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Editor’s note

Our students have a knack for making me feel inadequate. They needn’t even try. Take sophomore real estate major and U.S. Army veteran Neil Duncan, who lost both legs while serving in Afghanistan. As I sat behind a desk this summer, rearranging commas and moving a mountain of paperwork, Neil was climbing Mount Kilimanjaro with other amputees, advancing the cause of wounded veterans, taking school supplies to African orphans, and proving that he could overcome seemingly insurmountable odds.

Students like Neil defy adjectives. They are out there changing the world, and I am doing what, exactly?

I’m helping to make it possible for them to go out and change the world.

I had a powerful reminder of this in May as I sat, riveted, in the audience of TEDxDU, a passionate celebration of thinking and doing, of ideas that could change the world. Many of the speakers have been featured on the pages of this magazine at one time or another; engineering student Eva Hakansson, a TEDxDU presenter, is profiled in this issue.

My role is to help uncover the stories of remarkable DU people doing remarkable things and to share those stories with the world. (You’ll read more about Neil Duncan in our spring 2011 issue.)

Many others join me in this effort, including TEDxDU steering committee member and University of Denver Magazine founder Carol Farnsworth, who is retiring in September after 16 years as vice chancellor of DU’s communications division.

Her work, my work and the work of the rest of DU’s communications, advancement and alumni relations team raises funds and raises awareness, making it possible for DU to continue educating students for, as Chancellor Coombe says, “lives of integrity, purpose and significance.”

Making it possible for them to move mountains.

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