University of Denver Spring/Summer 2023

PHILANTHROPY Daniels Alumni Advisory Board gives students a financial boost

AAB member David Cable (MBA ’06). “Beyond the tangible assistance of the scholarship, we want to give students the sense that they’re part of a bigger network.” Advancing students’ career opportunities is a central element of DU’s 4D Experience. Each student’s 4D Experience is unique, providing opportunities for intellectual growth, character growth, increased well-being, and opportunities to pursue careers and lives of purpose. “Through the AAB Scholarship, students

Fighting corruption across the globe is an enormous challenge, yet that’s what motivates Derek Ricke, an Exec utive PhD student in the Daniels College of Business. Thanks to funding from the Daniels Alumni Advisory Board (AAB), Ricke recently attended the International Anti Corruption Conference in Washington, D.C. Experts from government, private and nonprofit institutions attend the biannual conference to discuss efforts in fighting corruption. Ricke shared his doctoral work with academic and industry professionals, increasing the likelihood that his research will be put to use in the real world. The AAB established the Alumni Advisory Board Endowed Scholarship to provide professional development funds to Daniels students. Ricke is one of the first to receive the scholarship. Originally from Medicine Lodge, Kansas, he is a West Point graduate and an Army veteran with an MBA from UCLA and an associate degree in Mandarin. His PhD is focused on mitigating corporate corruption. “I’m pursuing a PhD in business and looking to better understand corruption in the corporate environment and how firms can leverage the ideas of leadership, ethics and corporate culture to better prevent corruption within their own organization,” Ricke says. In addition to scholarship funding for professional de velopment opportunities, the AAB connects students with likeminded alumni who can help them in their careers. “There is a group of alumni that stands as a support system for our students and wants them to succeed,” says Colorado has a predatory towing problem—residents are often towed for no reason, typically in the middle of the night, and then have to pay hundreds of dollars to retrieve their cars. Last year, the Colorado legislature passed the Towing Bill of Rights to help address this problem, and now students in the Sturm College of Law have designed a web based app that puts those rights into the hands of consumers. Third-year student Will Denney and his classmates, Jessi Bird and Brittany Phouminh, created the Towing Rights Advisor for Colorado app last fall as part of Law & Innovation Lab, a six-credit course offering the opportunity to develop technology tools that address real-world legal problems. Professor Lois Lupica, who leads the lab, says the idea came from conversations with a local partner organization, the Community Economic Defense Project. The students, who had never developed an app before, went to work combing through the legislation and determining the rights consum ers have and what information people need most. The result, Lupica says, is an app that gives the user

can pursue career preparation opportu nities that otherwise might not be open to them,” says Vivek Choudhury, dean of the Daniels College of Business. “I am grateful to the AAB for making these op portunities available to our students.”

During the scholarship’s first launch, 45 business students applied for funding. “Students like Derek Ricke aren’t an exception at Daniels, which is why we want to award AAB Scholarships to as many students as possible,” says Jackie Battista (MBA ’10), an AAB member who hopes to see the endowment grow.

TECHNOLOGY Law students design app to help drivers know their rights when towed

tailored information based on their circumstance and grouped by urgency—from “I want to understand my rights” to “My car is about to be towed.” The team added user-friendly features, such as a white background with high-contrast lettering for easy reading at night. Denney, who is multilingual, also translated the app into Spanish. “It’s almost impossible for Spanish speakers to file a complaint,” he says. “Our app takes their information in Spanish and then drafts the complaint in English for them and sends it to the relevant agencies.” “That’s the value of using technology,” Lupica says. “You could give someone a booklet about their towing rights, but then they still have to flip through 20 pages, 15 of which don’t apply to their situation. This app lets you click on your circum stance, and you get only the information you need right now.”

The app launches this spring and will be available on the Community Economic Defense Project website at cedproject.org.

8 | UNIVERSITY of DENVER MAGAZINE • SPRING/SUMMER 2023