UpDate - Vol. 12, No. 14, Page 4
December 10, 1992
In the news

     Recent comments about the University and its community in the media,
are featured in this regular column.

In the 'Mind's Eye'
     The premise of this engaging book is deceptively simple: the design
and manufacture of objects from the size of safety pins to the Golden Gate
Bridge require engineers to think and communicate visually. What Eugene S.
Ferguson, an emeritus professor of the history of science at the University
of Delaware, has done in Engineering and the Mind's Eye is more
complicated. He has summarized the history of design engineering from
antiquity to modern times and composed a cautionary tale about
over-reliance on the seductive ease of computer-aided designs and the
apparent accuracy of computer-generated numbers.
     And his tale is complemented by scores of revealing pictures and
drawings.
     Elite engineering schools are increasingly turning out students more
familiar with mathematics than machinery....
     The reason students in premier schools don't know how to make things
is a curricular problem; these days, they get through school without much
instruction in art or craft. Mr. Ferguson believes that engineering design,
which is the heart of all construction and manufacture, should not be
taught or performed as pure theory and mathematics.
     Things must be seen and felt; judgment based on familiarity with real
objects must be imposed.
     Once upon a time, students learned all the subordinate crafts of their
specialty, including, most importantly, the draftsmanship of maps and
plans. Civil engineers, for example, went to summer camps and walked real
land and surveyed it, they made maps, tested soils, measured the power of
running water, calculated stresses, drew plans and then constructed bridges
over small streams.
     The same was true, with appropriate variations, in all the engineering
majors. Practical experience at places like the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology has now been reduced to "creative" competitions in which
students build ingenious toys to compete in campus contests.
     It was the Renaissance engineer's notebook, his accumulated drawings
and calculations, as Mr. Ferguson points out, that elevated architecture
and engineering from the repetitive piling of stone upon stone in the
Middle Ages to the audacity of the cathedral of Florence.
     In Flippo Brunelleschi's notebooks are his plans for the crane that
permitted him to build that 140-foot-diameter dome, to begin it some l00
feet above the floor of the cathedral and to do this all without building
temporary supporting structures to hold the masonry in place during
construction.
     His cathedral is still there; the computer-designed roof of the new
Hartford Civic Center coliseum lasted three years after the building
opened, until the first snow fell in the winter of 1978.
                                                  "Seeing Is Understanding"
                                             The New York Times Book Review
                                                               Nov. 8, 1992

Mail-a-bug service
     Delaware's farmers-or anyone else for that matter-now have a novel way
of getting rid of some of those pesky insects.
     They can simply mail these tiny pests to the University of Delaware.
Well, a few of them, anyway, because the idea at this point is
identification, not extermination.
     Dewey Caron, a UD Cooperative Extension System's entomologist, will
positively I.D. the bugs. That's because it's important for a farmer, as
well as a homeowner, to know if unidentifiable insects can damage their
crops or property. For example, termites and "pavement ants" look very much
alike. The ant can't do much harm, but the termite can.
     So freeze the suspect bugs overnight in a small container and then
mail it, with all relevant data, to Caron's Newark offices. And Caron may
get some specimens that are actually beneficial to the environment and
shouldn't be eradicated. "These are the good guys, let them be," he says.
                                                           "Insect Express"
                                                             Delaware Today
                                                             November, 1992

Multicultural debate
     Instructors from the University (of Delaware) and Del State (recently)
brought the debate over multicultural education to Delaware Technical and
Community College....
     Dr. Damu A. Kenjyatta, a Del State English professor and playwright,
said black students aren't learning their own culture in school. He'd like
to see schools and universities where students can get an Afrocentric
education rather than one based on Western culture.
     ...Raymond R. Wolters, a specialist in American history at the
University, (said) "A lot of what passes for multiculturalism today is bad
history..."
     Dr. Wolters was a vocal supporter of the University's Black American
Studies program, created in the 1970s, and has written three books about
black history.
     But he says the multicultural movement has gone too far. For example,
he cited Stanford University's revised reading list for students on which
Homer's Iliad was dropped in favor of the autobiography of Rigoberta
Menchu, the Guatemalan Indian activist who won the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize.
Also left out is the Qur'an, the basic text of Islamic culture. Dr. Wolters
said that's evidence that multiculturalism is more an anti-Western
political ideology than a quest for academic equality.
     "This is basically a question of balance," he said.
     Dr. Kenjyatta agrees. But it's the multicultural perspective that's
not getting equal time.
     For example, he argued, who can say that the Iliad is more important
than works by black authors such as Ellison's Invisible Man or The
Palm-Wine Drinker, an old folk tale adapted by Nigerian author Okot Pbetek?
                                "Educators Debate Multicultural Curriculum"
                                                    The Delaware State News
                                                              Nov. 12, 1992

Cultural diversity
     Dover-From Asian art to American black politics, Delaware college
students can discover the world on campus.
     Both Delaware State College and the University of Delaware offer
classes and programs where students can learn about other
cultures-including those within their own society.
     The University makes all of its 15,000 undergraduate students take at
least one multicultural class before graduating. Course offerings include
introductions to feminist history and Jewish philosophy. There's a course
in Delaware black history and one on "women, power and success" in which
students discuss such topics as socializing girls to be successful and
study how women can achieve power and success in their lives.
     Students also can major in Latin American studies or minor in Black
American Studies, Women's Studies, Asian Studies or Jewish Studies.
     "We see ourselves as a catalyst for multicultural and multi-ethnic
understanding," said James E. Newton, director of the University's Black
American Studies program.
     "A part of our role is to ensure that these offerings are there so
that students get as broad a base as possible."
                                   "Del. Colleges Offer Cultural Diversity"
                                                    The Delaware State News
                                                              Nov. 12, 1992