JB Holston, dean of the University’s Daniel Felix Ritchie School of Engineering and Computer Science, on the site of the school’s new building. Photo: Helen Richardson/Denver Post
JB Holston, a longtime Denver entrepreneur who became dean of the University’s Daniel Felix Ritchie School of Engineering and Computer Science on July 1, wants to turn DU into “the Stanford of Denver” — bringing a new entrepreneurial focus to the University and connecting DU to local businesses and the community. It’s a plan he revealed to the Denver Post in a story that ran Sunday on the front page of the paper’s Denver and the West section.
In the story, Holston points to the engineering school’s new building — currently under construction and scheduled for completion in fall 2016 — and the interdisciplinary Project X-ITE as examples of the new focus on entrepreneurship at DU.
“Just as Silicon Valley needed a Stanford, Denver needs DU to make this happen,” Holston told the Post’s Tamara Chuang.
Earlier this month, Holston helped hire alumnus and local entrepreneur Erik Mitisek (BS ’99) as executive director of Project X-ITE, an interdisciplinary hub for projects at the intersection of innovation, technology and entrepreneurship. It is overseen by Holston, Brent Chrite, dean of the Daniels College of Business, and Martin Katz, dean of the Sturm College of Law.
DU Chancellor Rebecca Chopp also was quoted in the Post story, saying that when she was interviewing for her post at the University, “it was really clear the faculty wanted to get out of the silos, do a lot more problem-solving and be more engaged with Denver. The law school wanted to work with the social work school. There were all these pilots starting to develop. The board, faculty and staff wanted to treat students much more holistically, and were really interested in experiential learning and really interested in what employers say they needed.”
Read the full story on the Denver Post website.