Winter 2009

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

MAGAZINE

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

Robots to
the Rescue
 Views
Fall snow
Photograph by Wayne Armstrong

A late October storm dumped more than 13 inches of snow on the metro Denver area two days before Halloween, causing the
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 Obamas 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 Editors 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 soldiers 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. 196871)
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
 U N I V E R S I T Y O F

Editors Note
MAGAZINE

w w w. d u . e d u / m a g a z i n e
U N I V E R S I T Y
Volume O F
10, Number 2
M A G A Z I N E
UN I V ER S I T Y O F
MAGAZINE
UNIVERSITY OF
When I started my freshman year at DU 18 Publisher
MAGAZINE
Carol Farnsworth
years ago, I wasnt 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
Assistant Managing Editor
saw them as an investment in my future.
Greg Glasgow
By the time I headed to graduate school, I
Associate Editor
was beginning to worry about debtI 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 investmentsimply 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 wed 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
even shamed us into better spending behavior. Im pleased to say that after
two years of hard work, were about to zero the balance on our credit cards
for the first time in nearly 20 years.
If only my debt epiphany had come a decade or two sooner.
Be sure to read our online feature article about debt published at
www.du.edu/magazine. It includes some wonderful tips for students and
their parents to help avoid the debt trap that has snared so many Americans.
I hope it helps.
Editorial Board
Chelsey Baker-Hauck, editorial director
Jim Berscheidt, associate vice chancellor
for university communications
Thomas Douglis (BA 86) Carol Farnsworth,
vice chancellor for university communications
Jeffrey Howard, executive director of alumni
relations Sarah Satterwhite, senior director of
development for research and writing
Amber Scott (MA 02) Laura Stevens (BA 69),
director of parent relations
Printed on 10% PCW recycled paper

The University of Denver Magazine (USPS 022-177) is

published quarterlyfall, winter, spring and summerby
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


Celebrating Stuart
Thank you for publishing Margaret Whitts
remembrance of Stuart James [Essay, fall
2009]. I attended the first class he ever
taught at DU, in the fall of 1957 at the old
downtown campus. During that class he
mentioned flying the B-17 Flying Fortress,
and after class I told him I, too, had piloted
that plane. He invited me to join him for a
beer, and we began what became a lifelong
friendship. He was my mentor at DU, and
after his retirement we got together nearly
every Tuesday for the last 12 years of his
life to have lunch, drink an occasional beer,
and talk literature. He was the closest and
dearest friend I ever had.
Jesse Gatlin Jr. (PhD 61)
Colorado Springs, Colo.
Thanks so much for a wonderful
reminder of the impact and influence one
teacher can make. I was a student yearning
to learn more about literature, and Stuart
James put it in front of me. He engaged
the classroom to speak up and prodded
our sleepy minds to realize the force and
impact that the written word could have
through Hemingway, Cather, Faulkner,
Twain and OConnor. He opened up a
world for me, and I thank him for being
a catalyst when I needed one. Ive been
fortunate to have had a small handful of
teachers like Stuart James. They are gold.
Doug Hall (BA 81)
Waltham, Mass.
Green gripes
After reading Going Green [fall 2009]
it is apparent that the green commissars
have finally appeared at DU. They have
ostensibly come to re-educate the masses
at DU on the merits of sustainability. Of
course its all for the good of the people,
even if some may disagree. Clearly mem-
bers of the University community will be
asked to change the way they do things: the
way they teach and learn, the way they get
to work, where they get
their food, etc. A little
friendly coercion will
be necessary if some-
one deviates.
Ms. Lyndsay Agans, lead author of this
plan, correctly recognizes that The hard
work starts now. Knowing which light
bulb to use, how to properly grow flow-
ers and when its OK to use a car will take
moral clarity and perseverance. Maybe a
green book can be produced to delineate
which actions are correct and which are
not.
Now that the University can feel good
about itself by setting goals to reduce its
carbon footprint, wouldnt it make more
sense to just close the University and really
go carbon neutral?
Igor Shpudejko (MBA 77)
Mahwah, N.J.
You seriously missed the boat in your
article on DU going green. Nice senti-
ments. But how about demonstrating the
Universitys commitment to going green
by having the magazine go green? Right
now, youre using a high quality unrecycled
paper to print the magazine on. And are
you using soy-based ink? Not that I can
tell. How about you cut out the luxury
paper and go for something with a high
recycled content? Frankly, Im appalled and
disappointed that the choice wasnt made
to do so at the outset. Make your alumni
proud and be a little bit progressive. Go
green yourself and dont just write an
article about it.
Leigh Phipps (BA 82)
Denver
Ed. response: We continue to seek ways
to mitigate the magazines environmental impact
while also keeping costs down. Soy-based inks
are not available for our cost-effective high-volume
printing process, but we do print on elemental-
chlorine-free paper certified by the Sustainable
Forestry Initiative and Forest Stewardship
Letters
Council. And, as noted on page 4
of every issue, our paper contains
10 percent post-consumer recycled
waste. (Cost and availability limit
our options for higher-recycled-
content papers.) We also encourage those concerned
with the environment to read the magazine
online at www.du.edu/magazine rather than
subscribing to the print edition; readers can e-mail
du-magazine@du.edu to unsubscribe.
After reading Going Green I remain
tremendously skeptical about DUs carbon
neutral plans. As a 2008 graduate of the
School of Education I am on campus two
to three times a week, mostly at the Ritchie
Center. On my way to work out, I see
water sprinklers watering the lawn during
the noon hour, wasting precious water.
I dont see any recycle bins on my way
to the Ritchie Center or other buildings.
I realize some are there, but they are not
easy to find. I see a large open refrigera-
tion unit across the workout area check-in
station, keeping drinks and sandwiches
cold with the units cold air escaping into
the room, again wasting energy. Worst of
all, there are no water conservation poli-
cies in the mens showers. No auto-off, no
water-saving shower heads, no signs asking
users to limit their shower times. In fact,
countless times I see swim teams stand
in the showers for up to 30 minutes, just
standing under the hot water, wasting not
only energy to heat the water, but the water
itself.
I see why it will take 40 years to obtain
carbon neutrality. DU does not have the
environmental culture that other colleges
have, such as CU-Boulder. It will take a
long time to change students attitudes,
especially since many have never had to
sacrifice. I wish you luck in your endeav-
ors, but it makes me sad to see that noth-
ing really changes. It is easier to put in
large solar and wind energy systems than
promote the turning off of water or a light
switch, but it is the little things like not
University of Denver Magazine Letters 5
 watering during the noon hour or limiting
your shower time that will make the big
difference. Hopefully someone will note
these little problems, which truly add up,
and do something about them.
James Rogers (MLIS 08)
Denver
Going up
Im appalled at the The Rising Cost of
College [fall 2009].
I started at DU in 1955, when tuition
was $210 per quarter, or $630 per year, and
this was considered high compared with
in-state tuition for the state universities
such as CU.
If my math is correct (Im an engi-
neer, not an economist), the average rate
of inflation of tuition at DU over the past
50-plus years has been 7.65 percent. My
economic advisers tell me the average
inflation rate of the Consumer Price Index
over the same period has been between
4 and 5 percent. If tuition had kept pace
with the 4 percent inflation of the CPI,
it would be about $5,300 per year. If it had
been a 5 percent increase per year, tuition
would have been a whopping $8,700 per
year. The difference between $8,700
per year and $34,000 per year shown on
page 33 is staggering beyond belief! You
wonder in the article how you can contain
the rate of increase. I say you should strive
to decrease the tuition, and costs, of edu-
cation at DU.
Attending DU was of value to me
with an MS degree in chemical engineering
I landed in a Fortune 500 company, had
a productive career and was able to retire
fairly comfortably. However, had I had a
debt load of three times my starting annual
salary when I graduated, things would have
been considerably different. I certainly could
not have afforded to attend, since I was sup-
porting myself with a part-time job whilst
attending, with an hourly rate only slightly
higher than minimum wage. There would
never have been a way I could have earned
enough to cover tuition and living expenses
with a minimum-wage job nowadays.
Your bean counters should get together
with your educators and figure out how
to use technology to reach the masses, lest
DU and other traditional schools be left in
the dust.
Henry Greeb (BS 59, MS 60)
Rockford, Mich.
Send letters to the editor to: Chelsey Baker-
Hauck, University of Denver Magazine, 2199 S.
University Blvd., Denver, CO 80208-4816. Or
e-mail du-magazine@du.edu. Include your full
name and mailing address with all submissions.
Letters may be edited for clarity and length.

Take an
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ALUMNI DISCOUNT To learn about the Ritchie

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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
11 Plant lawsuit
16 Branding initiative
18 National ranking
20 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

DUs Josef Korbel School of International Studies will educate a new generation of international security spe-
cialists and diplomats at the SI CHOU-KANG Center for International Security and Diplomacy, an addi-
tion to Ben Cherrington Hall that opened in August.
The SI Center will provide leadership training for SI 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 Si Chou-Kang, the father of DU trustee John Sie. Si Chou-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 buildings
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 SI Center
provides another opportunity
for the Josef Korbel School to
build its reputation as one of the
premier international studies pro-
grams in the world.
Wayne Armstrong

Our students will have many

outstanding opportunities to
interact with top leaders in the
fields of security, policy and diplo-
macy, 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 LEEDLeadership 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 diplo-
macy, he said. Im simply overwhelmed.
Sie spoke candidly about his fathers work as a respected diplomat. He said he learned integrity, the pursuit of excel-
lence 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

Coombe says University is weathering financial Scholarship
storm with sacrifice fundraising at
DU
The economic condition of the

Wayne Armstrong
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 dont 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 DUs 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 winters realignmentin
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 under-
graduate 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 Universitys financial position, he also took time to highlight the Uni-
versitys 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 worlds largest circu-
lated Jewish magazine. In the magazines fourth annual Insiders Guide to College, DU is ranked No. 28
iStockphoto

for the top private schools Jewish students select.

Twenty percent of DUs 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 DUs 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

Aug. 28 was a banner day for the DU soccer program. Not only did the womens team win its first home
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 thats been in the works since fall 2008. Construction began in winter 2009.
Were 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 opera-
tions. I think the soccer stadium adds that for our soccer program. For student-athletes, for alumni, for future players com-
ing in, its 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 DUs 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 young-
sters 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 col-
lege soccer is all about, says mens
soccer coach Bobby Muuss, noting
that the program is working to build
a winning tradition. It takes pio-
neers 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-
Wayne Armstrong

December.
The one-story art annex will be
attached to the southwest corner of
the Ritchie Centerbehind the Shwayder Art Buildingand 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 ath-
letes 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, its hoped the new stadium will build a big-
ger fan base for Pioneers soccer.
Right now were averaging 1,000 fans a gameits 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
soccerits a win-win for everybody.

Just days before this issue went to press, the womens 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

 Student lawyers reach endangered plant
settlement
University of Denver law students dont back down when they head into court, even if their target is
the United States government.
Students and faculty at DUs 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 spe-
cies 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 govern-
ment to rule on the request, which languished for years in bureaucracy. The center also challenged the gov-
ernments ultimate 2006 decision not to protect the plants. DUs student law office has been representing
the center.
Professor Michael Harris has been overseeing the endangered plant case. Under the most recent
developmentthe Aug. 18 settlement in the United States District Court for the Northern District of
Georgiathe 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 opera-
tion 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
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of the University of Denver Board of Trustees. Myhren, a DU trustee since 1995,
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began his term Sept. 1, succeeding Joy Burns, who will remain on the board. BLACK
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dent of the Providence Journal Co. chairman and CEO of American Television
clm

& 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 Universitys 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 Denvers 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 Universitys first fully
funded chair

Oil portrait of Leo Block by Seymour Simmons III

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 200910 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

Its nothing new for Americans to study the work of Shakespeare. But its usually cooler to do so in the country of that famous
writer. And way cooler to do so when actually at the theater in which the Bards 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 Shakespeares Globe, a modern reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, which burned down in 1613.
It was one of the most interesting classes Ive 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 couldnt 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 Shakespeares plays, which helps students relate to the issues he wrote about centuries earlier.
We learned how to look for different meaning in his

John Tramper
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 Educationthe education
program offering courses at the Globe Theatresince
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
Shakespeares 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
DUs partnership with the Globe when she was working to
develop the Universitys 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
programs curriculum.
Since the [Globes] regular season ends in early October, students are able to actually use the stagequite 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 Nights 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 Shakespeares 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 Shakespeares famous lines clearly through the Globes natural
acoustics.
The architecture and detail of the Globe is breathtaking, says marketing and theater senior Brooke Tibbs. Its a marvelous
theater. Standing in the middle of the theater you can look up and see the sky and wonder if its the 1500s or present day.

University of Denver Magazine Update 13

 People
A war of remembrance
By Doug McPherson

Mitchel Libman still cries when he talks about his friend Leonard Kravitz.
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 wasnt what youd
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,
Id always pick him right at the start. We were very close.
But near the end of high school, as Libmans future gained clarity, Kravitzs grew cloudy.
He wasnt going to college, didnt have a job and had no ideawhat he wanted to do, Libman says. I know he wasnt 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 Libmans 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 Libmans estimate. According to eyewitness reports, Kravitz said, Get the hell out while you still can.
Troops testified they heard Kravitzs 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 wasnt until that summer, while Libman was home on break from the University of Denver, that his mother told him of
Lennys 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 Armys second highest honor, I
was very happy he had been recognized, Libman says.At that time I didnt really know what he had done, butI 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.
Libmans search for details took on new meaning in the mid-1980s, when he learned Kravitz had been nominated for the
Medal of Honorthe militarys highest awardbut that the Pentagon had downgraded it to the Distinguished Service Cross.
I had to know why that happened, he says. Ive read the criteria for the Medal of Honor many times, and Lennys actions fit
it perfectly.
Adding fuel to his effort was a comment from Jerry Murray, who had served with Kravitz.
He told me, They dont give the Medal of Honor to Jews. Up until then I was trying to get information. But that spurred me
on even more. It wasnt the first time I had heard it, but based on my personal experience with Lennys medal, Id say it was very
accurate.
Libmans 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 Bushs 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 wouldnt 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 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 its 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 atthe National Museum of American Jewish Military History in Washington, D.C., says of the half-
millionJews who served in World War II, only three receivedthe Medal of Honor.I believe there was some discrimination going
on there, says Elbe, noting that the number of Jews who served in Korea isnt known.
Lt. Col. Nate Banks of the Army public affairs office in Washington, D.C., saysthe list of soldiers being considered for the
Medal of Honor is not public. The Medal of Honor is awarded to individuals based on merit, andits not based on race or
religion, he says.
So far, just one Jewish veteran has received the Medal of Honor because of the Kravitz actTibor 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 hes done, Rubin says. Mitch is a
wonderful man, and hes 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. Hes also spoken with an assistant to Rahm Emanuel, President Obamas chief of staff.
I still wait for the mailman every day, Libman says. Ive never given up because Lenny was my friend. Because he earned it.
And becauseLenny 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.Its
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, Im 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 DUs 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
Facebook.

iStockphoto
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

The DU School of

Wayne Armstrong
Architecture
and Planning was only around for six
years1946 to 1952but 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 DUs 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 Wrays 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 stylesboth related to the work of
WrightArapahoe Acres abodes are all flat roofs, jutting eaves, low angles, large windows, flowing interiors and natural light.
Whats so cool about Arapahoe Acres is that its 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 ityou go in and youre surrounded by it. Its not
like a lot of places where they have some good examples of mid-century architecture but theyre sitting next to this or that. When
youre in Arapahoe Acres, its complete immersion.
The Hawkins-Sternberg partnership didnt 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 Sternbergs 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; its 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 throughperhaps as part of a south Denver
mid-century tour that also includes nearby enclaves Krisana Park, Arapaho Hills and Mile High.
Its like a little slice of paradise; its a total gem, Cain says. I would give anything to live there.

University of Denver Magazine Update 17

 DU ranked in nations top 100 One to watch

The University of Denver is keeping its place among the top national
Arda Collins, creative writing
universities in the 2010 U.S. News & World Report college rankings. Ask Arda Col-

Wayne Armstrong
The magazines annual ranking of undergraduate education, released lins why poetry is
Aug. 20, again places DU among the nations top 100 universities. DU ranks important, and the
84thup five positions from last yeartied with American University, Mar- acclaimed poet will be
quette University and the Stevens Institute of Technology. the first to admit its
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. 8tied with the University of Southern I think of it as
California and the University of Vermontin 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. its delicious, Collins
Chase Squires explains. Maybe its
not so important, but
it makes life worth
living.
Artespecially in the context of wordsis something that
makes life worth living for the second-year student in DUs 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 DUs 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 collec-
tion 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, Its not
happiness, but something else; waiting for the light to change; a
bakery. Its a lake. It emerges from darkness into the next day sur-
rounded by pines. Her images are simple; her sentences short and
sweet.
The New York native is finding solace in the smallness of
DUs program.
Its just a good place to work, Collins says. I like what is hap-
pening here creatively.
Kathryn Mayer

18 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009

 Arts
In tune
By Nathan Solheim

Musician Al Hood has found the perfect gig at the University of Denver.
Hood, an associate professor of trumpet at DUs Lamont School of Music, plays dozens of concerts
per year in crowded jazz clubs, swanky concert halls and ornate cathedrals around Denver. When hes 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 Institutea weeklong summer music camp that brings together
aspiring professional brass players and some of the worlds best brass musicians for a weeks worth of master classes, workshops
and concertsby opening up the Lamont School of Musics
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. Hes
methodical in his approach to teaching, but hes 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
bachelors and masters 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
Wayne Armstrong

with jazz giants such as Dave Brubeck, Wynton Marsalis,

Gerry Mulligan, Curtis Fuller and Arturo Sandoval, as well as
popsters Phil Collins, Ray Charles, Natalie Cole and Engelbert
Humperdinck. Hes 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 hes played
with some of the industrys best, hes quick to laud Denvers top-notch scene.
I can name you five or six world-class players on each instrumentthe 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.
Its 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 its 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 vol-
Courtesy of Sheldon Arakaki

untary 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 educa-
tion and why they are choosing this university, says Arakaki, an e-commerce analyst who conducts interviews in the Seat-
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 its 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? Youre 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.
Its always good to have outsider input on the applicationto get somebody elses perspective on the student and to learn a little bit more about
them as individuals and highlight characteristics that were 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 Arakakis life, and helping the admission office is just a continuation of what he did in high school and col-
lege, he says. Hes 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
Founders Day
UNIVERSITY OF DENVER Seawell Ballroom
18 6 4

20 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009

 Essay
Homeplace
By Chelsey Baker-Hauck

In 2006, I walked into a packing and shipping

store and set down my burdentwo 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 OregonGranddads 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
wayon a patch of the original 200-acre homesteadmy mothers
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
Louises 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.
Devils Kitchen is still therea 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 Cemeteryburying 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 grandfathers 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 Junemy grandfathers sisterturned to me and said, There probably
wont be anyone here when they bury me. I promised her I would come, and I intend to keep that promise.
In the meantime, Ive 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 Devils Kitchen. As they have for decades, the family
gathers nearbyfour generations nowon 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 didnt know if shed be around for another.
Shes waiting, it seemsbiding her time until she too is called home.

University of Denver Magazine Update 21

 T
Alumna Ellie Schafer was hand-picked to show
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? Whos POTUS?
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!!!!
Then the pictures arrived. There was the nations 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.,

22 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009

 Wayne Armstrong
Welcome to the
By Richard Chapman

White House
visitors around President Obamas 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 Schafers 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

 S Shes off the road now, working down the hall from where
Franklin Roosevelt broadcast his fireside chats, Abraham Lincoln
lay in state and Theodore Roosevelts 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 nations
history. She is the welcoming face for celebrities, dignitaries and
just plain folks.
Its a big job, and its 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 Fagans 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 Schafers 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.
Which is how you go from grinding through homework in
J-Mac to taking on the nations work in Washington. After all,
you dont get to run the White House Visitors Office by apply-
ing. There is no competitive exam. You land the job by winning
POTUS trust. For Ellie Schafer, that process began in California
in 2006 when she was a political consultant in San Francisco and
then-Senator Obama needed logistical help for his book tour.
The connection that began with The Audacity of Hope incu-
bated on the campaign trail and blossomed on election night 2008.
As thousands of people jammed into Chicagos Grant Park, waiting
with a national TV audience to hear from the president-elect, it
was Ellie Schafer who was in charge of getting the Obama family
where they needed to be.
I was in work mode the entire night and emotionally and
physically exhausted, she recalls. I heard them call the race, but
I had a job to do so I was numb to news. It wasnt until the next
morning, when I was lying in bed listening to the Today Show
and heard Matt Lauer say President-elect Barack Obama, that it
hit me. I shot out of bed and started jumping around in my PJs
and cheering and hugging Julie and the dogs [Maddie and Bo].
Julie is Julie Colwell, Schafers partner and a high school
teacher in Evanston, Ill. Their relationship took root at a softball
tournament in San Diego in 2005 and culminated in a formal
commitment ceremony in Del Mar, Calif., on Aug. 4, 2007.
Barack Obama couldnt make it because it was his birthday. But
he called.
Ellies very focused, very passionate. And she knows when to
laugh and not let the weight of the world get on her, Colwell says.
Shes also a big-picture person. She sees it and breaks it down,
then says, Lets go. Lets get it working. Once they gave her three
days to put on an event for 60,000 people. She said, OK, where do
you want it? How many people could do that?
24 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009
Pete Souza
S
Barack Obama helps Ellie Schafer celebrate her birthday.
Schafers efficiency on the campaign trail proved the perfect
endorsement for follow-up assignments on the transition and
inauguration teams. In January, when the First Family moved into
Blair House, traditionally the stepping-stone to taking over the
White House, they invited Schafer to move in with them.
It was quite an honor, and symbolic of the level of trust that had
developed.
She was there with the family, says Gersick, her proud mom.
The presidents sister was there. And some of Mrs. Obamas family,
Grandma [Marian] Robinson and Ellie and Julie. That was it.
Schafer ate with the family, spent time with the family and bore
witness to their emergence from the mainstream of America to a
special place in history. When the inauguration was over and the
administration under way, Schafer took over the visitors office. In
the first six months, they got 3 million tour requests, including one
from actor Jimmy Smits, who had portrayed President Matt Santos
on the TV show The West Wing but had never visited the real
White House.
We brought him in through the front entrance of the West
Wing, which has the Marine on duty, Schafer recalls. He was like,
Wow!
You know, not a week goes by that you dont see somebody
brought to tears when they walk through these doors.
In her 10th week on the job, Schafer supervised a White House
event for 30,000 people. It was the annual Easter Egg Roll, which
has been a White House staple since Rutherford Hayes was presi-
dent in 1877.
The kids and their families came from 48 states. They
were organized on the green outside the 18-acre White House
grounds, run through security magnetometers, herded into a

Michelle Obama and Ellie Schafer enjoy the White Houses annual Easter Egg Roll.
clean pen, then ushered onto the South Lawn every two hours
in chunks of 6,000.
Once inside, the kids bounced, rolled, ran, played, danced, had
their faces painted and flat-out had fun. Schafers uncle, a 6-foot,
5-inch confirmed Republican from Greeley, got to play the Easter
Bunny. And no child was lost or left behind.
It was a long day, she says, but it was a blast.
In August, when the Obamas took seven days to vacation on
Marthas Vineyard, Schafers staff threw open the White House
doors to more than 36,400 visitors over five 12-hour days. It was
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
during a tour in late summer. I still get chills just coming
through the gate. Or showing someone around and saying,
This is George Washingtons sword. Im like, George
Pete Souza
Washingtons sword! How cool is that?!
Schafer laughs heartily, her ever-present grin seeming a mile
wide. Passion for her job and the electricity she sparks could run a
town.
Seeing the look on peoples faces when they come through the
doors of the White House, whether theyre a Make-a-Wish child,
a celebrity, somebody here for a public tourthat you cant buy.
Theyre all just, Wow! I cant believe Im here.
If I have a bad day, its still a bad day ... at the White House! So
S
its not that bad.
Schafers long, winding road to Washington started when she
graduated from DU and went to work on her fathers campaign for
governor of North Dakota. Ed Schafer (MBA 70) won the race and
served from 1992 to 2000.
University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 25

Ellie Schafer, head of the White House Visitors Office, greets guests in September.
We really saw her talent come out in 1992, recalls brother
Tom. [Dad] was the underdog, polling third of eight when we
came to the convention. Ellie and her team had lined every route
the delegates could take to the convention with yard signs. We
started seeing one, then another, then another the whole way in. We
got to the convention and we had more signs than anybodymore
passion, more excitement, more enthusiasm. That was all her.
Shes perfect in politics: detail-minded and a great organizer.
By 2000, when Ellie Schafer began working for Al Gore, she
already had a lot of campaign experience, having worked for a host
of California candidates and advocacy issues. The Gore race led
to work for John Kerry in 2004, and when Kerry announced he
wouldnt run for the White House in 2008, the Obama campaign
got on the phone to her fast.
I cant tell you where youre going, but are you in? Obamas
then-political director asked. That was the winter of 2007.
I had an inkling as to what it was about, but we never talked
about it, Schafer says. Next thing I knew I was in Springfield
[Illinois] setting up his announcement tour as part of the advance
26 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009
Wayne Armstrong
team. We were there about 10 days before he arrived.
What followed was an unrelenting stream of travel and orga-
nization, problem-solving and working out details to make sure
Obamas campaign stops were smooth. She accompanied him to the
Middle East and traveled to every state but Alaska on his behalf.
Back then the campaign was a bunch of people huddling
around a folding table and chairs. We had one printer in the middle
that we shared. Youd get four rooms; one for Obama and three for
everybody else.
Quarters were close and no detail was too small. Obama once
found himself in need of shaving cream and a razor, and he asked
Schafer to run to the grocery store. She tossed him a bag of toilet-
rieshis brandsand said, There you go.
Having a spare set was just part of the job, as was giving the
candidate a sense of home on the road. She did that by arranging for
Obamas meals to be served on real dishes with real silverware. It
was a little touch, but it won points. Especially when the candidate
saw that everyone else was eating off paper plates.
The Obamas reciprocated.
 Campaign File Photo
When theyre on the road, its a family affair, Schafer says.
Its not just heres our family and theres the staff. Its more like,
Were going out to grab some burgers, does anybody need any-
thing? They genuinely care.
It was a good attitude to have in the campaign, where millions
of details need attention and things can go wrong in a flash.
Jimmy Buffett has a song called No Plane on Sunday. You
can get upset and kick your luggage and get mad, but theres still
no plane on Sunday. You might as well just make the best of it.
[Buffett] has gotten me through quite a few nights on the campaign
trail.
It also helped for Schafer to stay in touch with her family,
recalls stepfather Joe Gersick. Sometimes shed call up exhausted;
sometimes shed call up to share. Never to complain.
She told us once how the staff was sitting around having a beer
and Obama was talking about his ears, Gersick recalls. Everybody
was teasing him and making fun. And Ellie was thinking, This guy
A
could be the most powerful man in the world one of these days, and
were teasing him about his ears!
As it turned out, whether Schafers candidates won or lost
didnt get noticed as much as her skill in the political arts.
I did a [district attorneys] race in San Francisco, and we
ended up losing by just a couple of hundred votes, she recalls. I
went home for Christmas and I broke downjust started crying in
the shower. Youre devastated, but it opened another door for me.
Somebody said, You werent supposed to get as far as you got; you
did fantastic; wed like you to run this bigger campaign.
Sometimes in politics its not always about winning or losing.
Its really about the job you do and the choices you make.
One of those key choices happened years earlier when Schafer
was a varsity basketball player coming out of Pueblo East. She
Barack Obama and
Ellie Schafer on the
campaign trail.
chose not to play when she enrolled at DU, opting for softball and
intramurals instead. That expanded her social and academic oppor-
tunities on campus. It was a key decision.
Throwing herself into her fathers campaign in North Dakota,
where she earned real-world experience, was another key decision.
I went into my first campaign with a chip on my shoulder
saying I wasnt going to stuff envelopes and lick stampsand
ended up stuffing envelopes and licking stamps.
In 1995, she moved to San Francisco for a job that evaporated
when she got there. By chance, she met a group of women
who invited her to join their softball team. That also was a key
decision. One teammate was the political reporter for the San
Francisco Chronicle. The others also were well-connected, and
their friendship helped involve Schafer with local campaigns and
opportunities. Before long, she had a thriving business as a political
consultant.
How important was joining the San Francisco Gay Softball
League?
Huge, Schafer says. I probably wouldnt have stayed [in
San Francisco] if it wasnt 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
whose smile adorned boxes of Mr. Bubble bubble-bath, which her
grandfathers company made, became the teenager who organized
beer bottles in her familys beverage business in Pueblo and the
young adult who endured ramen noodles days scuffling for can-
didates in San Francisco.
That womanthat former queen bee of pizza nights and legal
3.2 beer in Johnson-McFarlane Hall, that unofficial sweetheart of
Lambda Chinow works in the White House, has the trust of the
president and plays third base for Stotus, the Softball Team of
the United States.
Gotta go, Bo, she tells her dog each morning. Gotta go
make the world a better place.
University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 27
 F
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 wantor 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
to toys, DU researchers are carving a niche developing robots that can wriggle, fly or
roll into the Earths harshest environmentsincluding crumbling buildings, guerilla
hideouts, battlefields, forest fires and congested city skywaysto 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 DUs 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.

Building
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
 Who goes there? DU
researchers are developing
a host of miniature robots
to go where humans
cantor shouldnt.
This one, with a pair of
video camera eyes,
can conduct war zone
surveillance and even ride
alongside troop transports
to detect roadside bombs.

a Better Bot
University of Denver Magazine Fall 2009 29
 A
ssociate Professor Richard Voyles wriggling,
crawling, clamoring search robots are dubbed
TerminatorBots for the way they drag themselves
along, like a wounded robot in the movie Terminator.
The idea of a band of TerminatorBots probing the
rubble of a devastated building for earthquake survivors
might seem as far-fetched as the idea of fleets of unmanned
airplanes blasting enemy positions. Yet half a world away, Air
Force Predator drones scan rugged Afghan mountain ranges
for threats and target al-Qaida positions with air-to-ground
missiles while the pilots control their flight with a joy-
From civilian to military
applications, Valavanis and his
team see unlimited possibilities
for making dangerous work safer
and delivering time-saving and
life-saving information.
30 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009
stick from a virtual flight deck at a Nevada base. Robots are
already a reality. At DU, researchers are making them better:
tougher, smarter, more mobile, less expensive, smaller and
more sensitive.
What we try to do is look at how robots operate in
unfriendly environments, Shoureshi says. That might be
under the ground, in space or in enemy territory. For that
work, not only are unmanned systems crucial, but they must
be machines that can survive in these harsh environments.
Voyles is lead investigator on a $2.1 million program
funded by the National Science Foundation and others. He
says with each discovery or application, researchers find new
challenges. Working underground, for instance, standard
visual monitoring systems are stymied by total darkness and
require development of better self-adjusting sensors. And
when TerminatorBots proved adept at clawing their way
deep into ruins, scientists realized wireless communications
were impeded by tons of concrete. While wires that the
robots trail behind them could connect them to their
masters above the ground, the weight of the trailing wire
 began to add up at greater distances.
Eventually, no matter how strong your robot is, the
tether is too heavy to pull, Voyles says.
Faced with a choice of limiting his robots to shorter
leashes or adding more power-hungry motors to them,
Voyles began looking for another option: wires that actu-
ally propel the robot using rhythmic blasts of fluid along the
wires. By controlling shunts opening and closing at extremely
high rates, alternately allowing fluid to flow and then stop-
ping it abruptly, operators can use the force of the fluids
forward momentum to push the control wires along behind
the robot.
That technology led to an unexpected application: the
possibility of incorporating nano sensors with water-hammer
propulsion to make it easier for doctors to operate colonos-
copy tools, making the process more comfortable for patients.
Essentially, weve learned how to push on a string,
which has a great many applications beyond traditional robot-
ics, Voyles says.
When efforts to use robots to help rescuers get a look
inside a col-
lapsed Utah
mine failed
due to mobility limitations,
Voyles and his team found a new challenge.
Now they are working on engineering propulsion systems
that will allow direct side-to-side movement so the robots
can navigate narrow passages without having to turn in tight
quarters. In the pipeline are basketball-sized robots that can
climb steep piles of debris and others that can slither like a
snake through tiny openings; whatever it takes to get to places
people cant go and gather the information people need.
R
obots arent just good in tight spaces. Kimon Valavanis,
chair of DUs Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering, has his eyes on the sky. Bringing
his Unmanned Systems Laboratory with him from the
University of South Florida, Valavanis has established DU
as a player in the universe of remote guidance. Funded by
grants from the National Science Foundation, the Army
Research Office and the Army Research Laboratory and a
number of other agencies, Valavanis and his team of gradu-
ate research assistants (nicknamed the Dirty Half Dozen)
imagine a dazzling array of possibilities in aerial and
unmanned ground surveillance. From civilian to military
applications, he and his team see unlimited possibilities for
making dangerous work safer and delivering time-saving
and life-saving information.
With a fleet of 11 unmanned helicopters in varying sizes
and five fixed-wing unmanned airplanes, plus six ground-
roving robots (five of which are custom built for the Army
Research Laboratory), Valavanis and his students struggle to
find the perfect combination of precise control and excellent
data delivery with ease of operation and deployment. Its
tough enough to keep miniature choppers flying and col-
lecting surveillance information, but factor in Colorados
thin air and unpredictable weather patterns and the chal-
lenge is even greater.
But just imagine the benefits, Valavanis says.
Imagine one helicopter that can deliver this real-
time information. Theres an accident, you deploy one
unmanned helicopter, you can get past the traffic quickly,
and immediately you have your engineers routing traffic
to alternate roads; you determine if you need emergency
vehicles, roadside assistance, all delivered instantly. And for-
get the time and expense of putting up a full-size helicopter.
This is cheap. Its fast, and its safe.
Take those same miniature choppers onto a battlefield,
and soldiers using controllers built on the same principles as
the video games they played at home can peek behind hill-
sides and hover over cramped city alleys. Put the guidance
and sensing technology into ground-roving vehicles, and
soldiers can create a rolling mini-convoy around troop car-
riers, detecting roadside bombs before they can detonate.
Working feverishly in a tiny campus workshop,
Valavanis Dirty Half Dozen pulls apart miniature models,
fashions parts, and tests and calibrates rolling and flying
robots, cameras, power sources and controllers in a quest
for the perfect combination.
The work is hard, but the team oozes enthusiasm.
Were here pretty much all the time, every day, but
where else can I do this? asks PhD candidate Allistair
Moses. Its an opportunity to get into all of this, to learn
and to experiment and test. Its exciting.
Within the next 20 years, Valavanis says, the growing
field of unmanned aircraft systems will be a $52 million
annual industry. He rattles off a list of potential applica-
tions: wildfire spotting, homeland security, border patrol,
mappingeven inspecting power lines that stretch across
huge spans of the American West.
The DU researchers are poised to play a part. Theyre
already collaborating with military and space exploration
programs and have been demonstrating their robotics tech-
nology for some commercial giants.
Chancellor Robert Coombe says DUs focus on bridg-
ing the gap between raw research and commercial application
brings that innovation to the world. At a recent question-
and-answer session with parents, he noted that more than a
quarter of the engineering students who get a degree at DU
also leave the University with a business degree.
We work as a business incubator with the idea of letting
our students and our faculty take what they create to the next
level, a level that will impact the community and the econo-
my, Shoureshi says. The goal is not to educate traditional
engineers, but engineers who find solutions for global chal-
lenges and economic prosperity.
University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009 31
 Full Four parents and two kids
make for one big happy family.

House By Jessica Centers Glynn

Photography by Justin Edmonds

o n the sidelines at his sons 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 cant 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 therehe loves it. He needs that. He needs a coach whos going to kick him in the ass, basically, and get him
to do what he needs to do, and I cant be that person. As parents, you cant be everything. You want them to find
those niches, those things that make them who they are, and its this wonderful puzzle to figure out whats the best
context for that.
Geoffrey hated football because it wasnt 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 DUs writing program, is Zian and Eliots father. They also have two moms
lesbian couple Indra Lusero (a DU law student) and Allison Hoffman Luseroand another father, Geoffreys
partner, Mark Thrun. The boys took their mothers last nameLusero.
People often ask how does it affect the kids, having four parents, Geoffrey says. For them, thats 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, Thats 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,
thats just the way it is.
Geoffrey, Indra and Allison met 17 years ago during their
freshman year at the University of Puget Sound. They were
involved in a gay and lesbian student group and distinctly remem-
ber the day when some gay and lesbian families came to speak to
them. One family had two moms and a dad. That was a radical
idea we all were intrigued by, Indra says.
The idea stayed with them when the three roomed together
their senior year. Four years after college, Indra and Allisonwho
by then had returned to Denver, where they both grew updecided
they were ready to start a family. They wanted their children to
know their father, and they wanted the father to be Geoffrey.
We were nurturing that idea, and our relationship, all those
years, Indra says. We referred to ourselves as family, and we were
deliberate about maintaining our family.
Geoffrey donated sperm so that Allison could conceive
through artificial insemination, but he was living in California fin-
ishing up his masters degree.
34 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009
I was trusting I was going to be a part of the family and we
would figure out the distance thing, Geoffrey says. When it
became tangible, shortly after Allison got pregnant, I began to think,
What the heck am I doing? I want to be there.
Zian was born in April 2001. Geoffrey finished his masters
program in June and immediately moved to Denver. Within six
months, he had bought a townhouse next door to the moms and
met and fallen in love with Mark, who quickly became a second
father, akaPapito Zian.
The familys plan always had been to have two children, with
Allison and Indra each taking a turn as the biological mom. When
the time came for Indra to get pregnant, they asked Mark if he
wanted to be the biological dad, but he decided he wasnt quite
ready. So Geoffrey also fathered Eliot, who was born in 2003.
Thats when the parents began hunting for the house where
they would raise their children. The home they bought in 2004 was
a charming new duplex in northwest Denver that today boasts a
(continued on page 36)
 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 isnt just for the sake of keeping
their relationships healthy; its about doing everything they can to ensure that their family decisions are kept
within the familyand out of the court.
Colorado state law doesnt really protect us in any way, especially Mark or me with my nonbiological
child, Allison says.
Catherine Smith, an associate professor in DUs Sturm College of Law, is an expert on the lengths non-
traditional families must go to to protect themselves. Shes not only a lawyer; shes a lesbian and a mom whose
daughter is not biologically hers. Colorado law doesnt recognize the nonbiological parent.
So you doeverything you can, Smith says. In Indras family and mine andcountless others, you use
contracts and agreements to cobble somethingtogether to protect that family unit, but whether its going
towithstand 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 theres 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 partners biological child without that parent
losing parental rights. But it doesnt 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.
Youre 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 its important for people to realize, even outside the context of gay families, that a lot of
heterosexual families are tryingto do this as well, with step-parents and extended families that mightnot be
recognized in law, Smith says. Families like Indras are goingto 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 thinkand research showsthese are people who are phenomenal parents, and its 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 otherwhen 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
court and a massive garden that Allison and Geoffrey tend together.
The dads live in one side of the duplex and the moms on the other,
but the homes are connected by a door they built between the boys
bedrooms.
I get the whole house and my parents only get half, Zian
explains of the setup.
As soon as Geoffrey moved to Denver, the parents drew up a
contract and put their values down in writing. Words like simplicity,
sharing and generosity became their mantra.
Simplicity and sharing are part of why we decided to live so
close to each other, so we didnt have two of everything, Indra says.
Generosity has been important as a reminder of how we want to be
with each otherwhen things are hard or in conflict or not going
how we want, we try to be generous with each other.
In the beginning the parents also met monthly with Lynn
Parker, an associate professor in DUs Graduate School of Social
Work.
Theyre an amazing group of people who are very proactive,
Parker says. They wanted a facilitator to help them through vari-
ous issues and help them make conscious plans. They are the most
intentional family I have ever seen, even without my help.
As part of their plans, the parents decided to raise the boys
Catholicand send them to Catholic schoolbut not before calling
around to ask how different schools would deal with a gay family.
Even though the boys school is progressive and does not fall under
the Archdiocese, Indra says it was a careful process for the parents
to decide they were going to align themselves with the Catholic
Church at all.
It was certainly a decision made with a mix of emotions, not
the least of which is a general sense of betrayal by the church and a
sense of not being wantedor actively being excluded, Indra says.
Ultimately, the parents decided that Zian and Eliot would not
only attend Escuela de Guadalupe, but they would go through the
Catholic rituals of baptism and first communion as well. Last year,
Marks dad, a deacon, baptized the boys in a ceremony in which all
of their families took part.
It ended up being the first time that our family was publicly,
ritually affirmed, Indra says. Its definitely not something any of
us imagined or could have seen coming, but here we are, and it feels
right.
Mark, Indra and Allison all were raised Catholic, and Indra
and Allison attend a local Catholic church together. Geoffrey is not
Catholic, but he appreciates the difference the school is making in
his kids lives.
Religion, spirituality and faith are rich things, says Geoffrey,
who likes that his non-Catholic role gives the boys a built-in out-
siders perspective. Theyre learning about community, ethics.
Theyre getting some good human stuff by being in that school.
36 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009
Its academically rigorous, they do exceptional things. The Catholic
package just makes it more complicated and interesting.
Having so many hands on deck has allowed the parents all to
maintain rich careers while making sure theres always someone
around to care for the children and cheer on the sidelines.
Mark is a doctor at Denver Health Medical Center. He also
leads all the HIV prevention work around the city and county, man-
ages a staff of about 30 and is campaigning for the Colorado State
House. Indra works part-time from home as the assistant director of
the Palm Center, a think tank at the University of California, Santa
Barbara.
Allison is a postsecondary coach at Mapleton Public Schools.
As a social worker, she recognized early on how important it would
be for the family to come together to talk. There is a lot to work
out, she says. Couples when there are two people have interper-
sonal relationships to work out. Thats quadrupled with us.
The parents live their lives openly in an effort to be role models
for other nontraditional families and to hopefully squash stereo-
types. Though theyre bracing themselves for a time when Zian and
Eliot meet the cruelty of kids, so far the parents have not seen the
cruelty of adults. Colleagues, teachers, fellow parents and coaches all
have been supportive.
Im always ready for those judgey people with my fists up,
Allison says. When Zian had just started preschool, he came home
with a Mothers Day gift for her, a painted pot. She called the
teacher that night to confront her about why there was only one pot.
Before Allison could say anything, the teacher asked, Oh, did you
get your gift? I was all ready for Zian. I bought two pots. I was ready
to talk to him about his special family and he has two moms and
how special that is and he gets two pots and he said, No, Ill do
one this time and next time Ill do one for Mimi [Indra].
Allison hopes the boys wont come to her one day as adults
and say how crazy or hard it was growing up with four parents, but
its not something she worries about. Instead, she feels very con-
scious of how privileged the boys are to have the attention of four
parents and four sets of grandparents and live in their big house,
and she worries about keeping them grounded. Her hope for them
is pretty simple: that they will do things that make them happy. I
dont know that its anything more complicated than that, she says.
Their family is their family, and the way it complicates their life is
just what they get.
So far, the parents have no regretsnot about the big stuff,
anyway. Like any parents, they second-guess the little things all the
time.
People often ask Geoffrey if he cares if his kids are gay or
straight, and his answer is a resounding no. Its fun to speculate in
any direction for them and their future about career or personality
or identity, but none of that really matters, he says. You just want
them to be who they are.
 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 fadsstreakingduring a Pioneers hockey
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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
Denver-based author Sandra Dallas that
Nevada, Reno, and as chairman of the
department of psychology, in 1955. Robert surprise even her.
also completed a term as dean of the schools The thing Im 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 shes not really their daughter.
Charles Redman
She has her own story. And shes 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 didnt
Courtesy of Sandra Dallas

Missile Range even conceive of before I started writing

federal employee her into it, and now shes 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. historical novels, most of them set in the
American West. Her latest book, Prayers for Sale (St. Martins Press), which came out in

1949 April, was her first to reach the New York Times bestseller list. She celebrated the feat
with her friend Arnie Grossman, a fellow author and DU alum (BA 59).
Joseph Butner
I thought it was spectacular but I wasnt 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. Im very proud of what shes 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 books 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 probationafter 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
Prisonsand 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. Shes 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 magazines 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.

1958
Richard Charlifue (BA 58), a World War
II veteran, was presented with a medallion
from the Commonwealth of the Northern
Mariana Islands. Richard was recognized
for his role in liberating Saipan from the
Japanese in 1944. He resides in Aurora, Colo.
She says she strives for an authenticity her fellow Western authors dont always
achieve.
I try to make my characters true to the time, says Dallas, whose other novels
include Tallgrass and New Mercies. We have what I call the Dr. Quinn, Medicine
Woman syndrome today, where you have 21st century women in long skirts, and they
love Indians and they protect the environment and they stand up to men and theyre
doctors and lawyers. Theyre great role models, but theyre not very accurate.
Greg Glasgow

38 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009

 1960
Robert Lee (MSW
60) of Tigard, Ore.,
recently celebrated
his 50th wedding
anniversary with his
wife, Arlene. Robert
has two children and
four grandchildren.
1961
Mary Lewis (MSW 61) of Houston was
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
2004, but she continues to teach two courses a
year and remains on call for other projects.
1962
Douglas Decker (BS
62) has been selected for
induction into the Energy
Efficiency Forum Hall of
Fame. After graduating
from DU, Douglas started
a 43-year career with
Johnson Control Inc.,
rising to the position of vice president of
government business before retiring in 2001.
He has received a number of awards for his
leadership in promoting energy efficiency. He
resides in Pawleys Island, S.C.
1964
Dona June Murphy (BFA
64) married Robert Murphy
(BA 63, MBA 66) and
has two daughters and two
grandchildren. Dona worked as
an interior designer for the last
45 years. Dona enjoys bridge, golf, reading,
painting and cooking. She resides in Larkspur,
Colo.
Rexford Thompson (MSW 64) and his wife,
Joyce, moved from El Cajon, Calif., to Key
Biscayne, Fla.
1967
Donna Finicle (BA 67, MSW 72) was
recognized as the 2009 outstanding social
worker of Colorados Pikes Peak Region by
the National Association of Social Workers.
She has a small nonprofit, Welcome Home
Warrior, and conducts free military-family
weekend retreats at Golden Bell Camp and
Retreat Center in Divide, Colo. Donna Treva ONeill (MSW 67) worked for the
also established an office in Woodland Park, Illinois Department of Children and Family
Colo., to provide resources, counseling Services and then taught in the social work
and support groups for veterans, service program at Southern Illinois University
members and families. She resides in in Carbondale. Treva has been in private
Woodland Park. practice in the area of labor and family law
since obtaining a law degree in 1981. Shes
Gary McCool (MA 67) received the on the Illinois State Bar Association Family
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
and librarian since 1978. Gary resides in
Rumney, N.J.
Book bin
Possibly no other city in America is as closely identi-
fied with certain types of food as New Orleans. Chicago has
its hot dogs, New York has its pizza, but New Orleans has
gumbo, red beans and rice, trout amandine, crawfish etouf-
fee, beignets and many other popular dishes that have ended
up on menus around the world.
New Orleans Cuisine: Fourteen Signature Dishes and Their
Histories (University Press of Mississippi, 2009), edited and
co-written by Susan Tucker (MA librarianship 73), delves
deep into the citys food culture, devoting each chapter to a
different menu item, from sazeraca cocktail with whiskey,
bitters, anise-flavored liqueur, sugar and a twist of lemonto
turtle soup (the real, not the mock).
In the books 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
Orleanians cook. The 14 dishes are those foods for which the traces of historical documents,
recipes, and other written and oral accounts show how cooking became a hallmark of the city.
Although each chapter includes at least one recipe, New Orleans Cuisine is not a cookbook.
Through chronicling each dish, the writers uncover information on the citys history, geography,
sociology, politics and more.
Consider contributor Cynthia LeJeune Nobles chapter on Oysters Rockefeller, which is full
of historical and social context. The dish was invented by Jules Alciatore, owner of the restaurant
Antoines, in 1899. It was so rich in flavor that Alciatore named it after John D. Rockefeller, one
of Americas richest men. President Franklin Roosevelt tried it in 1937.
But Nobles delves even deeper, informing readers that the French settlers in New Orleans
regarded oysters as inedible until Native Americans introduced them to the bivalves subtle fla-
vors in the mid-1700s.
Indeed, it is New Orleans rich cultural heritage that gave rise to its multitextured signa-
ture dishes. As S. Frederick Starr writes in his foreword, Yes, there were strong influences
from France, the West Indies, and, through them, Africa. But contributions also came from the
Germans, Sicilians, Cubans, Canary Islanders, Croatians and Chinese.
Tuckerwho wrote the books chapter on bread puddingis the curator of books and
records at the Newcomb Center for Research on Women at Tulane University in New Orleans,
where she resides.
Greg Glasgow
University of Denver Magazine Connections 39
 Joyce Revis (BA 67) of Santa Rosa, Calif.,
retired from a medical management position
10 years ago and moved to a retirement com-
munity after the death of her partner last year.
George Stewart (MA 67) published
Yoknapatawpha, Images and Voices: A
Photographic Study of Faulkners County
(University of South Carolina Press, 2009).
The book is a pictorial study of William
Faulkners mythical north Mississippi
county of Yoknapatawpha. George resides in
Decatur, Ga.
1968
Daryl Kosloske (MSW 68) of Winston-
Salem, N.C., retired after 40 years in the
behavioral health field. Most recently, he was
president and CEO of Behavioral Health
Resources Inc. Previously, he was vice
president and executive director of behavioral
health services at Forsyth Medical Center in
Winston-Salem.
Larry Weirather (MA 68) has published
an illustrated biography, Warlord Cowboys
in China: The Fred Barton Story of the Worlds
Greatest Horse Drive (CreateSpace, 2009), that
covers the life of a Montana bronc-buster
and adventurer who canvassed Siberia to site
the worlds largest horse ranch for a Russian
czar. Larry also published a suspense novel,
Tell Me the Night (CreateSpace, 2009), under
the pen name Cara Mitchell. He lives in
Vancouver, Wash.
1969
Charles Daily Jr. (BA 69, MSW 71) has
been ordained as a priest and is the vicar at
St. Johns Episcopal Church in Shawano,
Wis. He also is the chaplain of the Shawano
Community Hospice and the Shawano
Medical Center. Charles lives on a ranch in
Shawano with his wife and enjoys working
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.
Theyre 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 Sheesleys The Fulness of Time
or everyday, but then the longer
you look at the pictures you start realizing that theres 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 Indianas 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 Collegea job he still holds todayhe 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.
Sheesleys 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 whats
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
cant 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.
Theyre very proud to be Pioneers and theyre 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 winners 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
71) retired in 2003 after 31
years with Thiokol Corp.
in Promontory, Utah. He
was the vice president of
engineering and provided
technical direction for
55 successful launches of
the solid rocket motors
for the Space Shuttle. He now volunteers as
the chair of the Brigham City Community
Hospital and on the land use board for the city
of Perry, Utah, where he and his wife, Diane,
reside. They have two daughters and two
grandchildren.
1972
Sara Jones (MSW 72) of Denver worked
for Denver Social Services in child protection
until her son was born. Her son is now
married. She would love to hear from other
Graduate School of Social Work alumni.
Krishen Mehta (MBA
72) recently completed
a 30-year career with
Pricewaterhouse Coopers
spanning offices in Denver,
New York, London and
Tokyo. He was a partner
in international tax and
now is adviser to the Aspen Institutes
Business and Society Program in New York
and the Global Financial Integrity Group
in Washington, D.C., and is on the Asia
Advisory Council of Human Rights Watch.
He resides in New York.
1973
Sheila Hollis (JD 73) chairs Duane Morris
Washington, D.C., office and serves on the
executive committee and partners board.
Gary Means (PhD 73)
is a retired colonel in
the Army Reserves and
former dean of liberal
arts at Colorado State
University at Pueblo.
Gary also was the dean
of continuing education
at California State University in San Marcos
and dean of continuing education and public
service at Georgia Southern University.
Currently he is the provost at Georgia
Southern. He resides in Statesboro, Ga., with
his wife of 34 years.
Camila Alire (MA 74) of Sedalia, Colo.,
recently began her term as 200910 president
of the American Library Association (ALA).
Camila is the chief elected officer of ALA
and a professor for Simmons Colleges PhD
program in managerial leadership. She also
is a professor for the masters in library and
information science managerial leadership
program at San Jose State University.
Richard Berman (PhD 74) retired as
director of Lapeer County Community
Mental Health Center in 2001. He also
retired from his second career as a full-time
faculty member at the School of Social Work
and with the Department of Marriage and
Family Therapy at the University of Nevada-
Las Vegas. Richard and his wife serve as
foster parents for Olive Crest, a nonprofit
agency. Together, theyve fostered 35 infants.
He lives in Henderson, Nev.
Kim Dorwin (MSW 74) began a statewide
volunteer program for troubled youth for
the Virginia Department of Youth Services,
recruiting more than 500 volunteers. Kim
earned a graduate degree in information
technology and managed the installation of
the network for the department of social
services. She resides in Richmond, Va.
University of Denver Magazine Connections 41
 Renae Levin (MA 74) of Greenwood
Village, Colo., is on the board of the Womens
Library Association for DUs Penrose Library.
Renae retired after 25 years of teaching speech
and English administration in Denver public
schools. She enjoys friendship, book clubs,
travel and family functions with her husband
and grandchildren.
1976
Mark Fraser (MSW 76) published a book,
Intervention Research: Developing Social Programs
(Oxford University Press, 2009), which
describes how to design and test program
manuals and protocols. Mark lives in Chapel
Hill, N.C.
Eugene Kotlarek (MBA 76) created and
leads Ideal Gensis Corp., an administra-
tive services company headquartered in
Denver. Eugene is the president of the U.S.
Olympians Associations alumni in Colorado.
He also was a member of the 1960 and 1964
Olympic ski teams and head coach for the
U.S. Olympic ski teams in 1969 and 1970.
Eugene lives in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Team player Lisa Johnson

Wayne Armstrong
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 200809 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: Im still so proud of my guys.
Thats rightshe can call them her guys. As director of basketball administra-
tion 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, shes even gotten a little too close. For two years, Johnsons office was
in the Nuggets locker room.
I was the only woman, and they had to put up curtains, Johnson laughs. It
really wasnt 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.
Were 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, its 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 Ive 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 Im not excited
then maybe thats the time to move on, but it hasnt 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 Im rolling my eyes at
them but theyre 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, hes actually quiet and reserved off-court, she says.
Former Nuggets coaches Doug Moe and Dan Issel are Johnsons close friends, as is Nuggets Hall of Famer Alex English. Theyve always
been a big part of my life, and they continue to be, and thats really nice.
For the Nuggets, theres always next year. And for Johnson, possibly quite a few more.
Theyre my family. The Denver Nuggets have been such a part of my life, she says. I dont want to leave. Ive got too much time invested
in the team.
Kathryn Mayer

42 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009

 1977
Daisy Berl (MSW 77) is a social worker in
Denver, treating couples and families. In her
free time, she plays tennis, hikes and travels to
visit her two children and six grandchildren.
Wendi Harford (BFA 77) of Denver has
displayed her artwork at Denvers Ironton
Gallery.
1978
Robert Warren (PhD 78) of Denver has
been a social worker for 30 years, helping sex
offenders and men who are sexually addicted.
He enjoys spending time with his nine
grandchildren, attending classes at DU and
playing bridge and golf with his friends.
1979
Bill James (MBA 79) of Denver was publicly
elected to the board of directors of the
Regional Transportation District to represent
District A, which includes the DU campus.
Bills interest in RTD was in part generated
by his involvement with Transportation
Solutions, a transportation management
association for which DU is a client.
1980 the real estate team at Fairfield and Woods
M. Kay Teel (MSW 80, PhD 05) of Denver
was appointed assistant professor in the
psychiatry department at the University of
Colorado School of Medicine. Her research
interests include maternal child health and
the development of culturally appropriate
interventions for mothers with infants who are
exposed to alcohol and other drugs.
1981
Catherine Faris (BA 81) has been married
for 23 years to Brian Faris, an architect and
general contractor. She has three children:
Stephen, 22, Sarah, 20, and Francesca, 17.
Catherine is associate vice chancellor for
donor relations and development in university
relations at the University of California-Santa
Cruz. When her children were younger, the
family lived in Italy for a year, and they now
have a home and an olive orchard in southern
Italy. Catherine lives in Santa Cruz, Calif.
1982
Albert Mrozik Jr. (JD 82) is a municipal
court prosecutor for City of Newark, N.J.,
and just transferred to domestic violence
court. Albert resides in Cream Ridge, N.J.
Lee Patton (MA 82)
of Denver published his
second novel, Love and
Genetic Weaponry: The
Beginners Guide (Alyson
Books, 2009). The first
novel in this series,
Nothing Gold Can Stay (Alyson Books, 2000),
was a finalist in the 2001 Lambda Awards.
Nancy Reinisch (MSW 82) recently
published her breast cancer memoir,
Chemosabee: A Triathletes Journey Through the
First Year of Breast Cancer (Novel Road Press,
2008). Nancy, her husband and their two
grown sons live in Glenwood Springs, Colo.
1983 Spring. Cheesman Park was jumping.
Kirk Leggott (BSBA 83, MA 86, JD 86)
recently was appointed as chief information
officer for the North Carolina Industrial
Commission.
Daniel Minzer (JD 83) of Denver joined
P.C. Daniel has been involved with real
estate development projects for more than
25 years. Daniel also is heavily involved in
condemnation and urban renewal issues.
Julie Nagel (MSW 83) of West Hills, Calif.,
works at the Los Angeles County Department
of Children and Family Services in the youth
adoption program. She works with children
who have been in out-of-home care for
multiple years and have lost hope of ever
having a permanent family.
1985
Pam Hurley (MSW 85) of Denver has
worked in neuropsychology treatment, child
and family protective services and hospice.
She also has served as an adjunct for Colorado
State University and for DUs Graduate
School of Social Works Four Corners
Program in Durango, Colo.
Frode Mauring (MIM 85) recently accepted
a position as resident coordinator at the
United Nations in Moscow. Previously, he
was employed as development coordinator for
the United Nations.
Quotable
notes
Thank you to everyone who responded to the
summer issues question of the hour: Which
academic quarter was your favoritefall,
winter, spring or summerand why?
Springknew fellow students better, and
trees and flowers were blossoming.
Renae Levin (MA 74)
Greenwood Village, Colo.
Spring. The campus was so pretty and alive
with flowers and blooming trees.
Lisa Johnson (BA 80)
Centennial, Colo.
Albert Mrozik Jr. (JD 82)
Cream Ridge, N.J.
Summerit was intense yet more relaxed,
and the weather was great. I also didnt work
then.
Sue Eilersten (MSW 91)
Colorado Springs, Colo.
Spring. Although longer, it had the most to
look forward to at its conclusion.
Stuart Fox (BSBA 07)
Englewood, Colo.
1987
Christian Itin (MSW 87, PhD 97) of
Eureka, Calif., recently was promoted to full
professor and granted tenure at Humboldt
State University in California. He directs the
schools masters in social work program and
remains an active scholar in adventure therapy.
Morri Namast (MSW 87) of Denver works
in collaborative divorce, assisting families
in reaching agreements that lead to positive
post-divorce relationships. Morri also is a
singer-songwriter and plays guitar, mountain
dulcimer and African kalimba. He is working
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.

Evangelist Lori Carrell Sarah Neumeier (BSBA 89) received a

They say there are three topics you should
never discuss in polite conversation: sex,
politics and religion.
But Lori Carrell (PhD speech
communication 91) has regular conversations
about Godin front of a television camera.
Carrell hosts Ask God, a weekly
Christian TV talk show. The program, offered
on the Total Living Network, JCTV and other
religious networks, is available to 60 million
Courtesy of Lori Carrell
masters of science in health informatics from
the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. She
lives in Edina, Minn.
1990
Mary Long (MSW 90) is a social worker in
Jackson Hole, Wyo.
Mark Lostak (MBA 90) recently relocated
to Houston from Vienna, Austria, after almost
five years of living abroad. Mark is president
of Air Liquide Industrial U.S. He is married
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.
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 doesnt 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 shell also enter the discussion if of Human Services in Colorado Springs,
she suspects guests are holding back. Colo.
Im 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-
Theres no way in my one life that I can come up with the answer to why theres bility for overall management of the firms
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 well 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
the Arapahoe County Department of Social
Services. She now is a program manager for
Childrens Home Society in Florida. Janis
lives in Lutz, Fla., and enjoys gardening and
spending time with her grandchildren.
1993
Leslie Keffel (PhD 93) was the keynote
speaker at the annual awards reception of
the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of
South Thuringia, held in Suhl, Germany. She
lives in Colorado Springs, Colo.
1994 would not allow for a four-month reunion
Gary Dark (BA 94) is the lead singer of the
bluegrass band Blue Canyon Boys. He lives in
Arvada, Colo.
1995 wore their DU gear.
David McEntire (MA 95, PhD 00) gave up
his position as PhD coordinator in the Public
Administration Department and became
associate dean in the College of Public Affairs
and Community Service at the University
of North Texas. David has received research
grants from FEMA and the University
of North Texas to conduct a comparative
emergency management study. The research
will include the United States, Canada,
Pioneer pics
Robyn (Thomas) Hartmeyer (BA
98, left) and Jordana (Feves) Levenick
(BA 98, right) discovered their love of
geography and the environment through
the environmental science department at
DU. Upon graduation they celebrated their
passion for outdoor adventure by traveling
across the country, exploring as many
national parks as possible in a four-month,
25,000-mile trek. Both graduates now live
in Portland, Ore., with their husbands.
While work, family and responsibilities
tour, they did manage to sneak away for a
long weekend last November, when they
traveled to Redwood National Park and
the southern Oregon coast and proudly
As you pioneer lands far and wide, be sure to pack your DU gear and strike a pose in
front of a national monument, the fourth wonder of the world or your hometown hot spot.
If we print your submission, youll receive some new DU paraphernalia courtesy of the DU
Bookstore.
Send your print or high-resolution digital image and a description of the location to:
Pioneer Pics, University of Denver Magazine, 2199 S. University Blvd., Denver, CO 80208-4816,
or e-mail du-magazine@du.edu. Be sure to include your full name, address, degree(s) and
year(s) of graduation.

Contact us
Tell us about your Name (include maiden name)
career and personal DU degree(s) and graduation year(s)
accomplishments, awards, Address
births, life events or
City
whatever else is keeping
State ZIP code Country
you busy. Do you support
Phone Fax
a cause? Do you have
E-mail
any hobbies? Did you just
return from a vacation? Employer Occupation
Let us know! Dont forget What have you been up to? (Use a separate sheet if necessary.)
to send a photo. (Include a
self-addressed, postage-paid
envelope if you would like Question of the hour: What do you think of DUs efforts to help the environment?
your photo returned.)

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

University of Denver Magazine Connections 45

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

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 werent
willing to do. His college roommateand a fellow member of the Pioneer Leadership Programheard
the argument often, and he used it to make fun of Vaden once on an airport escalator: Mr. Discipline
doesnt 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
Courtesy of Rory Vaden

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
program in which college students relocate for the summer and sell childrens 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 Im going to make sacrifices. If I had never gone through that, theres no way I would have a multimillion-dollar company. Theres 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 Vadens home
in Denver in December 2009.
Vaden now travels the country giving his trademark Take the Stairs speech at conventions and corporate functions.
Its while youre on the stairs thats the fun part, he says. If youre on the escalator, youre not doing anything, not growing, not
changing. Youre being dragged through life. On the stairs, youre moving, learning, failingbut youre getting better.
>> www.disciplinedynamic.com
Jessica Centers Glynn

46 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009

 William Sutton (BA 99) earned his
doctorate in psychology and received his
license last January. He now has a thriving
private practice in San Francisco and San
Rafael, Calif., working with teens, families,
couples and individuals and providing
neuropsychological assessments. William
recently was elected president of the
Association of Family Therapists of Northern
California. He and his wife live in Kentfield,
Calif., and are expecting their first child in
January.
2000
Nancy Barraclough (MSW 00) works as a
manager for the United Kingdoms National
Health Service. She is mother to 1-year-old
Hope and 18-year-old Zach. Nancy enjoys
photography and traveling throughout Europe
with her family. She resides in Portishead,
England.
Brenda Brown (MSW 00) is a psycho-
therapist specializing in clients with
Aspergers syndrome and autism at an
outpatient mental health clinic in Worcester,
Mass. She resides in Sturbridge, Mass.
tis the season
Bookstore www.dubookstore.com
for pioneer spirit!
University of Denver
LaTra Rogers (MSW 00) of Denver received
his PhD in educational and human resource
studies from Colorado State University. LaTra
works as an assistant professor of social work
at Metropolitan State College of Denver.
Listiani Wijaya (MACC 00) is an
entrepreneur and business consultant in
Semarang, Indonesia.
2001
Sarah Kick (MA 01) is the outreach
coordinator in the Latin American, Caribbean
and Iberian studies program at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison. Sarah is responsible
for coordinating events sponsored by the
program.
SJ Purcell (MSW 01) is the clinical manager
at Shiloh Home, a treatment center for
neglected and abused boys. She lives in
Littleton, Colo.
Michael Schneider (MA 01) is president
of McPherson College. He resides in
McPherson, Kan.
Shop for all your holiday gifts
at www.dubookstore.com
or call 800-289-3848.
2002
Jeb Bennett (MSW 02) of Boulder, Colo.,
has been working since graduation on
the intensive adult outpatient team at the
Mental Health Center Serving Boulder and
Broomfield Counties. Jeb also has a small
private practice specializing in addictions
treatment that hes planning to expand soon.
Christi Fuller (BBA 02) works for
ValueCheck Inc., a company that provides
data and software solutions for the banking
and real estate industry. Of the companys
15 employees, five went to DU, including
founders Steve Belmear (BSBA 88, MBA
90) and Tom Kammer (BSBA 89). Christi
resides in Castle Rock, Colo.
Bryan Walpert (PhD 02) has published
his first collection of poetry, Etymology
(Cinnamon Press, 2009). Bryan teaches
creative writing at Massey University in
Palmerston North, New Zealand.
Regular Store Hours
MondayThursday: 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
University of Denver Magazine Connections 47
 2004
Noel Cassidy (MSW 04) of Denver is
employed as a licensed clinical social worker
for Denver Health and Hospital Authority
and is working on her doctorate in pharmacy
through Creighton University.
Ian Ivarson (BSBA 04) of San Francisco
is the founder of Ivar, a company that
manufactures and sells ergonomic backpacks.
Class notes challenge: 2004
A lot can happen in five years, and we want to catch up with as many of you as we can.
Your classmates want to hear from you, too! What have you been up to? Share career and
family news, discuss your travels and hobbies, or reminisce about your time at DU.
You can post your note online at www.alumni.du.edu, e-mail du-magazine@du.edu, or
mail in the form on page 45. Class of 04 notes will appear in the summer issue. Well randomly
select a prizewinner from all entries received by March 1.

George Pennock (MBA 04) recently

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

Deaths 1960s
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

1940s 1970s
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 Womens 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 du-magazine@du.edu or mail in the form on page 45.

2006 2008 Sal Quintana (JD

Danni Bultemeier (MSW 06) is married,
has a 2-year-old daughter named Charlotte
and works full-time as a fee-for-service
outreach clinician south of Boston. Danni
hopes to work with refugees and victims of
political persecution and trauma in the future,
as well as in social welfare policy. She resides
in Attleboro, Mass.
Juli Bunyak (BM 06) won first place in the
Denver Lyric Opera Guild Competition for
her soprano performance. Juli received an
award of $6,000 from the Galen and Ada
Belle Spencer Foundation. She is studying at
Northwestern University in Chicago.
Cody Medina (BM 06) won third
place in the Denver Lyric Opera Guild
(DLOG) Competition for his bass-baritone
performance. Cody was awarded $4,250
from Stasia Davison and DLOG members.
Cody is studying at Indiana University in
Bloomington with professor Timothy Noble.
Hilary Mills (MSW 06) works in mental
health at the VA Community Based Outpatient
Stephanie Hackett (MA 08, MSW 08) 09) of Denver is
of Denver is employed by the City of now one of three
Aurora office of emergency management. immediate family
Stephanie is a member of the North Central members to have
Regional Special Needs Committee, where graduated from DU.
she works to better educate vulnerable Estrella Quintana
populations and caregivers on how to prepare (BBA 09) would
for natural and man-made disasters. She is like to focus on a
Auroras emergency management specialist, career in finance or
focusing on citizen outreach and volunteer accounting. Gilbert Quintana (MSW 75)
management among other local and regional is retired after a long and successful career
efforts. in social work and management. Sal would
like to start his law practice in corporate,
Paul Tontz (PhD 08) received his transactional or litigation law.
commission in the United States Navy
Reserves as an METOC Ensign. He will be Brittany Wiser (BA
stationed in San Diego. 09) has been selected
as Miss Montana 2009.
Brittany will travel to
2009 Las Vegas in January
Philip Del Vecchio III (MA 09) of Glendale, 2010 for the Miss
Colo., is a sports psychology consultant. He America competition.
recently hosted a free sports psychology clinic This year, she has
for baseball coaches, parents and players at been traveling through
the senior center in Longmont, Colo. Montana speaking on
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 3749 of this
Volunteers of America in a womens
substance abuse residential treatment issue. Send your answer
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-
Stuart Fox (BSBA 07) married Katie 4816. Be sure to include
Barabe (BA 07, MA 09) on May 30, 2009, your full name and
at Evans Memorial Chapel on the DU mailing address. Well
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
Matt Slaby (JD 07) of Denver is a a prize courtesy of the
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
issues pop quiz.

University of Denver Magazine Connections 49

 ANNOUNCEMENTS
Get Involved
DU Photography Department
Mentoring Join the Pioneer Connections
Mentoring Program and start mentoring a DU
student today. Contact Cindy Hyman at alumni@
du.edu for details.
Local Chapters Just moved to a new city and
dont know anyone? Need to expand your profes-
sional network? Want to attend fun events and
make new friends, or reconnect with old ones? Join
a local alumni chapter: Atlanta; Boston; Chicago;
Dallas; Minneapolis/St. Paul; New York; Phoenix;
and Washington, D.C. To find out how you can get
involved, call the Office of Alumni Relations at 800-
871-3822 or visit www.du.edu/alumni.
On the Web
Annual Report DUs 200809 Annual Report is
online at www.du.edu/annualreport.
Alumni Symposium More than 250 alumni
participated in the third annual Alumni Symposium
Oct. 2 and 3. See photos online at www.flickr.com/
photos/uofdenver.
Mark Your Calendar
Newman Center Presents The 200910
Newman Center Presents series continues this win-
ter and spring with performances by the Vanguard
Jazz Orchestra (Jan. 15), the Russian National
Orchestra (Feb. 24), the Martha Graham Dance
Company (April 20) and more.
>>www.du.edu/newmancenter
Dads and Granddads Weekend Fathers and
grandfathers of current students are invited to cam-
pus for events and lectures Feb. 19 and 20.
>>www.du.edu/studentlife/parents
DU on the Road Find out what your alma mater
has been doing since you left. See if DU is coming to
a city near you.
>>www.du.edu/alumni
Contact us
University of Denver Magazine
2199 S. University Blvd.
Denver, CO 80208-4816
du-magazine@du.edu
303-871-2776
50 University of Denver Magazine Winter 2009
Lifelong Learning
OLLI DUs Osher Lifelong Learning Institute is a
membership program designed for men and women
age 55 and better who wish to pursue lifelong
learning in the company of like-minded peers.
Members select the topics to be explored and share
their expertise and interests while serving as facili-
tators and learners.
>>universitycollege.du.edu/olli
Enrichment Program Noncredit short courses,
lectures, seminars and weekend intensives explore
a wide range of subjects without exams, grades or
admission requirements.
>>universitycollege.du.edu/learning/ep
Nostalgia Needed
Please share your idea for nostalgic topics we could
cover in the magazine. Wed love to see your old DU
photos as well.
Pioneer Generations
How many generations of your family have attended
DU? If you have stories and photos to share about
your familys history with DU, please send them our
way!
Calling All Experts
Were trying to get to know our alumni better while
developing possibilities for future articles. Please
send us your ideas. We would especially like to hear
about readers who:
a re graduates of DUs art programs
are working (or former) journalists, especially
those working in new media
work in the food and beverage industry
are working/serving in Iraq or Afghanistan
were DU Centennial scholars
served in the Peace Corps
served in AmeriCorps
Alumni Connections
Pioneer Alumni Network Join other Denver-
area alumni for networking events each month.
>>www.alumni.du.edu
Stay in Touch
Online Alumni Directory Update your contact
information, find other alumni and bookmark
your alumni friends and classmates. You may also
read class notes and death notices. Online class note
submissions will automatically be included in the
University of Denver Magazine.
>>www.du.edu/alumni.
 Family Pass Buddy Pass Savings
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Connections 51
 Miscellanea
Invitation only
DU Archives

Given to DU Archivist Steve Fisher by a local postcard collector who found it at this years 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 presidents Denver visit, he gave two speeches on Oct. 3, 1911one 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