For the Record provides information about recent professional activities and honors of University of Delaware faculty, staff, students and alumni.

Recent honors, grants, presentations and publications include the following:

Honors

Jennifer Saylor, professor and associate dean of faculty and student affairs, and Jennifer Graber, professor and associate dean of academic affairs and practice initiatives, both for the School of Nursing, are to be inducted as fellows of the National League for Nursing’s (NLN) Academy of Nursing Education (ANEF) in September at the upcoming NLN Education Summit. This year’s 20th class of fellows includes44 nurse educators, the largest number to date. Saylor and Graber join a growing community of nursing education leaders recognized for the range of programs they teach and their impact on top-rated academic institutions, teaching hospitals and health care systems nationally and globally. Both will be recognized at the induction ceremony in Washington, D.C., including a celebration for the 10th anniversary of the premier organization. “Being inducted as a fellow of the NLN Academy of Nursing Education is a profound honor,” said Saylor. “The nursing profession relies on strong, diverse and well-supported educators. As a fellow, I remain deeply committed to designing evidence-based mentoring models that expand leadership pathways, particularly for first-generation students and those from historically underrepresented backgrounds. This fellowship energizes my continued work to ensure our academic cultures are healthy, equitable, and equipped to meet evolving healthcare needs.” Graber said, “Joining the rank of ANEF fellows is an absolute highlight of my career in academia and an immense honor, This recognition symbolizes a lifetime commitment to teaching excellence, curriculum innovation and mentoring the next generation of nurse leaders. I am so grateful to the National League for Nursing and my academic community for this milestone, and I look forward to continuing to drive positive change in how I educate, innovate, and prepare the future of healthcare.”

Calaia Jackson Franco, a doctoral candidate in the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration, received the Spencer Foundation’s Education Research Mentoring Grant through the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management and will present at the fall research conference in Boston in November.

Devin Purcell, a sophomore majoring in civic leadership and policy studies in the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration, was recently nominated for, and accepted as, a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a London-based charity dedicated to creating a better future.

Grants

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Ithaca Initiative in the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration received a grant through the Interactivity Foundation to bring its Collaborative Discussion Coach Training to the University of Delaware in the spring of 2027. Various student groups on campus will come together to learn a valuable coaching credential and collaborative discussion certificates.

Presentations

On July 26, 2026, Margaret Stetz, Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women's Studies and professor of humanities, delivered a paper at the Mid-Atlantic Popular and American Culture Association's special one-day online conference. Her presentation for the American Studies Area panel, titled "Rabbitville: A Jewish American Woman's Vision of America," analyzed the fantasy version of a harmonious, inclusive community founded by immigrant animals that Theresa Bernstein (1890-2002) wrote, illustrated  and published in 1998. Bernstein, who was born in Cracow, Poland, was a politically progressive, New York-based artist and poet with an extraordinarily long career that began in the period of Modernism and continued into the early 21st century. Her paintings of subjects ranging from urban neighborhoods, to the Metropolitan Opera stage, to jazz performers such as Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway are found in major museums across the U.S. She also wrote a memoir; a biography of her husband, the artist William Meyerowitz; a journal of her visits to Israel; and a volume of poetry. Rabbitville, created when she was 108-years-old and addressed to young readers, represented her utopian view of what this nation could and should be.

Lauren  Kelley, educational tech consultant and instructional designer in the Center for Innovation in Lifelong Learning and Teaching (CILLT), presented “Before the Prompt: Building Intentional Infrastructure for AI Partnerships” at Elon University's 22nd annual Teaching and Learning Conference, online om Aug. 11, 2026. (Online). Her Before the Prompt session introduced her AI Partnership Model (What, How, Engage, Why), focusing on the two most critical prerequisites for partnership: AI literacy (What) and communication (Engage). Her session was grounded in literacy as a prerequisite for student agency (Southworth, et al., 2023) and emerging research on human-AI collaboration (Mollick, 2024). Her session positioned these two elements as the architecture that makes collaborative AI policy possible.

Publications

Margaret Stetz, Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women's Studies and professor of humanities, is the author of a poem that appeared in the Summer 2026 issue of Freedom: A Journal of Research in Africana Studies, which is published by the W. E. B. DuBois Center at Bowie State University. Her poem, titled “For Jessie Redmon Fauset (1882–1961),” is the opening selection in that issue. It is a tribute to the Harlem Renaissance novelist, who was the author of Plum Bun (1928) and other works, as well as the literary editor of The Crisis.

Heinz-Uwe Haus (aka Jean Bodin), professor emeritus in the Department of Theatre and Dance, published his first literary book in Romanian with RavexComs, Bucharest: a collection of poems titled Interval, translated from English and German by Theodor and Claudia Damian. The book also includes illustrations by the author.

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