alumni Association from 1976–77. “Caitlin and I compared our experiences at DU and the many changes in the campus and faculty since 1951,” Michel says. “It was then that she presented me with ‘the pin.’ I accepted it with thanks and told her I was very touched by the gesture.” Shea has kept in touch with the couple, even giving San Michel a coin to throw in the Trevi Fountain in Rome on the Michels’ recent trip to Italy. “We all value our education at DU so much and most of us had a wonderful experience there, and I love the fact that someone who is probably triple my age can still tell me amazing stories about going to college there and enjoying DU,” Shea says. “We all have that common bond. It doesn’t really matter what age you are; it doesn’t really matter what major you were—it’s just neat that the school in some way touched all our lives.”
—Greg Glasgow
Courtesy of Caitlin Shea

Contact us
Tell us about your career and personal accomplishments, awards, births, life events or whatever else is keeping you busy. Do you support a cause? Do you have any hobbies? Did you just return from a vacation? Let us know! Don’t forget to send a photo. (Include a self-addressed, postage-paid envelope if you would like your photo returned.)
Question of the hour: What was your favorite on- or off-campus eatery and why? Name (include maiden name) DU degree(s) and graduation year(s) Address City State Phone e-mail employer Occupation ZIP code Fax Country

What have you been up to? (Use a separate sheet if necessary.)

Post your class note online at www.alumni.du.edu, e-mail [email protected] or mail your note to: Class Notes, University of Denver Magazine, 2199 S. University Blvd., Denver, CO 80208-4816.

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1998

David Abdulai (PhD ’98) is the CEO of the UNISA Graduate School of Business in Midrand, South Africa. David previously was dean of the faculty of business and law at Multimedia University in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He has worked as a senior information officer at Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland and as a research consultant for the World Bank.

Chad Rogers (BSBA ’99) of Malibu, Calif., appeared for a third season on the Bravo cable channel show “Million Dollar Listing.” The show profiles three real estate agents in the Hollywood area.

2001

1999

Michael McTaggart (JD ’99) and his wife, Ashley, welcomed their first child, Charlotte. Michael and his family live in Houston.

Buckley (Sizemore) Fricker (JD ’01) of McLean, Va., owns Buckley’s for Seniors LLC, which provides non-medical personal services to senior citizens in the Washington, D.C., area. In fall 2009, she started teaching a course about legal, financial and health care considerations for retirement and the elderly as an adjunct professor at the local community college. Buckley has three children.

Khalid Rosa (BS ’01, MAS ’08) of Denver received graduate certificates in information systems security and database administration from University College. He also is pursuing a master’s in finance and accounting from Regis University. In October, Khalid was promoted from a systems engineer associate to a data warehouse specialist at TeleTech in Englewood, Colo. Sarah (Harms) Sheyno (MRLS ’01) resides in Whitehall, Pa., where she works as an environmental, construction and real estate consultant for Lender Consulting Services Inc.

Jesse Witt (JD ’01) of Arvada, Colo., relocated his law firm, the Witt Law Firm, to the Denver Chamber Building. His firm focuses on construction law, appellate practice and general litigation.

Reunion recaps
Last April, five alumni from the Class of 2001 gathered in the Denver area for a reunion one year in the making. From left: Natasha Goskirk (BA ’01) of Oakland, Calif.; Marcela Priuli (BSBA ’01) of Denver; Graça Berneck (BSBA ’01) of Brazil; Tanya Williams (BSBA ’01) of Lafayette, Colo.; and Trevor Stiaszny (BSBA ’01) of Leawood, Kan.

2002

Sunny Heydorn (JD ’02) and Jayme (Ship) Ritchie (JD ’04, LLM ’04) created WeeCycle, a Denver-based nonprofit whose mission is to help low-income families with infants and toddlers by providing them with new and gently used baby gear free of charge. Since its inception in late 2008, the organization has donated more than 600 baby items. Sunny and Jayme reside in Denver. William Valaika (MS ’02) of Woody Creek, Colo., started Habitat Healers, a nonprofit that aims to clean up beaches around the world while saving sea turtles and introducing recycling. The organization has teamed up with Global Vision International, and several DU students have joined the cause.

Diva Alysia Kline
Alysia Kline (MS finance ’04, MBA ’04) knows what it’s like to be a woman in a man’s world. And she’s a competitor—in sports and business— as co-owner of the women’s outdoor gear and apparel company Outdoor Divas. Kline’s summary of running the business is simple: “It’s fun,” she explains, “but it takes a tolerance of pain.” The women’s side of the recreation industry has really taken off in the past five years, Kline says. “Most companies thought the idea wouldn’t have worked … but we validated the idea, and now people pay attention.” Kline’s friends and business partners Michael Callas and Kim Walker launched Outdoor Divas in 2002 with a 6,000-square-foot space in Boulder, Colo. Kline worked part time at the store until she finished her business degree from DU in 2004. She then came on full time as finance director. She became co-owner in 2007. And that’s when the business really started booming. The company’s Web site launched in 2005; its Denver location, at 2717 E. Third Ave. in Cherry Creek, opened in 2006. The 3,100-square-foot store offers products from about 100 different vendors. The store is a one-stop shop for active women. It’s a place to get not only essential (and fashionable) clothes, but equipment and gear for an array of sports. The company’s competitors, Kline says, often focus on either clothing or equipment, so Outdoor Divas’ combination of the two makes it stand out among other sporting goods and clothing stores. Outdoor Divas—which has 12 employees—carries popular, big-name brands like Mountain Hardwear and Patagonia, but its focus is on smaller, niche brands. “We’re planning a slow growth so it’s manageable. We’ve proved we can be successful as a regional competitor,” says Kline, adding that she, Callas and Walker may eventually take the company national. “We want to encourage women to get out there and have fun,” Kline says. “We think exercising and being healthy is a really important part of your life, so we just try to make this a place where someone can be comfortable, feel good about what they are purchasing and have some enjoyment in their lives.” >> www.outdoordivas.com
Wayne Armstrong

2003

Benjamin Lieberman (MBA ’03, JD ’03) opened his own firm, the Law Office of Ben W. Lieberman PLC, as a solo practitioner in Salt Lake City concentrating on commercial, personal injury, domestic and real estate litigation. Ja Niece Price (JD ’03) of Pocatello, Idaho, was named Prosecutor of the Year 2009 by the Greater Pocatello Chamber of Commerce and the Bannock County prosecutor’s office, where she has worked for the past three years.

In August, six graduates of the Graduate School of Social Work and their wives gathered in Breckenridge to celebrate 43 years of friendship and a combined 264 years of marriage. From left: Ross Becker (MSW ’68, PhD ’76) of visalia, Calif.; Don Reed (MSW ’68) of Boulder, Colo.; Larry Willkom (MSW ’68) of Chippewa Falls, Wis.; Cal Rice (MSW ’68) of Centennial, Colo.; Glenn Gravelle (MSW ’67, PSYD ’82) of Centennial, Colo.; and Orv McElfresh (MSW ’68) of St. Charles, Ill.

2004

Tamara Crouse (MGS ’04) of Clifton, Va., was given the 2009 Sol Linowitz Award by the National Security Education Program. She received the award in recognition of her commitment to serving the United States through her work as an intelligence specialist with the U.S. Navy Reserve and as a foreign affairs officer with the U.S. Department of State.

2005

—Kathryn Mayer

Samantha (House) Greendeer (JD ’05) is an associate with Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek S.C., practicing in the firm’s Madison, Wis., office. Samantha also serves on the Wisconsin State Bar’s Indian Law Section board of directors. She is engaged and has two daughters, Lisa and Alexandria.

David Hughes (BSBA ’66) of Santa Barbara, Calif., gathered with approximately 45 other DU graduates from 1963–68 for a Sigma Alpha epsilon reunion in October 2009. The reunion took place at Cherry Creek State Park.

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John Hake (JD ’05) of Boulder, Colo., formed Hake Hart & Lintzenich LLC with James Hart (JD ’06) and John Lintzenich (JD ’05) of Denver. The firm focuses on real property, land use, corporate formation and operation, transactional work and estate planning.

She also was appointed to a two-year term as a Susan G. Komen advocate in science. In 2008, Stephanie was named a Colorado appointee to the United States Election Assistance Commission Federal Standards Board. Kevin Reinholz (JD ’06) has been working as a judge advocate for the U.S. Air Force in Utah for the past two years. In summer 2009, Kevin traveled to Japan on assignment for the Air Force.

Julie Schmidt (JD ’06) and Ryan Behrman (JD ’06) of Glendale, Colo., were married on June 26, 2009. They met as law students at DU. Casey Wieland (BS ’06) and Elizabeth (Kwiatkowski) Wieland (BA ’06) welcomed their daughter June on Sept. 5, 2009. The couple resides in Milwaukee.

2007

2006

Stephanie Cegielski (JD ’06) of Highlands Ranch, Colo., started the Jill Lamb Foundation, a nonprofit organization that assists families affected by breast cancer and educates the public on the risks of breast cancer.

Cody Churchill (BSBA ’07) married Elizabeth Miller (BA ’02, MSW ’07) on Aug. 14, 2009, in Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico. Cody is an account executive with Northwestern Mutual and Elizabeth works for DaVita Dialysis. The couple resides in Wheat Ridge, Colo. Sarah (Van Essen) Martin (BSBA ’07) of Castle Rock, Colo., started her own business, Sarah Christine Photography, which was voted one of the top five wedding photographers by Denver TV station KMGH. She credits DU with giving her the education she needed to get her business of the ground.

Ann Petersen-Smith (PhD ’07) of Aurora, Colo., is an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Denver College of Nursing.

Karine FalckPedersen (BSBA ’08) was featured in Warren Miller’s latest film, Dynasty, skiing the slopes in her native country of Norway, where she resides.

2008

Deaths
1930s
George Lof (BSCHE ’35), Englewood, Colo., 10-12-09 Edward Hall Jr. (BA ’36), Santa Fe, N.M., 7-20-09 Muriel Blaser (BA ’38), Pittsford, N.Y., 10-22-09 Lillian Lewis (BA ’38), Chesterfield, Mo., 10-25-09 Dorothy Schutz (BA ’38), Denver, 7-20-09 Ada Boss (BA ’39, MA ’50), Englewood, Colo., 8-16-09 C. Wiles Hallock (BA ’39), Walnut Creek, Calif., 7-13-09

1960s

2009

?
Alumni Relations

Which alum applied to Barnum & Bailey Circus School? The answer can be found somewhere on pages 37–49 of this issue. Send your answer to [email protected] or University of Denver Magazine, 2199 S. University Blvd., Denver, CO 80208-4816. Be sure to include your full name and mailing address. We’ll select a winner from the correct entries; the winning entry will win a prize courtesy of the DU Bookstore. Congratulations to C. Russell Nickel (BS ’59, MBA ’61) for winning the winter issue’s pop quiz.

David Ogilvie (BA ’64, JD ’67), Denver, 6-17-09 Diantha Pearmain (MSW ’64), Cheyenne, Wyo., 3-8-09 Richard Genender (BSEE ’65), Boca Raton, Fla., 6-4-09 E. “Jean” Schiff (BFA ’66), Denver, 5-18-09 Jane (Stockdale) Grogan (BA ’67), Englewood, Colo., 8-09 Cherrelyn Ostrom (BA ’68), Denver, 9-9-09

Christopher “Mark” Macneill (LLM ’09, MRLS ’09) of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, is a correspondent for the Scots Law News.

1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s

Post your class note online at www.du.edu/alumni, e-mail [email protected] or mail in the form on page 45.

Charles Sellner (JD ’72), Murphy, N.C., 3-7-09 Paula Sperry (MA ’73), Denver, 9-4-09

1940s

Harry Shade (BA ’41), Lakewood, Colo., 10-11-09 Leonard Savory (BSCHE ’42), Estes Park, Colo., 8-23-09 Evelyn Bartee (BA ’43), Littleton, Colo., 3-31-08 Michael Reidy (JD ’43), Denver, 4-12-09 William Huber (BSCHE ’44), Lone Tree, Colo., 7-17-08 John Marks (BA ’46), Princeton, N.J., 4-15-09 Carroll “Richard” Satriano (attd. 1946–50), Denver, 7-24-09 Joseph Miller (BA ’48, JD ’66), Littleton, Colo., 3-16-09 Harold Niven Jr. (BA ’48), Chevy Chase, Md., 7-23-09 William Rentfro (LLB ’48), Denver, 6-21-09 Robert Negri (BSBA ’49, JD ’51), Colorado Springs, Colo., 2-14-09

Scott Mercy (BS ’83), Nashville, Tenn., 5-30-00 Tracy Weldon (JD ’85), Vista, Calif., 4-26-09 Nancy Johnson (JD ’86), Denver, 3-20-09

Brent Martin (BA ’96, JD ’90), Castle Rock, Colo., 1-16-09 David Isern (JD ’98), Amarillo, Texas, 7-1-09

S Y M P O S I U M in Boston

Alumni

Samuel Spry (attd. 2000–04), Denver, 9-16-09

1950s

Faculty and Staff

April 14, 2010

DU is going on the road… Join alumni and faculty

Abram De Herrera (JD ’50), Tucson, Ariz., 2-9-09 William Doetze (MBA ’50), Milwaukee, 4-2-09 Norman Early (JD ’50), Denver, 1-25-09 Russell Farrar (BS ’50), Lakewood, Colo., 8-25-09 Sam Etcheverry (BA ’52), Venice, Fla., 8-29-09 Merton Frederick (BA ’53, MSW ’55), Sarasota, Fla., 10-6-08 James Wallie (BSCE ’53), Cambridge, Mass., 7-28-09 Theodore “Ted” Hackworth (BSBA ’55), Denver, 11-9-09 Henry Toll (JD ’55), Denver, 10-15-08 Georgia Imhoff (BS ’56), Englewood, Colo., 9-6-09 Mackintosh Brown (JD ’57), Denver, 3-31-09 Richard Corbridge (JD ’58), Tulsa, Okla., 5-11-09 Daniel Hoffman (LLB ’58), Greenwood Village, Colo., 9-1-09 Patricia Robb (LLB ’58), Rye, Colo., 7-23-09

Lee Evans, business professor emeritus, Nederland, Colo., 11-7-09 Shirley Good, Denver Research Institute (retired 2001), Littleton, Colo., 8-6-09 David Murcray (BS ’48, PhD ’63), professor of physics and astronomy, Denver, 10-13-09

Friends

Morley Ballantine, former DU trustee (1988–93), Minneapolis, 10-10-09 Thomas Winker, stone carver, Wheat Ridge, Colo., 9-11-09 Lucien Wulsin, former DU trustee (1971–89), interim chancellor (1984), Boulder, Colo., 8-23-09

Learn more and sign up at www.alumni.du.edu

for a lifelong learning experience.

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ANNOUNCEMENTS
Most importantly, retain your sense of self-worth and value. You were probably doing a good job. However, in this economy, many businesses find themselves in the position of having to cut expenses. Creating an action plan within the first 24 hours after learning of a layoff will help set the tone for your job search.
File for unemployment with your state.

Q: A:

DU Photography Department

Career corner
I was recently laid off. What steps should I take?

Create a job search plan.

If you graduated from the Sturm College of Law or received a graduate degree from the Daniels College of Business, contact them directly; they provide lifetime services. Those who received a graduate degree from the Josef Korbel School of International Studies have lifetime access to the KorbelCareers job database; those who graduated within the last year receive full career counseling services from the Korbel Office of Career and Professional Development. All other DU alumni should start by reviewing the Career Center’s online materials, including DU Careers Online (www.du.edu/studentlife/career).
Finally, don’t wallow in fear about your future.

Mentoring Program and start mentoring a DU student today. Contact Cindy Hyman at [email protected] for details.

Get Involved Mentoring Join the Pioneer Connections

Benefits are not retroactive and the approval process usually takes at least two weeks. Do not wait until any severance benefits end to file your claim.
Notify your contacts that you are seeking a new job and what you are looking for.

While the current national unemployment rate hovers around 10 percent, the rate for those with a college degree is much lower, at 4.9 percent as of November 2009. With the proper approach, a good attitude and some hard work, you will find another job.
Cindy Hyman is the associate director of alumni career programs at the University of Denver. She can be reached at [email protected].

Local Chapters Just moved to a new city and don’t know anyone? Need to expand your professional network? Want to attend fun events and make new friends, or reconnect with old ones? Join a local alumni chapter: Atlanta; Boston; Chicago; Dallas; Minneapolis/St. Paul; New York; Phoenix; St. Louis; and Washington, D.C. To find out how you can get involved, call the Office of Alumni Relations at 800871-3822 or visit www.du.edu/alumni/chapters. Mark Your Calendar Newman Center Presents The 2009–10

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 facilitators and learners. >>universitycollege.du.edu/olli

Lifelong Learning OLLI DU’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute is a

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

You should also join a professional network, such as LinkedIn, to expand your contacts.

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: • re working (or former) journalists, especially a those working in “new media” • ork in the food and beverage industry w • re working/serving in Iraq or Afghanistan a • ere DU Centennial Scholars w • erved in the Peace Corps s • erved in AmeriCorps s

Wine Master Jennifer Simonetti-Bryan
A few years after graduating from DU with a degree in international business, Jennifer Simonetti-Bryan had a business lunch that changed her life. She was working for Citibank in London, and on the lunch menu was herb-crusted salmon and Sancerre—a white wine from the Loire valley in France. “They served this together, and I was so enthralled with it,” Simonetti-Bryan says. “Salmon is a very fatty fish, and it coats your tongue in an oil. When you sip the Sancerre, which is extremely high in acid, it creates this cleansing sensation on your tongue. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, this is really cool.’ It wasn’t that the wine itself was so amazing, it was just that I had never experienced anything like that before.” Simonetti-Bryan (BS ’95) started taking a wine class in London shortly thereafter, and she was bitten—hard—by the wine bug. She studied and trained for years, and in the fall of 2008 she became one of only four women in the United States to earn the title Master of Wine, the highest standard of professional knowledge in the wine industry. “It’s such an enormous endeavor,” she says. “It’s kind of like a cross between the bar exam and the Olympics. It’s a four-day exam, and it is kind of physical. One of the things you have to do is you have to identify 36 wines blind. They’ll say, ‘OK, what’s the grape variety and tell us why.’ It’s not enough to be able to guess and get it right.” Simonetti-Bryan, 36, now has her own wine consulting firm and is creating a DVD series with the Teaching Company. She also is one of 10 women in the U.S. to hold the highest credentials of the Wine & Spirits Education Trust and Society of Wine Educators. But her first wine job was a little less glamorous. She left the banking industry and a six-figure income to work for less than $25,000 a year at the Burgundy Wine Co., a retailer in Greenwich Village. “My family thought I had lost my mind,” she says. “But if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life. I figured the money will come eventually if I concentrate on what I love and what I want to do.”
— Greg Glasgow

Newman Center Presents series continues this spring with performances by Ladysmith Black Mambazo (March 16), the Martha Graham Dance Company (April 20), American Bluegrass Masters (May 8) and more. >>www.du.edu/newmancenter

Founders Day Celebrating 146 years of distinction! The annual Founders Day Gala will be held on Thursday, March 4, 2010, at the Seawell Grand Ballroom in the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. Contact Hallie Lorimer at [email protected] for details. 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. >>www.du.edu/alumni

area alumni for networking events each month. >>www.du.edu/alumni

Alumni Connections Pioneer Alumni Network Join other Denver

Homecoming Helpers Thank you to the fol-

Nostalgia Needed
Please share your idea for nostalgic topics we could cover in the magazine. We’d love to see your old DU photos as well.

James Kriegsmann

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!

lowing restaurants that participated in the 2009 Taste of DU during Homecoming: Little India, Texas de Brazil, Bombay Clay Oven, Stick-e-Star, Bing Energy, Noodles & Company, Jason’s Thai, Spicy Pickle, Pasquini’s, Garbanzos and Jerusalem. Nearly 300 alumni, parents, students and friends joined together to celebrate good food and Pioneer pride at the second annual Taste of DU.

Stay in Touch Online Alumni Directory Update your contact

Contact us
University of Denver Magazine 2199 S. University Blvd. Denver, CO 80208-4816 [email protected] 303-871-2776

information, find other alumni and “bookmark” your alumni friends and classmates. You may also read class notes and death notices. Online class note submissions will automatically be included in the University of Denver Magazine. >>www.du.edu/alumni

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Miscellanea

On the wing

Dedicated on Oct. 30, 2009, this sculpture—titled Birds of Happiness—was installed in Penrose Library in memory of Stuart James, a DU English professor from 1957–86. Jean James, Stuart’s widow, and their daughter, Barbara James, commissioned the sculpture in 1995 from Loveland, Colo., based sculptor Dee Clements; it previously was located outdoors near Sturm Hall. The idea of a crane sculpture came from trips Stuart and Jean had taken to see the birds in New Mexico, Colorado and Nebraska, as well as the fact that cranes mate for life. Birds of Happiness joins Eagle Catcher, a bronze sculpture by Western artist George Carlson, in the northwest
Wayne Armstrong

corner of the library’s third floor.

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University of Denver Magazine Spring 2010

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