Obituary: Jon Winterton

Jon Winterton with former Dean Dan Howard at his retirement celebration in 2011.

Jon Winterton, Ph.D., retired Emeritus Associate Professor in the CU Denver College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Department of Communications and then in Sociology, died earlier this month. He was 72.

Winterton was with CU  from 1969-2010. At Winterton’s retirement, colleague Danny Martinez said of him, “In 1990, Jon, in keeping with his strong sense of social responsibility and egalitarian philosophy of education, conceived of a highly innovative approach to motivating non-college-bound, underrepresented high school students to go on to college. He was convinced that the best way to motivate these students was to give them an early exposure to college by having them take courses in the safe and supportive environment of their own high school. Jon came to me for assistance in developing the administrative infrastructure for what became known as the CU Succeed Program. It was entirely because of Jon that 17 of the 19 students in the (first) class went on to college within a year after graduating from high school.”

Services were held Oct. 13. Read more about him here.