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Korbel ranking

Budding scientists

Groff goes to D.C.

French bistro

Energy sleuths

Mathematical art

Inside

UNIVERSITY OF DENVER 0 6 . 2 0 0 9

[C A M P U S | N E I G H B O R H O O D L I F E | R E S E A R C H A R T S | E V E N T S | P E O P L E

]

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.

Graduation Glee

BarryGutie

rrez

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DU law professor Erik Bluemel dies in

bicycle accident

DUs Sturm College o Law community

is mourning the loss o Assistant Proessor Erik

Bluemel, who died May 6 rom injuries suered in

a bicycle accident.

Bluemel came to DU last all or the 200809

academic year. He taught courses in administrative,

environmental and indigenous peoples law.

His research interests included environmental

ederalism, climate governance, international

administrative law, and environmental rights.

Bluemel held a law degree rom New York

University, a masters o law rom Georgetown

University Law Center, and a bachelors degree in

political economy rom the University o Caliornia-

Berkeley. Beore coming to DU, he clerked or

Judge Bareoot Sanders in the Northern District o

Texas and Judge Kermit Edward Bye in the Eighth

Circuit Court o Appeals. He also served as a

sta attorney and teaching ellow at Georgetown University Law Centers Institute or PublicRepresentation.

We have all lost a wonderul colleague, teacher and riend, says Law Dean Jos (Beto)

Jurez Jr. I know that the College o Law community will continue to show their support or

Eriks amily as we go through this unimaginable period. Please keep Eriks amily in your thoughts

and prayers. Eriks amily and parents have drawn rom the great support and love o the College

o Law community.

The Denver Police Department reports that Bluemel was involved in a bicycle accident

shortly ater midnight on Tuesday, May 5, along 15th Street in Denvers Lower Downtown

district. A memorial service or Bluemel was held May 30 in Arcadia, Cali. 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 masters program in the Jose Korbel School o International Studies was recently

ranked 12th in the world.

Foreign Policy magazine released a survey in its MarchApril issue that ranked Korbels

proessional masters program among the top 20 PhD, masters and undergraduate programs.

While I am pleased to have the Jose Korbel School ranked among the worlds top 15 and

among the top our west o the Boston-New York-D.C. corridor, I will never be satised until

we are number one, says Tom Farer, dean o the Korbel School.

In the masters listing, the Korbel School tied or 12th with Yale University, the Massachusetts

Institute o Technology and University o Caliornia-San Diego.The Korbel School ranked ahead o schools such as Stanord University and the University

o Pittsburgh.

For the rst time, the Foreign Policy survey asked respondents to rank all o the international

studies masters programs in the world. Previously, only U.S. schools had been ranked, says

Farer. Moreover, I am convinced that in terms o the intrinsic quality o the proessional education

we provide, an education intensely responsive to individual needs and passions, and in terms o

the competitiveness o our graduates, we have ew equals.

The biennial survey was conducted by researchers at the College o William and Mary in

Williamsburg, Va.

Laura Hathaway

www .du . edu / t od a y

Volume 32, Number 9

Vice Chancellor for UniversityCommunications

Carol Farnsworth

Publications DirectorChelsey Baker-Hauck (BA 96)

Managing EditorKathryn Mayer (BA 07)

Art DirectorCraig 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 Universityof Denver is an EEO/AA institution. Periodicalspostage 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.

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2

Relayfor life

More than 270

students and other community

members raised just over $20,000

or the American Cancer Society

in DUs fth annual Relay or

Lie event May 89. 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

or Lie events across the country.

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3

Blockbuster roles

credits, signals Noodles

and Companys DU

neighborhood debut

Broomeld-based Noodles & Com-

pany is preparing to open a new restau-

rant in an East Evans Avenue locationpreviously occupied by a Blockbuster

video store.

Blockbuster stopped renting DVDs

and other items on April 20. The

departure clears the way or Noodles

to nalize lease arrangements and to see

about renovations to the property.

Were moving orward with it, says

Matt Wagner, communications manager

or Noodles. As ar as I know, we are

looking at an opening date somewhere

between the middle o September to the

middle o November.

The move would be part o a furry

o Noodles restaurant openings, some 20

o which are expected to begin operations

in 2009, Wagner said. Presently, the

chain has 36 stores in Colorado and 207

nationwide.

This is one o our most anticipated

sites or 2009. And were not looking to

slow down in 2010, Wagner says. Were

one o the shining stars o these unique

economic times.

Among reasons or the companyssuccess was sewing up credit beore the

recession hit, Wagner says.

The new Noodles restaurant at

1737 E. Evans Ave. will be similar to the

companys other stores, Wagner says.

The restaurant boasts resh, wholesome,

balanced, ast Asian, American and

Mediterranean dishes or about six or

seven dollars.

Also on the drawing board is a 1520

person outdoor patio on the east side o

the building. The patio has been in place

since the location operated as ChesapeakeBagel in 1996, but permission to use

it ended when the bagel store let. On

April 7, the Denver Board o Adjustment

granted a variance to property owner

Robert Wiss or an awning, lighting and

seating appropriate to outdoor dining.

The approval removed an obstacle to

Noodles leasing the premises.

Richard Chapman

When homework isnt homework, its research

When rst-year DU science students signed up or Proessor Buck Sanords newest class, they

really signed up or something bigger: a real-lie probe into global warming.

For their class lab work, students measured tree buds as leaves emerged this spring. Then theyuploaded weekly ndings into global databases being assembled or scientists to study today and o

decades into the uture.

These measurements really do matter, Sanord warned his students as they prepared or

their rst day o data collection. The data you collect will be studied by a global community o

scientists, a community that you are now part o.

Sanord says scientists around the world are studying records o bud development to see i

global warming is aecting how early tree leaves emerge. With an army o 180 students taking

his labs in the spring quarter, and DUs collection o trees in the campus-wide arboretum, the

University has an opportunity to deliver a valuable snapshot o activity in Denver every spring.

Every tree on campus is tagged with a number, so students in uture generations can nd the

exact same tree todays students are studying. Each student selected a bud on a tree and tagged the

area so the same bud could be revisited. Then, or the next ve weeks, students measured thei

selected bud three times a week and charted its growth as a lea emerged and started to grow.Students joined in a campaign called Project BudBurst, which gathers data in a scientic eld

called phenology the study o the infuence o 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. Sanord says some o the earliest reliable records

o plant cycles dates back to 700 AD, data careully collected year ater year or centuries on the

Japanese cherry tree cycles.

Sanord says his class didnt push any one theory o global warming. Rather, it tested the

hypothesis that something is altering the lie cycle o plants around the world.

Chase Squire

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

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4

Groff takes on job in Obama administration

Peter Gro s nal days as president o the Colorado state senate were spent working on a furry

o last-minute bills and preparing or his move to Washington, D.C.

At the same time, the executive director o DUs Center or New Politics and Policy ormerly

the Center or Arican American Policy also wrapped up his teaching commitments in the Universitys

Institute or Public Policy Studies.

On April 10, President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan appointed Gro director o

aith-based and community initiatives in the U.S. Department o Education. He began work May 11

just ve days ater the end o the annual our-month gathering o 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 Gro. Ill really miss the classroom because I enjoyed the

interaction with students. The centers evolut ion included the launch o the BlackPolicy.org Web site

In addition, Gro and center co-director Charles Ellison based in Washington, D.C. began the

Gro/Ellison political report. The two also collaborate on a political radio series on Sirius/XM satellite

radio.

The Center or New Politics and Policy will be suspended until Gro returns rom Washington

D.C., although he readily admits he doesnt know when that will be. Ill be there at least three-and

a-hal years, says Gro noting that the timing coincides with the end o the presidents rst term.

In the Department o Education, Gro will help empower aith-based and community groups

enlisting them in support o the departments mission to ensure equal access to education and to promote educational excellence.

Gro moved to Washington immediately ater the state legislature ended its work.

Gro was appointed Colorados sixth Arican-American state senator in February 2003 and was elected to a ull term on Nov. 2, 2004. In

January 2005, he was elected the bodys rst Arican-American president pro tem. He was the third Arican-American in the nations history to

hold the post o state senate president. Gro began his career in state politics ater being elected to the Colorado House o Representatives in

2000.

Jim Berscheid

Alumnus rolls up burritos and rolls out nutrition and value

In an industry where success is measured by inches in the grocery-store reezer aisle, entre-

preneur Phil Anson (BA communications 00) has managed to increase his companys dimensions

without sacricing quality.

Last year, Phils Fresh Foods, Ansons Boulder-based burrito company, increased its revenuesby 33 percent doing $1.6 million in sales and received $96,000 rom the Whole Foods Local

Producer Loan Program.

The loan will help Anson meet his 2009 goals and expand the company s manuacturing acil-

ity to 5,000 square eet.

But while Anson wants Phils Fresh Foods to become the leading burrito manuacturing com-

pany in the country, he also wants the rozen are to remain nutritional and aordable.

We want to redene the burrito category. That means bridging the gap between made-rom-scratch ood and large-scale ood manuactur

ing, says Anson.

Phils Fresh Food makes its burritos with natural ingredients sourced rom local vendors when possible and assembles them by hand

The most popular o the 10 varieties, which sell or about $2.50, include chicken red chili, veggie ajita and chorizo sausage breakast.

Like his burritos, Ansons business began simply.

Anson hoped to start a career as a photojournalist ater college but instead ound himsel working nights at a restaurant in Denver while living

in Eldorado Springs, Colo. Bored with that routine Anson decided to try unding his modest liestyle by selling handmade burritos to ellow rockclimbers.

Although these initial attempts ailed, Anson landed his rst wholesale account with the Eldorado Corner Market. Now, eight years ater the

idea was born, Phils Fresh Foods sells burritos in 1,500 mostly natural ood stores across the country and in the caeterias o Jeerson County

and Boulder Valley school districts.

Phil is an operations genius, says Justin Gold, owner o Justins Nut Butter, another Boulder-based natural ood company. He can pull logisti-

cal 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 ocus o our business is made-rom-scratch cooking, so we pay a lot o attention to detail, says Anson. I want to return some integrity

to the rozen ood section.

Samantha Stewar

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5

It may have taken a jaunt across theAtlantic Ocean for Noah Stephens(BA art history 05) and Emily Welch

(BA international studies 06) to cross

paths, but when they did, the alumsformed 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 a

704 S. Pearl St., opened in February

2009.

With just 13 seats and abou

750 square feet, the location is smal

but ideal, the owners say.

We really wanted to be a part of

this community, Stephens says. Its

fairly easy to see the French influence

of the shop. The dcor 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 Espaola, a classic Spanish dish.

Were 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 pairs shoulders.

Hours are 9 a.m.6 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday.

Its all been fun, Stephens says, adding that hes forgotten all about the hard parts of managing a business. When a customers plate

comes back completely clean, thats when Im 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, its 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.

Its better for the environment, Welch adds. Its important to me. I dont like to eat chemicals in my food.

Kathryn Maye

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

WayneArmstrong

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6

When it comes to sleuthing out clever ways to save electricity in a giant building, Allen Wilson is every bit the detective Sam Spade isMaybe better.Spade, the hero of Dashiell Hammetts 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 arenas lights with

energy-efficient bulbs.

Now hes working on a way to rig Magness Arena so its high-wattage bulbs

wont have to remain lit while crews are cleaning the arena or converting it to

other uses. Its one more way to save money and reduce carbon emissions.

It isnt always easy.

The Ritchie Center, for example, is a 440,000-square-foot recreation and

sports showcase thats also DUs third-biggest energy gobbler. Keeping it humming

costs around $1.1 million a year.

Youve got two sheets of ice and 750,000 gallons of water heated to 81degrees 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 wasnt 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 aluses except games and installed infrared motion detectors. If theres 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 were 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 buildings cooling system didnt have to work as hard.

Completion of DUs 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 wont 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 Chapma

Energy efciencyCampus energy sleuths shed light on saving power

iStockphoto

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7

Sometimes a mathematical formula can be so perfect, so elegant, those who understand it might calit 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. Hiswork reflects an otherworldly blend of bright colors, angular lines and perfect arches and curves all

created by variables plugged into complex instructions.

I really cant draw, but it is art, Gudder says. Instead of a brush, I use a computer.

While he doesnt call himself an artist, his work says otherwise. A gallery in his Denver home is filled

with mind-bending images, and its hard to imagine each started with a series of numbers and xs and ys

that a computer interprets.

Im usually surprised at what I see once we put all those into the computer, he says. Sometimes,

dont like it. But Im 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. Its been a lifelong passion, even leading him to pen a book on the topic in the 1970s.Gudders 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 DAngelo of Denver

seems a quick study, manipulating Gudders equations on her

computer screen, deftly creating new images by tweaking variables

and substituting values into formulas.

Its not exactly what I had thought it would be, DAngelo says.

But Im remembering a lot of math that I havent done in years, and

thats a good thing. Gudder, who offers the seminar to non-mathmajors, 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. Its 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 thats why some of my art looks like it reflects a

natural scene. You just have to look for it.

Chase Squires

Mathematical artIt all adds up to art for DU math professor

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EventsJune

[ ]Arts

6 International Youth Ballets Peter Pan.12:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Gates ConcertHall. Additional performances June 7 at12:30 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 FiestaColorado Dance Company. 7 p.m.Gates Concert Hall. $30.

21 Lamont Summer Pre-CollegeAcademy. Through July 5. Visit www.du.edu/lamont/comm_precollege.html forinformation or contact cglen@indiana.edu.

25 Rocky Mountain ConservatoryTheatres Peter Pan. Noon and6 p.m. Margery Reed Hall Little Theatre.

Additional performances June 26 at noonand 6 p.m. and June 27 at noon and5 p.m. Visit RMCTonline.com for tickets

and information.

Exhibits

1 2009 BFA Exhibition. Runs through June6. Myhren Gallery. Free. Gallery hours: 8a.m.6 p.m. MondayFriday.

Kari Lennartson. Through June 27.Hirschfeld Gallery, Chambers Center.Free. Gallery hours: 8 a.m.6 p.m.MondayFriday.

Around Campus

1 Justice and Peace Praxis: Pedagogyof Privilege. 9 a.m. Also June 2. $25.Contact Phil Campbell at 303-765-3116or pcampbell@iliff.edu.

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

6 Undergraduate CommencementCeremony. 10 a.m. Magness Arena.

10 Disney Keys to Excellence Program.For information and to register, visit www.KeysDenver.com.

8

Alum gets his diploma 58 years late

Lloyd Hightower isn

the typical graduate you

see representing the Clas

o 2009.

For one, hes 87. Plus

Hightower nished his DU

business degree in 1951.

But 58 years later, High

tower nally has a diploma to

prove it.Hightower received the

diploma during a ceremony

at his Denver home on May 16. Daniels College o Business Proessor Barbara Kreis-

man presented Hightower his diploma in ront o his cheering amily.

Hightower, though, was shocked. The whole thing was a surprise.

It bloomed rom a little amily gathering but turned into a big amily reunion,

daughter Patty Matson says, adding that her ather thought it was a gathering to cel

ebrate his 87th birthday. Hightowers children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren

few in rom across the country to watch him receive the diploma.

Hightower attended DU on the GI Bill ater he returned home rom World War II

But in February 1951, he was called up as a pilot or the Korean War, months short o

graduation. He nished his nals 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 ront o

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.

Ater receiving a matted and ramed diploma a BS in business management

Hightower took o his cap and tossed it in the air.

It was the biggest surprise o my lie, Hightower says.

The act that he never received a physical diploma has never been lost on him.

He really wanted a diploma, Matson says (pictured hugging her ather). 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 amily joke is over, Hightower says.

When I moved back to Denver [rom Missouri] with my wie in 1977, DU would

send me these publications in the mail, or cards asking about donations. I thought, They

can nd me or donations and all that, but not or my degree, he laughs.

Hes probably prouder than most graduates this year. He was absolutely thrilled,

Matson says.

Im very grateul or the education I received, and I got to expand on my knowl

edge o aviation, says Hightower, a retired pilot.

It only took me about 60 years to get my degree, he says. But I have it.

Kathryn Maye

WayneArm

strong