The Daniels Newsroom shares its favorite stories from the past year
As the new year approaches, the Daniels team took a look back at the 123 blogs it posted in 2023 and selected some of its favorites in a variety of categories.
Daniels news
Public Safety Leadership Program Celebrates 15 Years of Service
For 15 years, the Public Safety Leadership Development program, which is offered by Daniels Executive Education, has equipped students with leadership and communication skills to build stronger relationships in the office, in the field and in their personal lives. Since PSLD began in 2008, Kerry Plemmons has taught more than 1,200 first responders from across the state of Colorado. The experience they bring back to their employers makes for healthy and more effective teams, divisions and agencies too.
Runner up: Daniels Students Go ‘Wild’ at Kennedy Mountain Campus
Research stories
Daniels Research Finds Link Between CEO Pay and Consumer Trust
Corporate governance is playing an increasingly important role in consumers’ attitudes towards the companies that they buy from. According to Ali Besharat’s research, published in the Journal of Business Ethics, this includes a growing focus on how much CEOs are paid. Besharat, an associate professor of marketing in the Daniels College of Business and co-director of the Consumer Insights and Business Innovation Center, discovered that consumers’ trust and, importantly, their intentions to spend, are influenced by their knowledge of a CEO’s compensation—particularly for brands that consumers hold in high regard.
Runner up: Research: Executive Gender Influences Accounting Conservatism, featuring adjunct faculty Ceara Hintz
Faculty expertise
Q&A: Strikes and Why Workers Are Having Their Moment in the Spotlight
American organized labor has had quite the year. Workers at the Writers Guild of America, the Screen Actors Guild, the United Auto Workers and Kaiser Permanente all walked off the job in 2023. Cindi Fukami, professor of management in the Daniels College of Business, explains what brought so many workers to their boiling point?
Runner up: Q&A: Michelin Stars Coming to Denver’s Dining Scene, featuring David Corsun, director of the Fritz Knoebel School of Hospitality Management
Undergraduate stories
Student Barbecue Business Fights Food Insecurity
Starting a business takes immense patience. For most, success means lots of long nights, years of hard work and little promise of financial certainty. Smoking barbecue is similar—but the years of hard work show up as hours in the kitchen. And rather than dollar bills, success is measured with big smiles, messy faces and full bellies. By combining business and barbecue, second-year University of Denver student Sam Fordyce is embarking on the ultimate test of patience. He’s mixing a dash of passion with a sprinkle of philanthropy, slow roasting it into his own company, Briskets for Betterment.
Runner up: As Coaches, DU Soccer Players Rediscover Love of the Game
Grad student stories
Raising the Sails: Daniels EMBA Students Learn About Leadership and Themselves on the Water
With just hours of experience under their belts, an experienced group of business executives, but a novice group of sailors, took a leap of faith. The race that afternoon loomed large for this group of high achievers, and expectations weighed on them like an anchor. Then, the person at the helm lost their most comforting asset: Their sight. Every cohort of Daniels Executive MBA students travels to San Diego for unusual and unforgettable lessons in leadership and teamwork.
Runner up: ‘Unicorn’ MBA Student Centers Identity in Business Degree
Alumni stories
Daniels Grads Say ‘I DU’ in Campus Classroom
The first time Lexxa Kever entered Room 300 at the Daniels College of Business, she was flustered. Running late, she scrambled into the third-floor classroom, at the north end of the building. This time around though, on Saturday, Sept. 2, she was perfectly at peace, walking calmly down the aisle on her wedding day. In front of friends and family—seated, of course, behind desks in swivel chairs—Lexxa (MBA 2015) and Trevor (BS 2014, MBA 2014) said their vows, in the room where they first met.
Runner up: Alum Determined to Develop ‘Silicon Savannah’ in Kenya
Voices of Experience podcast
The Recipe for a Healthy Culture
Watching George Floyd’s murder on TV shook Rob Cohen to his core. He was well aware of racial injustices and inequities; he had already implemented diversity, equity and inclusion policies at IMA Financial Group, where he serves as chairman and CEO. But he realized he needed to step up to create even greater change. On this episode of the Voices of Experience podcast, Cohen explains the “listen, learn, then lead” approach he used in response, the best way for a company to build a healthy culture, how he juggles competing priorities and how he keeps things interesting, 34 years into a job.
Runner up: Five Ways to Build a ‘Culture of Opportunity’, featuring Terrence Cummings, chief opportunity officer at Guild.
Philanthropy
Alum’s Gift Funds Early Literacy Efforts
Taylor Kirkpatrick believes that books are for everyone, and that early literacy plays a major role in a child’s well-being. Those beliefs were the driving force behind Kirkpatrick’s recent $500,000 gift, his latest contribution to bolster DU’s efforts to bring local children and families high-quality early literacy programming and resources.
Best Visuals
In Eric Holt’s Construction Building Systems class, students get the chance to see, hear, smell and—if they get close enough—taste the construction happening at real job sites around the metro area. Tag along with the class in this interactive article.
Runner up: Daniels MBA Students Travel Across the Globe This Summer