UpDate - Vol. 11, No. 7, Page 9
October 17, 1991
Memorial tributes presented at General Faculty Meeting

     Memorial tributes for professors Erskine Wakefield Smith and
George F. Frick were presented at the semi-annual General Faculty
Meeting Monday.
     Emeritus Prof. Charles N. Lanier presented the tribute to
Smith, who taught accounting at the University from 1948 to 1974.
Dr. Frick, H.F. Du Pont Associate Professor Emeritus of History,
was memorialized by Jack D. Ellis, chairperson of the Department of
History.
     Born in Charlotte, N.C., in 1911, Prof. Smith was elected to
Phi Beta Kappa at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
and received a Master of Business Administration degree from New
York University.
     Joining the then Department of Economics and Business
Administration as instructor, Prof. Smith helped strengthen the
University's relatively new accounting curriculum as he progressed
through the ranks to full professor, Lanier said.
     The 1954 Blue Hen yearbook was dedicated to Smith in
recognition of his advisory role with the Student Government
Association (SGA) and his assistance in establishing a student
restaurant in the basement of Memorial Library.
     "His work with the SGA helped create what came to be known as
the 'Scrounge Lounge,' later simply 'The Scrounge,' which name, I
believe has been carried over to the Perkins Student Center,"
Lanier said.
     "During the 42 -plus years I was privileged to know him, Wake
always impressed me with his quiet manner and his scholarly
approach," Lanier said.  "He always was a voracious reader."
     A faculty member in the history department for 30 years, Dr.
Frick was a specialist in American colonial history and culture,
with a lifelong interest in the growth of American science and
botanical history.
     After receiving his doctorate from the University of Illinois,
he served on the faculty of that school and Rutgers University
before joining the University faculty as an assistant professor of
history in 1960.
     Dr. Frick's publications "broke new ground in establishing a
field of inquiry in the history of American plant botany and
ecology," Ellis said, noting in particular his study of the
18th-century American naturalist Mark Catesby and other early
American botanical collectors and collections.
     Described as an exceptional colleague who "advanced the
educational and governance processes of the department and the
College of Arts and Science," Dr.Frick was coordinator of the
Winterthur Program in Early American Culture in the early 1970s,
co-founder of the London Semester, president of the Arts and
Science Senate for two terms, University representative to the
Delaware Heritage Commission and faculty marshall at Commencement
ceremonies from 1969 until his retirement.
     "For many years, his courses in colonial history were
mainstays of the departmental graduate and undergraduate
curriculum," Ellis said, adding that  Dr. Frick trained nine
doctoral students and directed 20 master of arts theses in American
history, American studies and early American culture.
                                        - Cornelia Weil