BACK - University of Denver Magazine · Executive Editor Barbara Brooks, ... I note from your back cover [Miscellanea] ... Nagels receive University’s top honors at Founders Gala

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Pioneers score first NCAA hockey

championship since 2005

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ContentsF E A T U R E S

20 GOOD BUSINESS DU stakes a claim in the world of social enterprise By Nelson Harvey and Greg Glasgow

24 MILE HIGH ALUMNI Meet five recent graduates who are shaping Denver’s future By Greg Glasgow

30 WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS Pioneers score first NCAA hockey championship since 2005 By Greg Glasgow

D E P A R T M E N T S8 NEWS12 PEOPLE14 RESEARCH16 ACADEMICS18 ARTS39 ALUMNI CONNECTIONS

The University of Denver Magazine is published four times a year (fall, winter, spring and summer) by the University of Denver, Division of Communications and Marketing, 2199 S. University Blvd., Denver, CO 80208-4816. The University of Denver (Colorado Seminary) is an Equal Opportunity Institution.

d u - m a g a z i n e @ d u . e d um a g a z i n e . d u . e d uVolume 17, Number 3

Cover photo by Jeff Haynes

Publisher Renell Wynn, vice chancellor, marketing and communications

Executive Editor Barbara Brooks, associate vice chancellor for communications and community engagement

Editor in Chief Greg Glasgow

Senior Editor Tamara Chapman

Art Director Miles Woolen

Editorial Board Armin Afsahi, vice chancellor for advancement

Brandon Buzbee, associate vice chancellor for global networks

Julie Chiron, executive director for advancement marketing & communications

Ed Rowe, director for projects and planning, office of the chancellor

Sarah Satterwhite, senior director of development communications

Printed on 10% PCW recycled paper

4 University of Denver Magazine SPRING 2017

Should a university be an ivory tower, disconnected from the real world?

Most definitely not!The best universities of the 21st

century are those that are most engaged with their communities—working in a reciprocal manner to improve their cities for all residents and helping those cities become more global in trade, culture and the arts.

These universities are modern, multimodal hubs for diverse people, customs, intellectual exploration and commerce—providing a vibrant crossroads as well as an anchor location where vital connections of all kinds can be made.

With a legacy that few universities can claim, DU is well-positioned to be a leader in this new engagement model for universities. We have a long history of serving the professional needs of the city by training Denver’s lawyers, teachers, social workers, engineers, policy makers and business leaders.

In our strategic plan, DU IMPACT 2025, the University claims its role as an anchor institution—one that contributes significantly to the financial, social, cultural, professional and intellectual life of the metro Denver region while contributing nearly $1 billion annually to the economy. Almost all of our employees live here, building our neighborhoods, spending their income and generating

more than $13 million in tax revenue. Our 11,500 students spend about $115 million on housing, shopping, cultural events and other services. And last year, through our Center for Community Engagement and Service Learning, more than 3,200 students dedicated 532,638 hours of service to 371 community partners.

The University also conducts more than $22 million in research each year, with more than 83 percent of funding coming from sources outside of Colorado. The advances we make at the Knoebel Institute for Healthy Aging are referenced by brain researchers across the world. When our law students assist veterans, our clinic becomes a model for others. Our study of smart grids will address traffic congestion and air pollution in metropolitan areas far beyond Denver.

Our partnership with Denver is a win-win. DU students need hands-on practice to develop skills for

today’s workplaces. Students who have internships often are the first to be hired and earn, on average, $10,000 a year more than those who didn’t have internships. Of course, students obtain internships all over the world, but most complete them in Denver and often have the advantage of learning from DU faculty at the same time. Attracted by the breadth and depth of Denver’s booming startup culture, the expansion of industries like finance and the many benefits of life in Denver, nearly 70 percent of our undergraduates stay in or around Denver after graduation.

Our Ritchie Center for Sport & Wellness and Newman Center for the

Performing Arts, among other venues, attract about 33,000 of our neighbors to campus each year—including the Denver youth who attend our many camps. I love that our beautiful campus hosts an annual Pow Wow, a carillon concert to ring in the winter holidays and a full calendar of student theatrical and musical productions, as well as speakers on business, politics, economics, sustainability, housing and more. And we are just beginning the plans for a DU District around campus that will provide more housing and retail options and will make campus more accessible to the broader community.

On October 16–17, DU will partner with the national Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities (CUMU) to convene in Denver a few hundred leaders and representatives of urban and metropolitan universities across the country. We will share our best practices

and also hear from other institutions that share CUMU’s and our dedication to strengthening sustained knowledge exchange, social and cultural capital, school improvement and the preparation of action-oriented civic leaders.

We are deeply partnered with this city and region, to the benefit of our community and our students. Our graduates will live all around the world, but wherever they go, they will know what it means to engage and to contribute to a thriving community.

Our impact is global, but we are, most certainly, the University of Denver.

Denver’s anchor institutionF R O M T H E C H A N C E L L O R

By Chancellor Rebecca Chopp

The University claims its role as an anchor institution—one that contributes significantly to the financial, social, cultural, professional and intellectual life of the metro Denver region.

University of Denver Magazine SPRING 2017 5

Letters

French connection I saw the 1971 photo of DU’s Foreign

Student Center in the winter 2017 issue and chuckled. I remember the center well. I attended DU from 1975–79 and, through DU’s program, spent my junior year (1977–78) in Avignon, France. There was no Internet; there were no cell phones. I spoke to my parents one time over the 10 months I spent in France and had to place the call at the local post office. And I learned how to speak fluent French. My, how times have changed.Illece Buckley Weber (BA ’79, JD ’86)Agoura Hills, Calif.

Eastern intrigue Your news brief on Dr. Suisheng (Sam)

Zhao, director of the Center for China-U.S. Cooperation (CCUSC) in the Josef Korbel School of International Studies (Winter 2016), really grabbed my attention for several reasons:

• In summer 1972, I actually got to meet the school’s namesake—Dr. Josef Korbel—as part of the U.S.

Department of Education-funded Intensive Slavic Language Institute at DU, where I studied third-year Russian with Dr. Libor Brom, a close friend of Dr. Korbel’s.

• In autumn 1979, two years after receiving my PhD from DU, I began Chinese language studies once a week at the DU night school with John Yee (BA ’55), one of the original Fei Hu (“Flying Tigers”) from Kunming, China, in World War II, and studied with him at his home one night per week through 1986.

• In 1987 I moved to northern Virginia, and since then I have been fortunate enough to be a full-time “China watcher” for a variety of organizations, including FBIS (now the Open Source Center), the Office of Naval Intelligence, the MITRE Corp., and SAIC (now Leidos).

It is gratifying to see that the Korbel School, specifically CCUSC, is the home for such a prestigious publication as the Journal of Contemporary China.Thomas Torda (PhD ’77)Fairfax, Va.

Hit the slopes

I just received the winter 2017 issue. It is outstanding! I came from central California to DU in 1956 to ski and study engineering (I didn’t get to ski much). As a young lad, I was exposed to the 10th Mountain Division as they trained at Mineral King just south of Sequoia National Park in the ’40s. Since 1960 I have returned to Colorado most every year to ski and pay homage to the 10th at Vail. I now live in northern California, have a ski condo at Northstar, and have become allied with a group to found a ski museum at the entrance to the Squaw Valley ski complex. We will combine the contents of three ski museums, including a Studebaker-powered 1942 “Weasel,” in a new ground-up facility. We are now in the planning and fundraising stage.

I note from your back cover [Miscellanea] that you have “books, periodicals, memorabilia, photographs and related material” in the Center for Ski History at DU. I am interested in what you have and how it is displayed. I will ski Beaver Creek in March, and I will make every attempt to drop in for a visit.Tom Dwelle (BS ’58)Auburn, Calif.

Join the discussion! Send your letters to the editor:

[email protected]


Share the love. We’ll share the gold—in your name.

It takes the best and brightest to maintain our standards. Great candidates strengthen our learning environment, create a powerful Pioneer network and increase the value of your DU degree. No one is better suited to refer qualified candidates than graduates like you. Our alumni are the gold standard for excellence!

There’s still time for admission and scholarship for Fall 2017.

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Study abroad is a big deal at DU. Such a big deal that, from the moment they arrive on campus their freshman year, students begin anticipating the experience and wondering where in the world they’ll get to go. The Global Reveal, a new campus tradition, brings each class of globetrotters together in the same room to receive their study abroad assignments. The destinations are tucked inside individual luggage tags, which, in turn, are tucked inside envelopes. These are ripped open at the same time, so students can share in the surprise.

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By Jon Stone

A storied celebration takes on new traditions N E W S

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Rice, Nagels receive University’s top honors at Founders Gala

A storied celebration takes on new traditions

Thanks to an expanded list of fun and educational programs, students had the chance to exercise their bodies and brains at the 2017 Founders Celebration, held March 1 and 2 on campus and elsewhere in Denver. The festivities included a student formal dance at the Cable Center and two separate events where faculty members shared their areas of expertise.

“Students are the reason why this campus runs every day and why we are here,” says Jess Davidson (BA ’16), the 2016–17 student government vice president who, as a senior, helped jump-start the student-focused side of Founders Celebration. “We thought integrating events for the students and making this a university-wide celebration was a really great way to recognize all facets of the community and to remove some of the disconnect between alumni and students.”

At the Founders Lecture Series, students dipped into history, learning about DU’s role in the community and the world over the past 153 years. They delved into the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864, the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II and the 1970 student-rights movement known as Woodstock West. They also discovered how DU Professor George Bardwell used math in the battle to desegregate Denver’s schools.

At Founders Forum, students and others listened as six faculty members delivered short, TED-style presentations on their research, covering everything from physics and immigration policies to music and anthropology.

The Founders Gala, staged at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, highlighted the contributions of DU alumna Condoleezza Rice (BA ’74, PhD ’81) and University supporters

Ralph and Trish Nagel. The Nagels were honored with the Founders Medal—the University’s highest honor—while Rice received the International Achievement Medal, which is given to individuals who have had a major impact on the world and whose global leadership and civic engagement exemplify the University’s values.

Davidson, who introduced Rice at the gala, says she was honored to be asked to present the award to the former U.S. secretary of state.

“It really says a lot to me about the way the University values its alumni that they invited me back to be a part of this event,” Davidson says. “It shows this isn’t just about what alumni are doing 20 or 30 or 40 years down the road, but also what alumni are doing in that first year or two after their college experience.”


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History Professor Susan Schulten, who has written two previous books on historic maps and is a regular contributor on the topic to the New York Times, has received a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship. The $50,400 Public Scholar Fellowship will support time away

from teaching so that Schulten can complete “A History of America in 100 Maps,” which draws on cartography to illuminate American history from 1492 to the present. It will be published in 2018 by the University of Chicago Press in a joint publication with the British Library.

“Old maps are among the most compelling windows into the past,” Schulten says. “As a historian, I’m always searching

for clues to the way that people in the past lived their lives.” Maps, she adds, capture the struggles of discovery and the effort to chart terrain. Centuries later, they also would be used to organize information and consider spatial relationships.

R E S E A R C HVisual history

C O M M U N I T YGrant will aid childhood education

Douglas Clements and Julie Sarama, national experts in the field of early childhood education and professors in the Morgridge College of Education, will expand their scope to children and families in the West’s rural communities, thanks to a $181,000 grant from the Denver-based Marzano Research Laboratory. Clements and Sarama lead the Morgridge College’s Marsico Institute for Early Learning and Literacy, one of four institutions selected to run the U.S. Department of Education’s Central Regional Educational Laboratory over the next year.

“Being awarded the Central Regional Educational Laboratory will allow us to further our reach with communities who may otherwise not have access to these resources,” says Carrie Germeroth, assistant director of research at the DU institute. “Everyone at Marsico is thrilled to work with Marzano Research Laboratory to enact change and bring education to everyone.”

Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences, the regional educational laboratory (REL) program serves the country through 10 designated regions. Each lab supports state and local agencies in its region, conducting research and providing technical assistance and resources to develop educational materials and introduce best and proven practices into area schools. REL Central supports these efforts in Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.

“Storm Warning: Artists on Climate Change & the Environment,” a spring exhibit at the Vicki Myhren Gallery, garnered accolades for its timely, often shocking takes on one of today’s most pressing environmental issues. Among the pieces on display were “Gastrolith,” a video by Seattle-based photographer Chris Jordan that put an eerie spotlight on a mass of plastic bags fused with other

detritus—all found in the stomach of a dead camel in the Arabian Desert. Edward Lane McCartney’s “Ursus Maritimus Petroleum Acclimate” offered a plush teddy bear coated with synthetic black rubber. Presented in conjunction with Denver’s Month of Photography, the exhibit also featured contributions from Denver artist Regan Rosburg and sculptor Susan Camp.

A RT SMyhren Gallery takes on environmental issues

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The University announced in January that it will adopt a formal policy related to climate change and sustainable development. The Board of Trustees made the decision after consideration of the findings and recommendations from its task force on fossil fuel divestment.

The actions the University will take include:

• Establishing a revolving “green fund” to investigate new efforts related to sustainability in the operations of the University

• Further investing in the University’s sustainability efforts, both financially and in terms of human capital

• Working with the board and investment managers to make available an alternative type of investment vehicle that may offer donors the ability to have their contributions invested in a manner that aligns with their social objectives regarding sustainability

Additional resources will be dedicated to accelerating sustainability through DU IMPACT 2025, the University’s strategic plan, which includes such initiative areas as transportation, green space, energy, food sourcing and creation of a sustainability curriculum. Administrators also are working with an urban-planning firm on sustainable ways to grow and improve the University’s physical spaces and environment.

S U S TA I NA B I L I T YAddressing climate change

Justin

Beach

For more information on sustainability at DU, visit du.edu/sustainability

O U T R E AC HCommunity beat

Denver’s South High School was treated to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity when Taiko drummers from the Japanese group Kodo visited the high school’s auditorium between concerts at the Newman Center for the Performing Arts. Group members performed for hundreds of students and spent an hour teaching nearly two dozen musicians from South’s drumline. The visit was arranged by the Newman Center Presents performing arts series,

which hosted two performances by Kodo in February. Newman Center executive director Kendra Whitlock Ingram hopes to encourage other visiting performers to engage with DU and Denver-area students.

“We need to be more a part of our community, and South High School is a great partner located right up the street,” Ingram says. “This workshop is a perfect start for us to kick this off.”

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The Colorado Women’s College (CWC) is sponsoring an exhibit on campus designed to showcase women who pioneered change and innovation in Colorado (including former U.S. Representative Pat Schroeder, pictured). On loan from the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame, the exhibit runs through June 30 at three campus locations: the Anderson Academic Commons, Newman Center for the Performing Arts and Chambers Center for the Advancement of Women.

H I S T O RYCelebrating Colorado women


By Tamara Banks

50 years of influenceP E O P L E


It was the only spanking he ever got from his mom, jokes Ved Nanda, international law professor at the University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law. As a young boy living in Gujranwala, India, Nanda got a tattoo from a man on the street. He was proud of the artwork. His mother was outraged.

But the little tattoo on his left hand became a symbol that guided Nanda’s life. The tattoo is the sign for “om,” a Hindu spiritual symbol that represents the belief that we are all connected.

Decades later, the tattoo is still visible on Nanda’s hand, and he continues to embody the notion that we are all connected. In February, Nanda celebrated his 50th anniversary of teaching at DU.

“No single word can capture Ved Nanda or his incalculable gifts to his university, state, nation and world,” says Bruce Smith, dean of the Sturm College of Law. “But if I have to choose, I lean toward ‘humanitarian,’ a word that encapsulates Ved’s distinctive contributions to international law, as well as his inestimable empathy, understanding and commitment to his community and to the human condition.”

In the late 1960s, Nanda introduced an International Human Rights Law course at Denver Law, making it the second course of its kind in the nation at that time. Nanda created the law school’s International Legal Studies Program in 1972, and that same year he established the Denver Journal of International Law and Policy. The Sturm College’s Ved Nanda Center for International & Comparative Law was established in 2006.

During “Woodstock West,” the moniker given to the shanty village built on DU’s campus as part of a protest over the school’s decision to stay open after the Kent State incident of 1970, Nanda helped orchestrate community events designed to engage the campus in meaningful dialogue. He also has been integral in bringing world leaders and dignitaries to campus, including the Dalai Lama and Muhammad Zafarullah Khan, former president of the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

But what matters most to Nanda are his relationships with his students. “Oftentimes students who come into my office don’t come in simply for law, don’t come in simply for career, but come in to talk about themselves and family affairs,” says Nanda, who also serves as an adjunct professor at DU’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies. “They open their hearts to me for assistance. And if I can help, I will.”

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By Nicole Gordon

Sex lives of the small and wingedR E S E A R C H


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Robin Tinghitella, a professor in DU’s Department of Biological Sciences, is accustomed to the fact that her research attracts a lot of curiosity. After all, who doesn’t want to learn about the courtship rituals of crickets?

For Tinghitella, mating habits are the perfect hook for introducing students and the public to the complexities of evolutionary biology.

“Animal mate choice is an intriguing subject that’s fun to think about,” she says. “It’s easy for people to understand, and you can use it to draw listeners into more complicated evolutionary topics.”

In her lab, Tinghitella and a team of undergraduate and graduate researchers have amassed a trove of data on the mating habits of crickets and fish. Tinghitella is especially interested in how environmental change—such as habitat fragmentation, noise and light pollution, and climate change—impacts the mating environment.

In one experiment, Tinghitella’s team is raising two sets of crickets: those exposed to simulated traffic noise and those raised in silence. The researchers have found that juvenile female crickets raised in a noisy setting have more trouble locating the mating songs of male crickets upon maturity.

“Environmental change is a huge problem when species can’t keep up,” Tinghitella says. “Small changes in the environment disturb how animals communicate, with drastic results.”

Senior ecology and biodiversity major Aaron Sexton, one of Tinghitella’s student researchers, is especially interested in how her work counters traditional notions of the ways in which species evolve.

“Robin’s lab is really cool because it takes a totally different perspective on evolution,” says Sexton, who plans to attend graduate school at the University of Louisville, where he will research how plants and fungi interact. “Instead of environmental pressures deciding what organisms look like or how organisms behave, the females in these populations are the stronger driving force. Instead of a male looking the way he does because of predators, a male will actually have this bright red and blue mosaic color pattern because that’s what females like. In grade school you learn about evolution—that it’s this really cool process that creates a stronger population of organisms—but once you really get into it, you realize that it’s a much more complex system.”


By Tamara Chapman

With honorsAC A D E M I C S


Knee-deep in her cross-disciplinary Honors thesis for her two majors, history and English, senior Ashlyn Stewart finds herself digging deeper, stretching further and thinking harder.

Which is precisely why, four years ago, Stewart applied to DU’s Honor Program. She wanted to immerse herself in academic challenges and to study alongside other high-achieving students seeking what Honors Program Director Keith Miller calls “a community of scholars.”

“I knew it would be smaller class sizes with people who prioritized school,” Stewart says, adding that the resulting experience “makes the work both in and out of class more vibrant and meaningful.”

Miller, who in addition to directing the program is an associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry, savors the Honors classes he teaches and notes that other professors regard them as an opportunity to stretch. “You walk into the room, and [the students] challenge you. That’s an exciting environment to teach in,” he says.

Each year, DU’s Honors Program, in existence for more than 50 years, admits roughly 100 students of varying majors. Throughout their time at DU, they take special Honors classes and seminars to satisfy requirements from the common curriculum and their majors. As seniors, they produce a thesis or capstone project.

Outside the classroom, Honors students can also participate in a mix of high- and lowbrow social activities: excursions to concerts, plays and dance performances; activities with the Voltaire Society (which sponsors a broomball team called The Candide Apples); and a book club that, this year, has taken on Gregory Davis Roberts’ 900-page novel, “Shantaram.” As first- and second-year students, they can also live in the Honors Program living and learning community, sharing living space with fellow program participants.

Unlike honors efforts at other colleges and universities, DU’s program is integrated into the university and is not focused on, say, an intense encounter with the “great books.” In other words, honors courses are offered in all the disciplines, and the program serves students from every major.

“The DU Honors Program has its own unique flavor, in that we are a program and not a college,” says Shawn Alfrey, the program’s associate director. “Ideally, the Honors Program is a way for students who have a lot of intellectual curiosity to pursue their academics with that in mind.”

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For senior Ashlyn Stewart, participation in the Honors Program was a no-brainer. Even as a first-year student, she could not wait to tackle the required senior thesis — a project that allowed her to “find my own interest and run with it.”

Senior Erik Fellenstein, right, played the title role and junior Isaiah Adams played Gower in the theater department’s winter production of Shakespeare’s “Pericles, Prince of Tyre.” The show’s sets and costumes were built by students in DU’s scene and costume shops; the show was directed by theater professor Rick Barbour.

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Visit du.edu/ahss/theatre for information on upcoming theater department productions


DU stakes a claim in the world of social enterprise



At the Denver-based Women’s Bean Project—founded by alumna Jossy Eyre (MSW ’86)—the mission is to hire chronically unemployed women to produce its soup mixes and other food products, providing the workers with counseling and job training along the way.

For DU sophomores Meredith Gee and Sam Schooler, the idea was a ride-sharing app called Wanderlift that helps Front Range adventure lovers get into the mountains while relieving air pollution and traffic congestion.

And for senior Nathan Egan, it was EMS Relay, his program that allows paramedics in the field to send a patient’s medical information to waiting surgeons as their ambulance speeds toward the hospital, shortening the admission process by a few lifesaving minutes.

Though they vary in size and scope, these projects are all examples of social enterprises, businesses that tackle social problems big and small while generating renewable revenue streams.

“The world’s problems can no longer be solved by politics or business alone,” says Erik Mitisek, executive director of DU’s entrepreneurship-focused Project X-ITE, which sponsored a social enterprise summit on campus last fall. “It takes all of us—companies, nonprofits, the public sector—to really collaborate and think creatively on how to solve some of the world’s biggest issues.”

Social enterprises create value for underserved, underrepresented or disadvantaged people or for the environment. And among students and recent college graduates, they have never been more popular than they are today. In the 2015 Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor poll, a majority of younger Americans said their top priority in a job was “making a difference in society,” as opposed to older Americans, who listed “making as much money as possible” as their primary concern when asked the same question.

“I think there’s a general sense that young people today don’t just care about making money; they also care about

the impact they have on the world,” says Wanderlift co-founder Schooler, 19, a computer science major. “A social enterprise doesn’t just return money to its owners; it has a positive impact on society.”

building the

foundationAs you would expect from a

university whose commitment to the public good is right there in its vision statement, social enterprise concepts are nurtured and explored in some fashion in nearly every building on the DU campus. In the Graduate School of Social Work (GSSW), the Organizational Leadership and Policy Practice concentration prepares students to make careers out of advancing human rights and promoting social justice.

“Social workers were the original social entrepreneurs—those working on business models to address social issues,” says Amanda McBride, dean of GSSW.

Aspiring social entrepreneurs can find their footing at the University’s Center for Community Engagement and Service Learning (CCESL), which is working with Echoing Green, a global nonprofit that provides strategic support to social entrepreneurs, to offer regular “Work on Purpose” workshops. These are designed to help students identify their passions around public good—and ways to turn those passions into viable careers.

“The idea is to provide a space for students to think about what their values are and how that can drive what they want to do, in terms of the kind of impacts they’re interested in,” says CCESL director Anne DePrince.

Social enterprise also is a hot topic at the Daniels College of Business, where the new Denver MBA program includes a social-good project as one of four business challenges students must conquer. A

winter-quarter elevator-pitch competition found undergraduate and graduate students explaining their public-good-focused business ideas to a panel of would-be investors.

“Our students want real-world experience, and increasingly that means putting them to work on business ideas that have to do with making the world a better place,” says Daniels Dean Brent Chrite. “It’s an interest that is growing both at DU and around the country, and our goal is to prepare students for careers in business of all kinds, including social enterprise.”

leveraging du expertise

Last fall, thanks to a $10 million gift from donor Laura Barton and her family, DU added another public-good-focused entity to its mix. The Barton Institute for Philanthropy and Social Enterprise, headed by former Denver Foundation president David Miller, has an ambitious mission: To address major social issues and improve society by promoting and enhancing traditional and new forms of philanthropy, social enterprise, and partnerships among the private, public, nonprofit and academic sectors.

“Our goal is to do projects that connect DU to the Denver community,” Miller says. “I want to leverage all the expertise here at DU to help lower the transaction costs of these projects. You could have law students helping to write contracts, business students doing business modeling, and social work, psychology or education students evaluating the impact of social enterprises.”

To further its mission, the institute will develop social-enterprise-related programs for DU students, making the University a magnet for aspiring social entrepreneurs. The institute also is eyeing the creation of a policy lab where students and faculty can help Denver-area


governments and nonprofits measure their success and conceive new approaches.

lessons from the

real worldProject X-ITE, a collaboration

among DU’s Sturm College of Law, Daniels College of Business and Daniel Felix Ritchie School of Engineering and Computer Science, aims to spur and support entrepreneurship—social and otherwise—on campus and throughout Denver. Its Social Entrepreneurship Summit in November featured roundtables and group discussions on such topics as social innovation, funding a new business and the importance of public-private partnerships.

A featured speaker at the event was Grace Hanley Wright, who graduated from DU in 2008 with a political science degree. Soon after, she enrolled in the Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise MBA program at Colorado State, traveling to India with fellow students to investigate why more women were dying in childbirth there than anywhere else in the world. The group was surprised to learn that anemia was a leading culprit of maternal deaths. They launched a nonprofit called Ascent Global Market Solutions and set to work designing a low-cost iron supplement pill that was packaged like birth control to increase adherence among the women who needed it.

Wright, who now teaches entrepreneurship to CSU undergraduates, says she’s glad to have found work with a sense of purpose.

“People are really critical of millennials for saying that we need purpose, but I am glad that more people are searching for purpose in their work,” she says. “I believe we’ll have a better world because of that.”

As an approach to solving social problems, social innovation disrupts the status quo and upends the typical way of addressing such issues. By developing novel solutions that take cues from the startup business environment, social innovation helps to benefit the public good—and the bottom line.

While the term “social entrepreneurship” most often refers to business-model development of a social venture, the potential for social innovation is much broader than entrepreneurship alone. Social innovation requires learning about the root causes, manifestations and dynamics of complex social issues, as well as the larger ecosystem surrounding them.

Community engagement in research and teaching can help set the stage for social innovation. The community-engaged approach emphasizes working in reciprocal and mutually beneficial relationships with communities to address public problems. At DU, this approach puts faculty, staff and students in true partnership with communities to develop strategies for addressing social issues in a way that advances knowledge and community impact.

Across campus, DU seeds social innovation by bringing together students, staff, faculty and community voices. For example, the Graduate School of Social Work recently hosted a “civic hackathon” on homelessness. Homelessness organizations and members of the homeless community served as co-sponsors of the event, educating attendees on the lived realities of homelessness. With community and University expertise in the room, sponsors and attendees considered methods to “hack” homelessness.

DU’s Center for Community Engagement and Service Learning (CCESL) equips faculty, staff and students to perform community-engaged public good work. Cheri Young, an associate professor in the Daniels College of Business, used a grant from CCESL’s Public Good Fund to test a novel approach to preparing refugees resettling in Denver for employment. A partnership with the city’s African Community Center, Young’s program trains refugees to work in food service while helping undergraduate hospitality students learn about mentoring and human resource development.

As a private university dedicated to the public good, DU is positioned to advance social innovation and entrepreneurship across campus and in the community.

— Amanda Moore McBrideDean, Graduate School of Social Work

&

Anne DePrinceDirector, Center for Community Engagement and Service Learning

social innovation as public good

Denver has come into its own in recent years, earning a reputation as a hotbed for tech, arts, dining, craft beer, entrepreneurship and an engaged millennial population.

Just as DU has helped to shape Denver over the past 150 years, the University has a strong influence on the city’s latest incarnation. Here are five alumni helping to push the city forward socially, economically and culturally.

Meet five recent graduates who are shaping Denver's future.

(BA '91, MA '92)

Read interviews with the featured alumni at magazine.du.edu



hospitality

Christian Anderson BSBA ’05

co-owner, Chop Shop

Jessica Caouette BSBA ’10

co-owner, Denver

Bicycle Café

Ben Jacobs BA ’05

Matt Chandra BA ’05

founders and owners,

Tocabe: An American

Indian Eatery

Brian Dunn MA ’92

founder, Great Divide

Brewing Co

Hani El-Yaafouri MS ’08; MRLS ’10

Zahi El-Yaafouri MS ’01; MBA ’03

owners, Steam

Espresso

Sana Hamelin JD ’12

owner and founder,

Denver Cat Company

Justin Herd MBA ’14

owner, the Local

Butcher

Jon Schlegel BSBA ’97

Adam Schlegel BSBA ’99

founders, Snooze:

An A.M. Eatery

In March, Mattson and her husband, Scott, celebrated the second anniversary of Nocturne, the jazz club they opened in Denver’s up-and-coming RiNo (River North) neighborhood. A hotspot for local jazz artists and aficionados—including faculty and students from the Lamont School of Music—the club has received tons of accolades from local and national publications and partners

regularly with nonprofits such as Project Angel Heart and No Kid Hungry.

“We knew that there was a thriving jazz scene in Denver, but I don’t think we had any idea of the caliber of talent that we host here in this city,” she says. “It’s been really cool to see those artists being able to take what they’re doing at Nocturne and further their art and their careers.”

Nicole Mattson, BSBA ’03, business; MBA ’12


Brian Vicente has been fighting the marijuana fight for more than a decade, most significantly as co-director and one of two primary authors of the 2012 measure that made Colorado the first state in the country to legalize recreational marijuana. These days Vicente and his 50-person firm, Vicente Sederberg, are devoted full time to marijuana policy and regulation—which includes advising local governments around the world on

how to run their own legalization efforts. The firm also has endowed a professorship at the Sturm College of Law.

“I think Denver really has matured as a city over the past few years,” Vicente says. “Our population has become more diverse and eclectic, the economy has been booming, it’s become an increasingly desirable place to live, and I do think marijuana laws have played a part in that.”

Brian Vicente, JD ’04

Albus Brooks MBA ’16

president, Denver

City Council

Caty Carrico BA ’15

marketing and

communications

coordinator,

Downtown Denver

Partnership

Nick Dawkins MA ’11

principal, Manual

High School

Crisanta Duran BA ’02

speaker of the

Colorado House of

Representatives

Anthony Graves MBA ’04

director of regional

affairs, office of the

mayor of the city and

county of Denver

Rico Munn JD ’96

superintendent,

Aurora Public

Schools

Jordan Sauers BA ’14

city council member

representing

Northglenn, Ward 1

Kathleen (Booth) Staks JD ’06

executive director,

Colorado Energy

Office


CdeBaca is co-founder and executive director of Project VOYCE, a nonprofit that mobilizes and trains Denver youth to work on problems in their schools and communities. Her goal is to prepare kids from Denver’s underserved neighborhoods to claim their seat at the table when it comes to the city’s future.

“I saw the need to go into the communities that were struggling and equip them with what they need to be a part of the growth and the advancement of this city without being left behind,” she says. “My whole career is devoted to making sure that people who should be inheritors of this city have that opportunity. This is their inheritance.”

Candi CdeBaca, BS ’09, sociology; MSW ’09, social work

Nadine Bridges MSW ’10

youth services director,

Rainbow Ally

Sarah Burgamy MA ’04, PsyD ’06

psychologist, Phoenix

Rise

Ford Church BSBA ’98

founder and executive

director, Cottonwood

Institute

Katy Craig BA ’99, MA ’04

director of strategic

initiatives, Boettcher

Foundation

Jami Duffy BA ’03

executive director,

Youth On Record

Chanda Hinton BA ’05

executive director,

Chanda Plan Foundation

Eric Kornacki BA ’09

Joseph Teipel BA ’07

founders, ReVision

International

Regan Linton MSW ’10

artistic director,

Phamaly Theatre

Company

Jes Ward BA ’15

executive director,

City Wild


law

John Bellish JD ’12

project development

manager, One Earth

Future

Raj Chohan JD ’10

deputy district

attorney, Jefferson

County

Erik Estrada

JD ’09

senior corporate

counsel, Level 3

Communications

Kate Iverson JD ’06

manager of

transit-oriented

development, RTD

Katherine Mulready

JD ’11

vice president of

legislative policy and

chief strategy officer,

Colorado Hospital

Association

Steve O’Dorisio

JD ’07

county

commissioner,

Adams County

Andrew Romanoff JD ’08

president and CEO,

Mental Health

Colorado; former

speaker of the

Colorado House of

Representatives

A Denver native and East High School graduate who went to Princeton to play basketball, Chapman returned to his hometown after college to pursue a law degree at DU. He is now a corporate and real estate lawyer at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, where he has negotiated deals on a mix of high-profile projects, including the former University of Colorado Hospital site on Colorado Boulevard and, most notably, the recent redevelopment of Denver’s historic Union Station into a multimodal transportation hub.

“I think that deal was the catalyst for all of the lower downtown development that you’re seeing now,” says Chapman, who also sits on the boards of the Blue Sky Fund and the Kempe Center for child-abuse prevention and treatment. “Twenty or so years ago, Coors Field was the catalyst for LoDo, and then LoDo kind of remained stagnant. LoDo is one of the hottest markets in the country right now, and I think the Union Station development was the paramount catalyst for that.”

CJ Chapman, JD ’06


Laura Burns MA ’13

regional program

officer, Africa and

Asia, Water For

People

Will Chan MLS ’13

program director,

New Americans

Project, Denver

Public Library

Jessica Harig MA ’13

outreach director,

Posner Center

Laura Isaza MBA ’13

international

economics and

compliance manager,

Velocity Global

Trevor Jones MA ’15

Sonny Betancourt MA ’08

founders, Lynx

Global Intelligence

Dana Smith MA ’10

manager, business

development and

operations, iDE

Katy Troyer MA ’06

associate director,

Global Dental Relief

Winter Wall BA ’08, MA ’11

founder, W3 Global

Consulting

Frances is instructional dean of adult education and the Language Learning Center at Emily Griffith Technical College, where she helps prepare nontraditional students—including refugees and immigrants—for the workforce. The school’s bridge classes are designed to help adults who worked in STEM and health care fields in their native countries learn English specific to those careers. With her wife, Stephanie Frances, Hillary founded Prodigy Coffeehouse to help prepare youth for meaningful careers.

“Denver is at the peak of economic growth, as well as growth of the immigrant population base,” she says. “We’ve got an incredible economy for exploring employment opportunities, and we have new immigrants and refugees moving in at a strong pace. As somebody who cares about connecting foreign-trained professionals to the same work they’ve been doing in their home countries, it’s a perfect time.”

Hillary Frances, MA ’09, international and intercultural communications


CHAM PIONSWE ARE THE

FROZENFOUR2017


CHAM PIONSBY GREG GLASGOW

Jeff Hay

nes


FROZENFOUR2017

2016-2017 SEASON

2016 June 2

Will Butcher named captain for 2016-2017 season

Team ranked No. 5 on all major NCAA Division I polls

October 3

Pioneers lose 3-2 to Ohio State in first game of the season

October 7

DU ranked No. 1 on all major NCAA Division I polls

November 14

Call it a victory 12 years in the making: DU hockey fans around

the country stood up and cheered on the night of April 8 as the Pioneers defeated the Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs 3-2 to bring home DU’s first NCAA hockey trophy since the team won back-to-back titles in 2004 and 2005.

“There’s no better moment than this,” head coach Jim Montgomery said after the game at the United Center in Chicago. “I’m so happy for our student-athletes and our entire team—how hard they competed, how hard they stayed together, and how much they trusted each other and the process.”

Around Denver and around the country, alumni and other DU fans celebrated throughout the week as the Pioneers beat Notre Dame to advance to the final game, and as Montgomery, team captain Will Butcher and goalie Tanner Jaillet received individual NCAA honors. Montgomery was named NCAA hockey coach of the year, while Butcher, a defenseman, received the 2017 Hobey Baker Award, college hockey’s highest individual honor. Jaillet, meanwhile, claimed the 2017 Mike Richter Award for outstanding goaltender.

“This is great for the University, great for our fans, great for the city of Denver,” Butcher said after the April 8 final victory. “It’s hard to put into words what this win means. I love each and every one of the guys on this team, and I am so proud of them.”

The final game showcased the star power of sophomore forward Jarid Lukosevicius, who scored all three goals in the match—the first hat trick in a national championship game since 1993, when coach Montgomery, then a center at the University of Maine, scored three times against

Lake Superior State to win the national title.

DU’s victory had its share of heartbreak as well—only a few minutes into the third period, junior defenseman Tariq Hammond had to be taken off the ice on a stretcher after suffering an ankle fracture.

“It’s terrible when you see a teammate and a brother go off like that,” Butcher said. “The guy has battled the whole year and in this game especially. It was very tough, but we stuck with it.”

CALL IT A COMEBACK

Twelve months earlier, the NCAA Tournament was not such a victorious scene for the Pioneers. The team made it to the Frozen Four for the first time since 2005, only to suffer a heartbreaking 4-2 loss to the University of North Dakota. Devastating as that disappointment was, it lit the fire for a 2017 championship trophy.

“After that loss, it seemed like everybody was focused from that day on to become better and become committed to excellence,” Butcher said.

Cue a season in which the Pioneers could seemingly do no wrong, compiling a 33-7-4 record, winning 20 of 27 conference matchups, staying at or near the top of the polls all season, and winning two games against in-state rival Colorado College in December to keep the Gold Pan Trophy in Denver for the third consecutive year.

The only major misstep? A loss to former Frozen Four foe North Dakota on day one of the NCHC Frozen Faceoff. But even that defeat was a step on the road to victory.

Getty

Images


Henrik Borgström

Will Butcher

Kevin Conley

Evan Cowley

Michael Davies

Erich Fear

Liam Finlay

Dylan Gambrell

Tariq Hammond

Brad Hawkinson

Blake Hillman

Tanner Jaillet

Evan Janssen

Rudy Junda

Jarid Lukosevicius

Matt Marcinew

Tyson McLellan

Sean Mostrom

Patrick Munson

Logan O'Connor

Greg Ogard

Adam Plant

Evan Ritt

Emil Romig

Colin Staub

Troy Terry

Matt VanVoorhis

DU sweeps weekend series with in-state rival Colorado College; retains Gold Pan Trophy for 3rd year in a row

December 2-3

DU splits weekend series with eventual Frozen Four competitors Minnesota-Duluth

December 9-10

DU ranked No. 1 on all major NCAA Division I polls

November 14

CHAMPIONSHIP

# Name Position

5

4

10

31

21

2

13

7

3

29

25

36

26

17

14

23

9

27

33

22

30

28

15

18

24

19

6

Forward

Defense

Forward

Goalie

Defense

Defense

Forward

Forward

Defense

Forward

Defense

Goalie

Forward

Forward

Forward

Forward

Forward

Defense

Goalie

Forward

Goalie

Defense

Forward

Forward

Forward

Forward

Defense

Jim Montgomery, head coachDavid Carle, assistant coachTavis MacMillan, assistant coachDavid Tenzer, director of hockey operationsJoe Howe, volunteer assistant coach

COACHES

PLAYERS

Jeff Hay

nes

Getty

Images


FROZENFOUR2017

2016-2017 SEASON

2017 March 3

No. 1-ranked Pioneers capture first regular-season conference title since 2010

March 10–11

DU advances to the National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC) Frozen Faceoff

March 16

Will Butcher named NCHC Player of the Year & Offensive Defenseman of the Year; freshman forward Henrik Borgström named Rookie of the Year; junior Tanner Jaillet named Goaltender of the Year

“It was a competitive, back-and-forth battle that we can learn a lot from as we get ready for the NCAA Tournament,” Montgomery said after the loss. “The Fighting Hawks are a hard-checking team that skates well, which is exactly the type of team we’ll be facing at our regional next weekend. Hopefully this setback will be of benefit to us in the long run.”

A VICTORY FOR ALL PIONEERS

Catalyzed by that setback and still looking to avenge their 2016 tournament defeat, the Pioneers entered the 2017 championships strong and confident, scoring a decisive 6-1 victory over Notre Dame in the semifinals before battling Minnesota-Duluth for the title.

Excitement was high on campus, with a snowy sendoff party on April 4 and a championship celebration the Tuesday after the victory. That event featured appearances by Chancellor Rebecca Chopp, Chancellor Emeritus Dan Ritchie, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock and Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, who declared April 11, 2017, University of Denver Hockey National Champions Day.

“The University of Denver has grown, in the last five or six years—if it’s not hockey, it’s lacrosse; if it’s not lacrosse, it’s skiing,” Hickenlooper told the crowd assembled inside Magness Arena. “You guys are national contenders at a level that I don’t think anybody could have imagined even 10 years ago. And the community here—the fans—make it possible.”

On social media, the #skatefor8 campaign—as in eighth national championship—generated thousands of comments, likes and posts, including congratulatory messages

and videos from the Denver Broncos, Colorado Rockies and Colorado Avalanche. Even alumna and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice joined the online applause, tweeting her approval and commending the team for a “Great Frozen Four.”

Alumni gathered for watch parties in 14 cities around the country, including Los Angeles, Boston, San Diego, Los Angeles and New York. The Chicago watch party served as more of a pregame celebration, with nearly 300 DU fans—including Chancellor Chopp and the children of coach Montgomery—making the 10-minute trek from the Park Tavern to the United Center for the game.

Among those fans was alumnus Cody Sherrill (BSBA ’07), who was an undergraduate during the back-to-back hockey championships in 2004–05.

“When Hammond got hurt with 16 minutes left and Minnesota was coming at us with everything they had, my whole body was shaking. I was so nervous,” he says. “It seemed like the clock was going so slow. When that final buzzer went off, it was pretty exciting.

“There was so much energy in the crowd,” Sherrill continues. “Minnesota had more fans there, but DU represented really well. A lot of people traveled in for the game, and a lot of people in Chicago went as well. It was pretty special to see in person.”

Jeff Hay

nes


DU loses to North Dakota 1-0 in game one of Frozen Faceoff

March 17

Pioneers beat Western Michigan 3-1 in game two of Frozen Faceoff

March 18

Denver clinches an at-large berth and No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament

March 19

Two hockey players and head coach Jim Montgomery were honored with individual awards in the week preceding the NCAA Championship game.

Head coach Jim Montgomery won the 2017 Spencer Penrose Award as Division I Men’s Ice Hockey CCM/AHCA Coach of the Year. Montgomery led the Pioneers to a 31-7-4 record heading into the Frozen Four.

Team captain and senior defenseman Will Butcher was named the 37th winner of the Hobey Baker Award—college hockey’s top individual honor—on April 7.

In a separate ceremony on April 7, junior goalie Tanner Jaillet received the Mike Richter Award for most outstanding goaltender.

Jeff Hay

nes

Way

ne A

rmstro

ng


FROZENFOUR2017

2016-2017 SEASON

2017 March 25

DU advances to the “Elite Eight” with a 5-2 victory over Michigan Tech in first NCAA Tournament game

March 26

DU beats Penn State 6-3 to advance to the Frozen Four

April 4

Jim Montgomery wins the 2017 Spencer Penrose Award as Division I Men’s Ice Hockey Coach of the Year

Way

ne A

rmstro

ng

Jeff Hay

nes

Jeff Hay

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DU beats Notre Dame 6-1 to advance to the NCAA Tournament finals

April 6

Will Butcher wins Hobey Baker Award; Tanner Jaillet wins Mike Richter Award

April 7

DU brings home its first NCAA hockey trophy since 2005 with 3-2 victory over Minnesota-Duluth

April 8

Jeff Hay

nes

Jeff Hay

nes


BRENDA J. HOLLIS, JD ’77Prosecutor of the SpecialCourt of Sierra Leone

CRAIG PATRICK, BSBA ’69Member of the National Hockey League Hall of Fame

CRISANTA DURAN, BA ’02Speaker of the State of Colorado House of Representatives

DEBRA CREW, BA ‘93President and CEO of Reynolds American Inc.

IMRAN KHAN, BSBA ’00 Chief Strategy Officer, Snapchat

JAMES COX KENNEDY, BSBA ’70Chairman, Cox Enterprises

DU ALUMNIW E E KE N DMAY 19-20, 2017

YOU ARE

HERE

W H E R E V E R Y O U G O

The University of Denver congratulates the 2017 class of Dist inguished Alumni Award recipients


Three members of the DU “Gyros Club,” also known as the tumbling team, challenge gravity in front of Buchtel Memorial Chapel in this archival photo from 1923.

Co

urtesy

of D

U A

rchives


1963Dennis Reynolds (BS ’63) of Littleton, Colo., was honored in September with the dedication of Reynolds Landing, a Littleton city park on the South Platte River that is named for him. Dennis is a former Littleton mayor and a former board member of the South Suburban Parks and Recreation District.

1964Emily Kittle Morrison (BA ’64) of Tucson, Ariz., received the Catherine Stuart Schmoker Principled Leadership Award, which honors alumnae of the Delta Gamma Fraternity who have made significant leadership contributions to their communities or churches. Emily, who is a 50-year member of Delta Gamma, has been a philanthropic leader for decades, serving as an active participant, board

member and trustee for causes including Junior League, Tucson Alumni Panhellenic, the Catalina HS Foundation, the Ronald McDonald House and the Girl Scouts. In 2015, Emily became director of Carry-On Tucson, a program to provide dignity to children in the foster care system who move frequently and carry their belongings in plastic or paper bags. Emily worked with the community to collect new and gently used bags to donate to the children.

1972Jane Covner (BA ’72) of Studio City, Calif., was selected by classical music news publication Musical America as one of its 2016 Innovators of the Year. Jane has been a music publicist for more than 40 years and represents classical music artists including violinists Joshua Bell and Rachel Barton Pine, opera singer Ana Maria Martinez and pianist Helene Grimaud.

1977James Morrow (MACC ’77) of Hudson, Wisc., has retired as a partner in the regional accounting firm KDV Ltd. (now Bergan KDV). James served as an audit/accounting partner for the firm in its Bloomington, Minn., office.

1986Lydia Prado (MA ’86, PhD ’95) was honored in November with a Community Leadership Award from the Denver Foundation. Lydia, who is vice president of child and family services at the Mental Health Center of Denver, received the foundation’s Swanee Hunt Individual Leadership Award, which recognizes those who have dedicated themselves to a lifetime of public service. Anton Tolman (BA ’86) of Orem, Utah, is a professor of behavioral science at Utah Valley University. He authored the 2016 book “Why Students Resist Learning: A Practical Model for Understanding and Helping Students.”

1987 Alan Willenbrock (MBA ’87) has been elected to the board of directors of the Portfolio Management Institute (PMI), a group of Morgan Stanley financial advisors. Alan also has been selected to co-chair the PMI 2018 Annual Forum.

1988Phil Vaughan (BA ’88) of Rifle, Colo., received the John D. Vanderhoof Award—which recognizes outstanding service and dedication to Western Colorado—

from Club 20, a coalition of individuals, businesses, tribes and local governments in Colorado’s 22 western counties. Phil has been a member of Club 20 since 1988, has served on its board of directors since

Class Notes

CAROLYN (WINDISH) IRWIN (BSBA ’69) of Littleton, Colo., received the Pi Beta Phi Fraternity for Women’s Carolyn Helman Lichtenberg Crest Award. The award is presented annually to Pi Beta Phi alumnae who exhibit excellence and outstanding leadership in their career or volunteer service to their communities. Carolyn owns Windish RV Center, which employs 74 staff members between two locations.

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1990 and has served for the past 12 years as chairman of the organization’s business affairs committee.

1990Damian Arguello (BSBA ’90, JD ’04) of Erie, Colo., has opened Colorado Insurance Law Center, which focuses on the representation of commercial and consumer policyholders. Damian is a former president of the Colorado Hispanic Bar Association. Roberta Kraus (PhD ’90) of Colorado Springs, Colo., traveled to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in September for the Paralympic games. Roberta is the sports psychologist for the USA men’s and women’s national basketball teams. She also has authored a mental training workbook for coaches and athletes and a box of coaching cards for anyone in the fields of leadership, influence and coaching. Roberta just celebrated 26 years as a senior faculty member at Center for Creative Leadership and has a private practice in the field of sport psychology working with professional, Olympic, Paralympic, college, high school and club athletes.

Kevin Stanley (BSBA ’90) of Palm Springs, Calif., is a Realtor with Bennion Deville Homes.

1994Blythe Barny (BSBA ’94) of Palatine, Ill., has been awarded her master of science in Oriental medicine, which encompasses Chinese pharmacology, acupuncture, nutrition and traditional Chinese medicine.

1996Kirsten Cassidy Benefiel (BA ’96, EMBA ’14) of Denver was elected to the inaugural Colorado Governor’s Fellows program. Through a blend of education, experience and exposure, the program engages the state’s best and brightest leaders in a public policy program that will inspire them to make a difference and define the future of public service.

ALUMNI CONNECTIONS

PROFILE

FAMILY MAN Marc Schulman (BSBA ’76)

Family is a way of life for Marc Schulman, president of Chicago-based dessert empire Eli’s Cheesecake.

Schulman (BSBA ’76) inherited the business from his father, the late Eli Schulman, owner of several now-shuttered Chicago-area eateries that played host in the ’60s and ’70s to celebrities such as Woody Allen, Barbra Streisand and Sammy Davis Jr. Marc Schulman still wears the watch that was given to his father by Frank Sinatra.

Eli’s is still a family business today—not just because it is run by the founder’s son, but because Schulman considers the staff part of his family. And the company contributes to the welfare of many families in Chicago as well, working with local nonprofits to educate, train and hire people with disabilities and providing students at the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences with job shadowing, mentoring, internships and scholarships for careers in the food industry.

“People matter, and we’re dedicated to education and training. The secret to longevity and a successful brand is ... hard work, passion, commitment to family and humanitarian efforts,” Schulman told the Huffington Post in a recent article.

Schulman recruits around 15 percent of his employees from resettled refugees in the city, working with the nonprofit RefugeeOne to find workers to help produce some 300,000 portions of cheesecake a day, plus cookies, cakes, dessert bars and more.

“We’ve been hiring refugees to the United States for over 22 years—almost as long as we’ve been in business—and they’re very valued members of our company,” Schulman says. “We’ve had people who have come to our company

from many, many different parts of the world, and we have a lot of leaders at our company who came through the program.

“I believe that the individuals that we have in our company that came here as refugees are as American or as much a part of Eli’s as anybody else in the company,” he continues. “They make a major contribution to our success.”

—Greg Glasgow

Ph

oto

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rtesy o

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heesecake

ALUMNI CONNECTIONS


Jason Newman (BA ’97) writes to say that he currently coaches the hockey team at Lane Tech College Prep High School in Chicago, alongside former DU hockey players Kevin Doell (BSBA ’03) and Peter Mannino (BSBA ’08). “While I never played hockey at DU, both Doell and Mannino were standout players in their four years there, Mannino having been named MVP in the 2005 Frozen Four national championship,” Newman says. “Each of them went on to tremendous professional careers, and now they’re giving back as coaches. It’s a pretty special group we have right now.”

Four Class of 1977 alumni met up at Fat Harry’s Oyster Bar in New Orleans in May 2016. From left to right: Jerry Kelly (BSBA ’77) of Kansas City; Chris von Gohren (BSBA ’77) of New Orleans; Don Ratcliff (BA ’77) of Durango, Colo.; and Bob Lazaroff (BA ’77) of St. Louis.

1998Samantha Sturgis (BS ’98) of Denver has been promoted to partner at law firm Perkins Coie, where she is a member of the technology transactions and privacy law practice.

1999Jennifer Williams (MA ’99, PhD ’13) of Littleton, Colo., was appointed vice president for institutional effectiveness at Rocky Vista University, where she is responsible for oversight of the accreditation processes at the program level and the overall university. Jennifer joined Rocky Vista in 2014 as executive director of institutional planning and assessment. She previously held positions at Lamar Community College, Colorado Mountain College, Regis University and the University of Denver.

2002Jared Alster (BSBA ’02) is co-founder of San Francisco-based Stride Travel, an online adventure-travel startup. Jared lives in Marin County with his wife, Grace, son, Mason, and yellow Lab, Homer.

2004Jill Greene (JD ’04) of Rochester Hills, Mich., is vice president and general counsel of Faurecia North America, one of the world’s largest suppliers of seat frames and mechanisms, emissions-control technologies and vehicle interiors.

Amy Hennen (BA ’04) of Baltimore was selected by the Maryland Daily Record as one of its 2016 Leading Women. She was honored at a ceremony in December. Amy is managing attorney for consumer and housing law at the Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service.

ALUMNI CONNECTIONS

AUSTIN CHOI-FITZPATRICK (MA ’03) is an assistant professor of political sociology at the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies at the University of San Diego. His new book, “What Slaveholders Think” (Columbia University Press, 2017), draws on interviews with perpetrators of human trafficking and modern slavery to gain a new perspective into the defining human-rights violation of our time. Austin met his wife, JENNY CHOI (MA ’03), while both were pursuing master’s degrees at DU’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies.

A seed today,a legacy tomorrow.

Change a student's life, leave an enduring legacy, shape DU for future generations. Establish a scholarship in your estate, and your generosity can be matched today through DU’s Momentum Scholarship Challenge.

For more info, contact Steve Shineman, Senior Director of Gi� Planning, at 303-871-2315 or [email protected].


ALUMNI CONNECTIONS

PROFILE

MOTIVATOR Yvette Cook (BA ’82, MA ’85)

For Yvette Cook, there was no choice growing up but to serve her community. She says her civic-minded parents encouraged her to follow a path of altruism. Now Cook (BA ’82, MA ’85) heads up Usher’s New Look (UNL), an Atlanta-based nonprofit started by the multiplatinum-selling performer at the age of 20. Over the last 17 years, UNL has introduced students in underserved communities to leadership training that keeps them engaged in school and ready to make their mark once their education ends.

UNL offers students mentoring and career assistance starting in middle school and continuing to their senior year of college. The results speak

for themselves: 100 percent of the participants in the UNL Leadership Academy go on to graduate high school, and 98 percent go on to attend college.

“We have four pillars that the program is based on, but the first pillar is helping students find out what their spark is,” Cook, a former chief operating officer at United Way of Greater Atlanta, told Variety in 2016. “What are they passionate about? What are their talents? If you can help a student really tap into what excites them, now all of a sudden you can help them create a journey through school that makes school relevant.”

Looking back at her time at DU, Cook says what stands out are the friendships she made with students from around the globe.

“It truly was an international school. In many ways, I think that helped shape me and my interest in value and diversity,” she says. “From a cultural perspective, we’re a global world now, and I think DU may have been a little ahead of its time in giving some of its students that kind of exposure.”

Having found a job that allows her to experience the joys of giving back, Cook encourages current DU students to do the same.

“There seems to be a resurgence of students who are interested in being good corporate citizens and making an impact,” she says. “I say, ‘go for it!’ Follow your passion; follow your heart, because we need more people who want to make a change. Find something you really love or get involved with something, and if you’re not sure, do some exploration and volunteer with a variety of organizations until you find out what really pulls at your heartstrings.”

—Jason Evans (BA '98)

2006Kathryn Klein (MA ’06) of Laredo, Texas, is a visiting assistant professor of English at Texas A&M International University. Prior to working at Texas A&M, she taught at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Kathryn received her PhD in English from Stony Brook University in 2013. In October 2016, Kathryn published a novel, “A Palette for Love” (Bold Strokes Press), under the nom de plume Charlotte Greene. She has two more books scheduled to go to press with Bold Strokes this year.

Kathryn Lynch (MBA ’06) of Boulder, Colo., is a principal in the strategy and operations practice at Deloitte Consulting.

2007

Collin White (BA ’07) and Katherine Walsh (BSBA, MBA ’08) were married on Oct. 22, 2016, in Seattle. Craig Harrison (BSBA ’03) officiated the ceremony, and the wedding party was made up of Collin and Katherine’s siblings and 11 DU alumni.

2008Samantha White (LLM ’08, JD ’07)

is a partner at the Denver office of law firm BakerHostetler. Samantha is a member of the firm’s tax group, counseling individuals, families and businesses

in the areas of tax-advantaged trusts, business succession planning, estate administration and charitable giving.

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Continued on 39

Undergraduate business student Sam Bloomfield will

graduate in June with a BSBA in marketing and minors in accounting and

leadership studies. While nearly 70 percent of

DU alumni remain in the Front Range after graduation, Sam hopes to move back to

Minneapolis to be close to family and

friends. After winter break, DU career

advisor Tyler Till introduced Bloomfield to Alumnifire, an online community for DU alumni and students who want to grow the value of their professional networks. Alumnifire is a versatile digital tool that connects alumni, students and families and helps jobseekers expand their professional networks, receive

career advice, set up job shadowing and informational interviews, share job leads, get feedback on their resumés and more.

Bloomfield set up his Alumnifire profile and within days was speaking to Minneapolis-based alumnus Bob Horwitz (BSBA ’75, marketing), who founded the Idea Workshop, a small creative agency. Horwitz joined Alumnifire, he says, because he saw it as “a way to interact with alumni outside of Minneapolis. I thought it would be great to share my experience and that it would be valuable to me and to students.”

Horwitz has connected with a handful of DU alumni since Alumnifire launched in 2015, but he says his interaction with Bloomfield really stood out. From the first email, Horwitz knew that the DU student had done his research. Horwitz shared advice about how he got started, how to build a company, networking, and even information about specific marketing

firms in Minneapolis. “Everyone on Alumnifire has signed

up to participate; they are committed and willing to help,” Bloomfield says. “I like that. They don’t know me, so I know they’ll be honest and share an unbiased opinion. It can be intimidating to reach out to someone you don’t know, but it’s definitely good to build connections early.”

Horwitz and Bloomfield say Alumnifire fostered a real DU connection—a sense of belonging and familiarity that doesn’t exist on platforms like LinkedIn. “It provides a nice connection back to DU and makes me think about being an alum,” Horwitz says. “It’s a good feeling to be a mentor or advisor.”

—Maria Kuntz

Visit du.alumnifire.com to learn more and to create a profile

Alumnifire ignites the Pioneer NetworkA LU M N I N E T WO R K

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TOGETHER

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Make your gift online at GIVE.DU.EDU or learn about DU’s future at IMPACT.DU.EDU

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CLASS NOTES

1940sVirginia (Rabinoff) Boggis (BA ’45), Denver, 11-1-16Elmer “E.O.” Davis (BSBA ’49), Cheyenne, Wyo., 12-5-16

1950sLee Spiegelman (BA ’50), West Palm Beach, Fla., 5-7-16Jean (Hill) Miller (BA ’51), Tabernash, Colo., 10-26-16 David Abosch (BM ’53), Denver, 12-2-16Nai-Kwang Chang (MBA ’56), Sacramento, Calif., 1-15-17 Raymond Records (BS ’56), Las Vegas, Nev., 10-28-16William Gragg (BS ’57), Monterey, Calif., 12-25-16William Winfrey (BA ’58), Boulder City, Nev., 10-6-16

1960sSheila Bugdanowitz (attd. 1964–66), Denver, 12-4-16Frank Robinson (BSCE ’64, JD ’69), Denver, 11-28-16Leonard Withington Jr. (BS ’64), Honolulu, 5-19-15Raymond Delisle (JD ’65), Centennial, Colo., 11-25-16

James Noennig (BSBA ’65), Leon, Mexico, 1-15-16Marjorie Ann “Sally” Kjelson (MA ’69), Omaha, Neb., 10-22-16

1970sP. Hal Davidson (BA ’70), Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., 9-27-15Cornelia “Nena” Coleman (BA ’72), Richmond, Va., 11-10-16John Havens (JD ’73), Wheat Ridge, Colo., 11-3-16Mary Mathiesen (MA ’74), Denver, 4-6-16Bruce Richard Norris (BA ’77), Downers Grove, Ill., 2-12-16Leo Nowak (MBA ’77), Wilmington, N.C., 12-18-16

1980sAndrew “Jerry” Jerome Kuhaida Jr. (PhD ’80), Oak Ridge, Tenn., 12-26-16

2010sSam Beattie (BSBA ’15), New South Wales, Australia, 12-6-16

ALUMNI CONNECTIONS

2009Jennie (Hornbeck) Schmaltz (MA

’09) of Aurora, Colo., received a $25,000 Milken Educator Award recognizing her commitment to

her students, their families, her co-workers and the community. Jennie is a third-grade teacher and coach in Aurora.

2010Geoff Burgess (MBA ’10) was promoted to director, insurance management, at DaVita. In this role, he and his team oversee the insurance and revenue strategy for DaVita’s 1,200 outpatient dialysis centers in the eastern United States. Previously, he was a regional manager for DaVita programs in three states. Geoff and his wife, Ashley, reside in Wheat Ridge, Colo.

2013Hannah Beattie (BA ’13) is a talent partner at Achievement First in New York. As a member of the nonprofit charter school management organization’s recruitment team, she works to provide all children, regardless of race or economic status, with a great education. Hannah previously taught secondary math in Denver, Hawaii and New York.

2014Nick Ota-Wang (MA ’14) of Colorado Springs, Colo., has been appointed to serve on the University of Colorado’s President Diversity Awards Selection Committee. Nick is the staff representative for the University of Colorado’s Colorado Springs campus. The award is presented by the president of the University of Colorado system to a staff or faculty member doing excellent work in diversity.

REACH AN AUDIENCE OF

115,000The University of Denver Magazine is now accepting

advertising from businesses outside the University.

Are you interested in reaching an audience of more than 115,000 fellow Pioneers?

For rates and more information, email [email protected]

STEVE VANDER POL (MBA ’15) of Grand Rapids, Mich., is co-owner of Gray Skies Distillery, which makes small-batch brandy, rum, gin, whiskey and vodka. Gray Skies was internationally recognized at the 2016 New York International Spirits Competition, where it was awarded a gold medal for its Barrel Finished Hop Gin and was named Michigan Distillery of the Year.

Steph

Hard

ing


AirborneSenior gymnast Rachel Fielitz soars over the vault at a meet in January. The Pioneers gymnastics squad went on to finish in second place at the Big 12 Championship in March and in April competed at the NCAA semifinals for just the fourth time in team history, scoring a program-record score and finishing fifth in its semifinal. Overall, Denver finished the season ranked No. 9 in the nation—the highest the team has ever been ranked at the end of the year.

photo by John Baker


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future of DU. For every gift received,

we’ll plant a pinwheel on the green.

Last year we planted 1352 pinwheels.

Help us top that by making a gift at

du.edu/oneday on May 24.

Together we are transforming tomorrow.

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CAMPUSTOURS OKTOBERFEST

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SAVE THE DATE!

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MiscellaneaBLOCK PARTY

This map from the 1911 Kynewisbok shows the placement of campus buildings at the time. Map borders are Evans Avenue to the north, Iliff Avenue to the south, University Avenue to the east and South Race Street to the west.

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BACK - University of Denver Magazine · Executive Editor Barbara Brooks, ... I note from your back cover [Miscellanea] ... Nagels receive University’s top honors at Founders Gala