Sam's Blog

USG Inauguration

    Well, it's official, I have been sworn in as next year's Undergraduate Student Government President.  On Tuesday night, the USG held their Transitions meeting during which time the current senators shared their end of year reports, and helped to swear in their replacements.  Of the 21 senators, only seven of us have previous senate experience, so it will be an exciting year of growth and new ideas.  

    For a better idea of what USG looks like, and for a list of next year's senators, check out the website here: http://denverusg.com 

Once again, can't thank my friends enough for all their support

    I have met now with our advisor, Carl Johnson, the Executive Director of Student Life, to discuss our plans for 2012-2013.  The next step will be for us to appoint our executive board, which includes a president pro tempore, diversity chair, sustainability chair, and more.  Beyond that we also have meetings lined up with the Chancellor, Provost, Director of Communications, the International House, and more.  I am already inspired by the outreach and support Parker and I have received as incoming student leaders.  We promise to keep working hard, even during the summer!  

Our incredible campaign managers!

 

Greek Life Formals

    One common component of Greek Life here at DU includes formals and exchanges.  This tradition of being Greek includes everything from weekend retreats in the mountain to semi-formals, or even just days with another house in the park.

    Again, I myself am not Greek (either ethnically or student group-wise!) but many of my best friends and girlfriend are.  This past week the Alpha Phi sorority had their end of the year formal, and as Hannah is an APhi I was invited to go out for dinner at the Inverness Golf Club.  Located 20 minutes south of campus, the Inverness is a beautiful country club with 18 holes of golf with views of the mountains and prairie combined.  

    The night included a bus ride of fun to the club house, a delicious three course dinner and night of dancing.  Other houses hold formals across Denver and beyond.  One house this year rented out a club level suite of the Rockies Stadium.  Several of the fraternaties have cabin weekends in Vail or Beaver Creek.  All in all, they are great chances to spend time with friends, forget classes for a while, and just have fun!

Poor JP and his Bowtie

Aryn and I lookin' fresh

Tasha trying to give awkward kisses as I obliviously look on...

Scholarship Application Essay

    I was sent an email from the Office of Financial Aid a few weeks ago saying that I was eligible for further scholarship (an incredible thing that DU does for us students!) and I figured I might just attach the essay here for you all to read.  The prompt asked specifically about future career and educational goals, as well as how I have contributed to society, the school, and how I would do so in the future.

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    Today I walk my usual path though campus feeling a sense humility, inspiration, and responsibility.  The arboretum garden plots appear more colorful, the mountains closer than normal, and the smiles of those I pass wider than ever before.  I have called the University of Denver home for two years now, and yet since this past Friday I suddenly see it as more than that.  I am part of this home, it surrounds me, encourages me, pushes me to greater and greater heights.  No single day here at DU has shown me this more so than May 11^th, 2012.  You see, only 48 hours ago I was elected as the 2012-2013 Student Body President and I couldn’t be more exhilarated by all that this opportunity entails.

            While at the University of Denver, I have discovered more about myself and the world around me than I could ever have anticipated.  Indeed the two greatest gifts that DU has given me so far are those of opportunity and clarity.  Through programs such as the Pioneer Leadership Program, the El Pomar Foundation, the Center for World Languages and Cultures, and Partners in Scholarship (PinS), I have been blessed in ways that I will never be able to fully repay.  I sit now as the leadership program’s El Pomar Scholar, an appointed position with the Colorado Springs-based foundation through which I attend quarterly leadership summits and complete a yearlong community project.  Therefore, over the past seven months I have helped organize the Englewood City Council’s Cities of Service initiative, a service provider network aimed at unleashing asset based community development.   It has been an exciting opportunity to see a city grow in such meaningful ways, knowing that my volunteer hours are behind that change.

            A second opportunity that has defined my DU experience is the research grant that myself and a fellow German department student were able to design and complete last year. Through the Partners in Scholarship Endowment, we worked in Denmark and German for a month last summer in order to conduct interviews of youth, aimed at defining cultural identity in terms of languages and geography.  The project was an unbelievable experience and one I hope to continue over the next two summers in order to culminate in a senior thesis project that has hit my three main languages of German, Spanish, and Japanese.  Opportunities such as these truly set apart DU as an institution. 

    In terms of that future, the University of Denver has also given me a sense of conviction as to where I hope to take my career.  Through a course titled  “Communication, Culture and Sport” I was sparked into inspiration, realizing that when combining my education and natural skillset, where I belong most is working for the International Olympic Committee. 

    I can picture myself years from now, content and tired, knowing that the University of Denver was the platform from which I was able to launch a successful international career.  I have always enjoyed travel and learning foreign languages.  In fact, before coming to DU I even took time off to be a Rotary Youth Exchange Student to Asia for a year.  Since returning, I have worked with Professor Castellani, the chair of the Foreign Languages and Literatures department, to narrow my studies down to three main languages: Spanish, German and Japanese.  With his help, I have now developed my individually structured major of Intercultural Communications and Foreign Languages.  I have full faith that with continued hard work (I hold a 3.98 GPA), combined with my leadership studies and business administration minors, I will soon happily work for the ISO.  I am currently uncertain of my graduate school plans, but if I do attend, I look to DU programs such as International & Intercultural Communications or Business Administration, or to a connection I have with the London School of Economics. 

- Sam Estenson

Undergraduate Student Government 2012-2013

    I am so sorry that I have been excomunicado for the past week or so, the whole experience has gone by in a whirlwind, but I am happy to announce that I have run for student body president and won.

    So next year, 2012-2013, with all of the excitement of the Presidential Debate, the renovation of the Penrose Project, and much more, I am honored and humbled to say that I will be the Undergraduate Student Government President.  I have sat on USG for two years now, and so I am excited to continue the hard work of those who have come before me.  Our university has gone nowhere but UP over the past several years, and I know that this next one will be a major turning point in how our school is viewed across the nation and even around the world.

Parker and I

    Campaign week was a blast, though, and while I'm glad to be able to sleep again, I felt so much love and support from all over campus that I am in some ways sad to see it go. I couldn't have done it with anyone besides Parker.  She will be my Vice President next year and I would never have been able to pull this off without her.  It's going to be a fantastic experience.

My awesome friends

 

Being Pirates

    One of the highlights of my week was being a pirate!

Halter, Myself, Hannah, Sam and Rayna (check out Rayna's great pirate hook!)

    It's not every day that you get to dress up in costume gear and surprise twenty 3-year-olds for a Pirate Party.  It's a tough job but somebody has to do it.  Carl Johnson, one of our advisors for student life on campus, has a son who goes to the Frisher Learning Preschool attached to campus.  The preschool has been doing a pirate unit, and so as a treat Carl went out to Party City and got us all a variety of Pirate outfits.

    Therefore, myself and four of my good friends dressed up as pirates in order to give the group a fun afternoon.  Carl dropped off a treasure map in the morning and by noon the band of toddlers had arrived to Driscoll Green in the middle of campus.  We were ready in costume, and had a parrot on shoulder, story book at the ready, and pirate treasure booty to hand out.  We read them a fun pirate story, played with them on the green, and then had a Pirate Pizza Parrrrrty.  It was hilarious.  Definitely one of the highlights of my week!

Denver Zoo

One of my favorite parts of going to DU is the Explore Denver desk.  As students we receive free or reduced entry to many different events or locations around Denver.  The Explore Denver desk has given incredible deals to places such as the Denver Art Musem, the Botanical Gardens, Jay-Z tickets, Rockies/Avelanche/Broncos tickets, and especially the Denver Zoo!

    This weekend I have been lucky enough to have my parents and grandmother in town to visit.  The have rented an incredible house on Pearl Street near Capital Hill.  It's a great house and one of the best features is that it's near the Botanical Gardens and Zoo.  Denver has a great zoo, and we spent yesterday exploring the many exhibits.  My roommate, whose name is also Sam, came along with a couple friends and for free, thanks to the Explore Denver desk, enjoyed a beautiful day at the zoo.

    I'll admit that when I was younger I was so obsessed with animals and the zoo that I wanted everyone to call me Noah.  :)  

    I know I was cute, but anyway I haven't outgrown that obsession and so it was a fantasic way to spend the beautiful weather wondering the Denver Zoo! I love having family here.

Grandma at the Zoo

My friend Davis

Weekend Cabin in Vail

    This weekend has been a blast so far! Ten of us are up at our friend Parker Calbert's cabin in Vail, CO, simply hiking, relaxing, eating, sleeping, playing cards, taking pictures, and laughing.

Breakfast

    We're a pretty laid back crew to begin with, but put us in a mountain cabin and we're downright lazy. But frankly, that's just what we needed right now. The spring quarter always flies by, and seeing as next week marks the half way point I can't believe how great it has been to take a deep breath of mountain air. I've been lucky this quarter though, seeing as this is my third cabin weekend over the past two months.

    The skiing is over (Vail had their major "Spring Back to Vail" concert and celebration last weekend) and so our agenda today was to sleep in, make a HUGE breakfast of pancakes, eggs, hash browns and OJ, then we hiked for three or four hours into the back woods of Beaver Creek.

    I am so lucky to be in such a beautiful place, with the best friends in the world, enjoying all the little things in life.

We're morning people for sure...maybe 

At the start of the hike

Parker and I blazing the trail, what Pioneers...

Me, my sister Mia, and our dear friend Rayna

Don't worry, Parker's family still had the Christmas tree up in their cabin, haha so funny

Hannah and I, aren't we the cutest?

Summary of our weekend

Spring Quarter Courses: International Management

    We're already at week five, can you believe it??

    I am actually trying something new right now, and that is blogging from an iPad! We are currently enjoying a relaxing weekend with friends up at a cabin in Vail (more fun to come), but we do not have wifi and so I'm using a friend's 3G ipad connection. Interesting experience, I hope the blog turns out okay.

    Anyway, back to the class updates. The fourth and final class that I am taking this spring is called "International Management" and it is considered my capstone course for the business administration minor that I am pursuing. So far it has been a content, reading and lecture heavy course. It is four credits, meaning we meet two hours a day on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.

    Our professor is a smart retiring businessman who has heaps of real world experience, and this teaching position is just a fun way for him to stay in the field, he's told us. Each day we have a different chapter of the textbook (one co-written by a DU business professor in the MBA program) and subsequent lecture. Our midterm exam is in two weeks and along with it we have an exports paper due. I was given the country of Argentina, meaning I have to track an item from the US all the way down through South American customs. It should be a process, I ought to start that soon! Haha That's all we've really done so far, covering topics such as industrial strategies to Japanese Keiretsu.

    

    I'm excited to see how everything wraps up and where he suggests we all go do business, I'm guessing Denver is going to be at the top of the list!

Spring Quarter Courses: Collaborative Leadership - Global Perspectives

    Spring Quarter has been a great one in terms of classes!  I have four, and this Collaborative Leadership - Global Perspectives course is an awesome collaboration between my individually structured major and leadership studies minor.  

    

     The goal of this quarter's leadership class is to broaden our scope of change beyond the classroom, the community, and even the state.  So far we have focused almost exclusively on those three areas, therefore I am excited to see where we head in terms of global initiative and outreach.  The work we have done so far includes a reading on (get this!) Intercultural Communication, so I did quite well in terms of class discussion, seeing as that's the major I'm creating! Haha

The Goal of the Pioneer Leadership Program

    I just can't believe that this is our last organized PLP class before the capstone, which everyone takes at odd intervals over the next two years.  Therefore the cohort of us who have been taking a PLP class together every quarter of college so far won't be taking a full program course again.  I'm excited to have the Leadership Studies minor under my belt, but the relationships that I have gained out of this Living and Learning Community are inexplicably rich.  I have known this kids for just a year and half and yet I feel a friendship with them that goes beyond words.  They are my companions, my roommates, my support and my drive.  I have been unbelievably lucky to be accepted into the program, as it has changed my university career a million times over! 

I Love PLP

The El Pomar Foundation

"What does El Pomar do? It's a short question with a long answer. In a nutshell, the Foundation does a number of things to support the mission of El Pomar set forth by founders Spencer and Julie Penrose--to enhance, encourage, and promote the current and future well-being of the people of Colorado."

www.elpomar.org

    I am fortunate enough to be one of the four University of Denver El Pomar Scholars for the 2011-2012 school year.  Between myself and three of my friends/fellow Pioneer Leadership Program students (Lisa, Mariah and Samson), I've been to three awesome leadership retreats, the Colorado Leadership Alliance Summit, and we've also conducted a year long service project. 

El Pomar Scholars at Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs (home of the El Pomar Foundation)

    Today was our final Spring retreat, meaning we've already finished a full year of the program.  I can't believe it, we've been to Colorado Springs, Boulder and Denver.  It's a great group of kids and there are representatives from eight or nine Colorado colleges.  I am luck in that I am only a first year student, so I will go onto higher level service within El Pomar next year. 

More Colorado Springs Fun

    The activities included a scavenger hunt on Colfax Ave (the longest continuous city street in North America), a BBQ lunch, a nonprofit founding simulation, and a dinner speech by Gary Nixon, one of the major minds behind the Campaign for a Brighter Future.  It was a great day!

    

Winter Retreat in Boulder

Dinner with the crew

Meral giving a presentation on a nonprofit she's working with