UpDate - Vol. 11, No. 24, Page 1
March 19, 1992
RISE director search begins

     A search committee has been appointed to seek a new director of the Rise
(Resources to Insure Successful Engineers) Program, Costel D. Denson, acting
dean of the College of Engineering, announced today.
     Peter J. Warter, chairperson of the Department of Electrical
Engineering, heads the eight-member committee, which also includes RISE
students, alumni and parents, in addition to faculty and professional staff.
     It is anticipated that a new director will be in place by July 1. Review
of applications will begin April 17, and applications will be accepted until
the position is filled.
     As part of the national search, advertisements for the position have
been placed in such publications as the News Journal, Philadelphia Inquirer,
Chronicle of Higher Education and Black Issues in Higher Education.
     The RISE director, reporting to the dean of the College of Engineering
and working closely with engineering faculty, shares responsibility for
recruiting and counseling students; developing and maintaining a support
structure within the student body and the faculty; oper/ting a pre-freshman
summer program for incoming RISE students; operating a joint FAME/RISE
on-campus summer program for minority high school students; and, with others,
raising external funds for RISE scholarships and RISE activities.
     Members of the search committee, in addition to
     Warter, are T.W. Fraser Russell, Allan P. Colburn Professor of Chemical
Engineering and director of the Institute of Energy Conversion; Janice M.
Jordan, associate director of the Center for Counseling and Student
Development; William D. Reynolds, graduate fellow in electrical engineering;
Shantel M. Conquest, mechanical engineering sophomore; Stephanie Y. Horton,
chemical engineering sophomore; Judy Reynolds Smith, parent of RISE student;
and alumnus John C. Kelly, now with AT&T Laboratories. RISE was established
in 1972 to identify and recruit academically prepared minority students for
the College of Engineering and to assist them in meeting the college's
demanding curriculum through graduation.
     The 20-year-old RISE program currently has 133 African-American and
Hispanic students enrolled in engineering-approximately14.5 percent of
undergraduate engineering students at the University of Delaware. In the last
five years, some 65 RISE students have graduated and another 20 are expected
to graduate this year. In 1990, 11 of 19 RISE graduates went on to graduate
school.
     Two significant honors were recently received by the program. RISE is
one of only 15 recipients across the nation of a 1991 GTE FOCUS Grant, a
$30,000 award to be used to fund a new undergraduate research initiative, and
two RISE students-Melvin L. Perry Jr. of Wilmington and Arthur J. Valentine
Jr. of Mays Landing, N.J., have been named GEM Master's Engineering Fellows
by the National Consortium for Graduate Degrees for Minorities in Engineering
and Science Inc.