When Christopher Erickson, EG 2002, was 9 years old, his parents promised him a puppy. Little did they know he would have 14 of them before he left for college. And, never once, would he see them grow old.
The puppies Erickson raised to young adulthood, all golden retrievers and German shepherds, were returned at age 1-1/2 to The Seeing Eye, a guide dog school near his home in Collegeville, Pa.
Erickson taught the puppies basic obedience, exposed them to a variety of social situations and provided lots of love and companionship. He helped lay the basic foundation the puppies would need when they became old enough to be formally trained as guide dogs.
"Turning the puppies back in isn't hard," he explains. "You know how much good the dog is going to do for a blind person. Anytime we've seen any of the dogs we've raised working, they always have their tails held high or their tails wagging, sure signs that they are happy and proud of their work."
Erickson became interested in raising the puppies through involvement with a 4-H Club.
"But, why does it take so long just to say 'please' in French?" the girl asked. "Why are there so many words?"
"She's right, s'il vous plait is longer than please," Katrien Christie, AS '92PhD, assistant professor of foreign languages and literatures, says with a laugh. "The French language is a little wordy. She was very perceptive."
The student wasn't a college freshman, but rather one of many Newark area elementary-school students who regularly take advantage of Christie's FLY (Foreign Languages for Youngsters) program.
"It's a pilot program that is fun and playful," Christie says.
The program, for children in grades 1 through 3, is sponsored by the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures and by the Alliance Française of Wilmington.
In its third year, the program gives children the opportunity to start learning a foreign language at a young age. Basic communication skills in a foreign language are learned through a variety of fun and stimulating listening, speaking, reading and writing activities.
Teachers are from UD's foreign languages and literatures faculty and have been trained in teaching foreign languages to youngsters.
Classes are held on Saturday mornings in the fall and spring semesters. Cost is $150 for tuition and $25 for materials for 12 classes.
"Most experts agree that the earlier a child is introduced to a second language, the greater the chances are that the child will become truly proficient in the language and will develop a more native-like pronunciation," Christie says.
Learning languages early is one of Christie's areas of research. She and the other teachers in FLY also enjoy watching their young students learn.
"At the end of the semester they always put on a performance to show what they have learned," Christie says. "Last year, they chose Star Wars as their theme, and one of the little girls dressed as R2D2. They had a big thing around her and wheeled her around on a skateboard. It was hilarious."
One young student whose father is an airline pilot has flown with him to Paris
to practice her language skills. Another, who finished the FLY program, is now helping teach a class for seventh graders at a local school.
For more information, contact Christie at telephone (302) 831-3389 or by e-mail at <katrien@udel.edu>.
"When I saw this band take the field for the first time after only five days of rehearsals, I was blown away. They were so great. They came out like that, right off the bat, and it stayed that way all season," says Heidi Sarver, director of the Pride of Delaware-the UD Marching Band.
Last fall, for the first time in Sarver's four-year tenure, upperclass students outnumbered freshmen in the band. "In the past, the band has always been at least 60 percent freshmen," Sarver says. "This year, we have 42 percent freshmen and the rest are returning upperclass students."
"With more coming back, we were almost able to start off where we ended last season. It's been the hardest working group of people I've ever known, and at the Northeast Regional College Exhibition, we were able to stand right next to well-known bands from West Chester University and the University of Massachusetts. It was amazing to see all these students on the field and the only difference between them musically was the uniforms they were wearing."
Future band plans include cutting a CD of Delaware favorites like "The Fight Song," "The Alma Mater," "Delaware Forever," and the best of the band's field shows. Some recording has already taken place in Mitchell Hall, and Sarver says she hopes the CD will be ready for release in spring 2000.
Ed Okonowicz, AS '69, '84M, who read the Messenger story about the conservation work on the original Star-Spangled Banner by Suzanne Thomassen Krauss, AS '82M, points out that Ft. McHenry, where the flag flew, has another UD connection. The fort is named for James McHenry, a graduate of the Newark Academy, the precursor of the University.
In a 1934 article, The Colonial Origin of Newark Academy and Other Classical Schools From Which Arose Many Colleges and Universities, George Morgan, an 1875 alumnus of Delaware College, wrote: "McHenry studied medicine; was an aide-de-camp under Washington and Lafayette; was a Maryland delegate to the Continental Congress, 1783-86; and was a member of the Federal Constitutional Convention and signed that instrument. Washington appointed him Secretary of War in 1796 and he continued in that office until 1801...Fort McHenry, so celebrated in song and story, was named in honor of the Newark Academy boy."
Five graduates of the sculpture program in the Department of Art returned to their alma mater in October for an exhibition honoring Joe Moss, UD professor of art and the program's director for the last 29 years.
All of the sculptors exhibiting in "Spine: A Sculpture Exhibition Celebrating the Sculpture Program at the University of Delaware" are former graduate teaching assistants. Listed among their accomplishments are a Fulbright Scholarship; a commission memorializing the people killed in the Oklahoma City bombing; a memorial to Amelia Earhart; and exhibitions and commissions in the U.S., Europe and Asia.
The campus exhibition featured works by sculptor Roy Wilson, '77 and '80, of Philadelphia; Jim Paulsen, '86, professor of sculpture at Towson University in Towson, Md; Indianapolis sculptor Greg Hull, '91; Larry Buechel, '94, studio and technical director of the Grand Arts in Kansas City, Mo.; and sculptor David Meyer, '96, head exhibition designer at the UD Gallery. All hold MFA degrees from the University.
"While studying under Prof. Moss I learned a great deal about a world of ideas and form that had previously been invisible to my eye," Wilson says. "Art is a tough business to make a living in, but its practice exceeds all others in offering the priceless powers of individual expression, self-reliance, inventiveness and the ability to see beyond your own spot in the universe. I appreciate what I received from contact with professors and students of the art department. I appreciate Joe Moss' trust, support and willingness to share his creative time and energy with his many students."
Moss plans to retire this year.
John Bain of Wilmington, a continuing education student leaning toward a major in communication, thinks getting into the Guinness Book of World Records will be a snap. He plans to get there by assembling the world's largest ball made out of rubber bands.
By the end of February, Bain had assembled a ball measuring 12 feet in diameter and weighing 1,476 pounds. That would have beaten the current rubber-band ball record-holder-Steve Partridge of Gildford, England, who constructed a 1,022-pound ball-but Bain's goal was to get the weight of his ball up to 2,000 pounds, which he hopes will happen before the April deadline.
It all started last summer when Bain tied a knot in a rubber band at his job in the mail room of a Wilmington, Del., law firm.
"I'm one of those people who want to be famous," he says, adding that he once considered creating the world's longest chain of paper clips, but dropped the idea because of the expense.
He has offset the cost of his rubber-band ball in some very creative ways. The large rubber bands he needs for the outer layers, for example, are supplied by Alliance Rubber of Hot Springs, Ark. He has found a tow truck driver who volunteered to transport the completed ball to the Metler Scale Co. near Claymont, Del., where certified employees will record its official weight, as required by Guinness.
Bain's already appeared on several area television shows and been the subject of newspaper articles. When his rubber-band ball is finished, he may see if David Letterman will drop it from a crane to see how high it will bounce. If that happens and it survives, he may donate it to a museum.
UD students walking to class from Main Street will soon have no excuse for being late. Thanks to the Newark Rotary, the old clock near the intersection of Main and Academy streets tells perfect time.
The University, MBNA America, the Downtown Newark Partnership and private citizens have contributed the $1,100 needed to repair the four clock faces and to convert the mechanism to synchronous time.
Clocks driven by synchronous motors are never more than a few seconds fast or slow. Once converted, the 18-foot-tall clock will automatically adjust itself daily to near perfect time. It will need to be reset only in the event of a power failure.