Now that classes are under way, Julie Brown and her mother, Karen, have more in common than the same home address in Wilmington. Both are freshmen in the Class of 2003.

Because Julie is only 15 years old, she is commuting to the campus from home. Karen’s been home-schooling her since Julie was 3 years old. That’s how Julie was able to finish her schooling before other children her age.

“You have to remember that in home-schooling you don’t have all the seat work, and the teacher doesn’t have to deal with large numbers of students,” Karen says. “So, it’s conceivable that a student can get six hours’ worth of learning in only three hours.”

The University of Delaware newest class includes 3,503 freshmen and 477 transfer students, for a total of 3,980. They range in age from 15 to 76, with a median age of 18.4 years.

The new class includes 40 valedictorians, 31 salutatorians and 200 students with high school grade point averages of 4.00. Some 508 students are enrolled in the University Honors program.

Among the freshmen are 1,130 students from Delaware, 786 from New Jersey, 664 from Pennsylvania, 462 from New York and 271 from Maryland. Most students come from the mid-Atlantic states, but there also are eight students from the Virgin Islands.

There are 39 freshman and transfer students from 20 foreign countries, including Australia, Bangladesh, Burma, Nigeria, Korea, Sweden and Switzerland.

In terms of ethnic diversity, the incoming students include 194 African Americans, 108 Asian Americans, 91 Latino Americans and 12 Native Americans.

Applying over the World Wide Web is increasingly popular—with 2,303 freshmen, as compared to 1,694 last year, and 948 transfer students, as compared to 699 last year—applying electronically to UD.

The first painter to set foot on lunar soil, Alan Bean—Apollo 12 astronaut and artist—charmed members of the public and the press during a visit to UD in September. Five of his paintings were included in a fall University Gallery exhibit, “One Small Step: Exploring America’s Adventures in Space, 1959-1999.”

Low-key and jocular, Bean delivered a lecture and signed copies of his book, Apollo: An Eyewitness Account.

As commander of Skylab Mission II, Bean and his crew lived 59 days in space, 270 miles above the Earth. During his career as an astronaut, he helped establish 11 world records in aeronautics and space. At UD, he joked about being best remembered as the astronaut who ruined the first live television broadcast from the moon by aiming the camera directly at the sun.

He also spoke about his career as an artist, which began in 1981, when he devoted himself to documenting the exploration of the moon with the authority of an eyewitness and the passion of a true believer. He also entertained with stories about the filming of the 1998 cable television miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, directed by Tom Hanks. He spoke about watching actor Dave Foley portray him in the series and said Hanks was interested in buying one of his paintings. “By the time I was ready to paint one for Tom, he was overseas filming Saving Private Ryan,” Bean said.

As Hurricane Floyd whirled its way up the East Coast in September, UD’s staff worked overtime to minimize the impact of the storm's unwelcome visit.

Typically, about 100 facilities management staff members work every weekday. During the Thursday storm, more than 250 employees were on hand to deal with leaks, drain problems and high water. Some worked 18 hours straight to safeguard University property.

“We were very lucky and lost only eight trees,” says Sam Jones, manager of grounds services. While the storm raged, he and his colleagues cleaned up the larger downed branches.

At the height of Hurricane Floyd, the home of John Munroe, H. Rodney Sharp Professor Emeritus of History, was flooding heavily. Dorothy Munroe called Dean of Students Tim Brooks seeking assistance. Responding to the plea for help, five members of Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity raced to the Munroe residence and spent hours bailing out the basement. They were Matt Spilich, EG 2000, of Chestertown, Md.; Joshua Porter, BE 2001, of Orange, Calif.; Kristian Mayr, CHEP 2001, of Richmond, Va.; Alex Tweedie, a graduate student in business from Twinsburg, Ohio; and Thomas Mather, AG ’80M, of Elmer, N.J.

When GQ: Gentlemen’s Quarterly put together a special supplement on aging in its September 1999 issue, it seemed only natural to include the likes of Dick Clark, whom the magazine tagged “a paragon of preservation,” and John Glenn, who the magazine says “has grown old gracefully by following the simple yet effective strategy pioneered by Red Buttons: Adopt the look of a stunned infant and stick with it.”

And, the magazine tags one individual as “the ultimate authority for men’s style news.” Who? Someone near and dear to UD’s heart–101-year-old Chap Tyler.

The retired economics engineer, continuing education faculty member, B&E lecturer and UD benefactor is included in the article modeling his favorite multi-colored Shetland sweater, one so admired by the women at his Cokesbury Village retirement community in Hockessin, Del., that he calls it “my pick-up sweater.”

Tyler, who authored the book, Building for Success in Business: Your Midlife Career at the age of 98 and who has just completed a new book, View from Age 100, says his recipe for longevity is simple: “Don’t retire–ever.”

A proponent of regular medical checkups, Tyler also concedes that it may take the right genetics to make a centenarian.

Tyler told the magazine he regularly wakes up between 6 and 7 a.m., has breakfast at 8 a.m. and reads three newspapers each day. Two or three days a week he attends fitness classes. On the others, he attends to business and personal correspondence and finance. After lunch, he takes a short walk or a short nap and spends more time reading.

He describes dinner as a “two-hour social event with 200 to 300 who live in Cokesbury Village.” In the evenings, Tyler said he may watch a movie and is in bed between 9 and 10 p.m.

Tyler also told the magazine his favorite food is broiled scrod and his favorite author is Ernest Hemingway, adding “I won’t discuss my sex life, such as it is.”

Staff members of the UD library will go to the ends of the Earth if it means adding to the library’s collections. Well, at least as far as Morocco.

So it was that Timothy Murray, head of Special Collections, and Francis Poole, associate librarian, journeyed to Tangier to visit Poole’s longtime friend, Paul Bowles, to discuss the disposition of his literary papers. Bowles, 88, died Nov. 18 of a heart attack.

As a result of their negotiations, the library has acquired a large collection of Mr. Bowles’ work, including letters, manuscripts, revisions of manuscripts, translations, publishers’ reports, memorabilia and numerous other items housed for many years in the home of the expatriate writer and composer.

“The papers document the career of one of the most distinctive voices in modern literature,” says Susan Brynteson, director of libraries.

Mr. Bowles was born in New York City on Dec. 10, 1910. Since the 1940s, he had written numerous works of fiction, essays, translations, travel essays, poems and other works. Among Mr. Bowles’ best-known fictional works are the novels The Sheltering Sky (1949), Let It Come Down (1952) and The Spider’s House (1955); and his initial short story collection, The Delicate Prey and Other Stories (1950). A film of The Sheltering Sky was made in 1991, starring Debra Winger and John Malkovich and directed by Bernardo Bertolucci.

Mr. Bowles also had a prominent career as a composer. He studied with both Aaron Copland and Virgil Thomson and, during the 1930s and 1940s, became one of the preeminent composers of American theatre music.

In 1938, he married the former Jane Auer, who under her married name of Jane Bowles, became an accomplished author. The couple spent much of their married life traveling throughout the world and, in the late 1940s, made Tangier, Morocco, their permanent home. Major figures in the world of letters and the arts frequently visited them there.

After many years of corresponding with Mr. Bowles and meeting with him on numerous occasions, Murray described the two visits to Tangier in March and September as “adventures in discovery,” adding, “It has been a great privilege and certainly a professional highlight to have had the opportunity to work with Mr. Bowles on this effort.”

The UD visitors had many lengthy discussions with Mr. Bowles in his home and, with the help of his assistant, Abdelhouaid Boulaich, were able to pack up and transport to Delaware scores of boxes filled to the brim.

Murray noted that the UD Library will mount an important exhibition in late 2000 that will contain items from the Bowles papers. While in Tangier, Poole interviewed Mr. Bowles on videotape, which will be added to the Paul Bowles Archive.

The new materials are being processed and should be available to researchers within two years, Murray says.

Lesa Griffiths, associate dean of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, captured the attention of members of the Class of 2003 at Convocation Aug. 30. She told tales of people and pigs.

Griffiths urged the new students to seek out people with a passion and illustrated her point with instructive tales from her swine production class.

Quoting from student journals, Griffiths recounted several lessons learned from pigs:

• “Bertha taught me that if anyone stands in the way of something you really want, you should just push them over.”
• “Pickles taught me to make as much noise as it takes for someone to notice me.”
• “Spike escaped from her pen today and opened every bag of feed in the barn. I learned that, even if you only have a few minutes of freedom each day, you should take full advantage of it.”
• “I learned from Xena that attitude is everything. It can earn you respect and even make you quite endearing to those that get to know you.”
• “I learned from Lucy that you should never, never be afraid to get dirty. It always washes off.”

More and better students are choosing the University of Delaware, Frederic Siegel, associate provost for enrollment services, says.

“This year, we required essays and recommendations as part of the application process, which allowed us to be more precise and selective in the admissions process,” Siegel says. “As a result, the members of the freshman class have higher average SAT scores–1145 as compared to 1138 in 1998, higher high school grade point averages and higher class rankings.

“Although we had fewer applicants overall, the students who did apply were better qualified,” Siegel says.

“After last year’s exceptionally large freshman class of more than 3,600 students, we deliberately admitted fewer students–15 percent fewer–and our goal was a class of 3,250,” he says.

“However, because UD is the school of choice for so many students, the freshman class numbers 3,503. This year, two out of five, or 40 percent of those admitted, chose to come to UD, versus one out of three just two years ago,” Siegel says.

The skaters at UD’s Ice Skating Science Development Center glide across the ice, locked in the isolation that only complete concentration can bring, practicing their jumps, turns and spins.

Off the ice, it’s a different story.

The skaters, their parents and coaches are part of an extended family, one that binds together individuals in this sport all across the country. That connection has been most evident in the aftermath of a skating accident that interrupted the career of pairs skaters Paul Binnebose and Laura Handy, who train at the UD center.

Skaters across the country have rallied in support of Binnebose, who faces a long road to recovery after a near-fatal fall Sept. 29 that resulted in a severe brain injury. Skaters who train at UD, as well as friends of the skater, are wearing and selling ribbons to raise money to help pay Binnebose’s hospital bills. The ribbons are navy blue and purple—the colors Binnebose and Handy wore last year when they placed third in the nation in pairs figure skating and became part of the elite U.S. Senior World Team.

The ice arena is accepting donations to a Binnebose fund, administered by the Delaware Amateur Skating Foundation.

Binnebose’s coach, Tracy Poletis, says that cards and letters have been pouring in, and young skaters across the country have sent drawings. Internet chatrooms, like one maintained by Figure Skating World OnLine, are full of get-well wishes for Binnebose.

“We’re all very close. It’s been hard on everybody,” Poletis says. “Right now, we all just want him to get as healthy as possible. It’s tough. He has a lot to face.

“He’s a big strong kid with a strong mind. He’s a fighter. He’s had to fight to get this far and he’ll continue to fight,” Poletis says. “When you think that the two of them have only skated together for two years and that they made the U.S. team—well, that’s determination, that’s pretty unheard of. Paul and Laura have left quite an impression on people across the country.”

Binnebose, who was in a coma for 11 days, returned home at the end of November. He is still undergoing physical therapy but is optimistic that he will get back on the ice.

When UD skaters participated in Skate America ’99 in October in Colorado Springs, they wore blue and gold ribbons in support of Binnebose and Handy.

To find out more about purchasing a ribbon or making a donation to the Binnebose fund, contact Poletis at the arena, telephone (302) 831-2868.

Cycling around the campus and the town of Newark just got easier thanks to a new map prepared by the Newark Traffic Relief Committee. The map shows bike routes throughout the city and offers reminders about bicycle safety and traffic laws. A team of UD and city of Newark personnel worked for the several months with Steven Spindler Cartology of Philadelphia to create the map.