Faculty and staff announce recent competitions, publications

9:09 a.m., Aug. 17, 2012--For the Record provides information about recent professional activities of University of Delaware faculty, staff, students and alumni.

Recent competitions, publications and recognitions include the following:

Campus Stories

From graduates, faculty

As it neared time for the processional to open the University of Delaware Commencement ceremonies, graduating students and faculty members shared their feelings about what the event means to them.

Doctoral hooding

It was a day of triumph, cheers and collective relief as more than 160 students from 21 nations participated in the University of Delaware's Doctoral Hooding Convocation held Friday morning on The Green.

• Doctoral hooding
• Old Swedes
• Summer SAT, ACT prep
• 'Opus 13' pre-sale

Competitions

Eleven mechanical engineering students recently competed in an international Formula Society of Automotive Engines (FSAE) club car competition in Lincoln, Neb. The students maneuvered a UD-created race car weighing 458 pounds through dynamic demonstrations on braking and acceleration, skid pad, autocross and endurance exercises. They also competed in presentations on budget, design and marketing, and safety and race rule compliance. 

Led by faculty adviser Steven Timmins, instructor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, the UD team was one of only 29 teams to finish the event from among 81 competitors. Stephen Hale, UD FSAE president, summed up the experience saying, “There isn't another club on campus that allows the students to put every bit of their engineering knowledge into practice and get hands on experience building a functioning vehicle, starting with design and fabrication to testing and competing.” 

Club members contribute toward annual competition travel expenses by tuning lawnmowers for local residents and community members each spring. UD’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and the College of Engineering Dean’s Office also support the program. 

FSAE team members who participated in the competition included: Ben Gould, Stephen Hale, Bill Henry, Ryan Krajewski, Dan Payne, Lauren Ryan, Luisa Sawyer, Ryan Sekreta, Steve Wiley, Brandon Zacharias, David Zipf, and Timmins, the team’s adviser. 

Publications

Several University of Delaware faculty and staff have essays appearing in Teaching with Technology 2, a publication of the Learning Technology Consortium (LTC). The LTC is a partnership of nine institutions that have strong technology and faculty support programs and are interested in collaborating on teaching and learning with technology. The new volume gathers essays that were published in 2011. Christopher Penna, associate professor in the Department of English, contributed Vision and Revision: Using Wikis to Produce and Present Undergraduate Research. Donald Lehman, associate professor in the Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences, and Debra Jeffers, in UD Information Technologies, collaborated on Virtual Crime Scenes in a Forensic Science Course. Also, Louis Rossi, professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences, wrote Using Wikis to Promote Active Inquiry in First Semester Calculus. The entire volume can be downloaded from the LTC home page.

Recognitions

The University of Delaware was recognized Aug. 10 by Bob Johnson Consulting, which recommends a “link of the week” among best practice college and university website pages. The University was cited for including the Net Price Calculator on the UD home page.

The University's award-winning mascot, YoUDee, was recognized in a Yahoo! Sports post by Robert Watkins, a Blue Hens fan.

To submit information to be included in For the Record, write to ud-ocm@udel.edu.