Robots to the Rescue Views Fall Snow Photograph by Wayne Armstrong

Winter 2009 UNIVERSITY OF

MAGAZINE

UNIVERSITY OF MAGAZINEUNIVERSITY OF MAGAZINE UNIVERSITY OF MAGAZINE

Robots to the Rescue Views Fall snow Photograph by Wayne Armstrong

October storm dumped more than 13 inches of snow on the metro Denver area two days before Halloween, causing the A late DU campus to be closed for a day. Fortunately the sun came out the next day, melting much of the remaining snow to clear the way for trick-or-treaters and Homecoming celebrants. This view is from the Mary Reed Building looking west.

2 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 Contents

Features 22 Welcome to the White House Alumna Ellie Schafer was handpicked to show visitors around President Obama’s new home. By Richard Chapman

28 Building a Better ’Bot DU researchers are leading the development of autonomous robots that could someday save lives. By Chase Squires

32 Full House Four parents and two kids make for one big happy family. By Jessica Centers Glynn

Departments 44 Editor’s Note 45 Letters 47 DU Update 8 News New international security center 10 Sports Soccer stadium kicks off 13 Academics Studying Shakespeare in London 14 People A soldier’s sacrifice 17 History Arapahoe Acres 19 Arts Trumpeter Al Hood 21 Essay Homeplace 37 Alumni Connections

Online only at www.du.edu/magazine: Are we addicted to debt? Americans live by credit, sometimes well beyond their means. And often, the lifelong dance with debt starts in college. By Jan Thomas

Q&A: Movie producer Roger Birnbaum (attd. 1968–71) Research: The effects of reading on the brain

On the cover: DU researchers are carving a niche developing robots that can collect information and save lives; read the story on page 28. Photo by Wayne Armstrong.

This page: Americans are facing a “perfect financial storm” that has led to record foreclosures and credit card debt; read the story online at www.du.edu/magazine. Illustration by Steve Schader. University of Denver Magazine Update 3 UNIVERSITY OF

MAGAZINE www.du.edu/magazine Editor’s Note UNIVERSITY OF Volume 10, Number 2 MAGAZINEUNIVERSITY OF MAGAZINE UNIVERSITY OF When I started my freshman year at DU 18 PublisherMAGAZINE Carol Farnsworth years ago, I wasn’t concerned about debt. I was just happy to be going to college at a good school. So Managing Editor Chelsey Baker-Hauck (BA ’96) what if I would graduate with some student loans? I saw them as an investment in my future. Assistant Managing Editor Greg Glasgow By the time I headed to graduate school, I Associate Editor was beginning to worry about debt—I had credit Tamara Chapman card debt and a car payment in addition to my Editor undergraduate loans. Still, the investment argument Kathryn Mayer (BA ’07) won the day. Really, I had no choice but to take out Editorial Assistant loans if I wanted an advanced degree. Laura Hathaway (’10)

Craig Korn When I pay off my student loans in about 20 Staff Writer more years, I will have paid more than $100,000 Richard Chapman

in principal and interest. Do I regret taking out those loans? Not at all. Art Director I still see them as an investment—simply part of the upwardly mobile, Craig Korn, VeggieGraphics professional American lifestyle, just like the house payment and the 401(k). Contributors Wayne Armstrong • What I do regret is spending so freely with credit cards. Two years ago, Richard Chapman • Justin Edmonds (BSBA ’08) • my husband and I realized that we were making no progress on clearing Jessica Centers Glynn • Allison Horsley • Doug McPherson • Josh Miller • Sarah the credit card debt we’d racked up in college and that we were still likely Satterwhite • Steve Schader • to be buried when we reached retirement age. So we enlisted the help of a Nathan Solheim • Chase Squires

“financial fitness” professional who prodded and coached and sometimes Editorial Board Chelsey Baker-Hauck, editorial director • even shamed us into better spending behavior. I’m pleased to say that after Jim Berscheidt, associate vice chancellor two years of hard work, we’re about to zero the balance on our credit cards for university communications • Thomas Douglis (BA ’86) • Carol Farnsworth, for the first time in nearly 20 years. vice chancellor for university communications • If only my debt epiphany had come a decade or two sooner. Jeffrey Howard, executive director of alumni relations • Sarah Satterwhite, senior director of Be sure to read our online feature article about debt published at development for research and writing • Amber Scott (MA ’02) • Laura Stevens (BA ’69), www.du.edu/magazine. It includes some wonderful tips for students and director of parent relations their parents to help avoid the debt trap that has snared so many Americans. I hope it helps. Printed on 10% PCW recycled paper

The University of Denver Magazine (USPS 022-177) is published quarterly—fall, winter, spring and summer—by the University of Denver, University Communications, 2199 S. University Blvd., Denver, CO 80208-4816. The Chelsey Baker-Hauck University of Denver (Colorado Seminary) is an Equal Managing Editor Opportunity Institution. Periodicals postage paid at Denver, CO. Postmaster: Send address changes to University of Denver Magazine, University of Denver, University Advancement, 2190 E. Asbury Ave., Denver, CO 80208-4816.

4 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 Letters

Celebrating Stuart to work, where they get Council. And, as noted on page 4 Thank you for publishing Margaret Whitt’s their food, etc.” A little of every issue, our paper contains remembrance of Stuart James [Essay, fall friendly coercion will 10 percent post-consumer recycled 2009]. I attended the first class he ever be necessary if some- waste. (Cost and availability limit taught at DU, in the fall of 1957 at the old one deviates. our options for higher-recycled- downtown campus. During that class he Ms. Lyndsay Agans, lead author of this content papers.) We also encourage those concerned mentioned flying the B-17 Flying Fortress, plan, correctly recognizes that “The hard with the environment to read the magazine and after class I told him I, too, had piloted work starts now.” Knowing which light online at www.du.edu/magazine rather than that plane. He invited me to join him for a bulb to use, how to properly grow flow- subscribing to the print edition; readers can e-mail beer, and we began what became a lifelong ers and when it’s OK to use a car will take [email protected] to unsubscribe. friendship. He was my mentor at DU, and moral clarity and perseverance. Maybe a after his retirement we got together nearly “green” book can be produced to delineate every Tuesday for the last 12 years of his which actions are correct and which are After reading “Going Green” I remain life to have lunch, drink an occasional beer, not. tremendously skeptical about DU’s carbon and talk literature. He was the closest and Now that the University can feel good neutral plans. As a 2008 graduate of the dearest friend I ever had. about itself by setting goals to reduce its School of Education I am on campus two Jesse Gatlin Jr. (PhD ’61) carbon footprint, wouldn’t it make more to three times a week, mostly at the Ritchie Colorado Springs, Colo. sense to just close the University and really Center. On my way to work out, I see go carbon neutral? water sprinklers watering the lawn during Igor Shpudejko (MBA ’77) the noon hour, wasting precious water. Thanks so much for a wonderful Mahwah, N.J. I don’t see any recycle bins on my way reminder of the impact and influence one to the Ritchie Center or other buildings. teacher can make. I was a student yearning I realize some are there, but they are not to learn more about literature, and Stuart You seriously missed the boat in your easy to find. I see a large open refrigera- James put it in front of me. He engaged article on DU going green. Nice senti- tion unit across the workout area check-in the classroom to speak up and prodded ments. But how about demonstrating the station, keeping drinks and sandwiches our sleepy minds to realize the force and University’s commitment to going green cold with the unit’s cold air escaping into impact that the written word could have— by having the magazine go green? Right the room, again wasting energy. Worst of through Hemingway, Cather, Faulkner, now, you’re using a high quality unrecycled all, there are no water conservation poli- Twain and O’Connor. He opened up a paper to print the magazine on. And are cies in the men’s showers. No auto-off, no world for me, and I thank him for being you using soy-based ink? Not that I can water-saving shower heads, no signs asking a catalyst when I needed one. I’ve been tell. How about you cut out the luxury users to limit their shower times. In fact, fortunate to have had a small handful of paper and go for something with a high countless times I see swim teams stand teachers like Stuart James. They are gold. recycled content? Frankly, I’m appalled and in the showers for up to 30 minutes, just Doug Hall (BA ’81) disappointed that the choice wasn’t made standing under the hot water, wasting not Waltham, Mass. to do so at the outset. Make your alumni only energy to heat the water, but the water proud and be a little bit progressive. Go itself. green yourself and don’t just write an I see why it will take 40 years to obtain Green gripes article about it. carbon neutrality. DU does not have the After reading “Going Green” [fall 2009] Leigh Phipps (BA ’82) environmental culture that other colleges it is apparent that the green “commissars” Denver have, such as CU-Boulder. It will take a have finally appeared at DU. They have long time to change students’ attitudes, ostensibly come to re-educate the masses Ed. response: We continue to seek ways especially since many have never had to at DU on the merits of “sustainability.” Of to mitigate the magazine’s environmental impact sacrifice. I wish you luck in your endeav- course it’s all for the “good” of the people, while also keeping costs down. Soy-based inks ors, but it makes me sad to see that noth- even if some may disagree. Clearly “mem- are not available for our cost-effective high-volume ing really changes. It is easier to put in bers of the University community will be printing process, but we do print on elemental- large solar and wind energy systems than asked to change the way they do things: the chlorine-free paper certified by the Sustainable promote the turning off of water or a light way they teach and learn, the way they get Forestry Initiative and Forest Stewardship switch, but it is the little things like not

University of Denver Magazine Letters 5 watering during the noon hour or limiting inflation rate of the Consumer Price Index not have afforded to attend, since I was sup- your shower time that will make the big over the same period has been between porting myself with a part-time job whilst difference. Hopefully someone will note 4 and 5 percent. If tuition had kept pace attending, with an hourly rate only slightly these little problems, which truly add up, with the 4 percent inflation of the CPI, higher than minimum wage. There would and do something about them. it would be about $5,300 per year. If it had never have been a way I could have earned James Rogers (MLIS ’08) been a 5 percent increase per year, tuition enough to cover tuition and living expenses Denver would have been a whopping $8,700 per with a minimum-wage job nowadays. year. The difference between $8,700 Your bean counters should get together per year and $34,000 per year shown on with your educators and figure out how Going up page 33 is staggering beyond belief! You to use technology to reach the masses, lest I’m appalled at the “The Rising Cost of wonder in the article how you can contain DU and other traditional schools be left in College” [fall 2009]. the rate of increase. I say you should strive the dust. I started at DU in 1955, when tuition to decrease the tuition, and costs, of edu- Henry Greeb (BS ’59, MS ’60) was $210 per quarter, or $630 per year, and cation at DU. Rockford, Mich. this was considered high compared with Attending DU was of value to me— in-state tuition for the state universities with an MS degree in chemical engineering such as CU. I landed in a Fortune 500 company, had If my math is correct (I’m an engi- a productive career and was able to retire Send letters to the editor to: Chelsey Baker- Hauck, University of Denver Magazine, 2199 S. neer, not an economist), the average rate fairly comfortably. However, had I had a University Blvd., Denver, CO 80208-4816. Or of inflation of tuition at DU over the past debt load of three times my starting annual e-mail [email protected]. Include your full 50-plus years has been 7.65 percent. My salary when I graduated, things would have name and mailing address with all submissions. economic advisers tell me the average been considerably different. I certainly could Letters may be edited for clarity and length.

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ALUMNI DISCOUNT To learn about the Ritchie Center’s discounted DU Alumni and Young Alumni membership options, call 303.871.3845.

Daniel L. Ritchie Center for Sports & Wellness OPEN TO DU ALUMNI AND THE PUBLIC Call 303.871.3845 Online recreation.du.edU/alumni

6 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 9 Convocation recap 1 1 Plant lawsuit 16 Branding initiative 18 National ranking 2 0 Volunteer profile Justin Edmonds Jose Sanchez, 10, celebrates after scoring a goal on the fifth and final day of the Miracles on Ice hockey camp sponsored by the Gary and Leslie (MBA ’03) Howard Family Foundation. Sanchez was one of 33 Bridge Project students who took to the Magness Arena ice for a hockey game Aug. 7 following a week of skating lessons, classroom instruction in math and reading, and listening to motivational speakers. The camp teaches students the importance of maintaining a strong mind and healthy body while encouraging discipline, commitment and team play.

University of Denver Magazine Update 7 Top News International security center opens at Korbel school By Chase Squires

Josef Korbel School of International Studies will educate a new generation of international security spe- DU’s cialists and diplomats at the SIÉ CHÉOU-KANG Center for International Security and Diplomacy, an addition to Ben Cherrington Hall that opened in August. The SIÉ Center will provide leadership training for SIÉ Fellows, a program consisting of 10 international security specialists and diplomats that will begin in fall 2010. The center also will provide students at the Korbel School with a new resource for studying global security, policy and diplomacy issues. The center is named for Sié Chéou-Kang, the father of DU trustee John Sie. Sié Chéou-Kang was a diplomat, educa- tor, author and playwright who spent much of his adult life in Europe forging relationships on behalf of China. “This center is extremely important to the University of Denver, this city, the region and the world,” Chancellor Robert Coombe told a crowd of nearly 300 supporters at the building’s opening ceremony on Aug. 7. “If the city of Denver is to be a great international city, then the University of Denver must be a great international university, and that is our objective.” Coombe said the SIÉ Center provides another opportunity for the Josef Korbel School to build its reputation as one of the premier international studies programs in the world. “Our students will have many outstanding opportunities to interact with top leaders in the Wayne Armstrong Wayne fields of security, policy and diplomacy,” he said. “Like so many of our graduates who now hold pivotal positions throughout the world, they will be prepared to address the great issues of our time.” The center has many Asian design elements, including a roof of blue-glazed Asian tiles and a Japanese-style court- yard garden of rock forms focused on a magnolia tree. It was constructed using the Green Building Rating System, which focuses on the highest standards in energy conservation as developed by LEED—Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. The center and the annex constructed for it were developed through a $5 million commitment from the Anna and John J. Sie Foundation. In addition, the foundation has endowed a chair for a scholar to lead the program. John Sie delivered an emotional address at the opening ceremony, recalling the important lessons he learned from his father and mother and his hope for the future of global relations. “Today marks the opening of a building and a new commitment at the University to international security and diplomacy,” he said. “I’m simply overwhelmed.” Sie spoke candidly about his father’s work as a respected diplomat. He said he learned integrity, the pursuit of excellence and selfless commitment to others from his father. And through his mother, Sie said he developed a moral compass that guides him today. “Today we are here to honor my father and mother,” he said.

8 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 Top News International security center opens at Korbel school By Chase Squires Coombe says University is weathering financial Scholarship storm with ‘sacrifice’ fundraising at

WayneArmstrong DU The economic condition of the nation is still trying the resiliency of the Scholarship donors University, Chancellor Robert Coombe said in his Oct. 2 Convocation address to 5,414 faculty and staff. “If we bend but don’t break, they Scholarship gifts are times of extraordinary opportunity,” Coombe said. $53,819,576 He said the University finished New scholarships fiscal 2009 with a positive operating margin and predicted DU will stay on 143 track for another balanced budget this year. Coombe attributed DU’s good fin- Gifts to endowed scholarships ancial footing to a combination of budget cuts, a moratorium on salary increases in $42,036,179 2010 and last winter’s realignment—in which DU staff was reduced by 122 po- New endowed scholarships sitions. The full impact of realignment, he 72 said, will be felt in the current year and years to follow. Gifts to non-endowed scholarships Of the money saved this year, more than $4.5 million has gone to sup- $11,783,397 port increases in financial aid for undergraduate and graduate students. Another —For period July 2006 to June 2009; $3.5 million of the realignment funds compiled by Sarah Satterwhite, Office of were used to support new faculty positions and fill essential positions left vacant after some staff members took University Advancement voluntary buy-outs as part of the realignment, Coombe explained. The rest of the saved funds were used to hold down tuition increases. While Coombe spent time addressing the University’s financial position, he also took time to highlight the Uni- versity’s accomplishments. Fall enrollments for the University total more than 12,000 students, greater than in any year since World War II. Coombe called the quality of students “unabated,” adding that nearly half of the first-year students were in the top 10 percent of their high school classes. >>Transcript: www.du.edu/chancellor/speeches/convocation09.html —Kathryn Mayer

DU a top destination for Jewish students

DU is one of the top 60 schools Jews choose, according to Reform Judaism, the world’s largest circu-

lated Jewish magazine. In the magazine’s fourth annual Insider’s Guide to College, DU is ranked No. 28 iStockphoto for the top private schools Jewish students select. Twenty percent of DU’s undergraduate student population is Jewish, the magazine reports. Organizations for Jewish students at DU include Hillel, Chabad, Jewish Rainbow Alliance and the ALEPH Institute for Jewish Culture. DU boasts egalitarian and reform worship on campus and offers around 20 Judaism-related courses. Students also can minor in Judaic studies through DU’s Center for Judaic Studies. The Merage and Allon Hillel Center provides Jewish students with an alternative place to gather. >>www.du.edu/crs —Laura Hathaway Sports New soccer stadium kicks off Media Relations Staff

was a banner day for the DU soccer program. Not only did the women’s team win its first home Aug. 28 game of the season, but it did so under the lights in the brand new University of Denver Soccer Stadium, a $9.2 million complex that’s been in the works since fall 2008. Construction began in winter 2009. “We’re very fortunate here at the University of Denver that the Ritchie Center provides many of our sports programs with first-class facilities,” says Stu Halsall, assistant vice chancellor for recreation, athletic events and Ritchie Center operations. “I think the soccer stadium adds that for our soccer program. For student-athletes, for alumni, for future players coming in, it’s a great home. The whole energy and excitement around the program has drastically increased.” The 1,915-seat stadium has lights for night games and a public address system. The top of the stadium is on the same level as the entrance to the Ritchie Center, giving soccer fans access to interior restrooms and concessions. A lighted stadium does more than provide comfort for fans. Night games ramp up DU’s ability to schedule top oppo- nents, which builds fans both on campus and off. Players play harder under the lights before a crowd, coaches say, and youngsters from the soccer-rich Denver sports community can attend games with their parents and coaches more often when they take place at night. Attendance helps establish a strong connection with DU players. Moreover, having a stadium allows the University to bid to be an NCAA tournament site, which would further cement ties with the Denver soccer community. “We want to show kids what college soccer is all about,” says men’s soccer coach Bobby Muuss, noting that the program is working to build a winning tradition. “It takes pioneers to do it.” In addition to the stadium, the project includes an 11,000-square- foot strength and conditioning center and a 12,500-square-foot art annex, both of which will be open by mid- December. The one-story art annex will be Wayne Armstrong Wayne attached to the southwest corner of the Ritchie Center—behind the Shwayder Art Building—and used as studio space for drawing and painting. It will be tucked partly into the ground and will feature a large skylight and side windows to allow the natural light artists crave. The state-of-the-art strength and conditioning center, which is built into the body of the stands, will be available to athletes in all 17 DU Division I sports. It will replace crowded space in the Ritchie Center and provide opportunities for training to enhance team unity and performance, prevent injuries and aid recovery. While the strength and conditioning center helps coaches build a better team, it’s hoped the new stadium will build a bigger fan base for Pioneers soccer. “Right now we’re averaging 1,000 fans a game—it’s something that our players at home have never experienced,” Muuss says. “Playing at night and really being able to expose the Denver soccer community as well as the Denver student body to DU soccer—it’s a win-win for everybody.”

Just days before this issue went to press, the women’s soccer team won the Sun Belt Conference championship and was headed to the NCAA tournament. Follow the team at www.DenverPioneers.com.

10 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 Sports New soccer stadium kicks off Media Relations Staff Student lawyers reach endangered plant settlement

University of Denver law students don’t back down when they head into court, even if their target is the United States government. Students and faculty at DU’s Sturm College of Law Environmental Law Clinic have been battling for years with the Department of the Interior on behalf of an Arizona-based environmental group seeking endangered species protection for two plants found only on the U.S. Virgin Islands. On Aug. 18, the clinic reached a settlement with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the Department of the Interior that will see the government revisit an earlier decision to deny endangered species protections for the two plants. The dispute dates back to 1996, when the Virgin Islands Department of Planning and Natural Resources sought to have the rare plants listed. In 2004, the Tucson, Ariz., based Center for Biological Diversity started pressing the federal government to rule on the request, which languished for years in bureaucracy. The center also challenged the government’s ultimate 2006 decision not to protect the plants. DU’s student law office has been representing the center. Professor Michael Harris has been overseeing the endangered plant case. Under the most recent development—the Aug. 18 settlement in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia—the government agrees to revisit its 2006 rejection. In addition, the government agrees to pay more than $50,000 in legal fees to the center. The Environmental Law Clinic also filed suit in federal court Aug. 6 against Xcel Energy over the operation of the Cherokee Station coal-fired power plant.The suit on behalf of WildEarth Guardians contends Xcel repeatedly has violated federal standards for limiting and monitoring opacity levels from the emissions of four coal-fired units at the plant north of Denver. Opacity levels act as an indicator of whether a unit is emitting particulate matter and other pollutants that pose a serious health threat to the public. —Chase Squires

Trygve Myhren named chairman of DU Board of Trustees

Prominent Denver businessman Trygve Myhren has been elected chairman HOLIDAY 2008 CHASE BASKETBALL JERSEY PIONEER RED PMS 202 of the University of Denver Board of Trustees. Myhren, a DU trustee since 1995, PIONEER RED PMS 202PIONEER GOLD PMS 871 PIONEER GOLD PMS BLACK871 BLACK --- began his term Sept. 1, succeeding Joy Burns, who will remain on the board. --- Myhren is president of Myhren Media Inc. He previously served as presi- CHASE BASKETBALL JERSEY 7898A 7898A HOLIDAY 2008 10/09/08 clm 10/09/08 clm dent of the Providence Journal Co. chairman and CEO of American Television & Communications (now Time Warner Cable), chairman of the National Cable Television Association and on the boards of eight public companies. He is a founder or co-founder of six cable TV networks, including the Food Network, Northwest Cable News and E! Entertainment. At DU, Myhren has served on several trustee committees, sequentially chairing the University’s audit, finance and budget, and faculty and educational affairs committees. Myhren and his wife, Vicki, are the principal supporters of the Victoria H. Myhren Gallery in the Shwayder Art Building. Burns, a DU board member for 28 years, served as chairman from 1990 until 2005 and again from 2007 until Aug. 31, 2009. An icon of Denver’s business, civic and professional sports community, she is president and CEO of the D.C. Burns Realty and Trust Co. and president and owner of the Burnsley Hotel in Denver. Peter Gilbertson (BA ’75), founder and CEO of Anacostia & Pacific Co. has joined the board as a new member. —Media Relations Staff University of Denver Magazine Update 11 Late DU philanthropist established University’s first fully

funded chair III Simmons Seymour by Block Leo of portrait Oil

Alumnus Leo Block, a philanthropist who contributed more than $2.5 million to DU, died Aug. 31. He was 94. “His energy and intellect belied his age,” says Chancellor Emeritus Dwight Smith. “Leo was a delightful and generous man to whom we in the DU community will remain indebted.” Block is the namesake for the Leo Block Alumni Center and the Leo Block Endowed Chair. “Simply put, Leo loved DU. He credited DU with giving him an international perspective and a passion for learning,” says Scott Lumpkin, associate vice chancellor in University Advancement. Block (BA ’35) met Smith in 1985, when Block attended his 50th reunion at DU. “He invited me to visit him in San Antonio, an invitation which I accepted, and those visits continued both there and in Denver,” Smith says. Block contributed $1 million for the first fully funded chair at the University. “[The chair] brought a series of visiting professors to DU for 20 years, beginning with former Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm,” Lumpkin says. Lamm has remained at DU as executive director of the Institute for Public Policy Studies. “Because of its timing, this gift and the addition of Lamm to the faculty represented a real and morale-boosting enhancement for our academic community at a critical juncture in our history,” Smith says. In 2008, Block permanently assigned the chair to the Josef Korbel School of International Studies. Block was the founder and owner of Block Distributing Co., now called Republic National Distributing, which became the largest wine- and liquor-distributing outlet in south Texas. —Kathryn Mayer

China Rising

The University of Denver Presents

The next Bridges to the Future event will occur during the winter 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.

12 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 Academics Students in love ... with Shakespeare By Kathryn Mayer

nothing new for Americans to study the work of Shakespeare. But it’s usually cooler to do so in the country of that famous It’s writer. And way cooler to do so when actually at the theater in which the Bard’s famous plays were first performed. DU students studying abroad in London can get that experience when they take Shakespeare: Text, Performance and Culture. The course is held at Shakespeare’s Globe, a modern reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, which burned down in 1613. “It was one of the most interesting classes I’ve ever taken,” says Callan Cobb, a senior communications major who took the class in fall 2008. “Not only was it taught in the exact replica of the Globe Theatre, but the people teaching us were so knowledgeable and in love with Shakespeare that you couldn’t help but feel the same way.” In love with Shakespeare? Not surprising considering the ongoing popularity of a man who lived nearly 400 years ago. The course focuses on the universality of Shakespeare’s plays, which helps students relate to the issues he wrote about centuries earlier. “We learned how to look for different meaning in his TramperJohn plays and poems,” Cobb says. “A lot of times what you read is not what he intended you to take away. The most significant part of the class was tying London history to the writing and using the history to make guesses as to what Shakespeare was alluding to.” DU has partnered with Globe Education—the education program offering courses at the Globe Theatre—since 1998. The 12-week fall course is designed for liberal arts students and is especially popular with theater and English majors. During the class, students read and study some of Shakespeare’s plays and examine their language, meaning and characters. They also learn about performance space, props and clothing and the relationship between actors and audience members, says Madeline Knights, university courses manager at the Globe. DU English Professor Eleanor McNees helped organize DU’s partnership with the Globe when she was working to develop the University’s faculty-led London study-abroad program. Students in the program are able to choose either the Shakespeare course or an art history course as part of the program’s curriculum. “Since the [Globe’s] regular season ends in early October, students are able to actually use the stage—quite a spectacular experience for them,” McNees says. In addition to watching plays, students perform a scene of their own to an audience at the end of the class. Senior political science major Eliza Reed says performing was easily her favorite part of the class. “We took lessons in acting and drama, and after spending several weeks learning the lines and the appropriate movement on stage, we got to perform a scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream in front of our peers,” she says. Reed played Lysander. “There were seven people in the course, and we were split into two plays. My group was all women, so two of us got to play the male roles, which is ironic because men played female roles in Shakespeare’s time,” Reed says. Plays at the outdoor theater are performed as they were in the 16th century, Reed says. There are no microphones or stage lighting, and a crowd of 1,600 can pack into the theater and hear Shakespeare’s famous lines clearly through the Globe’s natural acoustics. “The architecture and detail of the Globe is breathtaking,” says marketing and theater senior Brooke Tibbs. “It’s a marvelous theater. Standing in the middle of the theater you can look up and see the sky and wonder if it’s the 1500s or present day.”

University of Denver Magazine Update 13 People A war of remembrance By Doug McPherson

Libman still cries when he talks about his friend Leonard Kravitz. Mitchel Libman (BA ’53) and Kravitz (the uncle and namesake of rock musician Lenny Kravitz) grew up together in Crown Heights, a largely Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y. “Lenny was always there when you needed a friend,” says Libman, 78, who now lives in Hollywood, Fla. “He wasn’t what you’d call a ladies’ man [or] a great athlete. Lenny was the guy who was always picked last for games we played. But when I got to choose, I’d always pick him right at the start. We were very close.” But near the end of high school, as Libman’s future gained clarity, Kravitz’s grew cloudy. “He wasn’t going to college, didn’t have a job and had no idea what he wanted to do,” Libman says. “I know he wasn’t happy and his parents were very concerned.” Kravitz eventually decided to join the Army to fight in the Korean War. “He and his parents argued often about it for months, and they finally gave him permission,” Libman says. It was a deadly decision. And one that would shape Libman’s future for the better part of a half-century. On March 6, 1951, Kravitz and two platoons came under heavy attack from Chinese troops. A U.S. machine-gunner was wounded, and Kravitz took over. Kravitz and the men successfully fought off two early assaults, but then a larger group with automatic weapons and grenades rushed forward. The sergeant ordered a retreat. But Kravitz refused to leave the machine gun and yelled that he would cover his fellow troops, nearly 40 by Libman’s estimate. According to eyewitness reports, Kravitz said, “Get the hell out while you still can.” Troops testified they heard Kravitz’s weapon firing after they reached safety. Then a barrage of hand grenades exploded. Then silence. The next morning they returned to the site. The bodies of Chinese soldiers were scattered all around Kravitz, who lay over his machine gun, dead. It wasn’t until that summer, while Libman was home on break from the University of Denver, that his mother told him of Lenny’s death. “Most of the year was a pretty big blur,” Libman says. “I went through a pretty rough period and kept everything to myself.” Libman returned to DU. After graduating, he was drafted for service as a combat engineer and served in Korea in 1954 and 1955. When he later learned that Kravitz had been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the Army’s second highest honor, “I was very happy he had been recognized,” Libman says. “At that time I didn’t really know what he had done, but I knew he was considered a hero.” Still, Libman says, “I wanted to know what could possibly have put Lenny into the situation to make the decision to give up his life so all the others could get out of there alive.” Libman’s search for details took on new meaning in the mid-1980s, when he learned Kravitz had been nominated for the Medal of Honor—the military’s highest award—but that the Pentagon had downgraded it to the Distinguished Service Cross. “I had to know why that happened,” he says. “I’ve read the criteria for the Medal of Honor many times, and Lenny’s actions fit it perfectly.” Adding fuel to his effort was a comment from Jerry Murray, who had served with Kravitz. “He told me, ‘They don’t give the Medal of Honor to Jews.’ Up until then I was trying to get information. But that spurred me on even more. It wasn’t the first time I had heard it, but based on my personal experience with Lenny’s medal, I’d say it was very accurate.” Libman’s quest took him to the pinnacle of U.S. military power. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush examined his request that they award Kravitz the medal. At one point, an assistant at the Pentagon told Libman the paperwork was on President Bush’s desk waiting to be signed. But it turned out she was mistaken. “Both Clinton and Bush did what they were supposed to do, but officials at the Pentagon have turned down the request,” Libman says. “They only say that they believe the Distinguished Service Cross is the proper medal and nothing else.” They did tell him they wouldn’t review the case again unless he could produce more proof. Libman persisted and began working with Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla., who eventually introduced the Leonard Kravitz Jewish

14 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 Courtesy of Mitchel Libman Mitchel of Courtesy

People A war of remembrance By Doug McPherson

Mitchel Libman

War Veterans Act of 2001. It mandates that all cases in which Jewish veterans were awarded the Distinguished Service Cross be reviewed to determine if the Medal of Honor should have been given. Wexler says he believes it’s “unconscionable” that Jewish- Leonard Kravitz Americans were “systematically denied medals they earned … due to prejudice and anti-Semitism in the Pentagon.” Pam Elbe, an archivist at the National Museum of American Jewish Military History in Washington, D.C., says of the half- million Jews who served in World War II, only three received the Medal of Honor. “I believe there was some discrimination going on there,” says Elbe, noting that the number of Jews who served in Korea isn’t known. Lt. Col. Nate Banks of the Army public affairs office in Washington, D.C., says the list of soldiers being considered for the Medal of Honor is not public. “The Medal of Honor is awarded to individuals based on merit, and it’s not based on race or religion,” he says. So far, just one Jewish veteran has received the Medal of Honor because of the Kravitz act—Tibor Rubin, who has become friends with Libman and who also believes Kravitz deserves the medal. “I do think he should get it, but I also believe Mitch deserves the Medal of Honor for all he’s done,” Rubin says. “Mitch is a wonderful man, and he’s been fighting for his friend for a very long time.” Libman believes Kravitz eventually will get the medal. But for now the request is still in limbo, somewhere in an office in Washington, D.C. Libman says a woman in the Pentagon called him in early 2009 and said Kravitz remains on the list to be considered for the Medal of Honor. He’s also spoken with an assistant to Rahm Emanuel, President Obama’s chief of staff. “I still wait for the mailman every day,” Libman says. “I’ve never given up because Lenny was my friend. Because he earned it. And because Lenny never gave up. He stayed to finish what was so important to him behind that machine gun. This is the least I can do for him. “I spend a lot of time trying to understand what it must have been like for him … behind that weapon,” Libman says. “It’s very upsetting. It haunts me. He was there, all alone. He never even tried to leave. The proof of that was they found him still at his position, lying over his weapon, only six bullets left in his machine gun. “Lenny knew me well enough to know I would go to any length to make sure the world knew what he did,” Libman adds. “His next thought, I’m sure, would be, ‘What the hell is taking you so long?’”

University of Denver Magazine Update 15 Pioneers Top 10 Post-1960s musicals Redesigned DU home page headlines new 1. Avenue Q branding initiative 2. Bring in ’Da Noise, Bring in ’Da Funk 3. Cats A new brand strategy is at the heart of the redesigned DU Web site that launched Sept. 14. The home page (www.du.edu) now has links for different audience groups and top-level pages that 4. Company focus on prospective students. The Web site is just one component of a larger University-wide initiative 5. The Lion King to bring focus and clarity to DU’s mission to be a great private university dedicated to the public good. 6. Sunday in the Park With George “This effort is intended to be a logical extension of our vision, values, mission and goals statements, one that further clarifies them for the University community and gives them voice for a much broader 7. Tommy audience,” Chancellor Robert Coombe wrote in an August memo to deans and administrators. 8. Urinetown “Our goal is to develop greater visibility for DU as an action leader, as an institution that proactively 9. Wicked addresses the great issues of our day,” Coombe wrote. “We need to tell our story well, with many 10. The Wiz examples.” The alumni relations office also has launched a new Web site and expanded its ePioneer online community. The new site includes the latest information about programs, events and alumni benefits. The ePioneer site enables alums to find old classmates and add them to a personal friends list, add or view photo albums, and add and link content from sites such as LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter and iStockphoto Facebook. Visit www.alumni.du.edu and click on the ePioneer online community button to create a free, secure personal profile. In alphabetical order; compiled by Allison Horsley, —Media Relations Staff assistant professor of theater.

16 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 History Modern living By Greg Glasgow

School of WayneArmstrong The DU Architecture and Planning was only around for six years—1946 to 1952—but it left its modernist mark on south Denver. Tucked away in a maze of side streets in Englewood, less than two miles from the DU campus, sits Arapahoe Acres, an astounding group of 124 mid-century modern homes right out of the Frank Lloyd Wright playbook. The project was conceived in 1949 by Denver developer Edward Hawkins, who bought a 30-acre parcel of land for $5,250. For his architect, Hawkins chose Eugene Sternberg, a Czech-born professor at DU’s architecture school. “Gene was very interested in this neighborhood for its social engineering,” says Arapahoe Acres resident and historian Diane Wray. “He wanted affordable homes, he was interested in the environmental aspect, and he was also very concerned that the houses be financially accessible to a variety of people, and also people at different stages in their lives.” In 1998, thanks to Wray’s efforts, Arapahoe Acres became the first post-World War II subdivision listed as a National Register Historic District. The end of World War II marked a huge housing boom in America. GIs were returning from abroad, wartime restrictions on manufacturing and construction were lifted, and new materials like plastics and synthetic resins were introduced into the market. Eager to capitalize on the trend, the Revere Copper and Brass Co. sponsored a national program encouraging modern design. Hawkins and Sternberg applied and were accepted, and construction on Arapahoe Acres began in October 1949. The resulting neighborhood is like something out of “The Jetsons” or “77 Sunset Strip”: an oasis of contemporary design in a surrounding sea of middle-American split-levels and Cape Cods. Drawing from the International and Usonian styles—both related to the work of Wright—Arapahoe Acres abodes are all flat roofs, jutting eaves, low angles, large windows, flowing interiors and natural light. “What’s so cool about Arapahoe Acres is that it’s kind of like driving into a little cocoon, like a time warp,” says Dana Cain (BA ’81), host of the annual Denver Modernism Show. “The street signs, the layout of it—you go in and you’re surrounded by it. It’s not like a lot of places where they have some good examples of mid-century architecture but they’re sitting next to this or that. When you’re in Arapahoe Acres, it’s complete immersion.” The Hawkins-Sternberg partnership didn’t last long: After Hawkins sold a model home for more than the agreed-upon price, Sternberg left the project. About 20 homes in Arapahoe Acres were built on Sternberg’s plans. Hawkins assumed the design of the remaining homes, assisted by Gerry Dion, who had studied under Sternberg at DU. In her Arapahoe Acres guidebook, Wray writes that the DU School of Architecture and Planning was discontinued in 1952 after the University of Colorado established a school of architecture in its college of engineering. Modern architecture fell out of favor after the 1950s, due in part to FHA rules that required larger down payments for houses built as part of what the agency considered a fad. But with the recent resurgence of mid-century modern style, Arapahoe Acres has a new cachet among retro-minded Denverites. “We love living in the house; it’s essentially like living in a piece of art,” says 10-year resident Dave Steers, who started his own business restoring and renovating mid-century homes shortly after moving to Arapahoe Acres. “We know a tremendous amount of people in the neighborhood because we all have the neighborhood in common.” Even those not lucky enough to live there are welcome to walk, drive or bicycle through—perhaps as part of a south Denver mid-century tour that also includes nearby enclaves Krisana Park, Arapaho Hills and Mile High. “It’s like a little slice of paradise; it’s a total gem,” Cain says. “I would give anything to live there.”

University of Denver Magazine Update 17 DU ranked in nation’s top 100 One to watch Arda Collins, creative writing The University of Denver is keeping its place among the top national

universities in the 2010 U.S. News & World Report college rankings. Ask Arda Col- WayneArmstrong The magazine’s annual ranking of undergraduate education, released lins why poetry is Aug. 20, again places DU among the nation’s top 100 universities. DU ranks important, and the 84th—up five positions from last year—tied with American University, Mar- acclaimed poet will be quette University and the Stevens Institute of Technology. the first to admit it’s DU ranked high for its freshman retention rate (88 percent), its accep- not a popular genre tance rate (64 percent) and its percentage of full-time faculty (74 percent). that will ever “fly off The rankings also recognize DU for having small class sizes. the shelves.” In addition, DU ranks No. 8—tied with the University of Southern “I think of it as California and the University of Vermont—in the “up and coming national important in the same universities” category. The category spotlights universities regarded by top way as if you spent college officials as “making promising and innovative changes.” a day with someone The Daniels College of Business ranked 83 on a list of 183 undergradu- going to the movies ate business programs nationwide. Daniels was tied with 17 other schools, and you have some including Texas Christian University, Loyola University Chicago, Brandeis sort of magical day, or University, Marquette University and George Mason University. Daniels you eat something and ranked 83rd in the 2009 rankings as well. it’s delicious,” Collins —Chase Squires explains. “Maybe it’s not so important, but … it makes life worth living.” Art—especially in the context of words—is something that makes life worth living for the second-year student in DU’s creative writing PhD program. For the 34-year-old Collins, what some may consider a dalli- ance has become a promising profession, not to mention the envy of most writers with similarly lofty aspirations. Collins’ poems have appeared in The New Yorker and American Poetry Review. She is a graduate of the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop and was one of hundreds of poets vying for acceptance into DU’s creative writing program, the only writing program in the country that focuses exclusively on doctoral study. Last year, Collins won the Yale Younger Poets Prize, the annual event of the Yale University Press that publishes the first collection of a promising American poet under the age of 40. Collins’ It Is Daylight was published in April 2009 and garnered positive reviews from critics who called her work “dramatic,” “mesmerizing” and “electric.” For Collins, writing is where “things I imagine become real.” Take her poem “Low,” for example, in which she writes, “It’s not happiness, but something else; waiting for the light to change; a bakery. It’s a lake. It emerges from darkness into the next day surrounded by pines.” Her images are simple; her sentences short and sweet. The New York native is finding solace in the “smallness” of DU’s program. “It’s just a good place to work,” Collins says. “I like what is happening here creatively.” —Kathryn Mayer

18 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 Arts In tune By Nathan Solheim

Al Hood has found the perfect gig at the University of Denver. Musician Hood, an associate professor of trumpet at DU’s Lamont School of Music, plays dozens of concerts per year in crowded jazz clubs, swanky concert halls and ornate cathedrals around Denver. When he’s not on stage, Hood coaches a number of student ensembles and tutors 13 trumpet students on melodies, mouthpieces and Miles Davis. Hood also helped resurrect the Rafael Mendez Brass Institute—a weeklong summer music camp that brings together aspiring professional brass players and some of the world’s best brass musicians for a week’s worth of master classes, workshops and concerts—by opening up the Lamont School of Music’s performance and teaching facilities to the institute. And in February 2009, Hood released his first solo album, Just a Little Taste: Al Hood Plays the Writing of Dave Hanson. James Brown, eat your heart out. “I have no complaints about my job,” Hood says. “I love teaching and performing equally. And I teach classical music and jazz to all my students.” Some of his students have gone on to some pretty nice gigs of their own in ensembles as diverse as the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra and the Glenn Miller Orchestra. “He pedagogically opened my eyes,” says Brittany Branscom, a former student who works in the Lamont public relations office and freelances around Denver. “He’s methodical in his approach to teaching, but he’s very supportive of his students’ creativity.” Hood came to DU from the University of Miami, where he was working on a degree in jazz performance. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music performance from the University of Kentucky and Northern Illinois University, respectively. The 45-year-old father of one and Rochester, N.Y., native started playing trumpet in junior high school and turned to jazz after his high school music teacher lent him a few records. Over the course of his career, Hood has performed with jazz giants such as Dave Brubeck, Wynton Marsalis, Gerry Mulligan, Curtis Fuller and Arturo Sandoval, as well as

Wayne Armstrong Wayne popsters Phil Collins, Ray Charles, Natalie Cole and Engelbert Humperdinck. He’s played with some of his trumpet idols along the way, too, including Doc Severinsen and Clark Terry. Around Denver, Hood is an A-lister, playing in groups such as the Ken Walker Sextet and the Denver Brass. While he’s played with some of the industry’s best, he’s quick to laud Denver’s top-notch scene. “I can name you five or six world-class players on each instrument—the roster is huge,” Hood says. “And you can catch someone great pretty much any night of the week.” Hood collaborated with one of those world-class musicians, Lamont adjunct instructor Dave Hanson, on Just a Little Taste. Hanson, Hood says, is as good as any arranger in Los Angeles or New York. A collection of five originals and seven standards arranged for jazz trumpet and orchestral strings, the album garnered strong reviews and airplay on Denver-area jazz radio and worldwide. Hood financed production with a pair of DU grants and his own money and plans to submit the album for Grammy consideration. “It’s kind of a shot in the dark from an unknown, but why not?” he asks. “People tell me I have my own sound and that it’s a little different. Those are probably the biggest compliments I can get.”

University of Denver Magazine Update 19 Volunteer Spotlight Sheldon Arakaki

While he was a student at DU, Sheldon Arakaki (BSBA ’84) spent time volunteering in the admission office, where he developed friendships with many staff members. Twenty-five years later he is still building on the relationships he made at DU by participating in the Ammi Hyde admission interviews for prospective students. Arakaki is one of more than 300 alumni volunteers who conduct interviews each November and February. The voluntary interviews probe students’ motivation to learn, openness to new ideas, and personal values. DU faculty and staff also conduct Hyde interviews. “I like talking to students and listening to what they have to say about their motivation for getting a college education and why they are choosing this university,” says Arakaki, an e-commerce analyst who conducts interviews in the Seat-

Courtesy of Sheldon Arakaki tle area, where he lives. “I enjoy finding out how the last several years have shaped what they want to do with themselves.” And what does he look for in a future DU student? “People who understand that it’s all about getting an education to further open your mind and seeing what all the possibilities are, then applying it to life,” Arakaki says. “Who knows where life is going to take you? You’re going to have multiple careers, and so [college] is just about preparing you for life. To me, the really good applicants just recognize that.” Nashwa Bolling, associate director of admissions, says the Hyde interviews are a win-win for everyone involved. Alumni get to reconnect with the University, and the admission office gets valuable insight into prospective students. “It’s always good to have outsider input on the application—to get somebody else’s perspective on the student and to learn a little bit more about them as individuals and highlight characteristics that we’re not going to see by just reading the application,” Bolling says. Before the Hyde interviews existed, Arakaki was part of the Alumni Admissions Council. Volunteering always has been a part of Arakaki’s life, and helping the admission office is just a continuation of what he did in high school and college, he says. He’s been volunteering with DU for 20 years. “He had a great experience at DU and just wants to share that with students and give back to the University,” Bolling says. —Laura Hathaway

Celebrate 146 years of excellence!

Save the Date for Founders Day 2010! Thursday, March 4th FoundersDay UNIVERSITY OF DENVER Seawell Ballroom 1 8 6 4

20 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 Essay Homeplace By Chelsey Baker-Hauck

I walked into a packing and shipping In 2006, store and set down my burden—two urns containing the remains of my grandparents. I had loved them and nursed them and held them when they died, and now, tearfully, I was asking whether I could mail them home. Home is Oregon—Granddad’s birthplace, not mine. Home is the Mohawk River Valley and its stands of pine and cedar, birch and hazel; its covered bridges; its rambling roads edged with berry brambles. Down Old Marcola Road, past the grange, is the homeplace. Now a derelict trailer lists where my great-grandparents’ farmhouse once stood, but a few of their apple trees are still there. Across the way—on a patch of the original 200-acre homestead—my mother’s cousin Clyde still lives where he was reared, skipping distance from his grandparents. And further along, down a quiet, shaded lane, is my great-aunt Louise’s old place, where when I was a girl we camped one summer in the meadow, and I picked thimbleberries for pie and left food for the gnomes I thought lived under a footbridge. Devil’s Kitchen is still there—a swirling black hole in the Mohawk River where Granddad learned to swim and where generations of our family frolicked and then hauled out of the icy water to warm themselves on the slickrock bank. As the mortal remains of my grandparents headed home by UPS, I traveled to Oregon by plane, meeting them again at the rustic Upper Mabel Cemetery—burying place for the pioneers who settled the Mohawk. There, generations of our family came together under sighing pines to commit my grandparents to the earth with hymns and prayer and abiding love. Granddad Alva Clum, pictured with a niece circa 1939 They lie next to my grandfather’s parents, his siblings and their families. They rest in the woods that swallowed Granddad and his brother Jasper on boyhood adventures, when they would disappear into the wild with only fishing poles, a frying pan and pockets full of potatoes. They rest less than a mile from where my 85-year-old great-grandfather spent a day cutting fence posts from the forest and floating them home across the river before he walked home, laid down and died in his sleep. My great-grandmother joined him in the family plot little more than a year later. When we buried my grandparents, Aunt June—my grandfather’s sister—turned to me and said, “There probably won’t be anyone here when they bury me.” I promised her I would come, and I intend to keep that promise. In the meantime, I’ve tried to return each summer to the homeplace. I visit the cemetery and pick moss off the stones of my kin. I stand on the bridge and watch the water eddy at Devil’s Kitchen. As they have for decades, the family gathers nearby—four generations now—on the banks of Shotgun Creek for a potluck reunion on the third Saturday of each July. The youngsters swim in the creek; the older ones laugh as they watch the kids shiver and shriek with delight in the waters that froze all of us once upon a time. We sit, and we talk, and we remember. Most of our family elders are gone now, and Aunt June is among the last. As we bid our goodbyes this summer, she said she didn’t know if she’d be around for another. She’s waiting, it seems—biding her time until she too is called home.

University of Denver Magazine Update 21 Alumna Ellie Schafer was hand-picked to show visitors around President Obama’s new home.

The text Sue Gersick got from her daughter, Ellie Schafer, last March was deceptively innocent. “POTUS just came in and wished me happy birthday!!!” Gersick shot back: “POTUS? Who’s POTUS?” “PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!!!!” Then the pictures arrived. There was the nation’s 44th POTUS, wedged into a cramped outer office in the East Wing of the White House. He was standing with a candle-lit sheet cake drenched in milk chocolate icing with Irish green trim, waiting to honor Schafer, the 41-year-old Pueblo, Colo., T22 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 WayneArmstrong

WelcomeBy Richard Chapman to the White House Alumna Ellie Schafer was hand-picked to show visitors around President Obama’s new home.

native and University of Denver graduate who lived out of a suitcase for 654 days on his advance team in an effort to get him elected. “We figured out that I had gone around the world eight times,” says Schafer (BA ’90). Once he was elected, Barack Obama rewarded Schafer’s loyalty by appointing her head of the eight-person White House Visitors Office. If you want to see where every president except George Washington has lived, you have to go through your congressman, the Secret Service and Ellie Schafer.

University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 23 She’s off the road now, working down the hall from where PeteSouza Franklin Roosevelt broadcast his fireside chats, Abraham Lincoln lay in state and Theodore Roosevelt’s kids raised such a ruckus that he built the West Wing to get away from them. Her job is to make the White House what the Obamas want it to be: the most open, accessible presidential home in the nation’s history. She is the welcoming face for celebrities, dignitaries and Sjust plain folks. It’s a big job, and it’s a big step from hanging out in the pub in Driscoll North, which was the place to be on Wednesday nights in 1986. Or partying at Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity, where big brother Tom Schafer was a member and his kid sister, Ellie, had unquestioned access. Or dropping into Fagan’s on Evans Avenue and Downing Street for beer and wings with journalism Professor Laurie Schultz after Advanced Media Criticism class. “There was not a social situation that Ellie did not blossom in,” recalls Amy van Orman (BA ’90), still Schafer’s close friend nearly two decades later. “No matter where you went on campus, if you were with Ellie, she knew somebody. ... Your circle kept getting bigger because Ellie was so good at connecting.” Barack Obama helps Ellie Schafer celebrate her birthday. Which is how you go from grinding through homework in J-Mac to taking on the nation’s work in Washington. After all, you don’t get to run the White House Visitors Office by apply- Schafer’s efficiency on the campaign trail proved the perfect ing. There is no competitive exam. You land the job by winning endorsement for follow-up assignments on the transition and POTUS’ trust. For Ellie Schafer, that process began in California inauguration teams. In January, when the First Family moved into in 2006 when she was a political consultant in San Francisco and Blair House, traditionally the stepping-stone to taking over the then-Senator Obama needed logistical help for his book tour. White House, they invited Schafer to move in with them. The connection that began with The Audacity of Hope incu- It was quite an honor, and symbolic of the level of trust that had bated on the campaign trail and blossomed on election night 2008. developed. As thousands of people jammed into Chicago’s Grant Park, waiting S“She was there with the family,” says Gersick, her proud mom. with a national TV audience to hear from the president-elect, it “The president’s sister was there. And some of Mrs. Obama’s family, was Ellie Schafer who was in charge of getting the Obama family Grandma [Marian] Robinson and Ellie and Julie. That was it.” where they needed to be. Schafer ate with the family, spent time with the family and bore “I was in work mode the entire night and emotionally and witness to their emergence from the mainstream of America to a physically exhausted,” she recalls. “I heard them call the race, but special place in history. When the inauguration was over and the I had a job to do so I was numb to news. It wasn’t until the next administration under way, Schafer took over the visitors office. In morning, when I was lying in bed listening to the ‘Today Show’ the first six months, they got 3 million tour requests, including one and heard Matt Lauer say ‘President-elect Barack Obama,’ that it from actor Jimmy Smits, who had portrayed President Matt Santos hit me. I shot out of bed and started jumping around in my PJs on the TV show “The West Wing” but had never visited the real and cheering and hugging Julie and the dogs [Maddie and Bo].” White House. “Julie” is Julie Colwell, Schafer’s partner and a high school “We brought him in through the front entrance of the West teacher in Evanston, Ill. Their relationship took root at a softball Wing, which has the Marine on duty,” Schafer recalls. “He was like, tournament in San Diego in 2005 and culminated in a formal ‘Wow!’ commitment ceremony in Del Mar, Calif., on Aug. 4, 2007. “You know, not a week goes by that you don’t see somebody Barack Obama couldn’t make it because it was his birthday. But brought to tears when they walk through these doors.” he called. In her 10th week on the job, Schafer supervised a White House “Ellie’s very focused, very passionate. And she knows when to event for 30,000 people. It was the annual Easter Egg Roll, which laugh and not let the weight of the world get on her,” Colwell says. has been a White House staple since Rutherford Hayes was presi- “She’s also a big-picture person. She sees it and breaks it down, dent in 1877. then says, ‘Let’s go. Let’s get it working.’ Once they gave her three The kids and their families came from 48 states. They days to put on an event for 60,000 people. She said, ‘OK, where do were organized on the green outside the 18-acre White House you want it?’ How many people could do that?” grounds, run through security magnetometers, herded into a

24 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 PeteSouza

Michelle Obama and Ellie Schafer enjoy the White House’s annual Easter Egg Roll.

“clean” pen, then ushered onto the South Lawn “every two hours Washington’s sword! How cool is that?!” in chunks of 6,000.” Schafer laughs heartily, her ever-present grin seeming a mile Once inside, the kids bounced, rolled, ran, played, danced, had wide. Passion for her job and the electricity she sparks could run a their faces painted and flat-out had fun. Schafer’s uncle, a 6-foot, town. 5-inch confirmed Republican from Greeley, got to play the Easter “Seeing the look on people’s faces when they come through the Bunny. And no child was lost or left behind. doors of the White House, whether they’re a Make-a-Wish child, “It was a long day,” she says, “but it was a blast.” a celebrity, somebody here for a public tour—that you can’t buy. In August, when the Obamas took seven days to vacation on They’re all just, ‘Wow! I can’t believe I’m here.’ Martha’s Vineyard, Schafer’s staff threw open the White House “If I have a bad day, it’s still a bad day ... at the White House! So doors to more than 36,400 visitors over five 12-hour days. It was it’s not that bad.” exhausting, she says, but every person who wanted to get in was admitted. Just the way the First Family wanted it, she says. With Ellie Sue Schafer as their official smile. “The mystique of this place has not worn off,” she says Schafer’s long, winding road to Washington started when she during a tour in late summer. “I still get chills just coming graduated from DU and went to work on her father’s campaign for through the gate. Or showing someone around and saying, governor of North Dakota. Ed Schafer (MBA ’70) won the race and ‘This is George Washington’s sword.’ I’m like, George served from 1992 to 2000.

S University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 25 WayneArmstrong

Ellie Schafer, head of the White House Visitors Office, greets guests in September.

“We really saw her talent come out in 1992,” recalls brother team. We were there about 10 days before he arrived.” Tom. “[Dad] was the underdog, polling third of eight when we What followed was an unrelenting stream of travel and orga- came to the convention. Ellie and her team had lined every route nization, problem-solving and working out details to make sure the delegates could take to the convention with yard signs. We Obama’s campaign stops were smooth. She accompanied him to the started seeing one, then another, then another the whole way in. We Middle East and traveled to every state but Alaska on his behalf. got to the convention and we had more signs than anybody—more “Back then the campaign was a bunch of people huddling passion, more excitement, more enthusiasm. That was all her. around a folding table and chairs. We had one printer in the middle “She’s perfect in politics: detail-minded and a great organizer.” that we shared. You’d get four rooms; one for Obama and three for By 2000, when Ellie Schafer began working for Al Gore, she everybody else.” already had a lot of campaign experience, having worked for a host Quarters were close and no detail was too small. Obama once of California candidates and advocacy issues. The Gore race led found himself in need of shaving cream and a razor, and he asked to work for John Kerry in 2004, and when Kerry announced he Schafer to run to the grocery store. She tossed him a bag of toilet- wouldn’t run for the White House in 2008, the Obama campaign ries—his brands—and said, “There you go.” got on the phone to her fast. Having a spare set was just part of the job, as was giving the “I can’t tell you where you’re going, but are you in?” Obama’s candidate a sense of home on the road. She did that by arranging for then-political director asked. That was the winter of 2007. Obama’s meals to be served on real dishes with real silverware. It “I had an inkling as to what it was about, but we never talked was a little touch, but it won points. Especially when the candidate about it,” Schafer says. “Next thing I knew I was in Springfield saw that everyone else was eating off paper plates. [Illinois] setting up his announcement tour as part of the advance The Obamas reciprocated.

26 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 Barack Obama and Ellie Schafer on the

Campaign File Campaign Photo File campaign trail.

“When they’re on the road, it’s a family affair,” Schafer says. chose not to play when she enrolled at DU, opting for softball and “It’s not just ‘here’s our family and there’s the staff.’ It’s more like, intramurals instead. That expanded her social and academic oppor- ‘We’re going out to grab some burgers, does anybody need any- tunities on campus. It was a key decision. thing?’ They genuinely care.” Throwing herself into her father’s campaign in North Dakota, It was a good attitude to have in the campaign, where millions where she earned real-world experience, was another key decision. of details need attention and things can go wrong in a flash. “I went into my first campaign with a chip on my shoulder— “Jimmy Buffett has a song called ‘No Plane on Sunday.’ You saying I wasn’t going to stuff envelopes and lick stamps—and can get upset and kick your luggage and get mad, but there’s still ended up stuffing envelopes and licking stamps.” no plane on Sunday. You might as well just make the best of it. In 1995, she moved to San Francisco for a job that evaporated [Buffett] has gotten me through quite a few nights on the campaign when she got there. By chance, she met a group of women trail.” who invited her to join their softball team. That also was a key It also helped for Schafer to stay in touch with her family, decision. One teammate was the political reporter for the San recalls stepfather Joe Gersick. Sometimes she’d call up exhausted; Francisco Chronicle. The others also were well-connected, and sometimes she’d call up to share. Never to complain. their friendship helped involve Schafer with local campaigns and “She told us once how the staff was sitting around having a beer opportunities. Before long, she had a thriving business as a political and Obama was talking about his ears,” Gersick recalls. “Everybody consultant. was teasing him and making fun. And Ellie was thinking, ‘This guy How important was joining the San Francisco Gay Softball could be the most powerful man in the world one of these days, and League? we’re teasing him about his ears!’” “Huge,” Schafer says. “I probably wouldn’t have stayed [in San Francisco] if it wasn’t for them. They were and still are my core group of support there.” In the end, the picture focuses like this: The 10-year-old girl As it turned out, whether Schafer’s candidates won or lost whose smile adorned boxes of Mr. Bubble bubble-bath, which her didn’t get noticed as much as her skill in the political arts. grandfather’s company made, became the teenager who organized “I did a [district attorney’s] race in San Francisco, and we beer bottles in her family’s beverage business in Pueblo and the ended up losing by just a couple of hundred votes,” she recalls. “I young adult who endured “ramen noodles days” scuffling for can- went home for Christmas and I broke down—just started crying in didates in San Francisco. the shower. You’re devastated, but it opened another door for me. That woman—that former queen bee of pizza nights and legal Somebody said, ‘You weren’t supposed to get as far as you got; you 3.2 beer in Johnson-McFarlane Hall, that unofficial sweetheart of Adid fantastic; we’d like you to run this bigger campaign.’ Lambda Chi—now works in the White House, has the trust of the “Sometimes in politics it’s not always about winning or losing. president and plays third base for Stotus, the Softball Team of It’s really about the job you do and the choices you make.” the United States. One of those key choices happened years earlier when Schafer “Gotta go, Bo,” she tells her dog each morning. “Gotta go was a varsity basketball player coming out of Pueblo East. She make the world a better place.”

University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 27 rom maze-like fortresses buried in caves behind enemy lines to a traffic- choked intersection at rush hour, researchers at the University of Denver imagine robots boldly going where no human should want—or need— to go. Quietly emerging as a DU specialty, the study of robotics is garnering interest among researchers in computer science, engineering and nanotechnology. In a field that finds its way into everything from industrial applications toF toys, DU researchers are carving a niche developing robots that can wriggle, fly or roll into the Earth’s harshest environments—including crumbling buildings, guerilla hideouts, battlefields, forest fires and congested city skyways—to collect information and perform life-saving functions more safely and more efficiently than ever. There even are applications for colonoscopy robotics. “We are looking at innovations in sensing, systems that can relay back vital information from difficult environments,” says Rahmat Shoureshi, dean of DU’s School of Engineering and Computer Science. “And we are looking at imaging technologies, intelligent systems that can make sense of what visual information they are gathering and send that information back to the operator.”

DU researchers By Chase Squires are leading the Photography by Wayne Armstrong development of autonomous robots that could someday save lives. 28 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 Bu i l d i n g a Be t t e r ’Bo t Who goes there? DU researchers are developing a host of miniature robots to go where humans can’t—or shouldn’t. This one, with a pair of video camera “eyes,” can conduct war zone surveillance and even ride alongside troop transports to detect roadside bombs.

Bu i l d i n g a Be t t e r ’BUniversity of Denvero Magazine Fall t 2009 29 ssociate Professor Richard Voyles’ wriggling, stick from a virtual flight deck at a Nevada base. Robots are crawling, clamoring search robots are dubbed already a reality. At DU, researchers are making them better: A “TerminatorBots” for the way they drag themselves tougher, smarter, more mobile, less expensive, smaller and along, like a wounded robot in the movie Terminator. more sensitive. The idea of a band of TerminatorBots probing the “What we try to do is look at how robots operate in rubble of a devastated building for earthquake survivors unfriendly environments,” Shoureshi says. “That might be might seem as far-fetched as the idea of fleets of unmanned under the ground, in space or in enemy territory. For that airplanes blasting enemy positions. Yet half a world away, Air work, not only are unmanned systems crucial, but they must Force Predator drones scan rugged Afghan mountain ranges be machines that can survive in these harsh environments.” for threats and target al-Qaida positions with air-to-ground Voyles is lead investigator on a $2.1 million program missiles while the “pilots” control their flight with a joy- funded by the National Science Foundation and others. He says with each discovery or application, researchers find new challenges. Working underground, for instance, standard From civilian to military visual monitoring systems are stymied by total darkness and require development of better self-adjusting sensors. And applications, Valavanis and his when TerminatorBots proved adept at clawing their way deep into ruins, scientists realized wireless communications team see unlimited possibilities were impeded by tons of concrete. While wires that the robots trail behind them could connect them to their for making dangerous work safer masters above the ground, the weight of the trailing wire and delivering time-saving and life-saving information.

30 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 began to add up at greater distances. data delivery with ease of operation and deployment. It’s “Eventually, no matter how strong your robot is, the tough enough to keep miniature choppers flying and col- tether is too heavy to pull,” Voyles says. lecting surveillance information, but factor in Colorado’s Faced with a choice of limiting his robots to shorter thin air and unpredictable weather patterns and the chal- leashes or adding more power-hungry motors to them, lenge is even greater. Voyles began looking for another option: wires that actu- “But just imagine the benefits,” Valavanis says. ally propel the robot using rhythmic blasts of fluid along the “Imagine one helicopter that can deliver this real- wires. By controlling shunts opening and closing at extremely time information. There’s an accident, you deploy one high rates, alternately allowing fluid to flow and then stop- unmanned helicopter, you can get past the traffic quickly, ping it abruptly, operators can use the force of the fluid’s and immediately you have your engineers routing traffic forward momentum to push the control wires along behind to alternate roads; you determine if you need emergency the robot. vehicles, roadside assistance, all delivered instantly. And for- That technology led to an unexpected application: the get the time and expense of putting up a full-size helicopter. possibility of incorporating nano sensors with water-hammer This is cheap. It’s fast, and it’s safe.” propulsion to make it easier for doctors to operate colonos- Take those same miniature choppers onto a battlefield, copy tools, making the process more comfortable for patients. and soldiers using controllers built on the same principles as “Essentially, we’ve learned how to push on a string, the video games they played at home can peek behind hill- which has a great many applications beyond traditional robot- sides and hover over cramped city alleys. Put the guidance ics,” Voyles says. and sensing technology into ground-roving vehicles, and When efforts to use robots to help rescuers get a look soldiers can create a rolling mini-convoy around troop car- inside a col- riers, detecting roadside bombs before they can detonate. lapsed Utah Working feverishly in a tiny campus workshop, mine failed Valavanis’ Dirty Half Dozen pulls apart miniature models, due to mobility limitations, fashions parts, and tests and calibrates rolling and flying Voyles and his team found a new challenge. robots, cameras, power sources and controllers in a quest Now they are working on engineering propulsion systems for the perfect combination. that will allow direct side-to-side movement so the robots The work is hard, but the team oozes enthusiasm. can navigate narrow passages without having to turn in tight “We’re here pretty much all the time, every day, but quarters. In the pipeline are basketball-sized robots that can where else can I do this?” asks PhD candidate Allistair climb steep piles of debris and others that can slither like a Moses. “It’s an opportunity to get into all of this, to learn snake through tiny openings; whatever it takes to get to places and to experiment and test. It’s exciting.” people can’t go and gather the information people need. Within the next 20 years, Valavanis says, the growing field of unmanned aircraft systems will be a $52 million obots aren’t just good in tight spaces. Kimon Valavanis, annual industry. He rattles off a list of potential applica- chair of DU’s Department of Electrical and Computer tions: wildfire spotting, homeland security, border patrol, REngineering, has his eyes on the sky. Bringing mapping—even inspecting power lines that stretch across his Unmanned Systems Laboratory with him from the huge spans of the American West. University of South Florida, Valavanis has established DU The DU researchers are poised to play a part. They’re as a player in the universe of remote guidance. Funded by already collaborating with military and space exploration grants from the National Science Foundation, the Army programs and have been demonstrating their robotics tech- Research Office and the Army Research Laboratory and a nology for some commercial giants. number of other agencies, Valavanis and his team of gradu- Chancellor Robert Coombe says DU’s focus on bridg- ate research assistants (nicknamed “the Dirty Half Dozen”) ing the gap between raw research and commercial application imagine a dazzling array of possibilities in aerial and brings that innovation to the world. At a recent question- unmanned ground surveillance. From civilian to military and-answer session with parents, he noted that “more than a applications, he and his team see unlimited possibilities for quarter of the engineering students who get a degree at DU making dangerous work safer and delivering time-saving also leave the University with a business degree.” and life-saving information. “We work as a business incubator with the idea of letting With a fleet of 11 unmanned helicopters in varying sizes our students and our faculty take what they create to the next and five fixed-wing unmanned airplanes, plus six ground- level, a level that will impact the community and the econo- roving robots (five of which are custom built for the Army my,” Shoureshi says. “The goal is not to educate traditional Research Laboratory), Valavanis and his students struggle to engineers, but engineers who find solutions for global chal- find the perfect combination of precise control and excellent lenges and economic prosperity.”

University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 31 Four parents and two kids Full make for one big happy family.

By Jessica Centers Glynn HousePhotography by Justin Edmonds

on the sidelines at his son’s football game, Geoffrey Bateman is filled with a watery-eyed sense of nostalgia and wonder. Zian, 8, is completely in his element as a “Crusher,” barreling into other little boys. They look like stocky, miniature men in their full pads and helmets. Geoffrey can’t help but think back to his own experience playing football in middle school and high school, and it makes him cringe. He hated it. “I would never wish that on my child,” he says. “But when you come out and you watch it and you see him out there—he loves it. He needs that. He needs a coach who’s going to kick him in the ass, basically, and get him to do what he needs to do, and I can’t be that person. As parents, you can’t be everything. You want them to find those niches, those things that make them who they are, and it’s this wonderful puzzle to figure out what’s the best context for that.” Geoffrey hated football because it wasn’t his niche, but it was what he thought boys were supposed to do. Zian and his 6-year-old brother, Eliot, are being raised in a very different context when it comes to gender roles. A few years ago, when Zian was obsessed with construction toys, Geoffrey offered to help him with a building game he was planning. “No, Daddy, this is a game for moms,” Zian told him. “You can go cook dinner.” Geoffrey, a full-time lecturer in DU’s writing program, is Zian and Eliot’s father. They also have two moms— lesbian couple Indra Lusero (a DU law student) and Allison Hoffman Lusero—and another father, Geoffrey’s partner, Mark Thrun. The boys took their mothers’ last name—Lusero. “People often ask how does it affect the kids, having four parents,” Geoffrey says. “For them, that’s just the way it is. I remember being in the Portland airport. Zian is 3 or 4, and he walks up to this complete stranger and says, ‘I have two moms and two dads,’ but in a very proud way. “Another night, around the same time, we were talking about other families we know and their parental arrangements, and Zian said, ‘Aw, they only have one mom and one dad,’ and he said it with this sense of sadness, like, ‘That’s not as many as we have,’ like it was a deficiency instead of the norm.”

32 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 Clockwise from top: Zian Lusero, Eliot Lusero, Mark Thrun, Indra Lusero, Geoffrey Bateman and Allison Hoffman Lusero.

University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 33 “People often ask how does it affect the kids, having four parents,” Geoffrey says. “For them, that’s just the way it is.”

Geoffrey, Indra and Allison met 17 years ago during their “I was trusting I was going to be a part of the family and we freshman year at the University of Puget Sound. They were would figure out the distance thing,” Geoffrey says. “When it involved in a gay and lesbian student group and distinctly remem- became tangible, shortly after Allison got pregnant, I began to think, ber the day when some gay and lesbian families came to speak to ‘What the heck am I doing? I want to be there.’” them. One family had two moms and a dad. “That was a radical Zian was born in April 2001. Geoffrey finished his master’s idea we all were intrigued by,” Indra says. program in June and immediately moved to Denver. Within six The idea stayed with them when the three roomed together months, he had bought a townhouse next door to the moms and their senior year. Four years after college, Indra and Allison—who met and fallen in love with Mark, who quickly became a second by then had returned to Denver, where they both grew up—decided father, aka—“Papi”—to Zian. they were ready to start a family. They wanted their children to The family’s plan always had been to have two children, with know their father, and they wanted the father to be Geoffrey. Allison and Indra each taking a turn as the biological mom. When “We were nurturing that idea, and our relationship, all those the time came for Indra to get pregnant, they asked Mark if he years,” Indra says. “We referred to ourselves as family, and we were wanted to be the biological dad, but he decided he wasn’t quite deliberate about maintaining our family.” ready. So Geoffrey also fathered Eliot, who was born in 2003. Geoffrey donated sperm so that Allison could conceive That’s when the parents began hunting for the house where through artificial insemination, but he was living in California fin- they would raise their children. The home they bought in 2004 was ishing up his master’s degree. a charming new duplex in northwest Denver that today boasts a

(continued on page 36) 34 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 The legal landscape

A llison, Indra, Mark and Geoffrey have made every attempt to communicate their intentions as parents, holding family meetings with a social worker and creating signed contracts. It isn’t just for the sake of keeping their relationships healthy; it’s about doing everything they can to ensure that their family decisions are kept within the family—and out of the court. “Colorado state law doesn’t really protect us in any way, especially Mark or me with my nonbiological child,” Allison says. Catherine Smith, an associate professor in DU’s Sturm College of Law, is an expert on the lengths nontraditional families must go to to protect themselves. She’s not only a lawyer; she’s a lesbian and a mom whose daughter is not biologically hers. Colorado law doesn’t recognize the nonbiological parent. “So you do everything you can,” Smith says. “In Indra’s family and mine and countless others, you use contracts and agreements to cobble something together to protect that family unit, but whether it’s going to withstand any kind of review is really in question.” Smith recently wrote an essay for the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity section of the American Association of Law Schools about a scenario in which a parent dies in a car accident. A child of a biological parent would have a right to wrongful death claims, Social Security and a whole host of things that a child of a nonbiological parent would not because there’s no legal relationship. There have been some improvements. In 2007 Colorado became the 10th state in the country to allow second-parent adoption, meaning a parent can adopt his or her partner’s biological child without that parent losing parental rights. But it doesn’t apply to kids like Zian and Eliot. Likewise, a new state designated-beneficiary law enables two unmarried adults to designate the other as the person entitled to certain financial protections and decision-making power in major life events. Smith says these laws are adding more options for gay and lesbian families but still without full equality or full recognition of families. “You’re still cobbling together what you can, where a lot of these rights are automatic with heterosexual couples with families,” she says. And these issues are not unique to gay and lesbian parents. “I think it’s important for people to realize, even outside the context of gay families, that a lot of heterosexual families are trying to do this as well, with step-parents and extended families that might not be recognized in law,” Smith says. “Families like Indra’s are going to push boundaries for those families as well. We all have something to learn from this family of four parents and two kids.” Elizabeth Suter, an assistant professor in the Department of Human Communication Studies at DU, recently completed research on nontraditional adoptive families and has been studying lesbian and adoptive families for years. “The intentionality of these family forms, however they choose to bring children into their lives, is remarkable,” she says. “Researchers for a long time were trying to prove that lesbian and gay families were a deficit model. Now what we know in 2009 is when you are so intentionally forming your family and you are having to do additional parenting agreements and contracts and legal arrangements and social worker meetings, I think—and research shows—these are people who are phenomenal parents, and it’s anything but a lesser form of family. “You get people who are in it, who know what they are doing and who are 110 percent for their children, for their family.”

University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 35 “Generosity has been important as a reminder of how we want to be with each other—when things are hard or in conflict or not going how we want, we try to be generous with each other.”

(continued from page 34) swing set with a climbing wall in the backyard, alongside a basketball It’s academically rigorous, they do exceptional things. The Catholic court and a massive garden that Allison and Geoffrey tend together. package just makes it more complicated and interesting.” The dads live in one side of the duplex and the moms on the other, Having so many hands on deck has allowed the parents all to but the homes are connected by a door they built between the boys’ maintain rich careers while making sure there’s always someone bedrooms. around to care for the children and cheer on the sidelines. “I get the whole house and my parents only get half,” Zian Mark is a doctor at Denver Health Medical Center. He also explains of the setup. leads all the HIV prevention work around the city and county, man- As soon as Geoffrey moved to Denver, the parents drew up a ages a staff of about 30 and is campaigning for the Colorado State contract and put their values down in writing. Words like simplicity, House. Indra works part-time from home as the assistant director of sharing and generosity became their mantra. the Palm Center, a think tank at the University of California, Santa “Simplicity and sharing are part of why we decided to live so Barbara. close to each other, so we didn’t have two of everything,” Indra says. Allison is a postsecondary coach at Mapleton Public Schools. “Generosity has been important as a reminder of how we want to be As a social worker, she recognized early on how important it would with each other—when things are hard or in conflict or not going be for the family to come together to talk. “There is a lot to work how we want, we try to be generous with each other.” out,” she says. “Couples when there are two people have interper- In the beginning the parents also met monthly with Lynn sonal relationships to work out. That’s quadrupled with us.” Parker, an associate professor in DU’s Graduate School of Social The parents live their lives openly in an effort to be role models Work. for other nontraditional families and to hopefully squash stereo- “They’re an amazing group of people who are very proactive,” types. Though they’re bracing themselves for a time when Zian and Parker says. “They wanted a facilitator to help them through vari- Eliot meet the cruelty of kids, so far the parents have not seen the ous issues and help them make conscious plans. They are the most cruelty of adults. Colleagues, teachers, fellow parents and coaches all intentional family I have ever seen, even without my help.” have been supportive. As part of their plans, the parents decided to raise the boys “I’m always ready for those judgey people with my fists up,” Catholic—and send them to Catholic school—but not before calling Allison says. When Zian had just started preschool, he came home around to ask how different schools would deal with a gay family. with a Mother’s Day gift for her, a painted pot. She called the Even though the boys’ school is progressive and does not fall under teacher that night to confront her about why there was only one pot. the Archdiocese, Indra says it was a careful process for the parents Before Allison could say anything, the teacher asked, “Oh, did you to decide they were going to align themselves with the Catholic get your gift? I was all ready for Zian. I bought two pots. I was ready Church at all. to talk to him about his special family and he has two moms and “It was certainly a decision made with a mix of emotions, not how special that is and he gets two pots … and he said, ‘No, I’ll do the least of which is a general sense of betrayal by the church and a one this time and next time I’ll do one for Mimi [Indra].’” sense of not being wanted—or actively being excluded,” Indra says. Allison hopes the boys won’t come to her one day as adults Ultimately, the parents decided that Zian and Eliot would not and say how crazy or hard it was growing up with four parents, but only attend Escuela de Guadalupe, but they would go through the it’s not something she worries about. Instead, she feels very con- Catholic rituals of baptism and first communion as well. Last year, scious of how privileged the boys are to have the attention of four Mark’s dad, a deacon, baptized the boys in a ceremony in which all parents and four sets of grandparents and live in their big house, of their families took part. and she worries about keeping them grounded. Her hope for them “It ended up being the first time that our family was publicly, is pretty simple: that they will do things that make them happy. “I ritually affirmed,” Indra says. “It’s definitely not something any of don’t know that it’s anything more complicated than that,” she says. us imagined or could have seen coming, but here we are, and it feels “Their family is their family, and the way it complicates their life is right.” just what they get.” Mark, Indra and Allison all were raised Catholic, and Indra So far, the parents have no regrets—not about the big stuff, and Allison attend a local Catholic church together. Geoffrey is not anyway. Like any parents, they second-guess the little things all the Catholic, but he appreciates the difference the school is making in time. his kids’ lives. People often ask Geoffrey if he cares if his kids are gay or “Religion, spirituality and faith are rich things,” says Geoffrey, straight, and his answer is a resounding no. “It’s fun to speculate in who likes that his non-Catholic role gives the boys a built-in out- any direction for them and their future about career or personality sider’s perspective. “They’re learning about community, ethics. or identity, but none of that really matters,” he says. “You just want They’re getting some good human stuff by being in that school. them to be who they are.”

36 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 39 Book bin 45 Pioneer pics 48 Death notices 49 Pop quiz 50 Announcements DU Archives A pair of anonymous students engage in one of the 1970s’ great fads—streaking—during a Pioneers hockey game in the DU Arena. If you have any memories of student hijinks you participated in or photos you would like to share, please let us know.

University of Denver Magazine Connections 37 The classes 1948 Author Sandra Dallas Robert McQueen (BA ’48, MA ’49) was There are plot twists in the books of named to the faculty at the University of Nevada, Reno, and as chairman of the Denver-based author Sandra Dallas that department of psychology, in 1955. Robert surprise even her. also completed a term as dean of the school’s “The thing I’m writing now, I have college of arts and sciences. During his various characters, and all of a sudden, teaching years in Reno, Robert was elected out of nowhere, this couple dies. And to the Washoe County School Board and, they have this daughter,” says Dallas, who following 20 years as a school trustee, his earned a BA in journalism from DU in fellow board members named a new 1960. high school after him. Robert resides in “I thought, ‘OK, we have to do Sparks, Nev. something with the daughter’ … then I realized she’s not really their daughter. Charles Redman She has her own story. And she’s become (BS ’48) is a World War II veteran, a to me the most interesting character. She retired White Sands was this throwaway character that I didn’t Missile Range even conceive of before I started writing federal employee her into it, and now she’s become very and a New Mexico important in this book.” State University Dallas, 70, is the author of eight

retiree. He resides in Las Cruces, N.M. Courtesy of Sandra Dallas historical novels, most of them set in the American West. Her latest book, Prayers for Sale (St. Martin’s Press), which came out in April, was her first to reach the New York Times bestseller list. She celebrated the feat 1949 with her friend Arnie Grossman, a fellow author and DU alum (BA ’59). Joseph Butner “I thought it was spectacular but I wasn’t surprised,” Grossman says. “I knew it (BA ’49) and Rose Mary Butner was one day coming because I have a great deal of faith in her writing skills, and she (BA ’47) are has a growing audience. Each book seems to do a little bit better than the previous retired and live one. I’m very proud of what she’s done.” in Sun City, Ariz. Set in 1936 in a fictionalized version of Breckenridge, Colo., called Middle Joseph worked Swan, Prayers for Sale takes place in the world of gold-dredging, an early 20th century for the United industry in which giant barges scooped rocks and gravel from the bottom of mountain States Courts streams in an effort to find gold. Administrative The book’s protagonist, 86-year-old Hennie Comfort, is a quilter whose daughter Office as an has left the harshness of Middle Swan for a better life in the lowlands. When a young assistant chief of probation—after earlier bride and her gold-dredging husband move to Middle Swan, Hennie and the young positions with the Colorado Parole woman strike up a friendship. Hennie shares stories about her life inspired by the Department and United States Bureau of Prisons—and Rose Mary worked as a nurse. squares on her quilt. Joseph has spent his retirement writing; in Dallas has many stories of her own to share. She’s lived in Denver most of her 2007, Heritage Books published his book life, residing for the past 40 years in a stately home near Eighth Avenue and Downing The Chihuahua Rangers: The Disposable. The Street. A year after she graduated from DU she was hired on at the Denver bureau of couple has two sons, four grandchildren and Business Week, eventually becoming the magazine’s first female bureau chief. While at seven great-grandchildren. Business Week she wrote several short books on local history, and when she turned to fiction writing in her late 40s, she continued to use the West as her primary setting. She says she strives for an authenticity her fellow Western authors don’t always 1958 achieve. Richard Charlifue (BA ’58), a World War “I try to make my characters true to the time,” says Dallas, whose other novels II veteran, was presented with a medallion include Tallgrass and New Mercies. “We have what I call the ‘Dr. Quinn, Medicine from the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Richard was recognized Woman’ syndrome today, where you have 21st century women in long skirts, and they for his role in liberating Saipan from the love Indians and they protect the environment and they stand up to men and they’re Japanese in 1944. He resides in Aurora, Colo. doctors and lawyers. They’re great role models, but they’re not very accurate.” — Greg Glasgow

38 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 1960 Retreat Center in Divide, Colo. Donna Treva O’Neill (MSW ’67) worked for the Robert Lee (MSW also established an office in Woodland Park, Illinois Department of Children and Family ’60) of Tigard, Ore., Colo., to provide resources, counseling Services and then taught in the social work recently celebrated and support groups for veterans, service program at Southern Illinois University his 50th wedding members and families. She resides in in Carbondale. Treva has been in private anniversary with his Woodland Park. practice in the area of labor and family law wife, Arlene. Robert since obtaining a law degree in 1981. She’s has two children and Gary McCool (MA ’67) received the on the Illinois State Bar Association Family four grandchildren. award for excellence in faculty service from Law Council. She lives in Anna, Ill. Plymouth State University in Plymouth, N.H., where he has been a faculty member 1961 and librarian since 1978. Gary resides in Mary Lewis (MSW ’61) of Houston was Rumney, N.J. inducted into the Alabama Social Work Hall of Fame in Tuscaloosa, Ala. Mary officially retired from teaching at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work in Book bin 2004, but she continues to teach two courses a year and remains “on call” for other projects. Possibly no other city in America is as closely identi- fied with certain types of food as New Orleans. Chicago has 1962 its hot dogs, New York has its pizza, but New Orleans has Douglas Decker (BS gumbo, red beans and rice, trout amandine, crawfish etouf- ’62) has been selected for fee, beignets and many other popular dishes that have ended induction into the Energy up on menus around the world. Efficiency Forum Hall of New Orleans Cuisine: Fourteen Signature Dishes and Their Fame. After graduating from DU, Douglas started Histories (University Press of Mississippi, 2009), edited and a 43-year career with co-written by Susan Tucker (MA librarianship ’73), delves Johnson Control Inc., deep into the city’s food culture, devoting each chapter to a rising to the position of vice president of different menu item, from sazerac—a cocktail with whiskey, government business before retiring in 2001. bitters, anise-flavored liqueur, sugar and a twist of lemon—to He has received a number of awards for his turtle soup (the real, not the mock). leadership in promoting energy efficiency. He resides in Pawleys Island, S.C. In the book’s introduction, Tucker writes that she chose 14 dishes that “tell the stages of adaptability, the centrality of public encounters with food, the passion for ingredients and talk of food, manners of serving, and social and economic forces that lie behind the way New 1964 Orleanians cook. The 14 dishes are those foods for which the traces of historical documents, Dona June Murphy (BFA recipes, and other written and oral accounts show how cooking became a hallmark of the city.” ’64) married Robert Murphy (BA ’63, MBA ’66) and Although each chapter includes at least one recipe, New Orleans Cuisine is not a cookbook. has two daughters and two Through chronicling each dish, the writers uncover information on the city’s history, geography, grandchildren. Dona worked as sociology, politics and more. an interior designer for the last Consider contributor Cynthia LeJeune Nobles’ chapter on Oysters Rockefeller, which is full 45 years. Dona enjoys bridge, golf, reading, of historical and social context. The dish was invented by Jules Alciatore, owner of the restaurant painting and cooking. She resides in Larkspur, Antoine’s, in 1899. It was so rich in flavor that Alciatore named it after John D. Rockefeller, one Colo. of America’s richest men. President Franklin Roosevelt tried it in 1937. Rexford Thompson (MSW ’64) and his wife, But Nobles delves even deeper, informing readers that the French settlers in New Orleans Joyce, moved from El Cajon, Calif., to Key regarded oysters as inedible until Native Americans introduced them to the bivalves’ subtle fla- Biscayne, Fla. vors in the mid-1700s. Indeed, it is New Orleans’ rich cultural heritage that gave rise to its multitextured signa- 1967 ture dishes. As S. Frederick Starr writes in his foreword, “Yes, there were strong influences Donna Finicle (BA ’67, MSW ’72) was from France, the West Indies, and, through them, Africa.” But contributions also came from the recognized as the 2009 outstanding social Germans, Sicilians, Cubans, Canary Islanders, Croatians and Chinese. worker of Colorado’s Pikes Peak Region by Tucker—who wrote the book’s chapter on bread pudding—is the curator of books and the National Association of Social Workers. records at the Newcomb Center for Research on Women at Tulane University in New Orleans, She has a small nonprofit, Welcome Home where she resides. Warrior, and conducts free military-family weekend retreats at Golden Bell Camp and —Greg Glasgow University of Denver Magazine Connections 39 Joyce Revis (BA ’67) of Santa Rosa, Calif., 1968 the world’s largest horse ranch for a Russian retired from a medical management position Daryl Kosloske (MSW ’68) of Winston- czar. Larry also published a suspense novel, 10 years ago and moved to a retirement com- Salem, N.C., retired after 40 years in the Tell Me the Night (CreateSpace, 2009), under munity after the death of her partner last year. behavioral health field. Most recently, he was the pen name Cara Mitchell. He lives in president and CEO of Behavioral Health Vancouver, Wash. George Stewart (MA ’67) published Resources Inc. Previously, he was vice Yoknapatawpha, Images and Voices: A president and executive director of behavioral Photographic Study of Faulkner’s County health services at Forsyth Medical Center in 1969 (University of South Carolina Press, 2009). Winston-Salem. Charles Daily Jr. (BA ’69, MSW ’71) has The book is a pictorial study of William been ordained as a priest and is the vicar at Faulkner’s mythical north Mississippi Larry Weirather (MA ’68) has published St. John’s Episcopal Church in Shawano, county of Yoknapatawpha. George resides in an illustrated biography, Warlord Cowboys Wis. He also is the chaplain of the Shawano Decatur, Ga. in China: The Fred Barton Story of the World’s Community Hospice and the Shawano Greatest Horse Drive (CreateSpace, 2009), that Medical Center. Charles lives on a ranch in covers the life of a Montana bronc-buster Shawano with his wife and enjoys working and adventurer who canvassed Siberia to site on his tractor and farm machinery.

Artist Joel Sheesley

An airplane flies over a row of suburban houses. Parents have a conversation while watching their children play baseball. A woman stands inside a bedroom, peering through a window to the sunny street outside. They’re scenes of mundane, everyday life, but as depicted by painter Joel Sheesley (MFA ’74), they become magic moments frozen in time; the opening scenes of short stories whose plotlines are left up to the viewer. “He takes these scenes that on the surface look so ordinary Sheesley’s “The Fulness of Time” or everyday, but then the longer you look at the pictures you start realizing that there’s more to it than, say, two people talking at a baseball game, or a person in a room,” says Gregg Hertzlieb, director of the Brauer Museum at Indiana’s Valparaiso University, which hosted a Sheesley retrospective, “Domestic Vision,” last year. When he was at DU in the ’70s Sheesley was an abstract painter, but as time went on he switched to more representational work. When he moved to Chicago in 1974 to teach at Wheaton College—a job he still holds today—he found himself in a strange new world worth documenting. “I found myself in a kind of society I had never been in before, which was the suburbs of Chicago,” says the artist, now 58. “And the whole nature of suburban life was a brand new and very strange experience for me. I found myself wanting to engage that life. “I was also at that point aware of literary figures like John Updike and John Cheever. Their take on that upper-middle-class lifestyle became a way for me to interpret and start to understand what was going on around me.” Sheesley’s paintings have been exhibited in museums and galleries around the country. In the 1980s he published Sandino in the Streets, featuring his photographs of revolutionary street art in Nicaragua. In 2008 Lutheran University Press published Domestic Vision: Twenty-Five Years of the Art of Joel Sheesley, a companion book to the Valparaiso exhibit. “It was an opportunity to look back over 25 years and to see all of these works come together and to find continuity and find difference at the same time,” Sheesley says of the exhibition. “For me, painting has been a process of discovery, and I think that discovery happens through observation. “I think one of the great things that painting and most art practices teach you is to be ever more observant and careful about what’s happening around you.” —Greg Glasgow

40 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 DU on the Road

Between Homecoming, Founders Day and Pioneers hockey games, hundreds of alumni return to the DU campus each year. For those who can’t make the trip, DU comes to them in the form of DU on the Road, an alumni event that sends representatives from the University to 10 to 12 U.S. cities a year to host alumni get-togethers. The two-hour events take place at local restaurants and other venues and are an opportunity for area alumni, parents and friends to get to know other Pioneers in their community. “They’re very proud to be Pioneers and they’re so excited to hear about campus,” says Ann Beckmann, director of donor relations and stewardship for the Office of University Advancement. “Unfortunately, a number of alumni have not had the opportunity to return to campus since they graduated, and they want to learn about all the changes that have taken place.” Beckmann says DU on the Road events typically attract around 50 alumni, parents and friends, ranging in age from recent graduates to those who graduated more than 50 years ago. Most find out about the events via postcard and e-mail, but some alums hear about the events a little more informally. “A Philadelphia-area alumna brought a fellow classmate who was in town from San Francisco to the Philadelphia event this fall,” Beckmann says. “It had been years since they had seen one another, and that day they ran into each other and she invited him to DU on the Road to meet other alumni and reminisce about their time at DU.” Most of the night is devoted to socializing and networking among alumni, but University Advancement has added a popular new feature to the short welcoming segment: a drawing for a $1,000 scholarship to be donated to the department of the winner’s choice. In addition to Philadelphia, this fall DU on the Road visited Colorado Springs, Dallas, Miami and Phoenix. Selected cities in winter/spring 2010 include Aspen, Colo., Albuquerque, Minneapolis, Portland, Ore., and Stamford, Conn. >>www.du.edu/alumni —Media Relations Staff

1971 had regional responsibilities in Asia. Krishen 1974 Suresh Kulkarni (PhD now is adviser to the Aspen Institute’s Camila Alire (MA ’74) of Sedalia, Colo., ’71) retired in 2003 after 31 Business and Society Program in New York recently began her term as 2009–10 president years with Thiokol Corp. and the Global Financial Integrity Group of the American Library Association (ALA). in Promontory, Utah. He in Washington, D.C., and is on the Asia Camila is the chief elected officer of ALA was the vice president of Advisory Council of Human Rights Watch. and a professor for Simmons College’s PhD engineering and provided He resides in New York. program in managerial leadership. She also technical direction for is a professor for the master’s in library and 55 successful launches of information science managerial leadership the solid rocket motors 1973 program at San Jose State University. for the Space Shuttle. He now volunteers as Sheila Hollis (JD ’73) chairs Duane Morris’ the chair of the Brigham City Community Washington, D.C., office and serves on the Richard Berman (PhD ’74) retired as Hospital and on the land use board for the city executive committee and partners board. director of Lapeer County Community of Perry, Utah, where he and his wife, Diane, Mental Health Center in 2001. He also reside. They have two daughters and two Gary Means (PhD ’73) retired from his second career as a full-time grandchildren. is a retired colonel in faculty member at the School of Social Work the Army Reserves and and with the Department of Marriage and former dean of liberal Family Therapy at the University of Nevada- 1972 arts at Colorado State Las Vegas. Richard and his wife serve as Sara Jones (MSW ’72) of Denver worked University at Pueblo. foster parents for Olive Crest, a nonprofit for Denver Social Services in child protection Gary also was the dean agency. Together, they’ve fostered 35 infants. until her son was born. Her son is now of continuing education He lives in Henderson, Nev. married. She would love to hear from other at California State University in San Marcos Graduate School of Social Work alumni. and dean of continuing education and public Kim Dorwin (MSW ’74) began a statewide service at Georgia Southern University. volunteer program for troubled youth for Krishen Mehta (MBA Currently he is the provost at Georgia the Virginia Department of Youth Services, ’72) recently completed Southern. He resides in Statesboro, Ga., with recruiting more than 500 volunteers. Kim a 30-year career with his wife of 34 years. earned a graduate degree in information Pricewaterhouse Coopers technology and managed the installation of spanning offices in Denver, the network for the department of social New York, London and services. She resides in Richmond, Va. Tokyo. He was a partner in international tax and

University of Denver Magazine Connections 41 Renae Levin (MA ’74) of Greenwood 1976 Eugene Kotlarek (MBA ’76) created and Village, Colo., is on the board of the Women’s Mark Fraser (MSW ’76) published a book, leads Ideal Gensis Corp., an administra- Library Association for DU’s Penrose Library. Intervention Research: Developing Social Programs tive services company headquartered in Renae retired after 25 years of teaching speech (Oxford University Press, 2009), which Denver. Eugene is the president of the U.S. and English administration in Denver public describes how to design and test program Olympians Association’s alumni in Colorado. schools. She enjoys friendship, book clubs, manuals and protocols. Mark lives in Chapel He also was a member of the 1960 and 1964 travel and family functions with her husband Hill, N.C. Olympic ski teams and head coach for the and grandchildren. U.S. Olympic ski teams in 1969 and 1970. Eugene lives in Colorado Springs, Colo. WayneArmstrong Team player Lisa Johnson

Lisa Johnson (BA psychology, communications ’80) came close to getting an NBA championship ring last year. But the Denver Nuggets fell to the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference Finals during the 2008–09 season. Johnson wishes the team would have advanced to the finals, and she certainly would have liked a ring, but she says of the Nuggets: “I’m still so proud of my guys.” That’s right—she can call them “her guys.” As director of basketball administration for the Denver Nuggets, Johnson talks to the players on a daily basis. She books their travel, sets up their public appearances and mends their schedules. At times, she’s even gotten a little too close. For two years, Johnson’s office was in the Nuggets’ locker room. “I was the only woman, and they had to put up curtains,” Johnson laughs. “It really wasn’t as fun as people might think it was.” What is fun for her is scheduling the team members’ appearances in the community. “Our guys are great with getting out in the community,” she says, “and it always just makes me feel so good. “We’re involved closely with the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and if taking a kid to a game or practice can help them and make them feel good, it’s all worthwhile, the long hours and everything.” Johnson put together the Nuggets’ community appearance program and pitched it to the NBA, which now uses it as its model. The NBA requires each player to make 12 appearances each year. “The people that I’ve met is absolutely my favorite part of the job,” she says. Overall though, “it gets a little hectic, but it gets in my blood,” she says. Hectic as in 82-game seasons and long hours, nights and weekends during the season. Her favorite part is opening night. “I get excited walking into the arena, seeing 19,000 people cheering for my team,” Johnson says. “If one day I walk out and I’m not excited then maybe that’s the time to move on, but it hasn’t happened yet.” Johnson began working for the Nuggets in the sales department (“I had never sold anything in my life,” she admits) after graduating from DU in 1980. She worked her way up slowly and found herself in the director position five years ago. “I feel like a mother hen trying to get [the team] to do what they have to do,” she says. “You know, half the time I’m rolling my eyes at them … but they’re good guys. “Chauncey [Billups] is as nice as can be,” she says of the 6-foot-3-inch point guard. And although center Chris “Birdman” Andersen is a showman on court, he’s actually quiet and reserved off-court, she says. Former Nuggets coaches Doug Moe and Dan Issel are Johnson’s close friends, as is Nuggets Hall of Famer Alex English. “They’ve always been a big part of my life, and they continue to be, and that’s really nice.” For the Nuggets, there’s always next year. And for Johnson, possibly quite a few more. “They’re my family. The Denver Nuggets have been such a part of my life,” she says. “I don’t want to leave. I’ve got too much time invested in the team.” —Kathryn Mayer

42 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 1977 1982 Daisy Berl (MSW ’77) is a social worker in Albert Mrozik Jr. (JD ’82) is a municipal Denver, treating couples and families. In her court prosecutor for City of Newark, N.J., free time, she plays tennis, hikes and travels to and just transferred to domestic violence Quotable visit her two children and six grandchildren. court. Albert resides in Cream Ridge, N.J. notes Wendi Harford (BFA ’77) of Denver has Lee Patton (MA ’82) displayed her artwork at Denver’s Ironton of Denver published his Thank you to everyone who responded to the Gallery. second novel, Love and summer issue’s question of the hour: Which Genetic Weaponry: The academic quarter was your favorite—fall, Beginner’s Guide (Alyson winter, spring or summer—and why? 1978 Books, 2009). The first Robert Warren (PhD ’78) of Denver has novel in this series, been a social worker for 30 years, helping sex Nothing Gold Can Stay (Alyson Books, 2000), “Spring—knew fellow students better, and offenders and men who are sexually addicted. was a finalist in the 2001 Lambda Awards. trees and flowers were blossoming.” He enjoys spending time with his nine Renae Levin (MA ’74) Nancy Reinisch grandchildren, attending classes at DU and (MSW ’82) recently Greenwood Village, Colo. playing bridge and golf with his friends. published her breast cancer memoir, Chemosabee: A Triathlete’s Journey Through the First Year of Breast Cancer (Novel Road Press, “Spring. The campus was so pretty and alive 1979 2008). Nancy, her husband and their two with flowers and blooming trees.” Bill James (MBA ’79) of Denver was publicly grown sons live in Glenwood Springs, Colo. Lisa Johnson (BA ’80) elected to the board of directors of the Centennial, Colo. Regional Transportation District to represent District A, which includes the DU campus. 1983 Bill’s interest in RTD was in part generated Kirk Leggott (BSBA ’83, MA ’86, JD ’86) “Spring. Cheesman Park was jumping.” by his involvement with Transportation recently was appointed as chief information Albert Mrozik Jr. (JD ’82) Solutions, a transportation management officer for the North Carolina Industrial Cream Ridge, N.J. association for which DU is a client. Commission. “Summer—it was intense yet more relaxed, Daniel Minzer (JD ’83) of Denver joined and the weather was great. I also didn’t work 1980 the real estate team at Fairfield and Woods M. Kay Teel (MSW ’80, PhD ’05) of Denver P.C. Daniel has been involved with real then.” was appointed assistant professor in the estate development projects for more than Sue Eilersten (MSW ’91) psychiatry department at the University of 25 years. Daniel also is heavily involved in Colorado Springs, Colo. Colorado School of Medicine. Her research condemnation and urban renewal issues. interests include maternal child health and “Spring. Although longer, it had the most to the development of culturally appropriate Julie Nagel (MSW ’83) of West Hills, Calif., interventions for mothers with infants who are works at the Los Angeles County Department look forward to at its conclusion.” exposed to alcohol and other drugs. of Children and Family Services in the youth Stuart Fox (BSBA ’07) adoption program. She works with children Englewood, Colo. who have been in out-of-home care for 1981 multiple years and have lost hope of ever Catherine Faris (BA ’81) has been married having a permanent family. for 23 years to Brian Faris, an architect and general contractor. She has three children: 1987 Stephen, 22, Sarah, 20, and Francesca, 17. 1985 Christian Itin (MSW ’87, PhD ’97) of Catherine is associate vice chancellor for Pam Hurley (MSW ’85) of Denver has Eureka, Calif., recently was promoted to full donor relations and development in university worked in neuropsychology treatment, child professor and granted tenure at Humboldt relations at the University of California-Santa and family protective services and hospice. State University in California. He directs the Cruz. When her children were younger, the She also has served as an adjunct for Colorado school’s master’s in social work program and family lived in Italy for a year, and they now State University and for DU’s Graduate remains an active scholar in adventure therapy. have a home and an olive orchard in southern School of Social Work’s Four Corners Italy. Catherine lives in Santa Cruz, Calif. Program in Durango, Colo. Morri Namasté (MSW ’87) of Denver works in collaborative divorce, assisting families Frode Mauring (MIM ’85) recently accepted in reaching agreements that lead to positive a position as resident coordinator at the post-divorce relationships. Morri also is a United Nations in Moscow. Previously, he singer-songwriter and plays guitar, mountain was employed as development coordinator for dulcimer and African kalimba. He is working the United Nations. on his fifth album.

University of Denver Magazine Connections 43 Hao Tian (MA ’87) of New York City is 1988 1989 an operatic bass who is featured in the one- Kenn Briggs (MSW ’88) helped found Charles Hobbs (JD ’89) has been appointed man show “From Mao to the Met,” running Youth Ventures, a child placement agency by Gov. Bill Ritter as a district court judge in through mid-December on PBS. The in Colorado Springs, Colo. He serves as the 13th Judicial District, which serves Kit performance is based on his autobiography of executive director and therapist at the agency. Carson, Logan, Morgan, Phillips, Sedgwick, the same title. Kenn enjoys rock climbing and bike riding. Washington and Yuma counties. Charles has been a municipal court judge for the city of Fort Morgan, Colo., since January 2007. He specializes in criminal defense, bankruptcy and general civil litigation.

Sarah Neumeier (BSBA ’89) received a Evangelist Lori Carrell master’s of science in health informatics from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. She They say there are three topics you should lives in Edina, Minn. never discuss in polite conversation: sex, politics and religion. 1990 But Lori Carrell (PhD speech Mary Long (MSW ’90) is a social worker in communication ’91) has regular conversations Jackson Hole, Wyo. about God—in front of a television camera. Carrell hosts “Ask God,” a weekly Mark Lostak (MBA ’90) recently relocated Christian TV talk show. The program, offered to Houston from Vienna, Austria, after almost five years of living abroad. Mark is president on the Total Living Network, JCTV and other of Air Liquide Industrial U.S. He is married religious networks, is available to 60 million and has two young sons. viewers in five cities in the Midwest, and via the Internet. Tammy White (BA ’90) is the chief of staff Carrell, who also is a communication for the D.C. legislative affairs office for the Boeing Co. Tammy lives in Alexandria, Va. Courtesy of Lori Carrell professor at the University of Wisconsin- Oshkosh, stresses dialogue in her TV program. “The goal in dialogue is inclusion, not finding ‘the winner’ or the person with ‘the 1991 right answer,’” Carrell says. Mary Baydarian (MSW ’91) is director of the “Ask God” gets fuel for its dialogue from on-the-street interviews in the Chicago Park County Department of Human Services. area. Participants are asked: “What is the one question you would ask God?” She lives in Bailey, Colo. Carrell selects responses with universal appeal. Topics have ranged from “Is God Sue Eilertsen (MSW ’91) received an Pro-War?” to “Do I Have to Forgive?” Excellence in Practice award at the Colorado During the show, Carrell moderates a rotating panel of four professional theologians Summit for Children, Youth and Families. who bring different viewpoints and experiences to the conversation. Sue was honored for her service and dedica- Producer Joel Mains says Carrell makes the conversations accessible to everyone, tion to helping the children of Colorado and for making the community a better, safer keeping the program from turning into Christian jargon. place for families. Sue won as a member of “Dr. Lori says, ‘Hey, this doesn’t need to be limited to just theologians and the Family Visitation Center unit, which she ministers. These are things that we can all discuss,’” Mains says. supervises at the El Paso County Department As host, Carrell facilitates the conversation, but she’ll also enter the discussion if of Human Services in Colorado Springs, she suspects guests are holding back. Colo. “I’m looking for the clash, where the actual differences of opinion are,” Carrell says. Katherine Golas (BA ’91) recently was “I try to draw out that difference but also still try to make it light and fun.” named chief operating officer of health Carrell hopes the show encourages people to talk about the issues with friends, communication and public affairs for family and others. Spectrum. Katherine will assume responsi- “There’s no way in my one life that I can come up with the answer to why there’s bility for overall management of the firm’s pain and suffering in the world. How presumptuous of me,” Carrell says. “But if they all day-to-day operations. She resides in Takoma Park, Md. share their wisdom, do you think we’ll have a better answer?” >>www.askgodtv.com —Josh Miller

44 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 Janis Mahan (MSW ’91) has worked in the field of child abuse and neglect since her 1988 Graduate School of Social Work internship at Pioneer pics the Arapahoe County Department of Social Services. She now is a program manager for Robyn (Thomas) Hartmeyer (BA Children’s Home Society in Florida. Janis ’98, left) and Jordana (Feves) Levenick lives in Lutz, Fla., and enjoys gardening and (BA ’98, right) discovered their love of spending time with her grandchildren. geography and the environment through the environmental science department at 1993 DU. Upon graduation they celebrated their Leslie Keffel (PhD ’93) was the keynote passion for outdoor adventure by traveling speaker at the annual awards reception of across the country, exploring as many the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of national parks as possible in a four-month, South Thuringia, held in Suhl, Germany. She 25,000-mile trek. Both graduates now live lives in Colorado Springs, Colo. in Portland, Ore., with their husbands. While work, family and responsibilities 1994 would not allow for a four-month reunion Gary Dark (BA ’94) is the lead singer of the tour, they did manage to sneak away for a bluegrass band Blue Canyon Boys. He lives in long weekend last November, when they Arvada, Colo. traveled to Redwood National Park and the southern Oregon coast and proudly 1995 wore their DU gear. David McEntire (MA ’95, PhD ’00) gave up As you pioneer lands far and wide, be sure to pack your DU gear and strike a pose in his position as PhD coordinator in the Public front of a national monument, the fourth wonder of the world or your hometown hot spot. Administration Department and became If we print your submission, you’ll receive some new DU paraphernalia courtesy of the DU associate dean in the College of Public Affairs Bookstore. and Community Service at the University of North Texas. David has received research Send your print or high-resolution digital image and a description of the location to: grants from FEMA and the University Pioneer Pics, University of Denver Magazine, 2199 S. University Blvd., Denver, CO 80208-4816, of North Texas to conduct a comparative or e-mail [email protected]. Be sure to include your full name, address, degree(s) and emergency management study. The research year(s) of graduation. will include the United States, Canada,

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University of Denver Magazine Connections 45 Australia, New Zealand, Costa Rica and other 1997 Rocky Mountains since November 2008. She countries in Latin America. The findings will Elizabeth Cheroutes (MSW ’97) has a oversees the agency’s efforts in the Denver be published in a book in 2010. He resides in private practice specializing in trauma and metropolitan area and in Las Vegas. Alison Corinth, Texas. women’s issues in Jackson Hole, Wyo. She and her husband, Blake, recently welcomed has two children: Charlie, 5, and Sophie, 3. their first child and live in Denver. Chris Pruchnic (MA ’95) of Aurora, Colo., Elizabeth enjoys hiking, biking and skiing. recently returned from a mountaineering expe- Sue Hoenshell-Brown (MSW ’98) of dition to climb Alaska’s Mount McKinley, the Davida Hoffman (MSW ’97) has been with Greeley, Colo., is a bilingual caseworker highest peak in North America. Chris success- Pikes Peak Mental Health Center in Colorado in child protection for Colorado’s Weld fully led four of six teammates to the summit. Springs, Colo., for 10 years and is director County Department of Human Services. of child and family services and the military With co-workers, she formed a team called Tom Romero (BA ’95) of St. Paul, Minn., outpatient program. Caseworkers for a Cure for Greeley’s Relay has been granted tenure by the Hamline for Life. University Board of Trustees and has been Joan Murray (MA ’97) of Northglenn, promoted to professor of law. Tom also is Colo., recently published a cookbook, Creative actively engaged in legal issues beyond the Cuisine Collection (AuthorHouse, 2007). 1999 Hamline campus and has been particularly Jeanne Golden (MSW ’99) of Mesa, devoted to serving communities of color. Ariz., works as a child and family therapist Tom has been involved in the work of the 1998 and clinical liaison for Jewish Family and Minnesota Hispanic Bar Association. Alison Hancock (BA ’98, MSW ’04) has Children’s Services. Previously, she worked been a regional director of community with children and adults in equine therapy. education for Planned Parenthood of the

Motivator Rory Vaden

Even as a student at DU, Rory Vaden talked to people incessantly about how to be successful. The key, he said, was self-discipline. To be successful, you had to do the things other people weren’t willing to do. His college roommate—and a fellow member of the Pioneer Leadership Program—heard the argument often, and he used it to make fun of Vaden once on an airport escalator: “Mr. Discipline doesn’t even take the stairs,” he said. “After I smacked him,” Vaden jokes, “I thought there was something about that that really resonated with me, that simple decision every day between taking the stairs or an escalator.” The 27-year-old has since earned his MBA from DU, won second place in the Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking, co-founded a multimillion-dollar company that puts on motivational sales training conferences for people by the thousands and grown his own personal brand: Take the Stairs. Vaden was raised by a single mom in a trailer park outside of Boulder, Colo. While other kids played video games, he practiced martial arts and became a black belt by the age of 10. In high school, he studied instead of going to parties, and the work paid off in the form of a Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship to DU. When he was a freshman, another student recruited him to the Southwestern Co. internship

Courtesy of Rory Vaden program in which college students relocate for the summer and sell children’s books door to door for commission. He spent that first summer break in Montgomery, Ala., getting thousands of doors slammed in his face. “It would have been easier for me to go home and be a lifeguard, but that would have been the escalator,” Vaden says. “Taking the stairs means I’m going to make sacrifices. If I had never gone through that, there’s no way I would have a multimillion-dollar company. There’s no way companies would have me come and speak to them. I would have no right.” He made $17,000 that summer and came back to DU to recruit a team of students for the following year. He started speaking publicly about self-discipline at high schools, colleges and youth groups. He graduated in June 2006 and moved to California to co-found the business Success Starts Now (SSN), which will bring its motivational sales training conference back to Vaden’s home in Denver in December 2009. Vaden now travels the country giving his trademark “Take the Stairs” speech at conventions and corporate functions. “It’s while you’re on the stairs that’s the fun part,” he says. “If you’re on the escalator, you’re not doing anything, not growing, not changing. You’re being dragged through life. On the stairs, you’re moving, learning, failing—but you’re getting better.” >> www.disciplinedynamic.com —Jessica Centers Glynn

46 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 William Sutton (BA ’99) earned his LaTra Rogers (MSW ’00) of Denver received 2002 doctorate in psychology and received his his PhD in educational and human resource Jeb Bennett (MSW ’02) of Boulder, Colo., license last January. He now has a thriving studies from Colorado State University. LaTra has been working since graduation on private practice in San Francisco and San works as an assistant professor of social work the intensive adult outpatient team at the Rafael, Calif., working with teens, families, at Metropolitan State College of Denver. Mental Health Center Serving Boulder and couples and individuals and providing Broomfield Counties. Jeb also has a small neuropsychological assessments. William Listiani Wijaya (MACC ’00) is an private practice specializing in addictions recently was elected president of the entrepreneur and business consultant in treatment that he’s planning to expand soon. Association of Family Therapists of Northern Semarang, Indonesia. California. He and his wife live in Kentfield, Christi Fuller (BBA ’02) works for Calif., and are expecting their first child in ValueCheck Inc., a company that provides January. 2001 data and software solutions for the banking Sarah Kick (MA ’01) is the outreach and real estate industry. Of the company’s coordinator in the Latin American, Caribbean 15 employees, five went to DU, including 2000 and Iberian studies program at the University founders Steve Belmear (BSBA ’88, MBA Nancy Barraclough (MSW ’00) works as a of Wisconsin-Madison. Sarah is responsible ’90) and Tom Kammer (BSBA ’89). Christi manager for the United Kingdom’s National for coordinating events sponsored by the resides in Castle Rock, Colo. Health Service. She is mother to 1-year-old program. Hope and 18-year-old Zach. Nancy enjoys Bryan Walpert (PhD ’02) has published photography and traveling throughout Europe SJ Purcell (MSW ’01) is the clinical manager his first collection of poetry, Etymology with her family. She resides in Portishead, at Shiloh Home, a treatment center for (Cinnamon Press, 2009). Bryan teaches England. neglected and abused boys. She lives in creative writing at Massey University in Littleton, Colo. Palmerston North, New Zealand. Brenda Brown (MSW ’00) is a psycho- therapist specializing in clients with Michael Schneider (MA ’01) is president Asperger’s syndrome and autism at an of McPherson College. He resides in outpatient mental health clinic in Worcester, McPherson, Kan. Mass. She resides in Sturbridge, Mass.

‘tis the season

for pioneer spirit! www.dubookstore.com

Shop for all your holiday gifts at www.dubookstore.com Regular Store Hours or call 800-289-3848. Monday–Thursday: 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Friday: 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday: closed Denver University o f Denver Bookstore

University of Denver Magazine Connections 47 2004 Noel Cassidy (MSW ’04) of Denver is Class notes challenge:2004 employed as a licensed clinical social worker for Denver Health and Hospital Authority A lot can happen in five years, and we want to catch up with as many of you as we can. and is working on her doctorate in pharmacy Your classmates want to hear from you, too! What have you been up to? Share career and through Creighton University. family news, discuss your travels and hobbies, or reminisce about your time at DU. You can post your note online at www.alumni.du.edu, e-mail [email protected], or Ian Ivarson (BSBA ’04) of San Francisco is the founder of Ivar, a company that mail in the form on page 45. Class of ’04 notes will appear in the summer issue. We’ll randomly manufactures and sells ergonomic backpacks. select a prizewinner from all entries received by March 1.

George Pennock (MBA ’04) recently accepted a position as a financial consultant at Amy Peterburs (BFA ’04) of Burlington, building their dream home in Observatory Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. in Englewood, Wis., received a master’s of science in art Park. Marie is studying interior design at the Colo. Previously, he was employed at U.S. therapy with a concentration in counseling Art Institute of Design. Trust Bank of America Private Wealth Manage- from Mount Mary College. ment as an associate wealth strategist. George also passed the Florida bar exam in 2007 and Marie Wanasz (BSAC ’04) and Jameson 2005 earned his JD from the University of Miami. Guthrie (BA ’99, MBA ’05) are happy Mallory Delany (BS ’05) and her husband, to announce their marriage. The couple Brian Bau (BSBA ’05), welcomed a daughter, honeymooned in Italy. The Guthries reside Kinsley Morgan. The family lives in Denver. in Denver and are in the beginning stages of

1960s Deaths Donald Walrafen (PhD ’60), Ashland, Ore., 10-15-08 James Wilson (BS ’60), San Antonio, 6-26-09 1930s Michael Floyd (BSBA ’61), Sheboygan Falls, Wis., 4-30-09 Blanche Cowperthwaite (BA ’32), Denver, 6-17-09 Elinor George (MA ’68), Roseville, Calif., 4-2-07 Leo Block (BA ’35), San Antonio, Texas, 8-31-09 1970s 1940s Thierry Smith (BA ’75), Aurora, Colo., 8-24-09 Dorothy Proper (BA ’42), Hamburg, Iowa, 4-29-09 Isaac Pendergraff (MSW ’76), Louisville, Colo., 6-8-08 Anna Willman (BS ’43), Marion, Ind., 10-21-08 Ida Walters (BA ’78, MA ’82), St. Louis, 6-2-09 Lois Midgley (BS ’44), Kimball, Neb., 12-2-07 Eleanor Sabin (BA ’79), Littleton, Colo., 5-25-09 Robert Stoffel (BA ’46), Evergreen, Colo., 6-12-09

Elinor Klein (BA ’47), Seattle, 5-17-09 Gwyneth Keith (BS ’48), Denver, 6-1-09 1980s Laura Callier (MA ’81), Denver, 5-4-09 Kenneth Nelson (BA ’48, MA ’50), San Diego, 3-5-09 Neil Dolinsky (BSBA ’81), Chaska, Minn., 5-29-09 Glen Hines (BS ’49), Arvada, Colo., 12-14-08 Devon Campbell (BSBA ’89), Centennial, Colo., 10-22-08 Andrew Mair (BA ’49), Fort Collins, Colo., 4-25-09 Audrey French (MA ’89), Albuquerque, N.M., 5-18-09 Martin Reisch (BA ’49), Haltom City, Texas, 6-8-09 Col. William Walters Jr. (BA ’49), Santa Fe, N.M., 3-22-09 Faculty and Staff George Bardwell, math professor emeritus, Denver, 6-22-09 1950s Elizabeth Everhart, biological science faculty (retired 1986), Donald Coover (MA ’50), Littleton, Colo., 2-12-09 Princeton, N.J., 2-21-09 Scott Marshall (BS ’50), Lakewood, Colo., 5-8-09 Alvin Goldberg, speech communication professor emeritus, Denver, Edwin Perkins (BS ’50), Cedaredge, Colo., 6-13-09 5-30-09 Cynthia Foley (BA ’51), Denver, 12-27-08 Marie Johnson, purchasing amica (retired 2005), Littleton, Colo., 3-12-09 Anna Halvorson (MS ’51), Bloomington, Minn., 5-15-09 Mildred Marteney, Colorado Women’s College professor (retired 1971), John Kurz (BS ’51), Denver, 8-5-08 Englewood, Colo., 7-27-09 Denis McCormack (BS ’51), Buena Park, Calif., 2-12-09 Helen McGraw, athletic department amica (retired 1990), Littleton, Colo., Esther Shapiro (MA ’51, PhD ’61), Binghamton, N.Y., 5-26-09 5-16-09 Frances Newsom (MA ’53), Olympia, Wash., 1-12-08 Kenneth Millsap, political science professor emeritus, Iowa City, Iowa, Kenneth Selby (LLB ’53), Alamosa, Colo., 1-01-02 7-24-09 Ellen Moose (MSW ’56), Arlington, Va., 11-19-08 Meredith Dalebout (BME ’57), Colorado Springs, Colo., 3-24-09 Theodore Johnson (BS ’57, MBA ’62), Littleton, Colo., 10-14-04 Friends Myra Levy, friend and major donor, Denver, 6-1-09 Joseph Krainock (BA ’58), Poway, Calif., 5-21-09

48 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 Post your class note online at www.du.edu/alumni, e-mail [email protected] or mail in the form on page 45.

2006 2008 Sal Quintana (JD Danni Bultemeier (MSW ’06) is married, Stephanie Hackett (MA ’08, MSW ’08) ’09) of Denver is has a 2-year-old daughter named Charlotte of Denver is employed by the City of now one of three and works full-time as a fee-for-service Aurora office of emergency management. immediate family outreach clinician south of Boston. Danni Stephanie is a member of the North Central members to have hopes to work with refugees and victims of Regional Special Needs Committee, where graduated from DU. political persecution and trauma in the future, she works to better educate vulnerable Estrella Quintana as well as in social welfare policy. She resides populations and caregivers on how to prepare (BBA ’09) would in Attleboro, Mass. for natural and man-made disasters. She is like to focus on a Aurora’s emergency management specialist, career in finance or Juli Bunyak (BM ’06) won first place in the focusing on citizen outreach and volunteer accounting. Gilbert Quintana (MSW ’75) Denver Lyric Opera Guild Competition for management among other local and regional is retired after a long and successful career her soprano performance. Juli received an efforts. in social work and management. Sal would award of $6,000 from the Galen and Ada like to start his law practice in corporate, Belle Spencer Foundation. She is studying at Paul Tontz (PhD ’08) received his transactional or litigation law. Northwestern University in Chicago. commission in the United States Navy Reserves as an METOC Ensign. He will be Brittany Wiser (BA Cody Medina (BM ’06) won third stationed in San Diego. ’09) has been selected place in the Denver Lyric Opera Guild as Miss Montana 2009. (DLOG) Competition for his bass-baritone Brittany will travel to performance. Cody was awarded $4,250 2009 Las Vegas in January from Stasia Davison and DLOG members. Philip Del Vecchio III (MA ’09) of Glendale, 2010 for the Miss Cody is studying at Indiana University in Colo., is a sports psychology consultant. He America competition. Bloomington with professor Timothy Noble. recently hosted a free sports psychology clinic This year, she has for baseball coaches, parents and players at been traveling through Hilary Mills (MSW ’06) works in mental the senior center in Longmont, Colo. Montana speaking on health at the VA Community Based Outpatient suicide prevention, which is her platform. Clinic in Greeley, Colo., where she lives. Her She resides in Bozeman, Mont. daughter was born in January 2009. Which alum was the Jenny Woodard (MSW ’06) and her first female bureau husband, Brian, of Fort Collins, Colo., chief for Business welcomed twin boys, Hudson and Miles, on Feb. 9, 2009. Week?

The answer can be 2007 found somewhere on Kelly Carroll (MSW ’07) works for pages 37–49 of this Volunteers of America in a women’s issue. Send your answer substance abuse residential treatment facility. She recently was promoted from to du-magazine@ therapist to clinical program director. The du.edu or University of facility serves 33 women who struggle with Denver Magazine, 2199 alcohol and drug issues. Kelly resides in S. University Blvd., Sheridan, Wyo. Denver, CO 80208- 4816. Be sure to include Stuart Fox (BSBA ’07) married Katie Barabe (BA ’07, MA ’09) on May 30, 2009, your full name and at Evans Memorial Chapel on the DU ?mailing address. We’ll campus. Stuart works for RevGen Partners select a winner from as a consultant. Stuart and Katie reside in the correct entries; the Englewood, Colo. winning entry will win a prize courtesy of the Matt Slaby (JD ’07) of Denver is a photojournalist and member of Luceo, a DU Bookstore. photography collective that had work on Congratulations to display this summer at the photography festival Look3 in Virginia. Kathleen Tisdale (BA ’59) for winning the fall issue’s pop quiz.

University of Denver Magazine Connections 49 ANNOUNCEMENTS

Get Involved Lifelong Learning Mentoring Join the Pioneer Connections OLLI DU’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute is a Mentoring Program and start mentoring a DU membership program designed for men and women student today. Contact Cindy Hyman at alumni@ age 55 and “better” who wish to pursue lifelong du.edu for details. learning in the company of like-minded peers. Members select the topics to be explored and share their expertise and interests while serving as facili- DU Photography Department Local Chapters Just moved to a new city and don’t know anyone? Need to expand your profes- tators and learners. sional network? Want to attend fun events and >>universitycollege.du.edu/olli make new friends, or reconnect with old ones? Join a local alumni chapter: Atlanta; Boston; Chicago; Enrichment Program Noncredit short courses, Dallas; Minneapolis/St. Paul; New York; Phoenix; lectures, seminars and weekend intensives explore and Washington, D.C. To find out how you can get a wide range of subjects without exams, grades or involved, call the Office of Alumni Relations at 800- admission requirements. 871-3822 or visit www.du.edu/alumni. >>universitycollege.du.edu/learning/ep

On the Web Nostalgia Needed Annual Report DU’s 2008–09 Annual Report is Please share your idea for nostalgic topics we could online at www.du.edu/annualreport. cover in the magazine. We’d love to see your old DU photos as well. Alumni Symposium More than 250 alumni participated in the third annual Alumni Symposium Pioneer Generations Oct. 2 and 3. See photos online at www.flickr.com/ photos/uofdenver. 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 Mark Your Calendar way! Newman Center Presents The 2009–10 Newman Center Presents series continues this win- Calling All Experts ter and spring with performances by the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra (Jan. 15), the Russian National We’re trying to get to know our alumni better while Orchestra (Feb. 24), the Martha Graham Dance developing possibilities for future articles. Please Company (April 20) and more. send us your ideas. We would especially like to hear >>www.du.edu/newmancenter about readers who:

Dads and Granddads Weekend Fathers and • are graduates of DU’s art programs grandfathers of current students are invited to cam- • are working (or former) journalists, especially those working in “new media” pus for events and lectures Feb. 19 and 20. • work in the food and beverage industry >>www.du.edu/studentlife/parents • are working/serving in Iraq or Afghanistan • were DU Centennial scholars DU on the Road Find out what your alma mater • served in the Peace Corps has been doing since you left. See if DU is coming to • served in AmeriCorps a city near you. >>www.du.edu/alumni Alumni Connections Pioneer Alumni Network Join other Denver- area alumni for networking events each month. >>www.alumni.du.edu

Contact us Stay in Touch University of Denver Magazine Online Alumni Directory Update your contact 2199 S. University Blvd. information, find other alumni and “bookmark” Denver, CO 80208-4816 your alumni friends and classmates. You may also [email protected] read class notes and death notices. Online class note submissions will automatically be included in the 303-871-2776 University of Denver Magazine. >>www.du.edu/alumni. 50 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 Family Pass Buddy Pass Savings (4 Tickets) (2 Tickets) ICE HOCKEY Jan. 1 Wells Fargo Denver Cup Day 1 $50 $30 up to $23 Feb. 5 Mercyhurst $50 $30 up to $23 MEN’S BASKETBALL Dec. 22 Seattle $20 $14 up to $16 Feb. 18 Arkansas-Little Rock $20 $14 up to $16 For information on season packages, group ticket pricing or schedules call 303.871.GOAL.

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F10.Athletics_Winter full page.100209.indd 1 10/2/2009 2:47:50 PM Miscellanea Invitation only DU Archives

Given to DU Archivist Steve Fisher by a local postcard collector who found it at this year’s Rocky Mountain Book and Paper Fair, this 1911 invitation is to an appearance by then-President William Howard Taft at the DU gymnasium. According to a New York Times account of the president’s Denver visit, he gave two speeches on Oct. 3, 1911—“one to the Public Lands Convention and the second to members of the Republican organization, including the State Central Commission and various committees.” “We are in favor of progress and construction,” Taft told his fellow Republicans. “We are in favor of prosperity and of doing nothing that will interfere with the business growth of this country provided that business growth be along lines that are legitimate and within the statutes.” According to the Times article, Taft also went to the “baseball park” on Oct. 3, where he presented trophies to members of the minor-league Denver Bears, recent Western League champions. He also was made an honorary member of the Denver Press Club.

52 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009