From Our Acting President
A university education is an investment, one that requires a student’s time, energy and resources. It’s also an investment on our part. Every professor, every classroom or lab, every program that enriches the Blue Hen experience—they are all investments in our students.
The return we expect? Graduates who will change the world.
It starts when roughly 27,000 students apply to UD. Each year, our admissions staff builds a community of diverse students who will support and challenge each other as they live, learn and labor together. The admissions process is a blend of science and art, and in this issue of Messenger, you can peek behind the curtain with our story on assembling the Class of 2020.
Once students arrive on campus, our mission is to give them an excellent education that prepares them for the future. As you’ll read in our feature story, students are learning to think like innovators and entrepreneurs. They’re reassessing what it means to take risks, embrace opportunities and apply their academics and expertise to issues that matter to society.
We’re always looking for ways to expand our investments in students. To build on our long history of study abroad, we recently launched the World Scholars program, which lets select freshmen start their UD experience with a semester in Rome or Madrid. It’s just the first step in giving them a unique global perspective on their path to becoming world citizens.
We also invest in the faculty who are the heart and soul of UD. In the story on named professorships, you’ll discover how attracting and retaining accomplished professors helps transform great students into great graduates. Soon, Delaware Stadium will be filled with the graduating Class of 2016. Every one of them benefitted from the investments made by family, faculty, staff and the University.
This year’s ceremony will be my last Commencement at UD. As I prepare to become provost at the University of New Hampshire, I believe our students will learn what I have—that wherever we go, this University will forever be a part of who we are and who we become.
What we put into UD comes back to us many times over. And that’s the definition of a wise investment.
Nancy Targett
Acting President, University of Delaware
