University of Delaware
Office of Public Relations
UpDate - Vol. 16, No. 26, April 10


                 Faculty Senate eulogizes Prof. Herr,
                        approves degree changes
                                   
     Campus construction, University honors and a faculty
eulogy marked the semiannual General Faculty Meeting, held
April 7 before the monthly University Faculty Senate
meeting,
     Richard B. Herr, associate professor of physics and
astronomy, who died March 3, was eulogized by James Mehl of
the department.
     Prof. Herr was the "University's first astronomer,"
joining the faculty in 1964, Mehl said. He "introduced
astronomy to the curriculum and began research at the (then
new) Mount Cuba Astronomical Observatory" and was "recently
named a fellow of the observatory, one of a small number so
honored."
     Mehl noted that Prof. Herr had "many teaching and
research interests, equipping the observatory with
photoelectric instrumentation, which he used to measure
variations of the luminosity of stars."
     He was interested in data analysis. A paper in Science
described his analysis of "sunspot data-originally recorded
by Thomas Harriot in 1611-1613. By digitizing the sketches
and analysis of the data, Dick was able to show that the
rate of rotation of the sun was increasing during a period
of a few decades while sunspot activity was declining."
     "Dick's pioneering interest in classroom technology led
to some workfor the use of computers to assist in
interactive lecturing" using keypads connected to a PC to
get rapid feedback from the students. "Typically, Dick took
an active role not only in the use of the keypads, but in
the electronic design and the computer interfacing," Mehl
said.
     He also wrote a regular astronomy column, "Sky High,"
for the Office of Public Relations, which appeared in the
Wilmington News Journal and UpDate.
     Many of his students became his "lifetime friends.
Through encouragement and high standards," Mehl said, "Dick
stimulated students to do their best, which frequently
turned out to be much better than they thought they could
do."
     During the next portion of the meeting, President David
P. Roselle showed a virtual tour of Gore Hall, created by
architect Allan Greenberg. He discussed the increased use of
the World Wide Web for applications for admission and other
innovative uses, including the campuswide calendar of
events. He mentioned the University's Innovation Award,
which will be presented later this month to two teams of
employees for their activities on behalf of UD.
     Roselle also spoke about the outside recognition the
University has received for many of its programs, including
student and alumni satisfaction with UD shown in recent
surveys.
     At the meeting, Provost Mel Schiavelli spoke about the
strong pool of applicants for this fall's freshman class,
underscoring the importance of a coherent, undergraduate
curricular experience and undergraduate research
opportunities.
     The senate approved revisions to several degrees and to
the grading policy in the College of Nursing.
     The participation of bioresources engineering in the
Operations Research Ph.D. program also was approved.
     In other business, the first four draft resolutions for
revision of the University Guidelines for Faculty Promotion
and Tenure were approved with amended wording.