UpDate - Vol. 12, No. 9, Page 4
October 29, 1992
Named Professors
Recognition; Named professorships honor distinguished faculty scholars
Those memorialized by named professorships include the
following:
Arthur Andersen is a leading global accounting firm. The firm has
300 locations in 66 countries and serves 80,000 clients. The firm
employs more than 70 University of Delaware graduates, two of whom are
partners in the firm.
MBNA America, the bank that has given more than $1 million to the
University since it moved to Delaware in 1982, pledged $525,000 to the
University in January to create the MBNA America Business
Professorship.
Maxwell P. (1912-1983) and Mildred H. Harrington (1910-1990) had
a special love for the coast. Both were Delaware natives, and Mr.
Harrington graduated from Delaware in 1950 with a bachelor's degree in
civil engineering. He worked for the federal government in marine
sciences for several years and served as an engineer at Camp
Lejeune-the U.S. Marine Corps base in Jacksonville, N.C. After Mr.
Harrington's death in 1983, Mrs. Harrington continued to support the
College of Marine Studies as a Marine Associate. In 1988, she donated
an extensive seashell collection amassed during their travels.
Elias Ahuja (1863-1951), a native of Spain, represented the Du
Pont Co. in Chile early in the century. After retiring to his native
country he was decorated by Alfonso XIII for his philanthropy, but in
1937, he returned to the United States and, at his death, left a
substantial sum to philanthropies in Delaware in memory of his
associations in the state.
Harriet Baily (1891-1988), a former art professor and chairperson
of the art department, was active in encouraging the development of
the state's cultural arts. A graduate of the Teacher's College of
Columbia University, many of her paintings are on display in
Washington, D.C., New York, Philadelphia and Wilmington.
H. Fletcher Brown (1867-1944), chemist, business executive and
University of Delaware trustee, was a native of Massachusetts and a
graduate of Harvard University who, after retirement, became a major
figure in the improvement of education in Delaware, to which he
devoted a large portion of both his time and his fortune. The
University, the public schools, the Y.M.C.A., and other groups were
recipients of his aid.
Allan P. Colburn (1904-1955), chemical engineer, acting president
of the University in 1950 and its first provost, had a distinguished
if short career in industrial research before joining the faculty in
1938. Enterprising and imaginative, he was largely responsible for the
rapid development of the chemical engineering department and for the
initiation of doctoral programs.
Henry Belin du Pont (1898-1970), business executive, yachtsman
and pioneer aviator, was a University trustee and an active sponsor of
many civic and cultural enterprises. The breadth of his interests is
indicated by his having received two undergraduate degrees, one in
liberal arts from Yale University and one in engineering from M.I.T.
His generous benefactions to University activities were made with
little fanfare or publicity.
Henry Francis du Pont (1880-1969), the last life trustee of the
University, won distinction as a cattle breeder, a horticulturist and
a collector of American antiquities. His estate, Winterthur, became
nationally famous as the site of his collection of decorative arts and
early American interiors. In cooperation with Winterthur, the
University conducts graduate programs, in early American material
culture and art conservation.
Willis F. Harrington Sr. (1882-1959), a graduate of Delaware in
the class of 1902, took another degree at M.I.T. before entering the
chemical industry, where he particularly distinguished himself as an
executive in the manufacture of dyes. He was interested in many civic
ventures, including the Delaware Hospital, of which he was board
chairman. He and his brother, Chancellor William Watson Harrington
(1874-1959), an 1895 graduate of Delaware and a trustee for 59 years,
were long-time friends of the University.
Charles Polk Messick (1882-1978), a graduate of Delaware in the
class of 1907, was a pioneer in the development of civil service merit
systems. Chief examiner and secretary of the New Jersey Civil Service
Commission as early as 1917, he became a national authority in the
field and was recognized as "the nation's elder statesman in public
personnel administration."
Lydia H. Richards (1872-1959), Robert H. Richards Sr. (1873-1951)
and Robert H. Richards Jr. (1905-1977) are memorialized by the
Richards Professorship. Lydia Richards was for many years a member of
the Women's College advisory committee to the Board of Trustees, on
which her husband, Robert H. Richards, a leader of the Delaware bar,
was a prominent member. Their son, Robert H. Richards Jr., a graduate
of Delaware in the class of 1928 and also of the Harvard Law School,
succeeded his father as head of the law firm of Richards, Layton &
Finger.
H. Rodney Sharp Sr. (1880-1968), a graduate of Delaware in the
class of 1900, was the University's most generous patron in its long
history. Besides his gifts to the University's physical expansion and
to the endowment, he took a personal interest in the cultural
opportunities available for students and in the beauty of the campus,
utilizing his position as a life trustee and long-time chairman of the
buildings and grounds committee to help attain those ends. Through
many years his loyalty to his alma mater never wavered.
Hugh Martin Morris (1878-1966), a native Delawarean, was
graduated from Delaware College, now the University, in 1898, with a
bachelor of arts degree. After teaching for two years, he studied law
and, in 1903, was admitted to the Delaware bar. He pursued a
distinguished legal career in Wilmington until 1919 when Woodrow
Wilson appointed him U.S. District Judge for Delaware. He retired from
the bench in 1930 to resume the active practice of law. In June 1928,
the University awarded him the honorary degree, doctor of laws, and a
year later, he was appointed to the Board of Trustees, where he served
until 1959, for the last 20 years as president of the board. A noted
benefactor of the University, his gifts included his home and farm on
Polly Drummond Hill in Newark. When the Hugh M. Morris Library was
dedicated in 1964, Judge Morris, though quite elderly, attended the
ceremony.
The Unidel professorships owe their origin to the Unidel
Foundation, established by Amy du Pont (1876-1962), sportswoman and
philanthropist. Through this agency she originally supported various
facets of women's education at Delaware and eventually she bequeathed
her estate to it. After application by University officials, the
foundation's board makes grants to finance specific projects that
enrich educational programs that are beyond what can be expected from
the usual sources of financial support.
A graduate of Dartmouth College and Oxford University, where he
was a Rhodes Scholar, Ned B. Allen (1899-1984) earned his doctorate
from the University of Michigan. He spent a year as a newspaper
reporter for the Springfield, Mass., Union and a year as an instructor
at the University of Southern California before joining the Delaware
faculty as an associate professor of English. He was promoted to full
professor in 1947 and later was chairperson of the Department of
English. He retired in 1965. The author of a number of articles that
appeared in Modern Language Notes, The Shakespeare Association
Bulletin and Delaware Notes, he also wrote a book, The Sources of
Dryden's Comedies.
Jerzy L. Nowinski joined the Delaware faculty in 1961 and was
named H. Fletcher Brown Professor in 1965. He retired in 1973. His
master's and doctoral degrees were awarded by the Warsaw Polytechnic
Institute. The author or coauthor of several monographs and more than
200 papers, Dr. Nowinski founded and serves on the editorial board of
the Journal of Non-Linear Mechanics, and he serves on the editorial
boards of the Journal of Thermal Stresses and the Iranian Journal of
Science and Technology. He has received a number of awards, including
the Officer Cross of Polonia Restitua, Gold Medal of Merit, Government
Scientific Award, Silver and Gold Awards for the reconstruction of
Warsaw, M.T. Huber Scientific Prize and the Sigma Xi Scientific Award.
John W. Shirley (1908-1988) was an internationally known
authority on the Elizabethan scientist, Thomas Harriot. His Harriot
studies began when he was a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow. He came to
the University in 1962 as Provost and Vice President for Academic
Affairs and served in that capacity until 1972, when he was named H.
Fletcher Brown Professor. He also served as Acting President of the
University during 1967-68. Dr. Shirley received his bachelor's degree
in physics and literature and his doctorate in literature and
philosophy, both with honors, from the University of Iowa. He also
received an honorary doctor of humane letters degree from St. Lawrence
University and a doctor of letters degree from Durham University of
England. In 1982, the University awarded him the Medal of Distinction,
in recognition of his contributions.
Robert Lyle Spencer (1887-1945) was dean of Delaware's School of
Engineering from 1928 until his retirement in 1945. He was
instrumental in the growth of teaching, research and service programs
in the field of engineering at the University, and he contributed
substantially to the development of the physical plant to support
engineering science technology. Evans Hall was built during his
tenure, and, according to a 1945 issue of The University of Delaware
News, "Money provided to equip the building was inadequate. Teachers
and students had to make and install what they could. Dean Spencer
himself built all the classroom desks and bulletin boards in the new
building." He served as Dean of Delaware College from February to
April 1944, and as Acting President of the University from April to
May, 1944. He died in 1945. less than a month after he resigned from
the University because of illness. Spencer Laboratory is named in his
honor.
Amy Rextrew (1891-1974) was the first dean of the School of Home
Economics at Delaware. A native of New York, she held degrees from New
York State College for Teachers and Columbia University and had also
studied at Cornell University, the University of Tennessee and
Michigan State University. A member of the faculty from 1927, she was
Dean from 1945-48 and served as Dean of Women from 48-52. Miss Rextrew
was active in professional organizations, including the American Home
Economics Association and the Delaware Home Economics Association.