UD honors Harker
Campus community celebrates emeritus president with official lab naming celebration
2:09 p.m., Dec. 15, 2015--Last Tuesday, University of Delaware President Emeritus Patrick T. Harker stood before members of the Board of Trustees, University leadership and generous philanthropists and said, “This feels like coming home.”
The 26th president of the University and his wife, Emily, were on campus to officially celebrate the naming of the Patrick T. Harker Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Laboratory. Welcoming the guests, John Cochran, chairman of the Board of Trustees, noted, “We’re here to celebrate a transformational building and the man behind it.”
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A group of more than 60 guests came out to honor Harker at a gathering reflective of the relationships he built, with guests often greeting each other with hugs and lighthearted banter.
The event, which took place in the lobby of the Harker Lab, included remarks from University and state leaders, a portrait unveiling of the former president and a lunch in his honor. Among those in attendance were members of the Board of Trustees, UD leadership, and donors who made personal gifts to support the transformative building. Also joining the event was Delaware Gov. Jack Markell.
“Pat Harker was an outstanding president of the University of Delaware. I believe that he – probably more than any other university president in the country – understands where academia, where universities, fit in trying to advance an economic opportunity agenda for the next century,” Markell told the audience. “If you look around and ask what will be the perfect way to honor his enormous contributions to the University of Delaware, it seems to me that the naming of the building – it doesn’t get any better than that.”
The day’s guests represented some of the more than 140 donors who supported the capital project since 2010, including nearly two dozen leadership donors who made recent gifts in Harker’s honor. Together, this collective group provided more than $43 million dollars over the past five years.
“This kind of commitment to the future is what distinguished Pat Harker’s presidency,” Cochran said.
While reflecting on the process it took to make what he calls a “professional milestone” become a reality, Harker gazed past the crowded room of guests to a familiar area located just outside where he and many others gathered in 2013 to celebrate the opening of the lab. “This building didn’t happen by one person’s idea,” Harker said, “This is really a true team effort.”
Markell also made a point to thank the trustees who had the foresight to forever link Harker with the building for generations to come. “Long after all of us are gone, students and faculty alike will benefit from the enormous investment in this facility,” he said, before turning his attention to Patrick and Emily Harker. “This assures that your name will be associated with the institution literally in perpetuity.”
The Board of Trustees’ vote to rename the building in honor of Harker was unanimous, said Gil Sparks, former chairman of the Board of Trustees. “Pat is a visionary, who saw UD’s future, but his vision alone didn’t make things happen – that requires leadership and that was the hallmark of Pat’s tenure.”
Acting President Nancy Targett echoed the sentiment, saying, “Our faculty, and most importantly, our students benefit from the multidisciplinary interests that are represented in this building. It really is fitting that it’s named for Pat Harker – himself an accomplished interdisciplinary researcher – someone who has a broad range of interests.”
While Harker, now president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, joked that he would repay the recognition with a 50-minute dry economic policy speech, he did not fall short in expressing the significance of facilities like Harker Lab in securing the nation’s economic future.
“We often lose sight that economies ultimately grow and prosper or fail when local communities do the right things or the wrong things. The economy is community by community, industry by industry – building up prosperity for everybody,” he said. “That’s what this facility does. It does that for the generations of students who will be coming through here, and it does it because of the innovation and research that will drive the economy here in Delaware and beyond.”
Now on the second floor of the Harker (or “HISE”) Lab, the presidential portrait of Harker hangs as a reminder of his legacy to the University.
“There were a lot of nice words said about me,” Harker said. “And I hope each day I can live up to them.”
About the Harker Lab
The Patrick T. Harker Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Laboratory (Harker Lab) is a hub of teaching and research on campus. The 194,000-square-foot facility brings together students and faculty from various disciplines to teach, learn and conduct research in a collaborative environment.
Completed in 2013, Harker Lab engages students and stimulates excitement about science and engineering. Harker Lab's four problem-based learning instructional laboratories feature lab spaces adjoining classrooms so students can discuss a problem and then immediately test a solution.
In May 2015, the Board of Trustees announced the naming of the Harker Lab (formerly the ISE Lab) in recognition of Harker’s tenure as the 26th president of the University of Delaware.
Photos by Evan Krape