CWA

CNBC Anchor and �鶹��Ѱ��Alum Carl Quintanilla Says Boulder Deserves National Attention

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Apr 2024 18:31:06 +0000

CNBC Anchor and �鶹��Ѱ��Alum Carl Quintanilla Says Boulder Deserves National Attention Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 04/10/2024 - 12:31

Carl Quintanilla (PolSci’93) knows the news. Currently co-anchor of CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” and “Money Movers,” Quintanilla has journalistic experience that spans 24 years of award-winning broadcast and print reporting — starting with a political science degree at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder.

During his tenure as a newscaster, Quintanilla has covered everything from the Olympic Games to presidential elections to Hurricane Katrina and has earned numerous accolades in his field, including a national Emmy Award and broadcast’s highest honor, a Peabody Award.

As he heads to campus this week to speak at CU’s Conference on World Affairs, Carl told us about his storied career as a journalist, his lasting memories from �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder and why CNBC is featuring Denver and Boulder in their new special, “Cities of Success."

How did you get to where you are today?

I went into college already knowing I wanted to be in journalism. It was never a question to me what I was going to do. I was very focused. During my school career, I was a DJ at Colorado Public Radio, and I interned at local papers. Those were all hugely helpful experiences.

I started working for the Wall Street Journal after graduation in 1993. The economy was on fire, there was a peace dividend, Clinton was president. Companies were hiring en masse and the Wall Street Journal was taking lots of chances on young kids.

I spent six years at the Wall Street Journal, and then slowly cable television became ascendant. They started putting cameras in our bureau. I had never really considered broadcast, but it was clearly where the industry was going. So I went to CNBC and NBC News in 1999. It’s been almost a quarter century. It’s gone by so fast.

How did �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder play a role in bolstering your dream of being a journalist?

I can’t overstate how much �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder was an important dynamic in my growth. When it came to academics, they really delivered the mail. The professors were engaged and attentive. They really wanted us to learn. �鶹��Ѱ��taught me how to think critically. It’s one of the many things from �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder that I still carry with me.

What memories stand out from your time in Boulder?

My freshman year, I was in Williams Village, which is its own kind of community. I remember our study groups would always go to Perkins for pie and coffee. There was a very, very special kind of home life among people who were in “Will Vill.”

I also marched in the marching band for a couple of years. I remember playing my alto sax on Folsom Field for hours, going to every game. That kind of cadence was a joy — being at the stadium every Saturday morning, playing as loud as I could when they scored a touchdown. Things like that are my most vivid memories of �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder.

How is it being back on campus for the Conference of World Affairs?

I love being back on campus. There’s something very visceral about being back at Old Main or Macky or the UMC. The campus has changed quite a bit, but it’s still the same at heart. The atmosphere of the campus and the town are just so amazing. It’s just fun to go back and soak it all up again.

What’s your favorite thing about what you do?

I’m a news junkie at heart. I always joke with my wife that on my days off, I still get up at the same time and read the same stories. So I do like being paid to read and be informed and process as much about this crazy world as I can.

Being an anchor is different from being a reporter — a reporter has a beat, and there’s pressure to break news. The thing about being an anchor is you’re really almost a curator, trying to pick the best stories and organize them in a linear fashion for someone who’s watching, along with the help of your producers and your editorial staff. I think that there is real reward in helping someone who is maybe just waking up get their news diet and just process daily life.

Are there any career highlights that stand out for you?

A lot of my work that has been most recognized was probably during Hurricane Katrina. I was with the Today Show and NBC Nightly News. I remember when we realized it was going to be a much bigger story than the weather, with societal impacts and cultural impacts. Reporting on that story was hugely rewarding.

Tell me about “Cities of Success” — and why you’re excited to include Denver and Boulder on the list?

It’s truly all in the name. CNBC judged a host of cities on a variety of qualities and selected a few standout areas to feature. The pairing of strength between Denver and Boulder just really stood out.

On a personal level, I have the benefit of seeing the Mountain West from a prior era. Industry was very concentrated when I lived here — it was telecom, energy and aerospace, period. When I go back now, I see life sciences and biotech and quantum computing. These cities have an amazing, self-sustaining workforce. That is really the reason companies are moving here. It’s not just because of the lifestyle or the sunshine anymore. It’s because that’s where other successful businesses are and other smart people are. I am just really proud of Colorado. It’s an amazing thing to see.

You can watch CNBC’s one-hour primetime special “Cities of Success: Denver & Boulder,” on Thursday, April 11 at 8 p.m. MT.

Interview condensed and edited.

Photos courtesy Carl Quintanilla

Find out why CNBC anchor Carl Quintanilla is proud to feature his hometown metropolis in the network’s “Cities of Success,” and how �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder shaped his career as a journalist.

Traditional

White

CWA Holds First Virtual Conference

Anonymous — Mon, 01 Jun 2020 06:00:00 +0000

CWA Holds First Virtual Conference Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 06/01/2020 - 00:00

The Conference on World Affairs’ annual tradition lives on.

After March 11, when conference organizers announced the cancellation of its in-person event in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the CWA program committee scrapped their original panel list and started fresh.

The committee — made up of students and community members —had three weeks to invite panelists to virtually discuss topics related to the pandemic. Usually, the process takes a year.

“To riff on the old adage, this was a case of demand, together with necessity, being the mother of invention,” said John Griffin, CWA director.

The effort paid off.

The 72nd conference had 11,360 views during the week of April 6–10. Nearly 4,000 of them were live.

Panels focused on the economic impacts of the virus, our health post-pandemic and how to find humor in difficult times. Speakers included Simpsons writer Mike Reiss, social epidemiologist Margot Witvliet and National Jewish Health pulmonologist Irina Petrache, among many others.

A panel on historical pandemics was most popular, with more than 6,500 views during the week.

“We are all experiencing the same historical event alone, together,” said Hardcore History podcaster Dan Carlin (Hist’89) in the virtual discussion. “I’m trying to get my mind around how fascinating that is.”

Watch the panels here.

Photo courtesy CWA

Panels focused on the pandemic, the economy and humor

Off

Traditional

White

Boulder Beat: Frank and Me

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Jun 2018 19:20:00 +0000

Boulder Beat: Frank and Me Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 06/01/2018 - 13:20

Paul Danish

I wouldn’t have gotten to know Frank Oppenheimer if I hadn’t crashed the Conference on World Affairs (CWA) party at his house.

It was 1968 — Tet, protests, draft card burnings, pot, acid, LBJ calling it quits, the McCarthy and Kennedy campaigns, Martin Luther King’s assassination and the world’s first heart transplant. The panelists had plenty to talk about.

I knew Frank’s backstory. He was J. Robert Oppenheimer’s kid brother, and also a brilliant physicist who’d worked at Los Alamos.

In 1949 he admitted that he and his wife, Jackie, had been in the Communist Party as students. In the McCarthy era, the admission made him professionally radioactive. For the next eight years they lived on a ranch outside of Pagosa Springs.

Eventually Frank began teaching physics at Pagosa Springs High School. Several of his students promptly took first prize at the state science fair. But Frank didn’t have a teacher’s certificate. So he was sacked. That’s when then-�鶹��Ѱ��President Quigg Newton hired him to teach at Boulder.

Fast-forward to 1968. The CWA parties were legendary. Conference participants, some of the planet’s wittier people, would down a couple of drinks, network and show off for each other.

It was a great party — especially after I found the records.

He was the best professor I never took a course from.

I’d gone downstairs to use the john. The basement was full of Frank’s old books and 78 rpm records, including Songs of the Free Men, a World War II-era album by Paul Robeson, the singer, actor and far left activist.

It was a mash-up of anti-Nazi, Red Army and protest songs, like “Joe Hill,” “Katyusha” and “The Peat-Bog Soldiers,” a haunting song sung by concentration camp inmates.

It was my favorite album when I was four years old.

I had no idea what the songs were about until years later, of course. But Robeson had one of the greatest voices God ever put into a human being. The songs still resonate with me.

Frank found me reading the album notes. I told him about how Songs of the Free Men had been my favorite “children’s” album.

Without a word, he fired up an ancient phonograph, and for the next 15 minutes we listened to the old songs. And quietly bonded.

One of the 1968 CWA speakers was Scott Newhall, executive editor of the San Francisco Chronicle.

He said American newspapers needed young journalists “who won’t compromise with editors and publishers.”

“So hire me,” I said (in so many words). And he did.

Newhall also helped Frank get a gig in San Francisco — creating a revolutionary, hands-on science museum called the Exploratorium. It transformed the world’s ideas about museums and science education.

The Oppenheimers got a condo on the twisty block of Lombard Street. I used to visit them there. Frank taught me a lot of things, mostly things that — like the songs on the album — I didn’t really understand until years later.

Frank died in 1985. He was the best professor I never took a course from.

Photo courtesy K.C. Cole, © Exploratorium

I wouldn’t have gotten to know Frank Oppenheimer if I hadn’t crashed the Conference on World Affairs (CWA) party at his house.

Off

Traditional

White

Seven Decades of the World Today

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Mar 2018 21:10:00 +0000

Seven Decades of the World Today Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 03/01/2018 - 14:10

Conference on World Affairs

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder’s annual Conference on World Affairs turns 70 in April. Founded in 1948 as a way to exchange ideas on central issues of our time, the five-day extravaganza gathers scores of movers and shakers from all quarters for spirited discussions about the state of the world. Nuclear security, artificial intelligence and climate change will get a hearing this year, among dozens of other topics. And if the past is a guide, the lighter side of society will surface, too: Selfies, zombies, video games and Tinder have all had their moment in the sun. For the full 2018 lineup, see colorado.edu/cwa.

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder’s annual Conference on World Affairs turns 70 in April.

Off

Traditional

White

The President's View — Spring 2018

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Mar 2018 07:00:00 +0000

The President's View — Spring 2018 Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 03/01/2018 - 00:00

Bruce D. Benson

Thinkers, Doers, Dreamers

I was a student at �鶹��Ѱ��when I attended my first Conference on World Affairs. I frankly don’t remember which sessions, but after all, it was more than 50 years ago.

I do know that during my time on campus in the early 1960s the CWA featured Henry Kissinger (long before he was a household name), architect and inventor Buckminster Fuller, the then-president of Costa Rica and several ambassadors, living up to its slogan, “Bringing the World to Boulder.”

The conference was about 15 years old then, but it already had a reputation as a preeminent gathering of thinkers, doers and dreamers. This April, it celebrates its 70th year, and it’s as strong as ever. Under the leadership of political science professor John Griffin (Law’95), the venerable CWA is at the forefront of our efforts to ensure �鶹��Ѱ��is a place where discussion and debate thrive.

The conference is a great vehicle for furthering conversations that engage people across the intellectual spectrum. Its program committee actively seeks out diverse voices as it considers speakers, making for a lively and engaging event.

I was talking with Apple co-founder (and �鶹��Ѱ��alumnus) Steve Wozniak (ElEngr ex’72; HonDocSci’89) before he gave the keynote address at the 2016 event, and I asked what drew him to the CWA. He told me he liked the atmosphere of diverse ideas and being around so many out-of-the-box thinkers. That’s high praise and great insight from someone who is as out of the box as they come.

Griffin is also working to expand the role of students in the conference and considering how it can enhance their experience and help prepare tomorrow’s leaders. The CWA is contributing to a broader campuswide effort that challenges students to engage in the world beyond campus.

I hope my fellow alumni are proud, as I am, that their alma mater hosts such a remarkable event. And I hope many of you will take the opportunity to return to Boulder this spring for this milestone occurrence. If you can’t do that, you’ll be able to watch live and archived videos of sessions on the conference website. The CWA is unique to our university, one of the things that sets us apart from our peers. At age 70, it’s as vibrant as ever.

Illustration by Melinda Josie

I was a student at �鶹��Ѱ��when I attended my first Conference on World Affairs.

Off

Traditional

White

Aerial Dancer

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Jun 2017 06:00:00 +0000

Aerial Dancer Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 06/01/2017 - 00:00

The 69th annual Conference on World Affairs brought thousands of people to campus April 10-14 for nearly 200 talks, panels and performances, including an improv aerial dance featuring Lena Gutschank, left. She is a founding member of the German circus research and lobby group Netzwerk Zirkus.

Photo by Patrick Campbell.

The Conference on World Affairs brought thousands of people to campus April 10-14 for nearly 200 talks, panels and performances, including an improv aerial dance featuring Lena Gutschank.

Off

Traditional

White

The Great Mind Meld of 2017

Anonymous — Wed, 01 Mar 2017 14:00:00 +0000

The Great Mind Meld of 2017 Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 03/01/2017 - 07:00

Christie Sounart

Last April �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder served as a hub for deep discussion about ISIS, climate, the election and happiness.

Oh, and also of wine, self-driving cars and the apocalypse.

Smart conversation about the stimulating, complex world we live in is the hallmark of �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder’s annual Conference on World Affairs (CWA), scheduled this year for April 10-14. Dava Newman, NASA’s deputy administrator, will serve as keynote speaker.

Other notable panelists include former NFL player Chris Borland, labeled “the most dangerous man in football” by ESPN for his outspoken concern about football-related brain injuries, and Ellie Shaffer, who oversaw more than 1,500 events in the White House as a presidential special assistant.

Kimbal Musk, owner of Colorado’s The Kitchen restaurants (and brother of Space-X’s Elon Musk), will participate, as will prominent �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder alumni. Vicki Huddleston (A&S’64), a retired ambassador to Mali and Madagascar, Chris Lehnertz (EPOBio’85), superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park, and Ty Tashiro (Psych’96), author of The Science of Happily Ever After, all will serve on panels.

The full roster includes about 100 speakers and 200 sessions. In keeping with tradition, speakers will find their own way to Boulder and stay in local homes.

“This 69th year of the CWA will feature yet another week of impressive and engaging free events,” said CWA faculty director John Griffin. “Our all-volunteer program committee has been preparing an exciting schedule — addressing the central issues of our time with outstanding speakers from around the world.”

The conference is free and open to all. Nearly half the panels and talks will be live-streamed at colorado.edu/cwa.

As the late film critic Roger Ebert said of the CWA, it’s “one of the most remarkable events in America.”

The Koenig Alumni Center will host a free CWA brunch for �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder alumni Tuesday, April 11. More information can be found at colorado.edu/alumni. Find out more information about the CWA at colorado.edu/cwa and see the schedule here.

Illustration by Curtis Parker

On tap at this year's Conference on World Affairs: NASA, The Grand Canyon, foreign policy and football's "Most Dangerous Man."

Off

Traditional

White

5 Days at the Conference on World Affairs

Anonymous — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 07:00:00 +0000

5 Days at the Conference on World Affairs Anonymous (not verified) Sat, 12/01/2012 - 00:00

Staff

Plan your trip to Boulder this spring to attend exciting and informative panels, plenaries and performances at this year’s 65th annual Conference on World Affairs April 8-12. The best part? It’s free and open to the public.

Started in 1948 by late sociology professor Howard Higman (Art’31, MSoc’42), panelists have included Eleanor Roosevelt, film critic Roger Ebert, vice president Joe Biden, jazz singer Lillian Bouté and broadcast journalist Maria Hinojosa.

“At a time when famous speakers can pull down $10,000 to $25,000 for an hour’s work, this would seem like an offer they could refuse.”

— Film critic Roger Ebert, one of the conference’s longstanding superstars, referring to the CWA panelists in his introduction to the co-authored 1998 book Higman: A Collection (Thomas Berryhill Press)

Join the festivities with an eclectic group of 100 speakers and performers as they spark conversation and debate by addressing hot topics related to technology, arts, international affairs, medicine, media, science, the environment and politics.

Seven Intriguing Panels from 2012

Coming Home: The Wounds of War
From Arab Spring to Nuclear Winter
No Future for Millennials: Even Your Parents Think You’re Screwed
Reality TV: Wife Swap to Weight Loss
The Myth of American Exceptionalism
How Jews and Gays Built Hollywood
Is Anybody Normal?

Panelist Particulars

Cannot be Colorado residents
Housed by Boulder families
Never paid
Transported by students to and from the airport

For conference details and the schedule, visit www.colorado.edu/cwa. The schedule will be finalized in March. Hotel Boulderado offers discounts to those who attend the CWA.

Details and fun facts about �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder's Conference on World Affairs

Off

Traditional

White

Dialing for Dignitaries

Anonymous — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 07:00:00 +0000

Dialing for Dignitaries Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 03/01/2010 - 00:00

Clay Evans

Howard Higman (Art’31, MSoc’42) convinced everyone from Henry Kissinger to Roger Ebert to attend CU’s Conference on World Affairs, which he founded in 1948. Photo courtesy CWA.

What would Howard Higman (Art’31, MSoc’42) have done with a cell phone?

The late �鶹��Ѱ��sociology professor, best known as founding maestro of the annual Conference on World Affairs, never had anything but a land line at his home on 11th Street in Boulder, but he surely would have loved an iPhone or Blackberry. By some accounts, he had as many as 17 telephones stashed throughout the house, so he could call anyone — R. Buckminster Fuller, Roger Ebert, Henry Kissinger, columnist Molly Ivins — at a moment’s notice.

“He would call anybody, cold call the president, and just get them talking,” says professional musician Don Grusin (Soc’63, MEcon’67), a regular conference participant who took classes from Higman and volunteered for the conference in the mid-1960s.

A communications genius, almost preternaturally persuasive, brilliantly manipulative and absolutely fearless, Higman died in 1995 at age 80. He was, say friends, the kindest, most giving man they’ve known yet also frightening, tyrannical and exasperating.

“I always say he was Byronic [referring to an idealized but flawed character who appeared in the writings of Lord Byron],” says Maura Clare, the conference public affairs director who worked closely with Higman from 1989 until his death. “He was brilliant and outrageous in every direction. He was outrageously loving as well as combative.”

Coming up on its 62nd year, the Conference on World Affairs would not exist without Higman. Through the decades it has become the most curiously successful event of its kind in America, drawing intellectuals, writers, filmmakers, pop-culture icons, politicians and journalists to Boulder for a week in April — for no pay.

“At a time when famous speakers can pull down $10,000 to $25,000 for an hour’s work, this would seem like an offer they could refuse,” wrote film critic Ebert, one of the conference’s long-standing superstars, in his introduction to the co-authored 1998 book Higman: A Collection (Thomas Berryhill Press).

But when Higman got them on the phone he made it sound like a hell of a deal and come they did — everyone from Eleanor Roosevelt to Huey Newton.

Cell phone? Let’s just say Higman would have needed a plan with lots of minutes.

Connection was the essence of Higman’s life — and the essence of the conference that remains his greatest legacy.

“Howard brought the world to Boulder,” says retired �鶹��Ѱ��English professor John Murphy, 86, who worked with Higman on the conference beginning in 1961.

For a man who would make Boulder the happening place to be every April for worldly figures of all kinds, Higman, who was born on campus before the medical school moved to Denver, was surprisingly content to stay put in his hometown. He spent a year teaching in England and attended a couple of conferences in Europe but that was the extent of his travels.

Building a following

R. Buckminster Fuller, attended intermittently between 1956-83

The conference began in 1948, after Higman and some friends heard Louis Dolivet, who worked for the United Nations (a “French communist, more or less,” Higman wrote), speak in Estes Park. They asked Dolivet to come to Boulder for a talk. He agreed, provided they would pick him up. That two-hour session in Old Main “mesmerized” the audience, and Higman and friends persuaded �鶹��Ѱ��President Bob Stearns to pony up $500 for a United Nations Conference on World Affairs.

Lillian Boutté, jazz singer, attended intermittently 2002-10

“He knew world affairs very well,” says Edie Morris (Mktg’44), 87, who served on Higman’s tightly controlled coordinating committee for more than 30 years. “And he knew his students, what would appeal to them. He knew the people to bring in.”

He focused on military, diplomatic and government types, although he tolerated a few “touchy-feely” guests and sessions, Murphy says. From the start, the conference has been remarkably relevant — and prescient. Consider panels on The Arab World and Palestine and Afghan Nationalism listed in programs for 1948 and 1959, respectively.

Joe Biden, U.S. vice president, attended 2007

Higman ran the show through 1994, ruling his hand-picked committee, some say, like a dictator. Yet the “principles” he established for the conference have contributed to its success: No Colorado residents as panelists, guests must agree to stay the whole week and bunk with local host families, none is paid and all panels are free and open to the public. That eliminated squabbling on campus over invitations, ensured students could attend and forced guests to stay focused.

“We would hold them captive for the week . . . They didn’t have to go home and walk the dog or go to their daughter’s ballet recital,” Clare says. “We sort of wanted them to feel like they’ve landed on Mars.”

But participants usually found Mars quite to their liking. Beyond the intellectually energizing panels, dinner parties thrown by Howard and his wife Marion were legendary for their sumptuousness, freewheeling conversation and hard drinking.

“I remember one speaker saying, ‘If you are invited to the conference, good God, go,’” says Betty Brandenburg (A&S’55) who served as secretary for Higman and the conference for some 40 years.

Maria Hinojosa, broadcast journalist, attended 2009-10

J. Edgar Hoover as God

Higman was an open book, which, some say, paved the way for his utter fearlessness. He frequently, yet politely, told off �鶹��Ѱ��regent Joseph Coors and more famously went head-to-head with conservative student and 1958 Miss America Marilyn Van Derbur (Engl’60) during a heated classroom debate, which led him into a confrontation with J. Edgar Hoover.

Eleanor Roosevelt, activist and First Lady, attended 1955 and 1958

After Van Derbur reported to her father, a friend of Hoover’s, that Higman had called the FBI “secret police” in class, the agency began secretly investigating him. But nothing Hoover threw at Higman — he “liked boys” or that he was a member of the Communist Party — stuck.

“Howard finally held a press conference,” Clare says. “He rarely apologized, but this time he did get up and say he was sorry for having referred to the FBI as ‘secret police.’ Then he said, ‘I now realize that it is a church, and J. Edgar Hoover is God.’”

Henry Kissinger, U.S. Secretary of State, attended 1961

But along with his fearlessness were his incredible people skills. �鶹��Ѱ��physics professor emeritus Al Bartlett recalls how Higman ingeniously managed student rumblings in the late 1960s and early 1970s. When students clamored for the regents to close the university for two weeks to allow them to campaign for elections in the fall (“It was never going to happen,” Bartlett says), Higman sent a questionnaire to incoming freshmen asking if they wanted to have classes canceled.

“If the kids had overwhelmingly said yes, he thought we would be well advised to know in advance,” Bartlett recalls. “But we expected them to say no, and they did.”

It was a gamble, but it gave the faculty and regents a tool to fight a bad idea that could have resulted in violent unrest.

Roger Ebert, film critic, attended 1970-2006, 2009-10

But for all his brilliance and magnetism, even close friends don’t have to be prompted into describing Higman’s dark side. He could be difficult when sober, brutal and impossible when drinking.

“When he was drunk, he was mean,” Brandenburg says. “He never had a drink before 5 o’clock, so he wasn’t what you’d call the average alcoholic. He said, ‘I am a drunk, that’s what I am.’ ”

He was jailed in 1993 after a drunken episode at his home and pleaded guilty to harassment charges.

Dismantling the old boys’ club

Charles Krauthammer, columnist, attended 2005

By the late ’80s, there were complaints that the conference was an “old boys’ club” with too few women and minority participants. Higman ferociously resisted any and all pressures and refused to surrender any control.

“He nearly killed the conference,” says Jane Weinberg Butcher (IntAf’66), conference co-chair, recalling remarks she made in the 1990s. She sees Higman as a genius who tragically wasn’t able “to keep as many balls in the air” as he grew older.

The 62nd Conference on World Affairs will be held April 5-9 on the Boulder campus. Go to www.colorado.edu/cwa for a complete schedule, list of participants and other details. Photo courtesy Casey A. Cass.

CU-Boulder chancellor James Corbridge pulled the plug on university support after the 1994 conference, and Higman was out.

Higman was distraught. “I remember seeing Howard on campus with tears in his eyes saying, ‘They changed the locks on my door,’ ” Bartlett recalls.

But after “going dark” for just a year, a revamped conference, with a much larger steering committee, more varied participants and a commitment to keeping Higman’s principles, was planned for 1996.

“[Howard] did come to the first (planning) meeting when we brought it back,” Butcher says. “We weren’t quite sure what to expect. But he just sat very quietly at the back of the room.”

Higman died in November 1995 of pneumonia and never saw the conference phoenix rise.

Just as they seem unable to talk about him without acknowledging how difficult he could be — drunk or sober — friends, colleagues and conference participants speak of Higman in awestruck superlatives.

“He was a genius,” Morris says, tearing up. “I just love the man. I thought he was wonderful. I miss him.”

How a charismatic but controversial man brought the world to campus.

Off

Traditional

White

CWA

CNBC Anchor and �鶹��Ѱ�����Alum Carl Quintanilla Says Boulder Deserves National Attention

Related Articles

CWA Holds First Virtual Conference

Off

Boulder Beat: Frank and Me

Off

Seven Decades of the World Today

Conference on World Affairs

Off

The President's View — Spring 2018

Thinkers, Doers, Dreamers

Off

Aerial Dancer

Off

The Great Mind Meld of 2017

Off

5 Days at the Conference on World Affairs

Seven Intriguing Panels from 2012

Panelist Particulars

Off

Dialing for Dignitaries

Building a following

J. Edgar Hoover as God

Dismantling the old boys’ club

Off

CNBC Anchor and �鶹��Ѱ��Alum Carl Quintanilla Says Boulder Deserves National Attention