1:16 p.m., March 10, 2010----Gerard J. Mangone, University Research Professor of International and Maritime Law, was presented with a University of Delaware honorary degree by A. Gilchrist Sparks III, chairman of the Board of Trustees, in a special ceremony March 1 at the President's House.

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A member of the UD faculty since 1972, Mangone created UD's Center for the Study of Marine Policy, the first research center at an American university to study the legal, political and economic issues facing the ocean, seabed and coastal zone. In 2003, that center was renamed the Gerard J. Mangone Center for Marine Policy in his honor.

In presenting Mangone with the honorary degree, Sparks cited his intellect and vision, his work at the University to establish the marine policy center and his “dedication to the University of Delaware.”

Speaking at the ceremony, UD President Patrick T. Harker said, “Without doubt, he's among UD's most respected scholars, and he's someone who embodies that word so fully - someone whose entire life has been spent ravenously pursuing knowledge and generously dispensing it.”

Calling him “the quintessential scholar,” Harker said, “There is no one more devoted to UD than Dr. Mangone, no one who has had a greater influence on its academic path, no one who has more ably served as its scholarly conscience.”

Nancy Targett, dean of the College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment, described his contributions to her college and to her. “Gerard has spent 38 of his 70-year career at the University of Delaware in a college (then Marine Studies) that was only two years old when he arrived. He had tremendous influence in shaping that college. “

When the college underwent a reorganization and change in 2006, Mangone was a key adviser and confidante, she said. “Gerard, who in his early 50s helped a brand new college find its voice (in the 1970s), was in 2006, in his late 80s, helping that same college as it reassessed itself in the context of the 21st century.”

Donald L. Sparks, S. Hallock du Pont Chair in Soil and Environmental Chemistry and director of the Delaware Environmental Institute, spoke on behalf of the Francis Alison Society, which is composed of those faculty members who have received the Francis Alison Award, the University's highest faculty honor. Mangone received that honor in 1983.

“Gerard was the moving force behind the establishment of the Society in 1990, when a constitution was approved and signed by 10 Alison awardees,” Sparks said. “The purpose of the Francis Alison Society is to promote academic excellence at the University of Delaware by providing an agency through which the members of the society may give advice and counsel or undertake activities for the benefit of the University. Gerard has served as secretary of the society since its inception, and in this role has provided extraordinary leadership, vision and service.”

Members of the society established an endowment, and since 1996, it has presented the Young Scholars Award to promising and accomplished junior faculty.

“I am delighted to announce today that the Young Scholars Award has been renamed the Francis Alison Society's Gerard J. Mangone Young Scholars Award,” Sparks said.

Among Mangone's many honors, the publisher of the International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law recently announced that the author of each year's best article will receive the Gerard J. Mangone Prize.

At UD, Mangone has supervised some 40 students for master or doctoral degrees and has established several educational programs relating to marine policy and law.

Before coming to UD, he served as a professor at Wesleyan University, Swarthmore College and Syracuse University, where he also was associate and acting dean of the Maxwell Graduate School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He has held visiting professorships at Yale University, Mt. Holyoke College, Trinity College, Princeton University and Johns Hopkins University.

At Temple University, Mangone served as dean of the College of Liberal Arts and vice president for academic affairs and provost, administering 11 colleges serving 25,000 students.

As the first Senior Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., Mangone headed major legal studies of the world's ocean. He also was appointed executive director of the President's Commission on the United Nations and conducted a national study to reform that international organization.

Mangone received his doctorate in international law from Harvard University, where he won the Charles Sumner Award for the most distinguished contribution to international peace. He also is the author of more than 20 books, and is the series editor of the Martinus Nijhoff Monograph Series, International Straits of the World.

Photos by Duane Perry