Past Presidents
Dennis Assanis became the 28th president of the University of Delaware on June 6, 2016. Formerly provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Stony Brook University in New York, he was elected by a unanimous vote of UD’s Board of Trustees in November 2015.
With a deep commitment to academic excellence and student success, a drive to expand world-class research, scholarship and innovation, and a determination to translate knowledge into beneficial impact for all, Dr. Assanis energized the University as a hub for global education and engagement, expanding resources and opportunities for students, faculty and staff to thrive in a rapidly changing world.
Dr. Assanis is a distinguished educator with a wide range of academic leadership experience and a worldwide reputation as a scholar and expert in both fundamental and applied studies of internal combustion engines and energy systems. Before joining Stony Brook University, he had a distinguished career at the University of Michigan for 17 years.
Dr. Assanis was inducted as a member of the National Academy of Engineers in 2008 for his scientific contributions to improving fuel economy and reducing emissions of internal combustion engines, and for promoting automotive engineering education. He holds five patents and has directed more than $100 million in research grants and contracts.
He holds an honors bachelor of science degree with distinction in marine engineering from Newcastle University in England and four degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology: a master of science degree in naval architecture and marine engineering and a master of science in mechanical engineering, a master of science in management from the Sloan School of Management and a doctorate in power and propulsion.
Dr. Nancy Targett served as acting president of the University of Delaware from 2015 to 2016; the Board of Trustees later removed "acting" from her title to make her UD's 27th president.
A member of the UD faculty since 1984, Targett previously served as dean of UD’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment (CEOE) and director of the Delaware Sea Grant College Program.
A nationally recognized marine chemical ecologist and expert on ocean issues, she was a past chair of the Board of Trustees of the Consortium for Ocean Leadership and served as an officer of the Sea Grant College Association, a national network of 32 Sea Grant College Programs.
A graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, she earned her master's degree in marine science at the University of Miami and her doctorate in oceanography at the University of Maine.
Dr. Patrick T. Harker became the 26th president of the University of Delaware on July 1, 2007. He also served as professor of business administration and professor of civil and environmental engineering.
Before coming to UD, Harker was dean of the Wharton School and Reliance Professor of Management and Private Enterprise at the University of Pennsylvania. He received bachelor's and master's degrees in civil engineering, a master's degree in economics and a doctorate in civil and urban engineering, all from the University of Pennsylvania.
David P. Roselle was named the 25th president of the University of Delaware in May 1990 and continued in his role until his retirement in 2007 .
Prior to his 17-year tenure at UD, Dr. Roselle served on the faculties of the University of Maryland, Louisiana State University and Virginia Polytechnic and State University, where he also held several administrative posts, including that of provost. He became president of the University of Kentucky in 1987, serving for nearly three years there before coming to UD.
Dr. Roselle received his Ph.D. in mathematics from Duke University and completed his undergraduate education at West Chester University.
Russel C. Jones was appointed as President of the University of Delaware, beginning his service on July 1, 1987. Jones resigned from the position in October 1988. Prior to his brief tenure at UD, Jones served as a dean at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and academic vice president with Boston University.
Edward Arthur Trabant served as President of the University of Delaware from 1968 to 1987 and returned to the post again from 1988 to 1990 after Russel Jones’ resignation. Under Trabant’s leadership, undergraduate enrollment grew to 13,000, several of the University’s facilities were expanded including the Hugh M. Morris Library, and new facilities were constructed in Lewes (College of Marine Studies), Newark (John M. Clayton Hall) and Wilmington (Division of Continuing Education and Academy of Lifelong Learning). The Trabant University Center is named in honor of Dr. Trabant.
Prior to his tenure with UD, Trabant held administrative posts at Purdue, Buffalo and Georgia Tech.
John William Shirley, the university’s provost, was named interim president in 1967 and remained in that role until 1968 when Edward Arthur Trabant, UD’s 23rd president, was appointed.
John Alanson Perkins was appointed as UD president in 1950. Under his leadership, undergraduate enrollment grew from 1,500 to nearly 6,000, which created a need for campus expansion and new programs. The college endowment also grew rapidly during his presidency to many times what it had been prior to his term.
Perkins served as president for 17 years until he resigned in 1967 to accept a position as president at Dun & Bradstreet.
Perkins Student Center is named in honor of the past president.
Allan Philip Colburn was named interim president in 1950 after William Samuel Carlson resigned from the post. Colburn’s brief tenure was notable because in that year, the University of Delaware became open to all Delawareans, regardless of race, by decree of the Delaware Chancery Court. Within a short time, the same freedom from any racial restriction was also extended to out-of-state residents.
Under the administration of William Samuel Carlson, who was appointed as UD president in 1946, state appropriations increased to provide for veterans who resumed their education after the end of World War II. In 1948, the University awarded the first Ph.D. degrees in chemical engineering and chemistry, two disciplines for which the University is now highly regarded.
Following the death of President Walter Hullihen, the Trustees appointed UD English professor Wilbur Owen Sypherd as president. Sypherd, a graduate of UD’s class of 1896, instituted coeducation and reorganized the University in 1945, raising home economics and education to the same rank as agriculture, engineering and arts and science. In 1946, Sypherd resigned and resumed his role as a professor.
Walter Hullihen was the 18th president of the University of Delaware. Hullihen served the longest presidential term in the history of the University from his appointment in 1920 until his death in 1944. Among his many accomplishments during his tenure, Hullihen secured a change in the charter which named the institution the University of Delaware. He initiated a statewide funding campaign for the construction of the Memorial Library, now Memorial Hall and oversaw construction of a new chemical laboratory and the appointment of Dr. Allan Colburn who would help to establish UD’s highly regarded research and academic program in chemical engineering.
Also, under Hullihen’s leadership, UD inaugurated the first study abroad program in the U.S. in 1923, with a junior year abroad trip to France led by French professor Raymond Kirkbride. A military veteran, Kirkbride believed that cross-cultural understanding was key to preventing global conflicts. In the years that followed, 127 colleges and universities including Princeton and Harvard sent their own students on the UD experience abroad.
Constructed with State of Delaware and Public Works Administration funding during Hullihen’s tenure in 1940, University Hall was later renamed as Hullihen Hall in 1952 to honor Dr. Hullihen.
Samuel Chiles Mitchell was appointed as the college's first full-time president in 1914. During Mitchell’s administration, the Women’s College of Delaware, which was financed by the state legislature, was opened. During this time, the university also received its first large private donation from Pierre S. du Pont, who gave more than a million dollars to the university, most which was earmarked for new buildings, equipment and maintenance for the new facilities.
Professor of mathematics George Abram Harter was named president of the University in 1896, at first for one year but then remained in the role for 18 years. During his presidency, engineering became the most popular program, and the agricultural program gained popularity. In 1907, a state appropriation enabled the college to purchase an experimental farm, and in 1911, the legislature supported the Agricultural Extension Service, which received federal funding in 1914.
Albert Newton Raub, a professional educator and former head of the Academy of Newark, was named president in 1888. During his tenure, Raub expanded enrollment, and aided by federal funding which helped to establish the Agricultural Experiment Station, he initiated the University’s first consistent, organized research program. Raub retired from the presidency in 1896.
Lewis Potter Bush, a Wilmington physician who had been president of the Board of Trustees, served as interim president of the University following John Hollis Caldwell’s resignation in March 1888. Bush served in this role briefly until Albert Newton Raub was appointed later that year.
Appointed as president in 1885, John Hollis Caldwell was a Methodist minister who had very little college experience. His controversial and poor leadership led to conflict with faculty and students and resulted in a severe decline in enrollment to a mere 16 students. The trustees forced his resignation in 1888.
William Henry Purnell, a lawyer, trustee and graduate of the college, was appointed to the presidency in 1870 when the college reopened. Notable accomplishments of his tenure include the admission of women in 1872 and the inauguration of a teacher training program in 1873. However, when the state refused to renew financial assistance for the program, it was abandoned in 1875. And, although Purnell was hopeful that admitting women would greatly increase enrollment and income of the college, it did not. When Purnell resigned from the presidency in 1875, the board reversed the decision to admit women.
Former president of the college's Board of Trustees and wealthy businessman Rathmell Wilson was named as president in 1859. After the closure of the college in March of 1859 and troubled times in the U.S. including the onset of the Civil War in 1861, Wilson was able to reopen the college in 1867 when the state legislature designated the college to be the recipient of federal assistance provided by the Morrill-Land-Grant College Act of 1862.
George Franklin Wiswell, a board trustee and Presbyterian minister, was named interim president in 1859. He was replaced within the same year by Rathmell Wilson.
Ellis James Newlin, a Presbyterian minister and the first native Delawarean to be named president of the college, was appointed to the role in 1856. His unsuccessful efforts to secure state funding, the murder of an undergraduate student named John Edward Roach on campus, and the dissipation of the college's endowment were all circumstances contributing to Newlin’s resignation in January 1859. The trustees decided to close the college in March 1859.
Faculty member and distinguished astronomer, Daniel Kirkwood, was appointed as president in 1854 following the death of the previous president, Walter Scott Finney Graham. Kirkwood resigned and returned to his faculty role after serving two years as president.
In 1851, Presbyterian minister Walter Scott Finney Graham was the first graduate of the college to be named as president. During Graham’s short tenure, the college saw record enrollment, and many of the students entered a three-year scientific program which included courses in agriculture and engineering. However, despite increased enrollment, the college was financially unstable due to the sale of scholarships proposed by the previous president, Matthew Meigs.
Matthew Meigs took the office of the presidency in 1850 and resigned from the post the following year. During his short tenure, Meigs proposed a plan to raise funds by selling scholarships, a move that eventually had catastrophic financial implications for the college.
William Augustus Norton was the first faculty member and non-minister to be named president of the college. Norton succeeded James Patriot Wilson, who resigned in 1850. Norton planned to turn the college into a scientific institute, but he became discouraged and resigned within a year of taking office.
The trustees appointed Presbyterian minister James Patriot Wilson, Jr. Wilson’s term was fraught with increasing financial instability as the trustees spent the endowment that had built up prior to 1845 in order to support operational costs. Wilson resigned in 1850.
Episcopalian minister, Richard Sharpe Mason, was appointed as president in 1835, following the resignation of Eliphalet Wheeler Gilbert. Mason had previously served as president of Geneva (later Hobart) College, adding to the positive reputation of the college. However, Mason resigned in 1840 amidst criticism that he was a lax administrator.
In 1834, the trustees named Eliphalet Wheeler Gilbert as the first president of Delaware College. Gilbert, who had been a pastor of a Presbyterian church in Wilmington, was dissatisfied that the chief source of the college’s funding was a lottery because he felt that this encouragement of gambling was morally wrong. He resigned from the role in 1835 but agreed to return to the post after his successor, Richard Sharpe Mason, resigned in 1840. Gilbert remained as president until 1847, when he resigned again after attempting unsuccessfully to secure sufficient funding from sources besides the lottery.
The University of Delaware traces its origins to a school founded by the Rev. Francis Alison in 1734, which later became the Academy of Newark. In 1833, the state of Delaware chartered its first institute of higher education, Newark College, which was closely tied to the Academy. Later known as Delaware College, it was coordinated with the Women’s College, founded in 1914, and became the University of Delaware in 1921.