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The University of Denver (DU) is an independent, coeducational, four-year university in Denver, Colorado. DU typically enrolls about 9,800 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 Park Neighborhood, about seven miles south of downtown Denver.

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 source 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. In 2005, Denver selected former provost Robert Coombe as its new Chancellor.

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 the primary undergraduate and graduate drawing card, but there are also considerable graduate level strengths in law, professional psychology, international studies, and social work.

Profile of the average accepted undergraduate student in 2005:

  • Age: 18
  • Gender: 52% of applicants are female; 48% of applicants are male
  • GPA: 3.63
  • SAT score: 1212
  • ACT score: 26
  • Domestic applicants: 39% from Colorado; 61% from other states
  • International applicants: 3.3%
  • Domestic students of color: 16% of applicants

Campus

Under the leadership of former Chancellor Daniel Ritchie (now Chairman of the DU Board of Trustees), 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.

Additionally, the University also recently opened the acclaimed $75 million Newman Center for the Performing Arts, which includes a 1,000 seat, four-level opera house with some of the finest acoustics in the region, a 600-seat recital hall with an impressive organ, and a 400-seat flexible theatre space, home of the acclaimed DU Theatre Department. The Newman Center serves as home to many professional performing arts groups as well as University performing arts events.

Student body and academics

DU has long been known as a school with an affluent, upper-middle class student body, with about 60 percent of the students coming from Colorado and the other 40 percent coming from primarily the East Coast, the West Coast, the Midwest, and foreign countries, DU has been transforming itself from its former undergraduate reputation as a "ski school" into a much more dynamic institution that combines small classes with university level resources, all in a young, vibrant and beautiful area of the United States.

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. The Honors program at DU, under the direction of Professor Todd Breyfogle, provides bright minds a refuge of conversation and advanced courses.

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 and is in consideration for national recognition.

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.

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.

Athletics

DU's athletic teams are known as the Pioneers and have been fielding intercollegiate teams since 1867. Today, DU operates a full NCAA Division I athletic program with a unique and successful mix of sports in and around the $75 million Daniel Ritchie Center for Sports and Wellness, which was completed in 2000.

Men's Ice Hockey is DU's flagship spectator sport, regularly selling out the new 6,000 seat Magness Arena on campus, the showpiece of the Ritchie Center for Sports and Wellness. The Pioneers won consecutive NCAA hockey titles in 2004 and 2005, to go with five previous NCAA Championships in the '50s and '60s, giving DU seven hockey titles overall, second only to the University of Michigan's nine NCAA hockey titles. Skiing is another strong sport at Denver, with 18 NCAA titles (more than any other school) including the most recent in 2005 and as well as three consecutive NCAA titles from 2001 to 2003.

The Women's Gymnastics, Women's and Men's Soccer, and Men's Lacrosse teams have all also been ranked in the national top 20 in recent years, and the Men's Basketball team won the Sun Belt West Division in 2005 and appeared in the National Invitational Tournament (NIT) for the first time since the 1950s. The Women's Basketball team appeared in the 2001 NCAA Tournament, and the Denver Men's Lacrosse team appeared in the 2006 NCAA Tournament.

Denver is a member of the Sun Belt Conference for Men's and Women's Basketball, Swimming, Tennis and Golf, as well as Women's Volleyball and Women's Soccer. The other Denver teams play in various conferences in the sports that are not sponsored by the Sun Belt. Men's Ice Hockey plays in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association, Men's Soccer and Women's Lacrosse play in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, Men's and Women's Skiing competes in the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association, while Men's Lacrosse plays in the Great Western Lacrosse League. Women's Gymnastics competes as an Independent.

Football was once the most popular sport at Denver, as the school competed in the Sun Bowl and Alamo Bowl during the late 1940s. The football team played in a 30,000 seat stadium that stood on campus from 1927 to 1974. However, the program was discontinued in 1960 due to financial reasons, and Denver's baseball team was dropped in 1999 when DU returned to full NCAA D-I status.

Denver's athletic alumni include over 50 NHL hockey players, including Keith Magnuson, Craig Patrick, Cliff Korroll, Peter McNab, Glenn Anderson, Kevin Dineen, and current (having played in 2005-2006) NHLers Antii Laaksonen, Mark Rycroft, Wade Dubielewicz, Connor James, Matt Pettinger, Adam Berkhoel, Ryan Caldwell and 2006 Hobey Baker Memorial Award Winner Matt Carle. Other notable Denver sports alumni include former Major League Baseball player Dan Schatzeder, basketball player Vince Boryla, CFL Hall of Famer and former NFL football player Sam Etcheverry, 1952 US Olympic Long Jump Gold Medalist Jerome Biffle, former US Olympic Committee Exectuive Director Lyman Bingham, and former Colorado Rapids/US National soccer player Nat Borchers. San Antonio Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich received a masters degree from DU but did not play any varsity sports there.

Notable alumni

Politics, Government and Military

Media

Business and Industry

The Arts

Academia and the Sciences

References

The following references are sorted in alphabetical order.

University Publications

Education in Denver | Sun Belt Conference | Universities and colleges in Colorado | Western Collegiate Hockey Association

デンバー大学 | Universidade de Denver | University of Denver

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "University of Denver".

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