Encouraging a path of leadership and service

University President Patrick Harker and U.S. Sen. Thomas R. Carper, addressing the newest UD alumni during Winter Commencement ceremonies in January, urged the members of the Class of 2007 to consider leadership and service as life goals.

“Success is not an end in itself,” Harker told the audience. “It is a means to an even higher and more noble end: a life well lived
in service to mankind.”

The University conferred 146 doctoral degrees, 324 master’s degrees, 843 bachelor’s degrees and 70 associate’s degrees on students who completed their degree requirements in August and December.
Carper, BE ’75M, who received an honorary doctor of laws degree from Board of Trustees Chairman Howard E. Cosgrove, thanked faculty members for helping prepare him
for service in leadership roles at the state and national levels.

“Not a week goes by that I don’t put to practical use something that I learned as a graduate student here, so to all who taught me both in the classroom and outside of it, I thank you,” he said. “I especially want to thank three of the most admired and revered professors to ever teach at this University, who I believe are somewhere in this audience. They are Drs. Jim Soles, Art Sloane and Don Puglisi. On behalf of a generation or two of UD students, ‘God bless you.’”

Carper, whose political career includes a record 12 consecutive statewide elected positions in Delaware, including state treasurer and governor, U.S. representative and senator, talked about giving back, seizing opportunities and providing service through leadership.

In Harker’s remarks, he noted that a UD degree is a credential that will define its recipients throughout their careers, and he reminded the newest alumni to consider and continue the tradition of leadership established by the Rev. Francis Alison in 1743.

Alison founded the academy that later became the University of Delaware, and his first class included three signers of the Declaration of Independence, one of whom also signed the Constitution.

“The tradition of excellence established in that first class has been handed down through the years as the University of Delaware has grown and evolved,” Harker said. “It has been cherished and nurtured, and now you are part of this great Delaware tradition that stretches back 265 years.”