Heard on the Mall

Clean-up and spruce-up were the names of the game in Newark last spring when approximately 75 volunteers assembled to fix up, neaten up, tidy up and dig up--followed by planting and landscaping--the yards of homes on South College Avenue, between the railroad bridge and Park Place.

The project began in a class taught by April Veness, associate professor at UD, who thought students in her social geography class should have hands-on experience in the community to demonstrate some of the principles she was teaching.

"I have been teaching a two-semester module in social geography and have focused on student tenants," she says. "This year, I wanted to go beyond collecting data and test the hypothesis that, when people improve the appearance of their neighborhoods, they become more involved, improve relationships with neighbors and take more interest in the community."

The project mushroomed into a town/gown activity involving student and community volunteers, UD support, homeowners, landlords, renters and the city of Newark, Veness says. Students and other volunteers provided the person power; the University offered trees and plants and a landscaping crew; the city provided a Dumpster for trash; and homeowners, renters and landlords gave input and support.

"The stretch between the bridge and Park Place is the gateway to the city and the main campus of the University, and this project helped enhance the area, which introduces visitors to the community," David Hollowell, UD executive vice president, says.

Scholars from around the world and others interested in the famous 19th-century Romantic poet Lord Byron (George Gordon, 1788-1824) attended the 27th International Byron Conference, held in August at UD and in Boston and New York City.

Sponsored by the Byron Society of America and UD, in cooperation with the International Council of Byron Societies, interest was especially high for the session "The Moods of Lord Byron," delivered by Kay Redfield Jamison, a professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Jamison is the author of Touches with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament, which argues that Byron was manic-depressive. She wrote about her own experiences with manic-depressive illness in An Unquiet Mind in 1995, a bestselling book that was translated into 15 languages.

UD has strong ties to the Byron Society, which stores more than 2,000 volumes, 400 pamphlets, letters and other objects, ranging from figurines and busts to a lock of Byron's hair, in Memorial Hall. Charles Robinson, UD professor of English, is a renowned Byron scholar, and Marsha Manns, AS '71, helped found and currently chairs the society.

Civil rights symposium

The Louis L. Redding Civil Rights Symposium, scheduled for Friday, Oct. 5, in Clayton Hall, will address the issue of whether recent Supreme Court decisions will lead to the re-segregation of public schools.

Recognized authorities on the subject, including lawyers, professors and journalists, will discuss "Hypersegregation, the Urban Underclass and School Desegregation," "Integration? Or Single-Race Schools with Specialized Curricula and Instruction?" "Students at Risk--Or Students of Promise?" and "Desegregation and Higher Education."

At the symposium luncheon, Julian Bond, civil rights activist, former Georgia state legislator and University of Virginia professor, will speak on "New Strategies for Civil Rights Organizations."

Both the morning and afternoon sessions are open to all, although attendance at the luncheon and the final reception is limited to registrants. For further information about the Redding Symposium, call Janice Barlow of UD's Center for Community Development and Family Policy at (302) 831-3462 or e-mail [jls@udel.edu].

Japanese touring company

The Suzuki Company of the Shizuoka Performing Arts Center (SPAC) will present two performances Nov. 13-14 in Hartshorn Theatre.Famed international director Tadashi Suzuki will present Electra on Nov. 13 and Dionysus on Nov. 14. The performances will be in Japanese with simultaneous translation into English. The performance style of the Suzuki Company, which emphasizes sounds, movement and emotion over language, has been critically acclaimed around the world.Tickets for each performance cost $25 for the general public and $20 for University faculty, staff and students. Cost to patrons who purchase tickets along with a subscription series is $17. For tickets, call the Hartshorn Theatre box office at (302) 831-2204 from noon to 5 p.m., weekdays.The performance is sponsored by UD's Professional Theatre Training Program.

Margot Zarella, AS 2002, is queen of the soaps--not soap operas, but Soap for Hope.

Intended to benefit children in Haiti, the Soap for Hope project bubbled forth after Zarella attended a global awareness retreat. There, she was inspired by a speaker from the interdenominational group, the Haitian Health Foundation, which gives patients a cake of soap and washcloth after they complete their vaccinations at an outpatient clinic.

"Soap costs a day's pay in Haiti, so it's a luxury," Zarella says. "Giving away the soap encourages personal hygiene and also getting vaccinated in a country with many health problems."

At UD, she collected 16,462 cakes of soap. That's a lot of suds, and storing it was a challenge. The St. Thomas More Oratory and other churches helped out, but 8,300 cakes were in Zarella's room--under the bed, the desk, in the closet. Because Zarella is a resident assistant, Soap for Hope also became a Residence Life program.

When the collection process was over, a large truck had to be rented to transport the soap to Norwich, Conn., where the foundation is located. The foundation fills up containers twice a year with medical and other supplies, including the soap, for Haiti.

Zarella says she plans to continue Soap for Hope during her senior year, with the help of volunteers, and hopes the project will continue at Delaware after she graduates. "It's a simple and easy way to help care for others," she says.

After graduation, she says she plans to go to Haiti and spend a month at the foundation.

A new collection of services is available via UD's library web site that enables faculty, staff and students to be informed through e-mail when the newest and latest articles on a research topic appear.

Using the new "Alerting Services" web page created by the library, individuals can sign up for alerting services on a particular research topic from dozens of major publishers covering thousands of electronic journals, and they will automatically receive entire online electronic journal articles and information about it via e-mail.

While clowning around for a good cause at the March of Dimes WalkAmerica last spring, Adrienne Nash, AS 2003, a member of Clowns for Medicine, found a lost boy and helped return him to his parents.

The day started out with Nash and another clown entertaining walkers while dressed tastefully in a pink and purple clown outfit with matching hat and generic clown makeup--white face and big red mouth. Nash handed out stickers and balloons to small children who were walking.

As the walk began, the two clowns drove to a Main Street water stop to cheer the walkers on and then started back to the finish line.

"We were driving near McKinly Lab, and I saw this little boy and thought that he was much too young to be by himself, and he was not on the walk's route, so we decided to stop," Nash says.

"I don't know what he thought when he saw this clown pop out of the car! He was in tears and knew he was lost. I asked him if he wanted a ride to the end of the race, but he told me he wasn't allowed in strange cars--and, of course, a car with clowns was even stranger," she says. "So I walked him back to where the police were and they found his parents, and we continued on back to the finish line for the end of the march."

Nash, a junior from Allentown, Pa., says she plans to attend medical school. Her interest in medicine led to her joining Clowns for Medicine, a registered student organization.

A biology major, she was a research intern in an Allentown hospital, working in neonatology, a field that interests her. During the summer, as a Science and Engineering Scholar, she performed undergraduate research in molecular biology.

Paul A. Volcker, former chairman of the Board of Governors of the U.S. Federal Reserve System, was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree in April by the University of Delaware. Serving under five U.S. presidents in the capacity of under secretary of the U.S. Treasury for monetary affairs and then as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board from 1979-87, Volcker is widely credited for ending spiraling inflation in the country. After the ceremony, Volcker gave the 2001 Hutchinson Lecture at the College of Business and Economics.

Volume 10, Number 3, 2001

Heard on the Mall