The history of the University began in 1743 when the distinguished colonial scholar and Presbyterian clergyman, Dr. Francis Alison, opened a school at his home in New London, Pennsylvania. By 1765 the school had been moved to Newark where it received a charter as the Academy of Newark from Thomas and Richard Penn in 1769. The Academy was closed for several years during the Revolutionary War but reopened at the war's end. In 1833 the State of Delaware provided a charter for the construction of a college in conjunction with the Academy. New Ark College opened as a degree-granting collegiate institution in 1834 in the building now called Old College. The institution was renamed Delaware College in 1843 and then closed in 1859 because of financial problems and the impending Civil War. It was reopened in 1870 with funds provided by the Morrill Land-Grant College Act of 1862. The Women's College was opened in 1914, and in 1921 the two coordinate colleges were given the title of University of Delaware. The Women's College was abolished in 1945 when coeducation, adopted as a temporary expedient during World War II, was made a permanent policy.

Today, the University campuses consist of 2,629 acres and a physical plant consisting of 420 buildings with a replacement cost approaching $1 billion.

Enrollment at the University in the fall of 1996 included 15,528 undergraduate students, 3,286 graduate students, and 2,566 students in the Division of Continuing Education.

Graduate programs leading to a master's degree have been available since before the turn of the century. Doctoral programs have been offered since the 1940s. Currently, the University offers 78 different programs leading to a master's degree and 40 different programs leading to a doctoral degree through 46 departments in the seven instructional colleges. In 1996, 819 master's degrees, 149 Ph.D. degrees, and 11 Ed.D. degrees were conferred.

Since 1921, the University has been accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. Professional accreditation also is held in Accounting, Agricultural Engineering/ Engineering Technology, Athletic Training, Business Administration, Chemistry, Clinical Psychology, Dietetics, Education, Engineering, Medical Technology, Music, Physical Therapy and Nursing. 

The University follows a semester plan. The fall semester runs from early September to just before the Christmas recess in December. The spring semester begins in early February and ends in late May. Two five-week summer sessions of day and evening courses and a seven-and-one-half-week session of evening courses make up the summer school that runs from June to August. Course offerings in the summer sessions afford students the opportunity to pursue regular credit courses and independent study. Several graduate courses are offered for the professional education of elementary and secondary school teachers.

A five-week winter session held in January between the spring and fall terms provides opportunities for regular and experimental courses, innovative projects, off-campus experiences, and independent study. Ordinarily, about ten percent of winter session courses are at the graduate level. Students may register for a maximum of 7 credits; registration for more than 7 credit hours must be approved by the Office of Graduate Studies.

The University operates on a daily class schedule with classes held from 7:30 a.m. through 10:00 p.m. No distinction is made between "day" students and "night" students.

The University's distinguished faculty includes internationally known scientists, authors, and teachers. Among these distinguished scholars are winners of the Humboldt Prize, the Rhodes Scholarship, the Bancroft Prize in American History, the Bingham Medal, the Randolph Caldecott Medal, the Coretta Scott King Award, the Professional Progress Award in Chemical Engineering, the Outstanding Academic Book Award, the Thomas Newcomen Book Award, the National Council on the Arts Poetry Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the Fulbright-Hays Award, as well as recipients of the American Council of Learned Societies, Woodrow Wilson, Guggenheim, and Rockefeller Foundation Humanities Fellowships. Faculty members also have been elected to the National Academy of Science, the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Society of Agronomy, and the National Academy of Engineering. Eighty-seven percent of the faculty hold the doctorate or other terminal degree awarded by universities in North America and Europe. In 1996 there were 54 named professorships. The University community includes 920 full-time and 44 part-time faculty, 71 postdoctoral fellows, 1,139 professionals, 1,043 salaried, technical, and hourly, and 456 service/maintenance employees.

Graduate students at Delaware make a major contribution to the University's objectives of creating, synthesizing, and disseminating knowledge. Through formal courses, seminars, independent studies, and research projects, students are introduced to existing knowledge in their fields and are provided with the principles and techniques for independent thinking and research. Both undergraduate and graduate students assist faculty in conducting basic research. Some graduate students are supported under faculty research grants from outside agencies.

The Center for Advanced Study at the University of Delaware was established to provide senior faculty members with opportunities for advanced research in areas of their disciplines and for improvement of teaching at all levels. Three awards are offered each year. Faculty members receiving appointments as fellows are freed from all other regular assignments except the supervision of graduate theses and dissertations. Through these awards, the University demonstrates its continuing commitment to the excellence in teaching and research of its faculty.

The University of Delaware Library consists of the Morris Library, the Agriculture Library, the Chemistry Library, and the Physics Library in Newark and the Marine Studies Library in Lewes. The Morris Library, where the main collection is held, seats over 3,000. University Libraries contain more than 2,200,000 volumes of books and journals and more than 2,800,000 items in microtext. Collections are broadly based and comprehensive. The University of Delaware Library serves as a depository library for U.S. government publications and a patent depository library for U.S. patents.

DELCAT, the University of Delaware Library online catalog, contains information about library holdings including bibliographic information; circulation status; on-order status and other information. DELCAT may be accessed via the University of Delaware computing network, the Internet, or by modem from anywhere in the world. Throughout the State of Delaware, access to DELCAT is available by local, toll-free telephone numbers.

The University of Delaware Library provides online electronic access to networked and digital information including: journal article references and abstracts, full text electronic articles, an encyclopedia, government information, and maps. Library Networked Databases provide access to more than 50 networked databases for University of Delaware faculty, students, and staff. Library Networked Databases contain hundreds of thousands of full-text articles, references and summaries of the contents of journals. "Networked" means that the electronic information is accessible at designated library workstations, in all University of Delaware microcomputing sites, and from all microcomputer connections in residence halls, offices, and off campus that can access the University of Delaware computing network via the World Wide Web. The Library Web page serves as a gateway research tool and provides gateway access to electronic resources on the World Wide Web and electronic access to resources (some of which are locally licensed for University of Delaware faculty, students, and staff only). The Library Web page is also available from the University of Delaware Web page.

A database exists for virtually every subject. Some databases are general and broadly cover many subjects. Examples of databases that cover many subjects are Britannica Online, Current Contents, Expanded Academic ASAP and OCLC First Search ArticleFirst. Other databases focus on a particular subject area such as Medline for medicine, ERIC for education, ABI/INFORM for business, Sociofile for sociology, and Agricola for agriculture.

Special Collections hold rare books, manuscripts, and archives including holdings in the fields of Irish and twentieth-century American literature which include collections of William Butler Yeats, Ernest Hemingway, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Tennessee Williams and Paul Bowles, and archives in the fields of literature, history, including the history of chemistry and technology and the history of Delaware, and the applied arts.

The University of Delaware Library is a member of the Association of Research Libraries, the Center for Research Libraries, CIRLA (Chesapeake Information and Research Library Alliance) and PALINET, through which it is connected online to OCLC, the Online Computer Library Center. For library hours, call 302/831-BOOK.

The technological resources available to University of Delaware students are unparalleled on any campus. Over 700 miles of fiber optics and cable form a network that connects everyone at the University of Delaware to each other and to the Internet. Video, data, and telephone technologies speed communication among students, faculty, and administrative offices.

The University's campus network provides students and faculty with high-speed access to on-campus computing and information resources and to the Internet. University central systems currently include Sun Microsystems Ultra Enterprise 4000 and SPARCcenter 2000E systems, IBM RS/6000 systems, a Silicon Graphics Power Challenge system, and a Cray Research J-90 system. The RS/6000, Power Challenge, and Cray J-90 systems are used for advanced research projects. These central systems are accessible via the network 24 hours a day, 7 days a week from many campus locations, including residence halls, computing sites, laboratories, and offices. Nearly 300 dial-up lines allow state-wide access to these resources for off-campus students. All students have full access to Internet resources, including remote facilities such as the National MetaCenter for Computational Science and Engineering and other research facilities.

Over 700 microcomputers are available in departmental and general computing sites across campus. Several departmental facilities are equipped to support instruction and research in specific disciplines.

Major programming languages, software packages, and Internet tools are available both on central systems and in microcomputing sites. A full range of scientific and business programming languages and extensive software collections offer a large selection of applications in communications, databases, spreadsheets, graphics, engineering, applied mathematics, statistics, modeling, text processing, and computer-based instruction. Many graduate students take advantage of software that facilitates the preparation of theses, dissertations, and doctoral papers to conform to the requirements of the Office of Graduate Studies.

The University's Research Data Management Services Center provides graduate students and faculty with access to databases essential to research in a number of disciplines. Large data sets from sources such as the U.S. Census Bureau and ICPSR are available through the Center, as is assistance with data acquisition, access, and analysis; scientific visualization; image processing; and geographic information system applications.

Students who decide to purchase their own personal computers can get assistance with evaluating and testing appropriate computing hardware and software through the Technology Solutions Center. Through the University's Bookstore, matriculated students can purchase certain computer hardware and software for their personal and educational use at considerable savings.

Students use the World Wide Web to access information about the University and the world. Students can view the campus calendar, look up information about class schedules, and link to information resources available over the Internet. The University's Student Information System (SIS/Plus) lets students quickly find out course schedules and check their own grade reports, semester bill status, and financial aid awards.

Using a Touch-Tone phone, students can call the University's Interactive Voice Response System to change class registration or to renew library materials.

The University's voice mail system makes it convenient for students to keep in touch with friends, faculty, and family. All students can reach the voice mail system from any Touch-Tone phone, on- or off-campus.

University of Delaware Television (UDTV) broadcasts 48 channels of programming, including the major networks, CNN, and C-Span, to residence hall rooms, classrooms, and other locations across campus.

The Help Center is the heart of consulting services for students with questions about computing hardware, software, voice mail, or any other information technology at the University. An experienced staff of professionals is available to provide consulting, documentation, training, and self-guided tutorials.

Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Eleutherian Mills-Hagley Museum and Library, Longwood Gardens. The College of Arts and Science cooperates with the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum and the Eleutherian Mills-Hagley Museum and Library in providing graduate study in art conservation, early American culture, and American economic, technological, and business history. In the College of Agricultural Sciences, a program in ornamental horticulture was initiated in September 1967 in cooperation with the Longwood Gardens.

Graduate students in the Early American Culture program work in the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, which contains one of the largest collections of American art, including furniture, ceramics, textiles, folk art, silver, glass, and paintings. The Museum is open to Winterthur Fellows for museum training and to both fellows and staff for research.

ORAU. Since 1980, students and faculty of the University of Delaware have benefited from its membership in Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU). ORAU is a consortium of colleges and universities and a management and operating contractor for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. ORAU works with its member institutions to help their students and faculty gain access to federal research facilities throughout the country; to keep its members informed about opportunities for fellowship, scholarship, and research appointments; and to organize research alliances among its members.

Through the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, the DOE facility that ORAU manages, undergraduates, graduates, postgraduates, as well as faculty enjoy access to a multitude of opportunities for study and research. Students can participate in programs covering a wide variety of disciplines including business, earth sciences, epidemiology, engineering, physics, geological sciences, pharmacology, ocean sciences, biomedical sciences, nuclear chemistry, and mathematics. Appointment and program length range from one month to four years. Many of these programs are especially designed to increase the numbers of underrepresented minority students pursuing degrees in science- and engineering-related disciplines. A comprehensive listing of these programs and other opportunities, their disciplines, and details on locations and benefits can be found in the Resource Guide which is available on the World-Wide Web at http://www.orau.gov/orise/ed-train.htm, or by calling either of the contacts below.

ORAU's Office of Higher Education Initiatives seeks opportunities for partnerships and alliances among ORAU's members, private industry, and major federal facilities. Activities include faculty development programs, such as the Junior Faculty Enhancement Awards and the Visiting Industrial Scientist Program, and various services to chief research officers.

For more information about ORAU and its programs, contact Dr. James B. Mehl, ORAU Council member, at (302) 831-2676; contact Monnie E. Champion, ORAU Corporate Secretary, at (423) 576-3306; or the ORAU Home Page at http://www.orau.gov.
 

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