UD trustees bestow honors and recognize benefactors

The University of Delaware Board of Trustees approved increases in room, board and health service rates and granted permanent status to several new academic programs at its semiannual meeting May 22 in the Trabant University Center.

Effective in September, residence hall rates will increase an average of 4.9 percent and dining plan rates will increase an average of 3.3 percent. The cost of a traditional multiple residence hall room will increase by $144 to $3,064 per year. The 19-meals-per-week meal plan will increase by $78 to $2,470 per year.

Effective in June, the Student Health Service fee will increase by $9 per semester to $155, by $2 to $42 for Winter Session and by $3 to $57 for summer sessions. Other health service fees will increase an average of 6.2 percent.

The board also authorized the administration to proceed with several construction projects, including a new art studio building on Cleveland Avenue, residence hall sprinklers and enhanced fire alarm system, renovating Raub Hall to be home of the Department of Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Management and the expansion of the Fischer Greenhouse/ Laboratory.

In addition to several procedural housekeeping items, the board granted permanent status to the bachelor of environmental engineering degree; the major in early childhood development and education; three majors offered jointly by the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures with the Department of Political Science and International Relations; five majors offered jointly by the departments of History and Foreign Languages and Literatures; the major in natural resources management; the major in Italian education; the major in computer engineering; and the major in applied nutrition.

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Degrees and medals

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The trustees also voted to bestow five honorary degrees and four Medals of Distinction.

Selected to receive honorary degrees are

• Alfred du Pont Chandler Jr., Isidor Straus Professor of Business History Emeritus at Harvard University who is regarded as the world's foremost business historian;
• Rita Dove, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and former poet laureate of the United States who is among the most distinguished and best known of the current generation of African-American poets;
• Mary McAleese, the eighth president of Ireland;
• George J. Mitchell, former U.S. senator from Maine who chaired the International Commission on Disarmament and the peace negotiations in Northern Ireland; and
• Paul A. Volcker, chairman of the Federal Reserve System from 1979-87. (Approved by the board's Executive Committee, this honorary degree was presented at an April 30 ceremony.)
  
  
  Chosen to receive Medals of Distinction are
  
  
• Foster and Lynn Friess, who established the Life Enrichment Foundation, which focuses on one-on-one mentoring, discipleship and other personal ministries that offer spiritual encouragement, as well as training, education and health care, especially in Wilmington and Chester, Pa.;
• Vincent L. "Winnie" Mayer, 1933 UD alumnus, one of UD's most outstanding athletes, a founder of the Newark Touchdown Club and a member of UD's Athletic Hall of Fame;
• Burnaby Munson, a member of UD's chemistry faculty since 1967, director of the University Honors Program from 1985-89 and recipient of four excellence-in-teaching awards and the Francis Alison Award;
• Elbert C. Wisner, a 1952 UD alumnus, retired civilian Army electronic engineer, president and senior partner of SBS Consultants and principal management specialist with SEMCOR Inc., who was the first African American admitted to the undergraduate program at UD. (His great granddaughter, Shante Stargell, received her bachelor's degree in civil engineering from UD in 2000.)

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Acknowledgments

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During the meeting, the Board of Trustees recognized the generosity of several benefactors and established funds in their honor.

Those honored by the trustees included:

• the late Edward R. Rosenberg, a member of the Class of 1929, and his wife, Elizabeth Goodman Rosenberg, who provided the University with nearly $7 million through a combination of charitable remainder trusts and bequests. The Rosenbergs' combined gifts have created named professorships in the Professional Theatre Training Program and the departments of Sociology and Art Conservation and have supported a distinguished journalist-in-residence and graduate fellowships and program support in the Department of Art Conservation.
  
  
• the late Howard L. Robertson Sr., a member of the Class of 1931, who created a trust valued in excess of $1.9 million, to create the Howard L. Robertson Sr. and J. Jesse Selinkoff Memorial Scholarship Fund for undergraduate and graduate students pursuing studies in civil engineering or medicine and the health and life sciences.
  
  
• Margaret Prosser Allen, a member of the University's art faculty from 1942 to 1975, who has given stock valued in excess of $150,000 to create the Margaret P. Allen Endowed Lectureship Fund for the Department of Art, which will support the department and a lectureship program in the studio arts.
  
  
• the late Mr. and Mrs. William P. Law, who bequeathed to UD more than $275,000 for the establishment of an endowed scholarship fund, the William P. Law and Gladys B. Law Memorial Fund, to assist deserving Delaware students.
  
  
• former Delaware Gov. Elbert N. Carvel, UD trustee from 1945 to 1985, and his wife, Ann V. Carvel, who have pledged $2 million to be used toward the construction of a new Research and Education Center on the grounds of the current center in Georgetown. The board voted to name the new building the Elbert N. and Ann V. Carvel Research and Education Center.
  
  
• the late Polly Russell Dowling, mother of Louise D. Roselle. The trustees established an endowment in her name with an initial gift of $20,000, to which the MBNA Foundation contributed $1 million. The income from this endowment will be used for supplemental stipends for particularly deserving students in the Professional Theatre Training Program.
  
  
• Paul R. Jones of Atlanta, a distinguished champion of civil rights, a successful entrepreneur and civil servant and a pioneer in the acquisition of African-American art, who donated his collection of some 1,000 works of African-American art to the University.
  
  
• Frederick and Lucy S. Herman of Norfolk, Va., who donated to UD their collection of Native American art, including more than 170 Inuit drawings and additional drawings by Aleuts, as well as Inuit carvings, North West Coast Indian drawings and carvings, American Indian drawings and carvings and some works from Central America.
  
  
• MBNA America, which has provided funding for several important academic and support facilities and greatly increased the amount of scholarship assistance available to UD students, including a pledge of $25 million to the Campaign for Delaware, with $3 million for the Career Services Center. In gratitude for the many years of support, the board voted to name the new Career Services Center on Academy Street the MBNA America Career Services Center.

The trustees also authorized the president to confer degrees at Commencement May 26.

-Jerry Rhodes