Luck, love brought then-chemist to DU

Coombe today to be formally inaugurated as 17th chancellor

Sara Burnett, Rocky Mountain News

Published April 20, 2006 at midnight

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Robert Coombe is in love.

It's a romance that started nearly 25 years ago, when the chemist followed his heart to Denver, leaving his job just short of being vested in his company's lucrative retirement plan.

He calls it pure luck that he landed a teaching position here.

But since then, the relationship between Coombe and the University of Denver has not just endured - lasting longer than many marriages, it has also flourished.

"I've fallen in love with this place," Coombe said this week while sitting in his office in the 74-year-old Mary Reed Building. "It's a special place. It really is."

Today, Coombe will be formally inaugurated as DU's 17th chancellor, a position he's held since last July.

The ceremony is expected to include speeches by Gov. Bill Owens and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, a procession of academics in full regalia and a concert by the university's carillonneur.

Former Chancellor Daniel Ritchie, who served for 16 years, will present Coombe with a set of gold buttons to be worn on the chancellor's red vest - a traditional part of his regalia - as a symbol of the change.

Coombe, 57, will give an inaugural address, and the crowd will watch a video about his life, including photos from Coombe's high school wrestling days and clips of him playing the cello - a Christmas gift six years ago from his wife.

The ceremony begins at 1:30 p.m. at the Ritchie Center.

Coombe isn't much for all the "hoopla," as he called it.

"But I'll get through it," he added with a smile.

Born in Kansas City, Mo., Coombe grew up in southwest Denver, near Loretto Heights College. He graduated from Lincoln High School and worked for a while as an usher in the balcony of the old Elitch Gardens Theatre.

He went to college on the East Coast, graduate school out West and did postdoctoral research in Canada.

Like most everyone who grows up in Denver, Coombe said, he always wanted to return. So he was thrilled when he decided to leave his job at Rockwell International to enter teaching and discovered there was an opening for a chemistry professor at DU.

In the years that followed, Coombe served as a department chair and dean. In 2001, he became provost.

Last year, following an international search that netted nearly 100 nominations and applications, the DU Board of Trustees named him chancellor - the highest-ranking administrator at the school.

His job is to promote student learning and effective teaching, raise funds for the university, work with the Board of Trustees and raise the university's visibility nationwide and around the world.

Coombe said he isn't intimidated by the success of his predecessor, after whom the college has named both the road to its main entrance and its 440,000-square-foot sports and wellness center.

Instead, he sees his appointment as perfect timing.

"In the years Dan (Ritchie) was chancellor, he moved us to a place where we have enormous opportunities to do amazing things," Coombe said.

"My job over the next decade or so . . . is to make sure that happens."

Among Coombe's priorities is increasing the university's endowment, which is currently about $222 million. He won't say how much more DU would like to raise, but said there have been conversations about a "significant increase," and that the endowment should be multiples of its current size.

The university's goal is to reach that point in time for DU's 150th anniversary, eight years from now, he said. Coombe also is focusing on curriculum and programs for the school's 10,000 students such as the Marsico Initiative, which is designed to increase academic intensity in undergraduate arts and sciences.

Ensuring DU graduates are not just exceptionally bright students, but also "people of depth, who are committed to lives of significance," is another priority.

So far, Coombe said, being chancellor is the best job he's ever had.

The position allows him to constantly meet new people.

He recently met with alumni in Boston and Washington, D.C.

Last fall, 744 freshman - about two-thirds of the first-year class - attended one of the 14 student dinners Coombe hosted on campus.

He loves the fact that his job, and the university, are filled with possibilities.

DU is a place that is willing to try new things, to make a difference in the world, he said. Sometimes, he feels like he can feel the university changing by the day.

"It's been a whole lot of fun over the years," Coombe said. "I'm a very lucky man."

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