“Art has always been an outlet to help figure out who I am, what I like to do, and how I see other people,” said Morgan Oliver, whose painting of her study abroad experience in the Amazon now hangs in Townsend Hall.

Adventure, curiosity and global connection

Article by Katie Piekes Photos by Kathy F. Atkinson July 08, 2025

In UD’s Townsend Hall, artwork serves a broader purpose

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the spring 2025 issue of UD Magazine, which celebrates iconic campus spaces.

The University of Delaware boasts a great deal of art—murals, sculptures and installations. Much of it has been inspired, naturally, by the beauty and character of the state. But in at least one campus wing, it is artwork created more than 4,000 miles away that contributes to a sense of place—and purpose.

Every other winter, undergraduates from across disciplines have the option to spend one month studying abroad in Brazil, floating along the Amazon River, touring local villages and, crucially important for aspiring landscape architects in the group, sketching the country’s dramatic topography, as well as plants and other objects. These drawings are then hung in a wing of Townsend Hall where they serve as a tangible reminder: Blue Hens are adventurous, creative, globally minded and pathologically curious about the world around them.

Consider Morgan Oliver, ANR25. She was so taken by the liquid energy of South America, that she created a montage that seamlessly connects a Caiman crocodile in the Amazon River, bottled water the students drank each day, the Atlantic Ocean and rain. The center of the drawing is a self portrait with sweat dripping down Oliver’s face, a nod to her hike up Rio de Janeiro’s iconic Sugarloaf Mountain.

Every other winter, undergraduates from across disciplines have the option to spend one month studying abroad in Brazil. Crucially important for aspiring landscape architects, the experience includes sketching the country’s dramatic topography.

“Art has always been an outlet to help figure out who I am, what I like to do, and how I see other people,” she says.

While there are practical reasons for the display—it livens up an otherwise drab thoroughfare and serves as a marketing tool for future study abroad programs—the sketches also reinforce a lesson critical to the Blue Hen experience: Getting out of one’s comfort zone helps a person better understand their own place in Newark—and the world.

“Students talk about the connection between their sense of place in South America, and then how that relates to their home spaces,” says Ornamental Horticulture Professor Susan Barton, co-leader of the trip. “They’re viewing (Brazil) through the lens of the familiar—and growing in their understanding of each.”

If nothing else, the sketches are one heck of a souvenir.

“It definitely takes me back,” Oliver says. “It makes me nostalgic for all of these experiences.”