Jeffrey Brothers walked the DU campus as an undergrad, a grad student and a faculty member
In May 1970, American troops invaded Cambodia, enflaming the Vietnam War. The National Guard had just killed four protesting students at Kent State University. Students at the University of Denver—angry, hurt and afraid—responded with solidarity and defiance.
They stood in picket lines outside the General Classroom Building (now Sturm Hall). They occupied the office of Chancellor Maurice Mitchell and urged their classmates to boycott classes. As many as 2,000 people pitched tents and tepees on University property, constructing an alternative campus and anti-war commune, known as Woodstock West, to host speakers, rock bands, community discussions and general rebelliousness.
Right in the middle of it sat Jeffrey Brothers (BSBA 1971, MAcc 1978), a long-haired, peace-loving college student, 42 years before he would walk through the doors of the Daniels College of Business to teach in the School of Accountancy.
“It was a real time of turmoil,” Brothers said in a recent interview. “It was a real time of stress and trauma. We were all conflicted about what to think and how to regard the administration. I was struggling with my identity at that time, as many college students do. It was a time when I found myself and found new things that were out there in the world.”
Each chapter in Brothers’ DU career—as an undergrad, a master’s student and a faculty member—has proved an unmatched exercise in self-discovery, replete with new skills and a fresh outlook. He retires in June after more than 10 years as a lecturer, adviser and teaching assistant professor.
“When I was a student, I always used to think that academia was an isolated world that was out of touch with reality,” he said. “But I think now that academia is the place where you need to get ready for reality and there’s a lot of ways to do that. It was trying to do that for me when I was in undergrad. Now, I recognize the value of it.”
Jeffrey Brothers as a student in the 1971 Kynewisbok and as a professor in the School of Accountancy.
Brothers transferred to DU in 1969, moving 110 miles from his hometown of Pueblo. He had no inclination to teach—just a plan to get an accounting degree, get out and get going. A short-lived adjunct gig at El Paso Community College cemented that.
“I went to the class and tried to do the first day presentation and found out how ill-prepared I was,” he said. “I had to go back to [the guy that recruited me] and say, ‘I can’t do it.’ It was very revealing to see what you had to do to be a teacher.”
Instead, the young graduate reverted to his original plan. He got his start as the chief accountant at the Colorado Women’s College before heading east for a string of positions specializing in financial and management accounting.
A fellowship offer lured him back to DU for his graduate degree before he jumped back into the professional world. But academia came calling once again in the early 2000s. He took a job at the University of Phoenix, then at Regis University, then a part-time position at Metropolitan State University of Denver.
Slowly, he was learning how to teach—and he loved it. Brothers saw the lectern as a stage: a place for authentic performance. He felt a kinship with the people in his “audience.” He relished the opportunity to tinker with his course materials and improve his teaching style. A faculty position, he realized, was a pathway to lifelong learning.
When an adjunct position opened at Daniels, he leapt at the opportunity for a new role.
“The nostalgia and the memories wash over you,” Brothers said of his return to campus. “You remember the air and the people. It motivated me to do my best here and to be engaged and to really—not just perform, but contribute and do more to be part of the institution.”
His colleagues noticed. KED Davisson (BSAC 1991, MAcc 1991), assistant director of the School of Accountancy and an alumna herself, has watched Brothers bond with his students over the last decade. His ability to relate to their experiences on campus sets him apart.
“He’s kind of got that caring grandfather image to him,” Davisson said. “He just loves people and loves to take care of people. It’s just a compassion that is so excellent to see in a professor—and in a profession (accounting) that you don’t think of as being the most compassionate. He doesn’t need to be here teaching. He’s here because he wants to be. It’s been wonderful having him here all these years.”
The pleasure, Brothers says, has been entirely his. Taking a curtain call at his beloved alma mater has been eye-opening and awe-inspiring. The resources, the physical beauty of the campus, the ethics of the curriculum at Daniels have been invigorating.
“I want the community to know I’m grateful of what I got,” he said. “After a career of being in accounting and operations and hotel management and all the things that I got involved with, this place and being here has been the best thing I’ve done in my professional career. I couldn’t have had a better place in my life to be. This is the best job I ever had.”