9:15 a.m., Aug. 31, 2010----University of Delaware Graduate Student Convocation was held Monday afternoon in Mitchell Hall on The Green.

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Convocation was led by Charlie Riordan, vice provost for graduate and professional education and professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, with remarks by President Patrick Harker and Provost Tom Apple.

Deans and representatives of the University's seven colleges also were on hand for the event.

“Today we welcome you as the scholars whose discoveries, ideas, inventions and innovations have the capacity to remake the world,” Harker told the graduate students.

The 2010 graduate cohort has 1,100 students from 123 countries. They were selected from among 8,330 applications, a 15 percent increase over last year and a record for UD.

Harker discussed the “Dare to be first” branding campaign and three of its six pillars, noting that UD is a Talent Magnet and a Citizen University that provides Idea Leadership. Concerning the latter, he said, “Your scholarship will shape and challenge prevailing thought. Your research and service will redefine what's possible. And your drive will exploit those possibilities.”

He also spoke of the Path to Prominence^TM strategic plan, noting that a key goal is “to make the University of Delaware a premier research and graduate university.”

UD now has more than 60 research centers and institutes and last year research expenditures topped $180 million, an amount double that of a decade ago, Harker said, noting that faculty and students filed 56 invention disclosures last year, a 60 percent increase over the prior year.

Harker concluded by thanking Debra Hess Norris for her work as vice provost for graduate and professional education, a position she is leaving to focus on her internationally renowned work in art conservation, and by welcoming Riordan to the position.

Photos by Kathy Atkinson