With its high-tech classrooms providing University of Delaware faculty members with fingertip control for displaying video images and computer-based information and for controlling the classroom lighting, Gore Hall and other classrooms throughout the campus epitomize the startling metamorphosis of UD's living and learning environment. The $17.5 million classroom facility was paid in full by UD patrons Robert W. Gore, a 1959 UD graduate and president of W.L. Gore & Associates, makers of GORE-TEX®; his wife, Sarah I. Gore, a 1976 UD graduate; and his mother, Genevieve W. Gore. A classic Georgian facility, Gore Hall was dedicated April 25 this year and reflects UD's efforts to marry the latest technologies with "best practices" in the classroom, notes George W. Watson, an associate professor of physics and a leader within the University's new Institute for Transforming Undergraduate Education (ITUE). Watson -- whose advocacy of active-learning techniques has been recognized nationally by competing institutions and by the National Science Foundation -- uses Gore Hall's Internet connections to supplement hands-on activities. To illustrate the mechanics of photoconductivity, for instance, Watson displays a web-based animation of photocopier functions. Featuring a three-story central atrium with a skylight and 25 state-of-the-art classrooms, Gore Hall is one of 11 new facilities completed at UD since 1990. Other new facilities include, for example, the $26 million Trabant University Center and parking garage; a $2.5 million Downtown Center in Wilmington, Del., to meet the needs of continuing education and professional development students; another $2 million structure to serve residents of southern Delaware's Kent County; a $3.0 million complex to house the departments of History and Anthropology; and the $6.0 million Arsht Hall. Each of these projects and Gore Hall were totally paid for by funds raised by the University, a total of $57 million. Another five new buildings, costing $87 million, were financed by a combination of University-generated and state funds. In addition to these projects, $10 million has been raised toward completion of a $20 million addition to P.S. duPont Hall for the College of Engineering, to be completed after the turn of the century.