2009 August: Community News

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NEIGHBORHOOD LIFE

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EVENTS

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PEOPLE

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Inside • Marriage research • NHL draft • Speech master • Archive collection

Wayne Armstrong

• C hina lecture

A hard-knock life Rocky Mountain Conservatory Theatre (RMCT) participants perform Annie Jr. on July 16. Participants of the children’s day-camp theater program performed Peter Pan earlier this summer. The DU camp — founded three years ago by theater professor Anthony Hubert and his wife, Jamie Roehrig-Hubert — has been nominated by Nickelodeon’s Parent Picks’ Awards in the categories of best day camp and best theater camp for kids. The results will be published online Aug. 17 at http://gocitykidsconnect.com. RMCT will offer youth acting and dance classes on campus this fall. >>rockymountainconservatorytheatre.com

Steve Fisher, DU special collections curator, will give a slide show and present his book University Park and South Denver Aug. 19, 7:30 p.m., at the Tattered Cover Lodo. The book is part of Arcadia Publishing’s Images of America series. It shows page after page of the history of DU and its environs, most notably the University Park neighborhood and former town of South Denver. The book is available for purchase at the DU bookstore.

iStockphoto

Study shows couples who live together before engagement are more likely to struggle DU researchers have found that couples who live together before they are engaged have a higher chance of getting divorced than those who wait until they are married to live together, or at least wait until they are engaged. In addition, couples who lived together before engagement and then married reported a lower level of satisfaction in their marriages. The research, which appears in the Journal of Family Psychology, was conducted by Galena Rhoades, senior researcher, Scott Stanley, research professor, and Howard Markman, professor of psychology. “We think that some couples who move in together without a clear commitment to marriage may wind up sliding into marriage partly because they are already cohabiting,” Rhoades says. “It seems wise to talk about commitment and what living together might mean for the future of the relationship before moving in together, especially because cohabiting likely makes it harder to break up compared to dating,” Stanley says. The three researchers also studied the reasons couples decide to live together. That study, which appeared in the Journal of Family Issues, shows that most couples chose to live together in order to spend more time together. The second most popular reason is convenience, followed by testing the relationship. This is different than previous research that found most people cohabit to test the relationship. “Cohabiting to test a relationship turns out to be associated with the most problems in relationships,” Rhoades says. “Perhaps if a person is feeling a need to test the relationship, he or she already knows some important information about how a relationship may go over time.”

DU is one of the top

schools Jews choose, according

to Reform Judaism, the world’s largest circulated Jewish magazine. In the magazine’s third annual Insider’s Guide to College, DU is ranked No.

Incoming recruits William Wrenn and Drew Shore highlighted the University of Denver’s three selections in the 2009 National Hockey League Entry Draft at Bell Centre in Montreal. Wrenn, of Anchorage, Alaska, and Shore, of Denver, were both selected in the second round. Wrenn was selected No. 43 overall by San Jose, while Shore was picked No. 44 by Florida. Wrenn is the third highest DU draft selection since 1994. Paul Phillips, of Darien, Ill., was selected No. 195 in the seventh round by Chicago. The Pioneers will have a school-best 13 NHL draft picks on their roster in 2009–10. The total surpasses the 11 NHL draft picks DU had in 2006–07. Joe Colborne  of Calgary, Alberta, went No. 16 to Boston and Patrick Wiercioch of Maple Ridge, British Columbia, went No. 42 to Ottawa in the 2008 NHL Entry Draft. Former Pioneer and current Colorado star Paul Stastny was selected No. 44 in 2005. Wrenn and Shore starred for the United States National Developmental Team Program Under-18 Team last season in Ann Arbor, Mich. Wrenn served as team captain and recorded 17 points while Shore tallied 49 points. Shore and Wrenn helped Team USA to gold medals at the IIHF World Under-18 Championship, Five Nations Cup and Four Nations Cup in 2008–09. The remaining Pioneers that have been drafted include: Brian Gifford, Pittsburgh Penguins; Rhett Rakhshani, New York Islanders; Matt Donovan, New York Islanders; John Lee, Florida Panthers; Tyler Ruegsegger, Toronto Maple Leafs; Marc Cheverie, Florida Panthers; Jesse Martin, Atlanta Thrashers; and Matt Glasser, Edmonton Oilers.

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—Athletics Media Relations

28 for the

top private schools Jewish students select.

20 percent of DU’s

undergraduate student population is Jewish, and there are

5 Jewish

organizations on campus, according to DU’s Hillel organization.

—Kristal Griffith

Pioneers selected in NHL draft

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Volume 32, Number 11 Vice Chancellor for University Communications

Carol Farnsworth

Editorial Director

Chelsey Baker-Hauck (BA ’96) Managing Editor

Kathryn Mayer (BA ’07) Art Director

Craig Korn, VeggieGraphics Community News is published monthly by the University of Denver, University Communications, 2199 S. University Blvd., Denver, CO 80208. The University of Denver is an EEO/AA institution.

Contact Community News at 303-871-4312 or [email protected] To receive an e-mail notice upon the publication of Community News, contact us with your name and e-mail address.

Speaking success

Alum models life, business after taking the stairs

Courtesy of Rory Vaden

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ven as a student at the University of Denver, Rory Vaden talked to people incessantly about how to be successful. The key, he said, was self discipline. To be successful, you had to do the things other people weren’t willing to do. His college roommate — and a fellow member of the Pioneer Leadership Program — heard the argument often, and used it to make fun of Vaden once on an airport escalator: “Mr. Discipline doesn’t even take the stairs,” he said. “After I smacked him,” Vaden jokes, “I thought there was something about that that really resonated with me, that simple decision every day between taking the stairs or an escalator.” The 26-year-old has since earned his MBA from DU, won second place in the World Championship of Public Speaking, co-founded a multi-milliondollar company that puts on motivational sales training conferences for people by the thousands, and grown his own personal brand: Take the Stairs. He’s even in the midst of a “Take the Stairs World Tour” —  climbing the 10 tallest buildings on the globe — and anticipating the release of his book, Take the Stairs. As it turns out, the joke that became Vaden’s motto is really a metaphor for his whole life. Vaden was raised by a single mom in a trailer park outside of Boulder. While other kids played video games, he practiced martial arts and became a black belt by the age of 10. In high school, he studied instead of going to parties, and the work paid off in the form of a Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship to DU. He spent his free time at the library, meeting with professors participating in the Pioneer Leadership Program and AUSA Senate. And when he was a freshman, another student recruited him to the Southwestern Co. internship program in which college students re-locate for the summer and sell children’s books door to door for commission. He spent that first summer break in Montgomery, Ala., getting thousands of doors slammed in his face. “It would have been easier for me to go home and be a lifeguard, but that would have been the escalator,” Vaden says. “Taking the stairs means I’m going to make sacrifices. If I had never gone through that, there’s no way I would have a multi-million-dollar company. There’s no way companies would have me come and speak to them. I would have no right.” He made $17,000 that summer and came back to DU to recruit a team of students for the following year. The next summer, Vaden’s team of 22 was the most successful in Southwestern’s history, with 800 campuses participating worldwide. He took home $65,000. Back at school, he continued to recruit and grow his business while taking 18 credit hours each quarter. He started speaking publicly about self discipline at high schools, colleges and youth groups and joined a Toastmasters club to further hone his skills. After being accepted into DU’s dual-degree program — enabling him to earn his bachelor’s degree and MBA in five years — he used his graduate classes to write a business plan for a motivational conference venture he was planning to pursue under the Southwestern banner with two other veterans of the internship program. In June 2006 he graduated, became the youngest person to ever make the top-10 of the Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking and moved to California to co-found the business Success Starts Now (SSN). Later that summer, 750 people came to the first SSN conference. In 2007, Vaden returned to the World Championship of Public Speaking, where he came in second. To prepare, he spoke 304 times in 18 months for free. Today, SSN has two teams that put on conferences all over the country for as many as 1,000 people at a time. Many of those attendees become clients of the company’s core individual sales training and consulting business. Meanwhile, Vaden travels the country giving his trademark Take the Stairs speech at conventions and corporate functions. “It’s while you’re on the stairs that’s the fun part,” he says. “If you’re on the escalator, you’re not doing anything, not growing, not changing. You’re being dragged through life. On the stairs, you’re moving, learning, failing — but you’re getting better.” >>www.takethestairs.wordpress.com —Jessica Centers

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[Events] August

Arts 12 Elyse Ader, viola. Senior recital.

7:30 p.m. Hamilton Recital Hall. Free.

14 Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Byron Theatre. 7 p.m. $23.50. Additional performances August 15 and 22 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. and August 21 at 7 p.m. Magness Arena. $28-$60.

Around campus 8 BrewGrass Festival. 10-band

musicfest. Noon. South Pearl Street. $5. For information, call 303–734–0718 or go to www.oldsouthpearlstreet.com.

14 Summer Commencement. 9 a.m.

Carnegie Green. Tickets not required. For more information, visit www. du.edu/commencement

16 University Neighbors’ Sweet

Summer Social. 4 p.m. DeBoer Park, South Vine Street and Harvard Avenue. For more information, call Liz Ullman at 303–733–1442.

Lecture theme announced James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, will be the first speaker in the 2009–10 Bridges to the Future series. Titled China Rising, the three-lecture series focuses on China and its role in the world. Fallows—who has worked for the magazine for more than 25 years—has written about national security policy, American politics, the development and impact of technology, economic trends and patterns, and U.S. relations with the Middle East, Asia and other parts of the world. Fallows’ lecture is scheduled for 7 p.m. Sept. 21 in the Robert and Judi Newman Center for the Performing Arts (2344 E. Iliff Ave). All Bridges to the Future events are free and open to the public, but RSVPs are required. RSVPs will be accepted in mid-August at www. du.edu/bridges or by calling 303–871–2357. —Kristal Griffith

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The family of former DU Professor Edwin Sears has donated a collection of his archival papers to Penrose Library. The gift includes numerous items relating to a number of World War II-era events and people, including the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, the Nuremburg trials and Albert Einstein. Andrea Sears-Van Nest, Sears’ daughter, has already turned over most of the collection, which appraised for about $25,000, to Penrose’s special collections and archives. The entire collection will be turned over in time. Growing up, Sears-Van Nest had a vague idea about her father’s role in world events. But after her mother, Vera Sears, died in 2008, she found boxes of photographs, newspaper clippings, journals and letters that shed light on her parents’ past. “My husband and I were sitting here with mouths open; it was just so tremendous,” Sears-Van Nest says. “My father died when I was so young and my mother was mum about everything.” The collection includes documents from the Reich Director describing the assassination plot of Hitler by Colonel Claus Graf von Stauffenberg and others, as depicted in the recent Hollywood movie Valkyrie. The collection also includes Sears’ correspondence with Albert Einstein. Sears had been a secretary for Einstein at the University of Berlin in the late 1920s. The letters show that while Einstein wanted to help the Sears family immigrate to the United States, he could not financially sponsor another family. However, Einstein put the Searses in touch with an attorney in New York who did sponsor the family’s move to the U.S. Other documents in the collection include papers from the Nuremburg trials. Edwin Sears was also drafted into the U.S. Army to help prosecute war criminals. “I encourage people my age to talk and discuss their parents’ history with them,” SearsVan Nest says. “Be curious and take pride in it.” Edwin Sears studied law at the University of Berlin, where he met Vera. The two married just before it became illegal for Vera, who was a gentile, to marry Edwin, who was Jewish. The two lived in Berlin while Edwin completed his law degree and then became a professor of law at the University of Berlin. In 1939, he was forced to leave because he refused to sign a pledge of loyalty to Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party. Edwin Sears was a professor of law at the University of Denver from 1943 until 1951. Nancy Allen, dean of Penrose Library, says the collection will support research across campus, including DU’s Holocaust Awareness Institute, the Korbel School of International Studies and the Carson-Brierly Dance Library collection. —Kristal Griffith

Wayne Armstrong

28 Mixed Martial Arts. 7:30 p.m.

Penrose collection tells extraordinary family story