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 2,551 acres and a physical plant consisting of 432 buildings with a replacement cost approaching $1 billion. 

Enrollment at the University in the fall of 1997 included 15,629 undergraduate students, 3,250 graduate students, and 2,287 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 over 80 different programs leading to a master's degree and over 40 different programs leading to a doctoral degree through 46 departments in the seven instructional colleges. In 1997, 757 master's degrees, 151 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 holiday 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 session 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 1997 there were 51 named professorships. The University community includes 935 full-time and 29 part-time faculty, 90 postdoctoral fellows, 1,161 professionals, 1,028 salaried, technical, and hourly, and 471 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 includes the Hugh M. Morris Library, where the main collections are housed, three branch libraries on the Newark campus -- the Agriculture Library, the Chemistry Library and the Physics Library -- and a fourth branch, the Marine Studies Library on the Hugh R. Sharp Campus in Lewes, Delaware. 

The collections parallel the University's academic interests and support all disciplines. Books, periodicals, microforms, government publications, electronic databases and software, maps, manuscripts, media, and Internet access provide a major academic resource. Library staff members provide a wide range of services, including assistance with electronic library resources, reference assistance, interlibrary loan, instructional programs, and assistance to users with disabilities. 

Over 2,300,000 volumes of books and journals, and more than 2,900,000 items in microtext are included in the collections, which are broadly based and comprehensive, with emphasis on the social sciences, humanities, science and engineering. Special Collections include the Delaware Collection; the Unidel History of Chemistry Collection; the Unidel History of Horticulture & Landscape Architecture Collection; manuscripts, such as the papers of Emily Coleman, Tennessee Williams and William Butler Yeats; and archives, including those of American Poetry and the Bird and Bull Press. The Library is a depository for publications of the U.S. Government and for all patents issued by the U.S. Office of Patents and Trademarks. 

The Library is a member of the Association of Research Libraries, the Center for Research Libraries, and PALINET, through which it is connected online to OCLC, the Online Computer Library Center. 

The Morris Library provides seating for approximately 3,000, special purpose space for computer-based systems, direct access to various computer facilities for Library users, a periodical reading room, a Special Collections area including an exhibition gallery and a reading room with a controlled environmental system for rare materials, a microcomputing center, a media area and viewing room, and special equipment and areas to assist the the visually impaired. 

The University of Delaware Library home page on the World Wide Web offers access to many of the Library's electronic resources, including DELCAT, the University's online catalog, which contains information on materials located in the Morris Library and all branch libraries. The DELCAT system may also be accessed via dedicated workstations in the Libraries, through the University computing network, and by computer modem from anywhere in the world. 

The Library provides online electronic access to more than 70 Library Networked Databases, which include the Encyclopedia Britannica, journal article references and abstracts, full-text electronic articles, and government information. Library Networked Databases contain hundreds of thousands of references and summaries of the contents of journals.Library Networked Databases also incluide more than a dozen large full-text databases, including Expanded Academic ASAP, Business Index ASAP, LEXIS-NEXIS UNIVerse, Health Reference Center, and JSTOR, which contain online entire articles from thousands of journals. Most Library Networked Databases are accessible from residence halls, offices and buildings throughout the University, and to University users from off-campus using a computer modem and a UD computing account.  The Library website serves as a gateway research tool and provides access to electronic resources on the Web, including those licensed for use by UD faculty, staff, and students. 

For further information, call (302) 831-2965. For Library hours, consult the website or call (302) 831-BOOK (2665). 

The technological resources available to University of Delaware students are state-of-the-art. Hundreds of miles of fiber optics and cable form an ATM-switched network backbone that connects everyone at the University of Delaware to each other and to the Internet. The University is a charter member of the national Internet 2 initiative. 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 12-cpu Sun Microsystems Ultra Enterprise 4000s, IBM RS/6000-990 systems, an 8-cpu Silicon Graphics Power Challenge system, and an 8-cpu 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 national supercomputing centers and other research facilities. 

Hundreds of 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 servers 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, geographic information systems, 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 are strongly encouraged to consider the benefits of owning a computer and printer.  For assistance with evaluating and testing appropriate computing hardware and software, students can use the resources available 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 telephone, 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 telephone, 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 Agriculture and Natural Resources, 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/resgd.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. 

SURA.  The University of Delaware is a member of Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA), a consortium of 41 universities in 13 southeastern states and the District of Columbia.  The orgranization's purpose is to serve as an entity through which colleges, universities, and other organizations may cooperate with one another and with government and other organizations in acquiring, developing, and using laboratories, machines, and other research facilities and in furthering knowledge in the physical, biological, and other natural sciences and engineering.  Further information about SURA can be found on the World-Wide Web at http://www.sura.org.