MBNA gifts support theatre students and career centerGratitude, appreciation and mutual admiration took center stage in Hartshorn Hall during a special ceremony Sept. 20, commemorating two gifts to the University: $1 million from the MBNA Foundation for the Polly Russell Dowling Fellowship Endowment, which benefits students in the Professional Theatre Training Program (PTTP); and $3 million from MBNA America N.A., which made possible the recently opened MBNA Career Services Center at 401 Academy St. At the late afternoon ceremony, the first recipients of the fellowships were announced, and the new career center was officially dedicated. Sanford L. Robbins, chairperson of the Department of Theatre and director of PTTP, welcomed guests and told about the top-ranked PTTP. Several of the program’s students then performed monologues, as well as a scene from last year’s production of Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost. The Dowling Fellowship was established in memory of Mrs. Dowling, the wife of Arthur Dowling of Houston and mother of Cynthia Dowling Tanner and Louise Dowling Roselle. In 2001, the MBNA Foundation made a commitment of $1 million to support the endowed fund. The fellowship, an annual award of $3,000, is designed to honor those PTTP students who best embody and practice the basic principles of the program: well-being, integrity, service, responsibility, communication, possibility and accomplishment. Recipients are selected annually by PTTP faculty. At the ceremony, Robbins announced the first Polly Russell Dowling Fellows, all second-year PTTP students. They are Lynn Berg of Boise, Idaho; Brian Newman of Baton Rouge, La.; Megan Noble of Arlington, Texas; K. Jeffrey Stiefel of Cape May, N,J; Stephen Patrick Smith of Philadelphia; Tomoko Yamaguchi of Tachikawa, Tokyo, Japan; Ricardo Zeger of Mexico City, Mexico. After unveiling with her father and sister a facsimile of a plaque bearing the fellows’ names, Louise Roselle congratulated the recipients and said the University is fortunate to have a graduate theatre program of such high caliber. Her mother, she said, was a native New Yorker, and other than her family and her country, there was very little that she loved more than the theatre. “We are very pleased that this fellowship program has been established in her name,” she said. She thanked the University’s Board of Trustees for establishing the endowment in her mother’s memory, thanked the many friends who contributed to it and thanked Charles and Julie Cawley and the people of MBNA for their contribution. “Because of your support, this graduate theatre program, which is one of the top 10 in the country, will become even stronger,” she said. UD President David Roselle said, “We are very proud of the faculty and students of PTTP and appreciative of their outreach to the community.” The day’s two purposes shared a common link, Roselle said, and that link is “the support and commitment to the University of Delaware from the people of MBNA—and, specifically, Charles and Julie Cawley.” Describing the new MBNA Career Services Center, Roselle said several corporate recruiters had already characterized it as more comfortable, more convenient and more attractive than similar centers at other schools. Some 80 percent of each graduating class use the center’s services, he said. “The new center provides a more professional atmosphere in which these many students can begin their transition to the work world,” Roselle said. John A. Krol represented UD’s Board of Trustees at the ceremony and noted that MBNA’s gift of $25 million to the University on Feb. 14, 2000, is the largest gift to date made to the Campaign for Delaware. The gift, in addition to support for the new career center, included $15 million for scholarships, mostly for economically disadvantaged young people; $5 million for the College of Business and Economics; and $2 million for the Delaware Center for Teacher Education, which strengthens pre-service and in-service teacher education. “I believe the University of Delaware is truly privileged to enjoy the friendship and the support of MBNA, which has not only benefited the University but is a great corporate citizen,” Krol said. “Tonight, we honor not only a great company and a great leadership team, but we honor the leaders of that team, Charlie and Julie Cawley. They truly are a team in helping others, raising and enjoying a wonderful family, and a team in being great friends to so many of us in this room and in this state and nation today,” Krol said. Cawley, president of MBNA Corp. and chief executive officer of MBNA America Bank N.A., said, “We appreciate your thanks, but it really isn’t necessary.” He noted that MBNA has very strong ties with UD: 1,400 alumni and 650-700 current students work there, and a thousand students have attended UD with MBNA scholarships. He added that 23 percent of MBNA’s senior management are UD graduates, and two of them are the first two persons hired when MBNA moved to Delaware. “Anything that we can do for the University of Delaware is our way of thanking you for what you have done for MBNA,” Cawley said. Reflecting on the nature of the gifts highlighted in the Sept. 20 ceremony, Cawley said the best professions are those that help other people. He counted high in that list those in the performing and visual arts, since they “put life to music,” adding that the recent national tragedies demonstrated the importance of putting life to music. This is the fifth college career center to be supported by gifts from MBNA, Cawley said, noting such services help students during one of the most difficult transitions in their lives. Most colleges don’t do a good job with this process, Cawley said, and MBNA is interested in supporting institutions that do. “We’re very, very proud of our association with the University of Delaware,” he said. Rainy weather forced the actual ribbon cutting to be moved from the front of the MBNA Career Services Center to the stage of Hartshorn. Before the audience adjourned for tours of the new center, Roselle said, “There’s an old proverb that ‘Wherever you go, the sky is the same color.’ That may be true, but the truth of the matter is, since MBNA came to Delaware, our sky here has been a little bluer, a little brighter and a lot more sunny than it had been before, and we enjoy basking in that warmth. Thank you very much.”  |