UpDate - Vol. 12, No. 13, Page 10
December 3, 1992
In the news
Recent comments about the University and its community in the
media are featured in this regular column.
Experts' experts
In the past two decades there has been a veritable explosion of
"expertise" (in the world of art). Never have so many specialists-real
and self-proclaimed-made so many pronouncements on art objects:
upgrading them, downgrading them, challenging attributions, announcing
forgeries, discovering new works by old hands....
What is an expert and how does he or she work?... Experts
themselves do not agree on a definition, but they do recognize that a
prime ingredient of expertise is connoisseurship, the ability to
examine a work of art and propose, without other aids, such factors as
its period, its esthetic importance, its relationship to other works,
and who might be the author.
The list that follows is a distillation of people regarded by
their peers as experts' experts: that is, those who specialists might
solicit when another opinion is wanted in their field. The experts,
determined by cross-checking each name in a particular field with
other experts in that field, have been selected by and large on the
basis of their connoiseurship and willingness to give opinions....
William Innes Homer, professor art history, University of
Delaware, Newark, Del. (Area of expertise): 19th-and 20th-century
generalist; Albert Pinkham Ryder.
Franklin Kelly, curator of American and British paintings,
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (Ph.D. art history, U.
of D.). (Area of expertise): Frederick Church, Thomas Cole.
Ronald G. Pisano, private consultant, former director and curator
Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, Long Island, N. Y. (who studied at
the U. of D.). (Area of expertise): Long Island painters; William
Merritt Chase.
Jules Prown, professor art history, Yale University, New Haven,
Conn. (who holds a master's degree in early American culture from the
U. of D.). (Area of expertise): l8th and 19th century generalist; John
Singleton Copley.
Norman Sasowsky, professor of art, University of Delaware,
Newark, Del. (Area of expertise): Reginald Marsh.
Lewis Sharp, director, Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colo. (Ph.D.
art history, U. of D.). (Area of expertise): 19th and early-20th
century academic sculpture.
"The Great Experts"
ARTnews
September, 1992
All about the BCC
Bob Dylan, Bill Cosby, Kathy Mattea, Hal Ketchum, 10,000 Maniacs.
Suddenly the University of Delaware is in the entertainment business
big-time.
The completion of Delaware's $20 million showplace, the Bob
Carpenter Center (students are affectionately calling it "The Bob") at
the corner of Routes 4 and 896, means a whole slate of acts and
sporting events are headed to the Newark area....
"We're looking for entertainment variety that appeals to
students, the University community and the local community," said
Barbara Kreppel, UD's assistant vice president for administrative
services. "The building looks good, feels good and the sound is very
good. It's a showcase facility and we'll use it for a mixture of
events...."
Kreppel, one of several people hired for or moved into a new
department managing the center, said the University is looking at
family entertainment like the Sesame Street characters, the Harlem
Globetrotters and other events. In addition, the center can be set up
for large banquets, conferences, exhibitions and indoor tennis
competitions...."
"Big Things Brewing At 'The Bob'"
Out & About Magazine
November, 1992
Money and divorce
Even in the best of times, the American family seems to be
fraying. But these are not the best of times. As the economy has
unraveled, stitching families together has become increasingly
arduous. The weight of evidence suggests that because of the
recession, families in the United States will be fewer, smaller and
weaker. The marriage rate last year fell to its lowest level in more
than a decade, and birthrates dropped after four straight years of
increases. As the same time, financial uncertainty is driving couples
apart, complicating already painful divorces and even adding to the
problem of domestic violence.
Many couples who went into the recession together may come out of
it alone. Research by economists Saul Hoffman of the University of
Delaware and Greg Duncan of the University of Michigan projects that
if all couples were to see a 25 percent drop in their income, divorces
in the first five years of marriage would rise by more than l0
percent.
"Love & Money"
U.S. News & World Report
Oct. 19, 1992
Computer creations
A "creature" consisting only of ones and zeros has emerged from
its computer womb and caused a scientific sensation: without human
guidance it reproduces, undergoes spontaneous genetic changes, passes
them on to offspring and evolves new species whose interactions mimic
those of real biological evolution and ecology.
The creature, actually a coded set of 80 instructions written in
a special "machine language" understood by the operating cores of
computers, is the work of Dr. Thomas S. Ray, a plant biologist at the
University of Delaware, who became a computer expert to study the
underlying dynamics of life. The descendants of what Dr. Ray calls his
"ancestor creature" can now evolve on their own, and some have devised
clever ways (completely unforeseen by Dr. Ray) to multiply, gain
advantage over competitors and stave off extinction.
His "creature" is actually a computer program with some very
unusual features. Not only can the sequence and type of its
instructions undergo spontaneous change, but the program creates its
own central processing unit, in effect, a computer.
Dr. Ray devised the program in the hope that it would exhibit
some of the features ordinarily associated only with living organisms.
It has succeeded so well that a new round of debate has developed
among scientists as to where the dividing line between life and
non-life may lie. Biologists ordinarily define living organisms in
terms of their ability to operate by absorbing energy from their
environments, to reproduce and to undergo genetic change that can be
transmitted to descendants. All these features are properties of Dr.
Ray's program....
Viewed on the computer monitors Dr. Ray and his students use at
the biology department of the University of Delaware, Tierra creatures
are merely horizontal bars of different colors that change in length
and color. But they pop into existence, wax and wane, and become
extinct in striking patterns.
One feature of the program is a "reaper"-the equivalent of
death-that removes an organism after a certain lifetime....Another
feature is that about once in every four cycles of reproduction, a
random error is introduced into a creature's code; for example a zero
may be changed to one or vice versa.
Dr. Ray and his student assistants Thomas Uffner, Daniel Pirone
and Marc Cygus, generally allow the Tierra program to continue for
days at a time. When creatures with interesting characteristics
evolve, they are automatically selected to "sequencing"-analysis of
their codes- and stored in a "gene bank."
"Lively Computer Creation Blurs Definition of Life"
The New York Times
Aug. 27, 1992
More about the BCC
This month's country news has a national flavor. If you haven't
been living under a rock lately, you should all know about the opening
of the new Bob Carpenter Center at the University of Delaware in
Newark. It's exciting to have such a wonderful arena within minutes of
our homes, and its also exciting to have Electric Factory Concerts
(EFC) sponsoring such national acts as ... 10,000 Maniacs at the
center....
EFC spokesman Tom Neiger says there are going to be many
fantastic upcoming shows and he feels that the Carpenter Center will
fill a niche that has been missing in Delaware for about 20 years.
"Country Comfort"
Big Shout Magazine
November 1992
More about Jimmy
Within the last year, newspaper articles and a new scholarly
biography have portrayed the former Teamsters chief in a more
sympathetic light, arguing that ex-con (Jimmy) Hoffa was more than a
hapless target of a Mafia hit, more than a corrupt, on-the-make,
power-hungry sleazeball who had the bad taste to wear white socks with
his suits.
"He was a hero and a villain. He was bigger than life," says
Arthur A. Sloane, a University of Delaware industrial relations
professor whose 1991 biography Hoffa is being issued in paperback by
the MIT Press.
...Biographer Sloane's experience is testimony to the enduring
quality of the Hoffa mystique.
For years Sloane lectured about Hoffa a couple of times each
semester because of students' curiosity. About five years ago he gave
an interview to the student newspaper at the University of Delaware
where he teaches. In that interview, Sloane noted that he had known
Hoffa. When Sloane was a graduate student in the 1960s the Teamsters
head had allowed Sloane to spend four months following him around the
country, doing research for a dissertation.
When the story appeared, Sloane was surprised at the response.
People were impressed that he had known Hoffa and were interested in
anecdotes about him. Sloane decided there was a book in it.
The result is a biography that is perhaps more moderate than many
other works about Hoffa. Sloane's verdict is that Hoffa was "a very
good union leader" who could "deliver the foods" to the union
membership....
But Sloane gives Hoffa an F as a citizen because he was "a close
friend of big-league gangsters."
Indeed if there is a central debate about Hoffa's legacy, it is
about how mobbed up he was. His family has argued for years that the
gangster connection has been exaggerated and has contended that Hoffa
would have thrown the mob out of the union if he had regained power.
Hoffa's detractors differ, portraying him as a man so compromised he
could never come clean.
Again Sloane falls in the middle: "He could say no to the mob as
well as yes to the mob...."
Perhaps the biggest mystery isn't where Hoffa is buried but why
he wasn't discovered before now.
But even though he "hit if off" with Hoffa, Sloane still regards
the man with ambivalence. He remains appalled by Hoffa's "ferocious
temper," explaining that Hoffa once tongue-lashed a subordinate so
viciously that "the guy collapsed of a heart attack."
"The Immortal Hoffa"
Los Angeles Times
Sept. 8, 1992
Security director speaks
Just days ago, security directors and campus police chiefs at the
nation's colleges began disclosure in compliance with federal
legislation that, despite some shortcomings, promises to raise
security awareness.
"We've had to work out some technical details with the
regulations, but basically we've been supportive of the concept," says
Douglas Tuttle, a collegiate public safety director and government
relations chairman of the International Association of Campus Law
Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA).
"After all, it is really a consumer rights law; people want to
know about security today and we support that."
IACLEA's involved, positive attitude has empowered the group to
shape regulations that practitioners can live with. Tuttle is author
of an IACLEA book on compliance with the federal Student Right to Know
and Campus Security Act....
But more important, says Tuttle, the laws require formal crime
prevention programs and security awareness policies.
"We've always had a table at orientation," Tuttle says of his
employer, the University of Delaware. "Years ago no one wanted to talk
to us; no one wanted to know there was crime here. Today it's
different. Students and parents are better informed. They want to know
what we're doing about crime."
"Campus Security Act
Gives Directors a Push"
Security
October 1992