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Another Ed Sadowski creation
ED SADOWSKI
EDUCATION
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Downtown
Denver
EDUCATION
Auraria Higher Education Center
Emily Griffith Opportunity School
Auraria Higher Education Center /////////////////////
Between Auraria Parkway, N. Speer Blvd. and W. Colfax Ave.
The Auraria Campus is one of a kind in the world in that one campus is shared by three institutions of higher learning: The University of Colorado Denver, Metropolitan State University of Denver and the Community College of Denver. Sharing includes classroom space, venues, library, bookstore and student services.
Conceived in 1968, Auraria is a unique urban commuter campus on 150 acres located on the southwestern edge of downtown between the South Platte River and Cherry Creek, near the site of the Auraria gold mining camp settlement of 1859. The campus has 44,000 students, 5,000 faculty and staff, with over four million square feet of building space.
It is on the site of the former Tivoli Brewing Company (now revived after a hiatus), which in the 1800s was the largest brewery in the West. The Tivoli Brewery facility is the world’s first full-production brewery on a college campus. Auraria’s 1992 purchase of the Tivoli Shopping Center made it the world’s only campus shopping center.
MSU Denver, as Metropolitan State College, was the nation’s largest public, four-year college; it started offering Master’s programs in 2010, and achieved university status in 2012. MSU Denver offered the first beer industry bachelor’s degree in the world. MSU Denver partnered with the University of Colorado Denver and Denver Public Schools to create the Denver Student Teacher Residency, the first known program of its kind in the nation that unites a school system with universities to transform teacher education students’ final year of college into an intensive residency.
Auraria's Eugenia Rawls Courtyard Theatre is one of three of-its-kind in the world, being the only facility in the United States designed as three theatre spaces in one. The audience can be configured as a thrust theatre, a theatre-in-the-round, or a traditional proscenium arch stage (Broadway style). The theatre was the first in the US to offer disabled access to its catwalk.
The campus holds the childhood home of former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, the only known US residence of this world figure. The house was saved from demolition and moved from its west Denver location in 1988 to the Auraria Campus.
Emily Griffith Opportunity School/Technical College
13th and Welton (original location), now at 1860 Lincoln Street
The Emily Griffith Opportunity (now the Emily Griffith Technical College) was the world’s first free vocational school of its type for adults.
A tiny, mild-mannered teacher who only had an eighth-grade education, was a visionary saw the need for adults to learn to read, write, and speak English, as well as to learn skills and trades in order to better their lives.
Before the turn of the century, Emily Griffith (1868–1947) organized evening classes in a Denver elementary school, but was overwhelmed by the demand. She then taught at Denver’s Central and Twenty-Fourth Street Schools from 1904 to 1912.
Griffith’s dream for a special school came true in 1916 when the Denver Public Schools converted the downtown Longfellow School into Opportunity School. Her inspiring motto was “opportunities for all who wish to learn.” Opportunity School was named after Griffith in 1934, a year after she retired, where she served 17 years as principal.
This adult education center is a public institution and has grown to offer over 500 courses in various fields, having seen over two million students walk through its doors, offering the state's lowest-cost tuition for vocational training, an alternative high school program and community college curricula.
In 1991, the school, now open to non-Denver residents, ceased being free due to a decline in funding, but tuition has been kept low, with scholarships available, helped by its Emily Griffith Foundation.
In 2011 the school was renamed the Emily Griffith Technical College, and in 2014 the school moved to its new location, the Emily Griffith Campus, with its main technical college campus at 1860 Lincoln Street. Two additional campuses are also located in the city.
