2009 June: Community News

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Inside • Korbel ranking • Budding scientists • Groff goes to D.C. • French bistro • Energy sleuths

Barry Gutierrez

• Mathematical art

Graduation Glee

University of Denver graduate Don Tousaint smiles at his family during the May 16 Sturm College of Law graduation ceremony in Magness Arena. Tousaint was among the 292 new lawyers who joined an estimated 12,000 living DU law alumni. Terrance Carroll (JD ’05), speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives, told the new class of graduates that although they enter the professional world at a time of great challenge and uncertainty, it will be up to them to carry on and ensure that everyone gets a fair chance. Read more Commencement coverage at www.du.edu/today.

After this issue, Community News will no longer be available in a print format. Beginning July 1, the monthly newsletter will be published online only. Go to www.du.edu/today for daily news; click on “Community News” to read, download or e-mail a PDF version of the newsletter. An archive of back issues is available online as well. Please e-mail us at [email protected] or write to us — Community News, 2199 S. University Blvd., Denver, CO 80208 — to let us know what you think of the change.

DU law professor Erik Bluemel dies in bicycle accident DU’s Sturm College of Law community is mourning the loss of Assistant Professor Erik Bluemel, who died May 6 from injuries suffered in a bicycle accident. Bluemel came to DU last fall for the 2008–09 academic year. He taught courses in administrative, environmental and indigenous peoples law. His research interests included environmental federalism, climate governance, international administrative law, and environmental rights. Bluemel held a law degree from New York University, a master’s of law from Georgetown University Law Center, and a bachelor’s degree in political economy from the University of CaliforniaBerkeley. Before coming to DU, he clerked for Judge Barefoot Sanders in the Northern District of Texas and Judge Kermit Edward Bye in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. He also served as a staff attorney and teaching fellow at Georgetown University Law Center’s Institute for Public Representation. “We have all lost a wonderful colleague, teacher and friend,” says Law Dean José (Beto) Juárez Jr. “I know that the College of Law community will continue to show their support for Erik’s family as we go through this unimaginable period. Please keep Erik’s family in your thoughts and prayers. Erik’s family and parents have drawn from the great support and love of the College of Law community.” The Denver Police Department reports that Bluemel was involved in a bicycle accident shortly after midnight on Tuesday, May 5, along 15th Street in Denver’s Lower Downtown district. A memorial service for Bluemel was held May 30 in Arcadia, Calif. Donations in his memory can be made to Rails To Trails Conservatory (www.railstotrails.org) or Keystone Conservation (www.keystoneconservation.us/keystone_conservation/). —Chase Squires

Korbel School ranked 12th in the world, survey says A DU master’s program in the Josef Korbel School of International Studies was recently ranked 12th in the world. Foreign Policy magazine released a survey in its March–April issue that ranked Korbel’s professional master’s program among the top 20 PhD, master’s and undergraduate programs. “While I am pleased to have the Josef Korbel School ranked among the world’s top 15 and among the top four west of the Boston-New York-D.C. corridor, I will never be satisfied until we are number one,” says Tom Farer, dean of the Korbel School. In the master’s listing, the Korbel School tied for 12th with Yale University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of California-San Diego. The Korbel School ranked ahead of schools such as Stanford University and the University of Pittsburgh. “For the first time, the Foreign Policy survey asked respondents to rank all of the international studies master’s programs in the world. Previously, only U.S. schools had been ranked,” says Farer. “Moreover, I am convinced that in terms of the intrinsic quality of the professional education we provide, an education intensely responsive to individual needs and passions, and in terms of the competitiveness of our graduates, we have few equals.” The biennial survey was conducted by researchers at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va. —Laura Hathaway

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Relay for life More than 270 students and other community members raised just over $20,000 for the American Cancer Society in DU’s fifth annual Relay for Life event May 8–9. During the 12-hour event, participants walked to celebrate cancer survivors and honor those the disease has claimed. Every year, more than 3.5 million people participate in Relay for Life events across the country.

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Volume 32, Number 9 Vice Chancellor for University Communications

Carol Farnsworth

Publications Director

Chelsey Baker-Hauck (BA ’96) Managing Editor

Kathryn Mayer (BA ’07) Art Director

Craig Korn, VeggieGraphics Community News is published monthly — except July, August and December — by the University of Denver, University Communications, 2199 S. University Blvd., Denver, CO 80208. The University of Denver is an EEO/AA institution. Periodicals postage paid in USPS #015-902 at Denver, CO. Postmaster: Send address changes to Community News, University of Denver, University Advancement, 2190 E. Asbury Ave., Denver, CO 80208.

Contact Community News at 303-871-4312 or [email protected] Printed on 10% PCW recycled paper

Wayne Armstrong

Blockbuster roles credits, signals Noodles and Company’s DU neighborhood debut Broomfield-based Noodles & Company is preparing to open a new restaurant in an East Evans Avenue location previously occupied by a Blockbuster video store. Blockbuster stopped renting DVDs and other items on April 20. The departure clears the way for Noodles to finalize lease arrangements and to see about renovations to the property. “We’re moving forward with it,” says Matt Wagner, communications manager for Noodles. “As far as I know, we are looking at an opening date somewhere between the middle of September to the middle of November.” The move would be part of a flurry of Noodles restaurant openings, some 20 of which are expected to begin operations in 2009, Wagner said. Presently, the chain has 36 stores in Colorado and 207 nationwide. “This is one of our most anticipated sites for 2009. And we’re not looking to slow down in 2010,” Wagner says. “We’re one of the shining stars of these unique economic times.” Among reasons for the company’s success was sewing up credit before the recession hit, Wagner says. The new Noodles restaurant at 1737 E. Evans Ave. will be similar to the company’s other stores, Wagner says. The restaurant boasts “fresh, wholesome, balanced, fast” Asian, American and Mediterranean dishes for about six or seven dollars. Also on the drawing board is a 15–20 person outdoor patio on the east side of the building. The patio has been in place since the location operated as Chesapeake Bagel in 1996, but permission to use it ended when the bagel store left. On April 7, the Denver Board of Adjustment granted a variance to property owner Robert Wiss for an awning, lighting and seating appropriate to outdoor dining. The approval removed an obstacle to Noodles leasing the premises.

When first-year DU science students signed up for Professor Buck Sanford’s newest class, they really signed up for something bigger: a real-life probe into global warming. For their class lab work, students measured tree buds as leaves emerged this spring. Then they uploaded weekly findings into global databases being assembled for scientists to study today and for decades into the future. “These measurements really do matter,” Sanford warned his students as they prepared for their first day of data collection. “The data you collect will be studied by a global community of scientists, a community that you are now part of.” Sanford says scientists around the world are studying records of bud development to see if global warming is affecting how early tree leaves emerge. With an army of 180 students taking his labs in the spring quarter, and DU’s collection of trees in the campus-wide arboretum, the University has an opportunity to deliver a valuable snapshot of activity in Denver every spring. Every tree on campus is tagged with a number, so students in future generations can find the exact same tree today’s students are studying. Each student selected a bud on a tree and tagged the area so the same bud could be revisited. Then, for the next five weeks, students measured their selected bud three times a week and charted its growth as a leaf emerged and started to grow. Students joined in a campaign called Project BudBurst, which gathers data in a scientific field called phenology — the study of the influence of climate on annual natural events, such as plant budding and bird migration. They registered on a Web site and uploaded their data, which was then made available to scientists around the world. Sanford says some of the earliest reliable records of plant cycles dates back to 700 AD, data carefully collected year after year for centuries on the Japanese cherry tree cycles. Sanford says his class didn’t push any one theory of global warming. Rather, it tested the hypothesis that something is altering the life cycle of plants around the world.

—Richard Chapman

—Chase Squires

Professor Buck Sanford and students measure tree buds as part of Project Budburst, a real-life probe into global warming.

When homework isn’t homework, it’s research

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Groff takes on job in Obama administration Peter Groff’s final days as president of the Colorado state senate were spent working on a flurry of last-minute bills and preparing for his move to Washington, D.C. At the same time, the executive director of DU’s Center for New Politics and Policy — formerly the Center for African American Policy — also wrapped up his teaching commitments in the University’s Institute for Public Policy Studies. On April 10, President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan appointed Groff director of faith-based and community initiatives in the U.S. Department of Education. He began work May 11, just five days after the end of the annual four-month gathering of state legislators.
 
 “I came to DU 12 years ago not really knowing what Chancellor Ritchie had in mind, but the center really evolved over time,” says Groff. “I’ll really miss the classroom because I enjoyed the interaction with students.”
 The center’s evolution included the launch of the BlackPolicy.org Web site. In addition, Groff and center co-director Charles Ellison — based in Washington, D.C. — began the Groff/Ellison political report. The two also collaborate on a political radio series on Sirius/XM satellite radio. The Center for New Politics and Policy will be suspended until Groff returns from Washington, D.C., although he readily admits he doesn’t know when that will be. “I’ll be there at least three-anda-half years,” says Groff noting that the timing coincides with the end of the president’s first term. In the Department of Education, Groff will help empower faith-based and community groups, enlisting them in support of the department’s mission to ensure equal access to education and to promote educational excellence. Groff moved to Washington immediately after the state legislature ended its work. Groff was appointed Colorado’s sixth African-American state senator in February 2003 and was elected to a full term on Nov. 2, 2004. In January 2005, he was elected the body’s first African-American president pro tem. He was the third African-American in the nation’s history to hold the post of state senate president. Groff began his career in state politics after being elected to the Colorado House of Representatives in 2000. —Jim Berscheidt

Alumnus rolls up burritos and rolls out nutrition and value In an industry where success is measured by inches in the grocery-store freezer aisle, entrepreneur Phil Anson (BA communications ’00) has managed to increase his company’s dimensions without sacrificing quality. Last year, Phil’s Fresh Foods, Anson’s Boulder-based burrito company, increased its revenues by 33 percent — doing $1.6 million in sales — and received $96,000 from the Whole Foods Local Producer Loan Program. The loan will help Anson meet his 2009 goals and expand the company’s manufacturing facility to 5,000 square feet. But while Anson wants Phil’s Fresh Foods to become the leading burrito manufacturing company in the country, he also wants the frozen fare to remain nutritional and affordable. “We want to redefine the burrito category. That means bridging the gap between made-from-scratch food and large-scale food manufacturing,” says Anson. Phil’s Fresh Food makes its burritos with natural ingredients — sourced from local vendors when possible — and assembles them by hand. The most popular of the 10 varieties, which sell for about $2.50, include chicken red chili, veggie fajita and chorizo sausage breakfast. Like his burritos, Anson’s business began simply. Anson hoped to start a career as a photojournalist after college but instead found himself working nights at a restaurant in Denver while living in Eldorado Springs, Colo. Bored with that routine Anson decided to try funding his modest lifestyle by selling handmade burritos to fellow rock climbers. Although these initial attempts failed, Anson landed his first wholesale account with the Eldorado Corner Market. Now, eight years after the idea was born, Phil’s Fresh Foods sells burritos in 1,500 mostly natural food stores across the country and in the cafeterias of Jefferson County and Boulder Valley school districts. “Phil is an operations genius,” says Justin Gold, owner of Justin’s Nut Butter, another Boulder-based natural food company. “He can pull logistical challenges together and make them seem easy because he is an amazing listener and he has an ability to ask the right questions.” This logistical mastery has enabled Anson to stay true to his original intent even as he endeavors to increase production. “The focus of our business is made-from-scratch cooking, so we pay a lot of attention to detail,” says Anson. “I want to return some integrity to the frozen food section.” —Samantha Stewart

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Voila Vert!

Alums go together like wine and cheese in new Wash Park bistro

Wayne Armstrong

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t may have taken a jaunt across the Atlantic Ocean for Noah Stephens (BA art history ’05) and Emily Welch (BA international studies ’06) to cross paths, but when they did, the alums formed a friendship over food. The two met in Paris after they graduated from DU. Both were attending culinary school. After they finished, they returned home — Stephens to Minnesota and Welch to San Francisco — to work at restaurants. But Stephens wanted to bring European-style cuisine to the Denver area. He bought a space in the West Washington Park area, oversaw construction for eight months, went antiquing every day for a month to create the right atmosphere and asked Welch to join in the project. Voila! Vert Kitchen, located at 704 S. Pearl St., opened in February 2009. With just 13 seats and about 750 square feet, the location is small but ideal, the owners say. “We really wanted to be a part of this community,” Stephens says. It’s fairly easy to see the French influence of the shop. The décor evokes a small Parisian bistro and their food is “most definitely” influenced by traditional French cuisine, they say. Their sandwich choices are a bit out of the box: Their turkey sandwich (their most popular item) has figs, chevre and pine nuts; a skirt steak sandwich includes arugula and walnut mustard; and a lemon tuna confit features albacore, chervil, cucumber and Greek yogurt. Their personal favorite, they say, is the tortilla Española, a classic Spanish dish. “We’re still working on getting that recipe as authentic as possible,” Welch says. Stephens handles day-to-day operations while Welch is in charge of ordering the food. Vert has just one other employee, so most of the work rests on the pair’s shoulders. Hours are 9 a.m.–6 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday. “It’s all been fun,” Stephens says, adding that he’s forgotten all about the hard parts of managing a business. “When a customer’s plate comes back completely clean, that’s when I’m happiest.” A new food business in a slow economy? Their survival lies in their lunch specialty, they say. “With the economy the way it is now, it’s better to spend $15 at lunch for a good meal than an expensive dinner,” Welch says. A gourmet sandwich in a European atmosphere makes it more of an experience and less like a rushed lunch, she says. Sandwiches top out at $10 (and average around $9); salads, soups and sides are anywhere from $3–$9. Vert, which means green in French, also signals their desire to keep their business organic. “You have to put love in your food,” Stephens explains. For them, love means using fresh, local, organic food. “It’s better for the environment,” Welch adds. “It’s important to me. I don’t like to eat chemicals in my food.” —Kathryn Mayer

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Energy efficiency

Campus energy sleuths shed light on saving power

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hen it comes to sleuthing out clever ways to save electricity in a giant building, Allen Wilson is every bit the detective Sam Spade is. Maybe better. Spade, the hero of Dashiell Hammett’s famous novel The Maltese Falcon, unraveled the riddle of the black bird. Wilson unraveled the lighting systems in Hamilton gym, Gates Fieldhouse and Joy Burns Arena and saved the University more than $121,000 a year in power costs. Wilson, director of building services, also helped dent power costs at Ritchie by replacing the base beneath the Joy Burns ice arena with concrete, which takes less power to freeze. He also refitted the arena’s lights with energy-efficient bulbs. Now he’s working on a way to rig Magness Arena so its high-wattage bulbs won’t have to remain lit while crews are cleaning the arena or converting it to other uses. It’s one more way to save money and reduce carbon emissions. It isn’t always easy. The Ritchie Center, for example, is a 440,000-square-foot recreation and sports showcase that’s also DU’s third-biggest energy gobbler. Keeping it humming costs around $1.1 million a year. “You’ve got two sheets of ice and 750,000 gallons of water heated to 81 degrees in the pool,” Wilson says. “Everything we do is just trying to reduce the consumption already programmed into the building.” So every bit of energy savings counts. Take Hamilton Gymnasium, for example. Until the lighting was refitted, the facility was illuminated by 116 individual 1,000-watt metal halides bouncing light off the ceiling about 20 hours a day. The hot lights blazed even when the gym wasn’t in use, in part because halide lights take about 30 minutes to cool down before they can be turned back on. So Wilson and campus energy director Tom McGee figured out how to get the same illumination from fixtures with high-efficiency T5 fluorescent lights. The fluorescents had plenty of light for athletics and TV broadcasts, used less power, and turned on and off with a flick. They also set the lights at half-strength for all uses except games and installed infrared motion detectors. If there’s no activity on a court for 10 minutes, the lights turn off. Walk onto the court and the lights return, no power-up required. “We halved [energy use] on the initial install,” Wilson says, “then we halved it again because we’re running only half-light most of the time.” The old halide bulbs also generated heat. When they went away so did the heat, meaning the building’s cooling system didn’t have to work as hard. Completion of DU’s new soccer stadium, conditioning complex and art annex will add to the mechanical load, Wilson and McGee concede. And the art annex has a good amount of interior air space that will need to be heated and cooled. That keeps Wilson at the drawing board, seeking out new ways to conserve power. Cutting back temperatures at night or zoning areas of buildings might work, he suggests. Or maybe a geothermal system, which pumps heat from the earth into buildings in winter and heat from the buildings into the ground in summer. “Geothermal has some merit,” he says, “but it takes a lot of space.” Solar is hot right now, he adds, but it won’t catch on until the systems can provide enough benefit to justify their cost, especially for tax-exempt entities like DU. Wind is nifty, McGee says, but fickle. Which leaves the energy detectives quietly hunting for ways to save watts by asking a lot of questions. Magness Arena and El Pomar pool are the next targets. “The answer for our campus,” Wilson points out, “is to do a little bit of a lot of things.” —Richard Chapman

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Mathematical art It all adds up to art for DU math professor

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ometimes a mathematical formula can be so perfect, so elegant, those who understand it might call it art. Other times, a mathematical formula actually creates art. DU mathematics professor Stan Gudder (pictured) has seen the beauty in math since the 1960s, plugging instructions and formulas into graphics programs to create artwork of startling beauty. His work reflects an otherworldly blend of bright colors, angular lines and perfect arches and curves — all created by variables plugged into complex instructions. “I really can’t draw, but it is art,” Gudder says. “Instead of a brush, I use a computer.” While he doesn’t call himself an artist, his work says otherwise. A gallery in his Denver home is filled with mind-bending images, and it’s hard to imagine each started with a series of numbers and xs and ys that a computer interprets. “I’m usually surprised at what I see once we put all those into the computer,” he says. “Sometimes, I don’t like it. But I’m always interested.” Gudder got his artistic start in the 1960s, when his work required stacks of punch cards to enter a program that instructed a room-sized computer to move a stylus to create images. Today, he uses a large, commercial printer hooked to a home computer in his basement gallery. It’s been a lifelong passion, even leading him to pen a book on the topic in the 1970s. Gudder’s first-year seminar class, Mathematical Art, shows students how mathematical instructions that start out as “Shadowplot 3D (Sin [x2] Cos [y2] , (x, -2, 2) …” create a strange, brightly colored image on a computer screen. First-year communications major Jamie D’Angelo of Denver seems a quick study, manipulating Gudder’s equations on her computer screen, deftly creating new images by tweaking variables and substituting values into formulas. “It’s not exactly what I had thought it would be,” D’Angelo says. “But I’m remembering a lot of math that I haven’t done in years, and that’s a good thing.” Gudder, who offers the seminar to non-math majors, says the trick is to teach a math course without making it seem like a math course. Gary Greenfield, a professor of computer science and mathematics at the University of Richmond, edits the Journal of Mathematics and the Arts. He says the combination of math and art is a complicated marriage viewed differently by artists. As he points out, some use mathematics to create art, and some find artistic inspiration in mathematics. It’s all about finding a creative outlet. “Regardless of how you categorize it, or which kinds of art or artists are included,” Greenfield says, “in my opinion the reason the imagery exhibited often has such widespread public appeal — even though it is often disdained or ignored by the established art culture — is because we humans are instinctively drawn to order, symmetry, regularity, geometry, pattern, etc.” “We see mathematics all around us, even in nature,” Gudder says. “Perhaps that’s why some of my art looks like it reflects a natural scene. You just have to look for it.” —Chase Squires

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[Events] June

6 International Youth Ballet’s Peter Pan. 12:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Gates Concert Hall. Additional performances June 7 at 12:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. $21.

12 Louder than Words Dance Theatre:

“Tensegrity.” 8 p.m. Byron Theatre. Additional performance June 13 at 8 p.m. $22.

15 Heart and Soul Benefit Concert

featuring Acoustic Eidolon and Fiesta Colorado Dance Company. 7 p.m. Gates Concert Hall. $30.

21 Lamont Summer Pre-College

Academy. Through July 5. Visit www. du.edu/lamont/comm_precollege.html for information or contact cglen@indiana. edu.

25 Rocky Mountain Conservatory

Theatre’s Peter Pan. Noon and 6 p.m. Margery Reed Hall Little Theatre. Additional performances June 26 at noon and 6 p.m. and June 27 at noon and 5 p.m. Visit RMCTonline.com for tickets and information.

Exhibits 1 2009 BFA Exhibition. Runs through June 6. Myhren Gallery. Free. Gallery hours: 8 a.m.–6 p.m. Monday–Friday.

Kari Lennartson. Through June 27.

Hirschfeld Gallery, Chambers Center. Free. Gallery hours: 8 a.m.–6 p.m. Monday–Friday.

Around Campus 1 Justice and Peace Praxis: Pedagogy

of Privilege. 9 a.m. Also June 2. $25. Contact Phil Campbell at 303-765-3116 or [email protected].

5 Graduate Commencement Ceremony. 5 p.m. Magness Arena.

6 Undergraduate Commencement

Ceremony. 10 a.m. Magness Arena.

10 Disney Keys to Excellence Program.

For information and to register, visit www. KeysDenver.com.

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Alum gets his diploma 58 years late Lloyd Hightower isn’t the typical graduate you’d see representing the Class of 2009. For one, he’s 87. Plus, Hightower finished his DU business degree in 1951. But 58 years later, Hightower finally has a diploma to prove it. Hightower received the diploma during a ceremony at his Denver home on May 16. Daniels College of Business Professor Barbara Kreisman presented Hightower his diploma in front of his cheering family. Hightower, though, was shocked. The whole thing was a surprise. “It bloomed from a little family gathering but turned into a big family reunion,” daughter Patty Matson says, adding that her father thought it was a gathering to celebrate his 87th birthday. Hightower’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren flew in from across the country to watch him receive the diploma. Hightower attended DU on the GI Bill after he returned home from World War II. But in February 1951, he was called up as a pilot for the Korean War, months short of graduation. He finished his finals with correspondence courses, “but I lost contact with them, and they lost contact with me, so I never got my degree.” Until now. “Everybody hummed ‘Pomp and Circumstance’ as I walked out to the backyard, attired in my doctoral cap and gown,” Kreisman says. “Lloyd just stood there, in front of about 25 people, and was totally stunned. We had him slip into the gown, then I draped the hood over his shoulders and everybody clapped.” After receiving a matted and framed diploma — a BS in business management — Hightower took off his cap and tossed it in the air. “It was the biggest surprise of my life,” Hightower says. The fact that he never received a physical diploma has never been lost on him. “He really wanted a diploma,” Matson says (pictured hugging her father). “He mentioned it all the time.” Enough times that Matson decided it needed to happen, so she called DU early this year and got the diploma a couple months ago. Now, though, the “family joke” is over, Hightower says. “When I moved back to Denver [from Missouri] with my wife in 1977, DU would send me these publications in the mail, or cards asking about donations. I thought, ‘They can find me for donations and all that, but not for my degree,’” he laughs. He’s probably prouder than most graduates this year. “He was absolutely thrilled,” Matson says. “I’m very grateful for the education I received, and I got to expand on my knowledge of aviation,” says Hightower, a retired pilot. “It only took me about 60 years to get my degree,” he says. “But I have it.”

Wayne Armstrong

Arts

—Kathryn Mayer