University of Denver
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| University of Denver | |
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| Motto: | "Pro Scientia et Religione" ('For Science and Religion' or 'Knowledge and Spirit') |
| Established: | 1864 |
| Type: | Private |
| Endowment: | $291,000,000 (2007) |
| Chancellor: | Robert D. Coombe |
| Undergraduates: | 5,311 (2007) |
| Postgraduates: | 5,806 (2007) |
| Location: | Denver, Colorado, USA |
| Campus: | Suburban |
| Colors: | Crimson & Gold |
| Nickname: | Pioneers |
| Mascot: | Ruckus (Red-tailed Hawk) |
| Website: | www.du.edu |
The University of Denver (DU), founded in 1864 is the oldest private university in the Rocky Mountain Region. The University of Denver is a coeducational, four-year university in Denver, Colorado. DU currently enrolls approximately 11,117 students, about equally divided between graduate and undergraduate programs. The 125-acre main campus is a designated arboretum and is located primarily in the University Neighborhood,[1] about seven miles (11 km) south of downtown Denver.
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[edit] Background and rankings
The University was founded in 1864 as Colorado Seminary by John Evans, the former Territorial Governor of Colorado, who had been appointed by US President Abraham Lincoln. Evans, who also founded Northwestern University prior to founding DU, is the namesake of the town in Illinois named "Evanston" (the site of the Northwestern campus) as well as Mount Evans, a 14,000+ foot mountain visible from the DU campus. The reverse initials "DU" are used as the University's shorthand moniker (rather than the more intuitive "UD") as part of a Rocky Mountain and midwestern tradition of initial reversal, similar to the University of Colorado's "CU", the University of Tulsa's "TU", the University of Nebraska's "NU", the University of Oklahoma's "OU" and the University of Kansas' "KU."
The 'Colorado Seminary' was founded as a Methodist institution, and struggled in the very early years of its existence. By 1880, the Colorado Seminary had been renamed the University of Denver. The first buildings of the University were located in downtown Denver in the 1860s and 1870s, but concerns that Denver's rough-and-tumble frontier town (the city was founded in 1858) atmosphere was not conducive to education prompted a new campus (today's campus) to be built on the donated land of potato farmer Rufus Clark, some seven miles south of the downtown core. The University grew and prospered alongside the city's growth, appealing primarily to a regional student body prior to World War II. After the war, the large surge in GI bill students pushed DU's enrollment to over 15,000 students, the largest the university has ever been, and helped to spread the university's reputation to a national audience.
In 2005, Denver selected former provost Robert Coombe as its new Chancellor, succeeding Chancellor Daniel L. Ritchie.
DU is one of the top private universities in the Western United States and ranked in the top 100 nationally according to U.S. News and World Report. The nationally ranked Daniels College of Business is a significant undergraduate and graduate drawing card. The Josef Korbel School of International Studies is one of the top International Studies schools in the nation, and has been ranked by Foreign Policy Magazine in the top 10 of all masters programs in the United States. The Sturm College of Law is consistently ranked in the top 100 law schools by U.S. News and World Report, and has one of the top environmental and tax law programs in the country. The Graduate School of Professional Psychology and the Graduate School of Social Work are also highly ranked in the nation.
Profile of the average accepted undergraduate student in 2007:
- Age: 18
- Gender: 52% of applicants are female; 48% of applicants are male
- GPA: 3.63
- SAT score: 1212
- Domestic applicants: 41% from Colorado; 59% from other states
- International applicants: 5.2%
- Domestic students of color: 15% of applicants
[edit] Campus
The heart of the campus has a number of historic buildings. The longest-standing building is University Hall, which has served DU since 1890. Evans Chapel, an 1870s vintage small church which was once located in downtown Denver, was relocated to the DU campus in the 1960s, and Buchtel Tower (1913), which is all that remains of the former Buchtel Chapel, which burned in 1983. The administrative offices are located in the Mary Reed Building, a former library built in 1932 in the collegiate gothic style.
Under the leadership of former Chancellor Daniel Ritchie (now Chairman of the Denver Center for Performing Arts), about $500 million in capital improvements have taken place in the last decade and the learning inside these new buildings has improved in the same period, as admissions selectivity and rankings have improved dramatically.
In autumn 2003, DU opened a new 63.5 million USD facility for its College of Law, what was later named the "Sturm College of Law." The building includes a three-story library with personal computers accessible to students. Donald and Susan Sturm, owners of Denver-based American National Bank, had given $20 million to the University of Denver College of Law. The gift is the largest single donation in the 112-year history of the law school and among the largest gifts ever to the University.
The Daniels College of Business was completed in September 1999 at the cost of $25 million dollars. The business school has been nationally recognized by such prestigious organizations such as Forbes magazine, Business Week, and the Wall Street Journal where it is ranked 7th in the nation for producing students with high ethical standards.[2]
Additionally, the University also recently opened the acclaimed $75 million Newman Center for the Performing Arts, which houses the acclaimed Lamont School of Music. The center includes a 1,000 seat, four-level opera house with the finest acoustics in the region, a 250-seat recital hall with the largest (3,000 pipes) natural organ in the region, and a 300-seat flexible theatre space. The Newman Center serves as home to many professional performing arts groups as well as University performing arts events.
[edit] Student body and academics
In addition to their traditional undergraduate programs, the University of Denver is home to the following colleges:
- University College, online and evening programs for working adults
- The Women's College, for non-traditional undergraduate students
- Daniels College of Business
- Josef Korbel School of International Studies
- Graduate School of Professional Psychology
- Graduate School of Social Work
- Morgridge College of Education
- School of Engineering and Computer Science
- Sturm College of Law
- Lamont School of Music
- The Ricks Center for Gifted Children
DU has long been known as a school with an affluent, upper-middle class student body, with around 60 percent of the undergraduate student body coming from outside the state of Colorado. Diversity has picked up at DU in many aspects. The school has also attracted a considerable portion of international students and has been transforming itself into one of the top private universities in the United States that combines small classes with university level resources, all in a young, vibrant and beautiful area of the country. The graduate programs represent over half of the total enrollment, with a more local, professional focus. The university operates on a quarter or sometimes known as trimester academic calendar; comprising of three academic quarters lasting 10 weeks per each quarter. This academic system is often praised by the students in their ability to take a wider variety of classes each year.
The experiential learning components of all the classes at DU gives students the chance to excel beyond book knowledge. Believing firmly in the value of an experience abroad, the Cherrington Global Scholars program offers every undergraduate the chance to study abroad at no cost above normal DU tuition, room and board. DU has more than 60 percent of its undergraduate student body study abroad before graduation, placing it second in the nation among all doctoral and research institutions in percentage of undergraduate students participating in study abroad programs .
The art and music scene of DU is currently on the rise due to the recent construction of the Newman Center for the Performing Arts. This building houses both the Lamont School of Music and the DU Theatre Department. The Lamont School of Music is a structured conservatory setting which allows students to focus on their talents in a competitive manner. The theatre department, reestablished in 1985, is currently being transformed into a nationally competitive theatre school. Recently, their show "Henry the VI part iii" was selected as one of the best in the region was considered for national recognition. For the second straight year, a DU show has been held for regional honors.
With the recent addition of more faculty members and renovation beginning on Margery Reed Hall, the Theatre Department has become a magnet for theatre students in the region. Much of the faculty have many professional connections with local theatre companies (Curious, DCPA), as well as contacts in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and many other regions, providing students with many available options for internships and quick job placement.
The University was the first in the country to establish what has continued to be an innovative and internationally recognized Digital Media Studies program, organized as a joint venture between the departments of Mass Communications and Journalism Studies, Art, and Computer Science. DMS faculty and students are currently working on an NSF-funded video game design and development initiative aimed at increasing interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in select Denver high schools.
Recently, the University of Denver Sturm College of Law has also undergone an internal renaissance. In 2003, the University of Denver ATLA trial team won the national championship in New Orleans, taking Harvard's title from the previous year. It has consistently been ranked as a top 80 tier 1 law school in the US News rankings.
The Institute for Public Policy Studies (IPPS) boasts two former Colorado Governors as teaching faculty. Richard Lamm was joined in January 2007 by Bill Owens, further establishing DU's IPPS as the premier graduate public policy program in the Rocky Mountain West region of the country.
Denver is one of the few schools in the US that personally interviews every undergraduate applicant (with interviews in more than 25 cities per year), ensuring that most accepted students will find that the University is very interested in the person, not just the applicant's credentials. The Hyde interview is named after an influential DU professor, Ammi Hyde, and most students describe the process as insightful rather than painful, so the interview should not be considered a deterrent for prospective students who are nervous that they will not perform well. Further information can be found at the Ammi Hyde interview page.
The University has recently established an Undergraduate Research Center. This Center provides funding for the Partners in Scholarship program, offering students the opportunity to work directly with a faculty member over the course of a quarter or over the summer. The student may design the research project with the faculty member's approval or may work with a faculty member on an existing research project, thus affording students an opportunity for close mentorship and relationship-building that strengthens the student's overall learning experience. Annual conferences on campus highlight student research efforts
The Ricks Center For Gifted Children is a private school on campus of DU that teaches preschool through 8th grade. It was founded and is currently directed by Norma Hafenstien.
[edit] Athletics
DU's athletic teams are known as the Denver Pioneers and the school has been fielding intercollegiate teams since 1867. Denver is a full NCAA Division I member, best known as a major power in winter sports. Ice hockey is DU's flagship spectator sport, with 7 NCAA titles including back to back crowns in 2004 and 2005, and regularly selling out the new 6,000 seat Magness Arena on campus, the showpiece of the Ritchie Center for Sports and Wellness. Skiing is another strong sport at Denver, with 19 NCAA titles (more than any other school) including the most recent in 2008 and as well as three consecutive NCAA titles from 2001 to 2003. DU has also seen success in both their golf and tennis programs, as well as the women's gymnastics team. The DU men's and women's lacrosse teams have been at the top of their divisions, and attract a large growing lacrosse hub to Denver and Colorado. The men's lacrosse team has made it to the NCAA tournament twice in its history, losing both times in the first round to the University of Maryland.
[edit] Fight Song
The fight song for the University of Denver is Fairest of Colleges. The lyrics are:
- D-rah! E-rah! N-rah! V-E-R Boom.
- Denver, our Denver,
- We sing to thee,
- Fairest of colleges,
- Give her three times three,
- Rah, rah, rah!
- Long may we cherish her
- Faithful and true.
- University of Denver
- For me and you.
[edit] Chancellors
Chancellors of the University of Denver[1]:
- David Hastings Moore (October 1880-June 1889)
- William Fraser McDowell (1890-June 1899)
- Henry Augustus Buchtel (December 1899-September 1920)
- Heber Reece Harper (November 1922-January 1927)
- Frederick Maurice Hunter (July 1928-September 1935)
- David Shaw Duncan (September 1935-March 1941)
- Caleb Frank Gates (March 1941-November 1943)
- Ben Mark Cherrington (November 1943-February 1946)
- Caleb Frank Gates (February 1946-August 1947)
- James F. Price (April-October 1948)
- Alfred Clarence Nelson, interim (October 1948-November 1949)
- Albert Charles Jacobs (November 1949-March 1953)
- Chester M. Alter (August 1953-July 1966)
- Maurice Bernard Mitchell (September 1967-March 1978)
- Ross Pritchard (October 1978-January 1984)
- Dwight Morrell Smith (January 1984-July 1989)
- Daniel L. Ritchie (July 1989-June 2005)
- Robert D. Coombe (July 2005-present)
[edit] Notable Alumni
[edit] Politics, Government and Military
- Condoleezza Rice, Current U.S. Secretary of State
- Ed Schafer, Current U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, former Governor of North Dakota
- James Nicholson, former Secretary of Veterans Affairs under President G.W. Bush
- Gale Norton, former U.S. Secretary of the Interior under President G.W. Bush
- Current U.S. Senator Peter Domenici (R-N.M.)
- Current U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.)
- Current U.S. Senator Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.)
- M. Javad Zarif, former Permanent Representative of Iran to the United Nations
- Cindy Courville, U.S. Ambassador to the African Union
- Heraldo Munoz, Chilean Ambassador to the United Nations
- Ibrahim A. Assaf, finance minister, Saudi Arabia
- Wayne Aspinall, former member, U.S House of Representatives (D-Colo.)
- William D. Ford former member, U.S. House of Representatives (R-Mich.)
- Byron Rogers, former member, U.S. House of Representatives (D-Colo.)
- John Patrick Williams, former member, U.S. House of Representatives (D-Mont.)
- Paul Laxalt, former Nevada governor and U.S. Senator (R-Nev.)
- Charles Brannan former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture under President H. Truman
- John Arthur Love, former Gov. of Colorado and Director of U.S. Energy Policy under President Nixon.
- George W. Casey, Jr., U.S. Army General and former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq
- Susan Waltz, former chair, International Executive Committee, Amnesty International
- Mary Cheney, Author and Political Activist
- Alvin Wiederspahn, former member of both houses of the Wyoming legislature and prominent Cheyenne attorney and historical preservationist
[edit] Business and Industry
- Peter Coors, CEO, Coors Brewing Co.
- Nilanshu Raja, CEO, Medicorp Inc
- Andy Taylor, CEO, Enterprise Rent-A-Car
- Bradbury Anderson, CEO, Best Buy
- W. Patrick McGinnis, CEO Nestle Purina Pet Care (formerly Ralston Purina)
- Sean Menke, President and CEO, Frontier Airlines
- Emily Cinader Scott, co-founder, J. Crew
- Howard P. James, former CEO, Sheraton Hotels
- Peter Morton, founder, Hard Rock Cafe chain
- Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, chairman, Emirates Airlines
- Richard Hilton, chairman, Hilton and Hyland Real Estate
- Tom Marsico, founder, Janus Mutual Funds, president of Marsico Capital Management
[edit] Media
- Lowell Thomas, radio commentator
- Andrew Rosenthal, editorial page editor, The New York Times
- James Cox Kennedy, CEO, Cox Communications
- Bill Clarke, consumer reporter, Denver Channel 7 news
- Ed Stein, editorial cartoonist, Rocky Mountain News
- Clarke Canfield, Associated Press Reporter and Author
[edit] Sports
- Bill Masterton, former Minnesota North Star, The NHL's Bill Masterton Trophy is named in his honor
- Keith Magnuson, former Chicago Blackhawks coach and defenseman
- Paul Stastny, forward, Colorado Avalanche, NHL, runner up for 2006-2007 Rookie of the Year
- Kevin Dineen, former NHL all-star player and current coach, Portland Pirates (AHL)
- Craig Patrick, former Pittsburgh Penguins executive vice president/general manager
- Jerome Biffle, 1952 Olympic gold medalist in the long jump
- Eric Alexander, scaled Mt. Everest with first blind climber to summit
- Gregg Popovich, Head Coach, NBA Champion San Antonio Spurs
- Sam Etcheverry, Canadian Football Hall of Fame quarterback
- Dan Schatzeder, winning pitcher of Game 6 of the 1987 World Series
- Matt Carle, hockey defenseman with San Jose Sharks, 2007 NHL all-Rookie team and 2006 Hobey Baker Award winner
- Michelle Kwan, World Champion Figure Skater (currently enrolled)
- Peter McNab, Former NHL hockey player, current color analyst for the Colorado Avalanche
- Wade Dubielewicz, current hockey goaltender with the New York Islanders
- Glenn Anderson multiple NHL all star who scored 498 career NHL goals and won six Stanley Cups in a long NHL career
- Vince Boryla 1948 US Olympic Gold medalist, NBA player, head coach and long-time NBA executive
[edit] Arts and Letters
- Chris Broderick, Guitarist of Megadeth
- Elliott Martin, Multiple Tony award-winning Broadway producer
- Mark Harris, Author of 'Bang the Drum Slowly'
- John Edward Williams, Author, National Book Award Winner in 1973
- Hao Jiang Tian, Opera Singer/Basso Cantate, Metropolitan Opera
- Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, founder, Malibu Comics, developer of Men in Black franchise
- David Adkins, comedian known as Sinbad
- Carolyn Cassady, memoirist of the Beat generation, former wife of Neal Cassady
- Duane Michals, photographer
- Joshua Marie Wilkinson, American poet
- Tina Kover, translator
- Cedar Walton, jazz pianist
- Constance Perkins, Art Historian. Known for The Constance Perkins House
[edit] Miscellaneous
- Rebecca Ann (King) Dreman, Miss America 1974
[edit] References
- ^ Denver Neighborhoods (Statistical) Map. City and County of Denver. Retrieved on August 25, 2006
- ^ Daniels College of Business (September 17, 2007). Wall Street Journal Rankings : Daniels College of Business : University of Denver. Press release.
The following references are sorted in alphabetical order.
- "College of Law Building Named in Honor of 1919 Law Graduate: New University of Denver College of Law building named the Frank H. Ricketson Jr. Law Building", a DU news release
- Denver page at "The Football Graveyard"
- Fast Facts, a page on the web site of DU
- Financial aid a topic of Chancellor's Roundtable, mentioning the size of the endowment as of the end of 2007.
- "Learn, Practice, Perform", an article on page 30 of the spring 2004 issue of the University of Denver Magazine
[edit] University publications
- Denver University Law Review
- University of Denver Transportation Law Journal, Web site
- The Clarion, DU's official student newspaper, Web site
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