VOLUME 18 #3

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DEPARTMENTS

From Our President

UD President Patrick T. Harker

With the fall semester just wrapping up, the University of Delaware is celebrating some extraordinary achievements.

At the end of August, we welcomed UD's most accomplished freshmen yet, students whose academic credentials and records of school and community engagement are remarkable. That engagement continues at UD, where students' strong participation in service learning, research and study-abroad programming has gained us national notice.

This fall, we also welcomed nearly 50 new faculty members—leaders in their disciplines and hugely respected among their peers. This crop of coveted new hires is hardly surprising. UD has long boasted some of the most influential faculty of any U.S. university.

Evidence of that influence abounds. Five faculty received Fulbright grants this fall, placing UD among the year's top Fulbright-producing universities, alongside such institutions as Harvard, Stanford, UCLA and UC Davis. We couldn't have been prouder when, in October, Professor Emeritus Richard Heck won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. For decades, Prof. Heck developed his groundbreaking work in organic chemistry at UD and, today, this University, its students, faculty, staff and alumni shine brighter for his phenomenal accomplishment.

Increasingly, University faculty are the nation's go-to experts for guidance on the most urgent issues of the day and on their policy implications—climate change and renewable energy, corporate governance and regulatory reform, education and early childhood development, disaster response and political communication. (This issue's cover story gives a great overview of UD's fast-growing role in U.S. politics and policy.)

It is the escalating quality of our faculty and students that will keep this University winning the kind of attention that has made 2010 such an exciting year. UD was named a top-10 up-and-coming university by U.S. News Media Group, which asked college presidents, provosts and deans across the country to list the universities worth watching. UD also made two international lists of high-impact universities, and the National Research Council ranked five of our doctoral programs among the country's best.

Of course, a university is only as great as the people who compose it. And that's where UD has real reason to celebrate: Our people—our students, faculty, staff and alumni—are talented and driven, and they commit themselves each day to nothing less than excellence. I hope you'll read their stories in these pages and feel as proud as I do to be a part of this incredible community.

Sincerely,
Patrick T. Harker
President, University of Delaware

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