The University of Delaware is an engaged university, committed to making a significant and sustained contribution to the improvement of the communities we serve. As highlighted in our Path to Prominence, UD is building dynamic programs of world-class distinction, reaching out to constituents locally and far beyond.

As Delaware's flagship university, UD has the opportunity to work closely with public agencies throughout the state, applying research and human talent to address pressing social and civic issues. We also transcend state boundaries to share knowledge and skills in response to regional, national, and international challenges.

The University's research expertise and educational services, resources, and programs--in areas ranging from economic and community development, to the arts, education, the environment, and health care--benefit Delaware's citizens and the global community. The following are only a few examples of how UD contributes to the quality of life of the communities we serve.

UD fosters economic growth and development through research and technological innovation and a variety of educational and technical services. The Office of Economic Innovation and Partnerships, which opened July 1, 2008, is advancing the rapid commercialization of the University's knowledge resources and technology and strengthening state and regional partnerships that enhance economic prosperity. The Delaware Small Business Development Center, a partnership between the Delaware Economic Development Office, UD's Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics, and the U.S. Small Business Administration, helps Delaware entrepreneurs grow and manage their businesses by offering confidential business advice, training programs, and marketing and technology assistance.

 

More than 50 research centers and institutes across the UD campus reflect the diversity and rigor of our research activity and our commitment to improving the quality of life in Delaware and beyond. UD's research centers are important state, national, and international assets. As just one example, the state-of-the-art Early Learning Center, shown here, is a full-day, year-round clinical research facility providing exemplary infant, toddler, pre-school, and kindergarten care, including early intervention to at-risk children. The center, a recipient of the Governor’s Award of Excellence in Early Care and Education, is accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children--a recognition awarded to only about 7 percent of all child-care centers nationwide.

 

Through the Office of Service Learning, UD engages students in connecting what they learn in the classroom to the real world through service to society. UD was named to the President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll with Distinction in 2007 for exemplary service efforts and service to disadvantaged youth. The honor roll recognizes institutions of higher education that support exemplary, innovative, and effective community service and service learning programs. UD also is recognized as a Truman Scholarship Honor Institution for its outstanding record in encouraging young people to pursue careers in public service. Truman Scholars often go on to careers as public defenders, leaders of non-profits, and educators.

 

 

UD supports industry through research, workforce training, and technical assistance. UD plays a key role in the health of one of Delaware's top industries--the poultry industry--which is valued at more than $700 million per year. More than 20,000 poultry blood samples are tested annually and evaluated for diseases such as avian influenza through state-of-the-art surveillance and diagnostic services provided by UD's Avian Biosciences Center. UD's avian researchers also are exporting the nationally recognized "Delaware Model"--the state's coordinated approach to controlling poultry disease outbreaks--to Romania, Bulgaria, and other countries through programs sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

 

UD’s Legislative Fellows Program, initiated in 1982, provides staff support for the Delaware General Assembly. For the students, who are selected through a University-wide competition, the experience offers a valuable opportunity to observe and contribute to the political decision-making process. For the General Assembly, the program provides the research skills of the Fellows, as well as a link to University resources. Through their non-partisan, in-depth research, the UD Fellows (shown in 2007 with Governor Ruth Ann Minner) assist legislators in addressing critical issues facing the state. In recent years, Fellows have worked on areas as diverse as land-use planning, education reform, and juvenile justice.

 

Throughout the year, in addition to music, theater, art exhibitions, and Fightin' Blue Hen athletics, UD hosts campus-wide public events on locally to globally important topics. Among them, Global Agenda, an annual lecture series hosted by former CNN World Affairs Correspondent Ralph Begleiter, UD's Rosenberg Professor of Communication and Distinguished Journalist in Residence, and co-supported by the World Affairs Council of Wilmington, brings high-profile practitioners in foreign policy and the media to the UD campus. The William S. Carlson International Polar Year Events, which debuted in February 2008, recognizes UD's significant polar research and UD's president from 1946–1950, who was an active polar explorer.

 

Established in 1914 through a federal initiative, University of Delaware Cooperative Extension got its start with three county agricultural agents, a 4-H program focused on corn-growing and canning clubs for kids, and home demonstrations for women of rural and farm families. Since then, extension services have evolved to encompass a complex range of research-based assistance relating to sustainable agriculture, agricultural competitiveness, and other issues, as well as family and consumer initiatives such as nutrition, home gardening, environmental management, leadership, and personal safety. Today's statewide 4-H program annually involves 63,000 Delaware youth--that's 45 percent of all youngsters in the state--in activities ranging from animal sciences to biotechnology and the performing arts.

 

Based at UD's Lewes campus on the shores of Delaware Bay, the Delaware Sea Grant Marine Advisory Service aids the public with coastal issues. The staff is the outreach arm of the Delaware Sea Grant College Program--a partnership of UD, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the State of Delaware--aimed at fostering wise marine resource use, development, and conservation. Sea Grant specialists share research-based information relating to business development, resource management, K–12 education and lifelong learning, seafood technology, water quality, aquaculture, marine safety, coastal processes, and recreation and tourism. UD operates in concert with a national network of Sea Grant programs at academic institutions across the U.S.

 

 

 

UD supports the health and wellness of Delawareans through numerous activities. In addition to the training of health-care professionals, UD is advancing cutting-edge research at the Center for Translational Cancer Research, the Center for Disabilities Studies, and other institutes in collaboration with hospitals and clinics throughout the region. UD also provides the finest in outpatient services through the Physical Therapy Clinic, which offers specializations in sports medicine, orthopedics, neurologic, older adult, and pediatric physical therapy. The clinic is unique in that physical therapists, students, and researchers have the opportunity to work together to deliver state-of-the-art physical therapy treatment to patients. UD also is home to the Delaware Center for Health Promotion, which works to encourage Delawareans to adopt healthy lifestyle habits that will improve their quality of lives and lessen future health-care costs. Programming and activities offered statewide by the center use the Healthy Delaware Foundation's slogan, “Be Healthy Delaware.”

 

UD has significant strength in public policy, with impacts on local to global levels. In 2007, a statewide initiative, formulated with the research assistance of faculty and students in UD's Center for Energy and Environmental Policy, was enacted to help make Delaware “greener” and help its residents to save thousands of dollars in energy costs. Known as the Sustainable Energy Utility (SEU), the initiative was developed in part by John Byrne, Distinguished Professor of Public Policy and director of the policy center, working with seven of his graduate students and a postdoctoral fellow. It has the potential to cut Delaware’s carbon dioxide emissions to 2003 levels and save average households about $1,000 a year in energy costs. The plan establishes a state-supervised nonprofit organization dedicated to helping the state’s residents and businesses conserve energy and expand their reliance on renewable energy sources through funds initially seeded by a $30 million bond.

 

From designing a robotic dog for people with disabilities to devising a combination ignition switch and breathalyzer, the pre-college students who attend UD's "Engineering Cool Stuff Camp" get hands-on experience at what it means to be an engineer. The program is one of several activities offered by UD's Engineering Outreach Program, which provides a variety of resources and programs for pre-college students and K-12 teachers to spark new generations of engineers, as well as develops courses to help today's engineering professionals keep their skills current or develop new engineering and business competencies for this dynamic and competitive field.

 

Many of UD's 200 registered student organizations are active in public service, from Puppy Raisers of UD (PROUD), which raises Seeing-Eye dogs, to Tutoring for Tomorrow, which helps children at local schools and boys and girls clubs with reading and other subjects. Fraternities and sororities at UD also have a strong commitment to community service and philantrophy, donating thousands of hours, and thousands of dollars to projects throughout the community. UD students involved in Engineers Without Borders, shown here, are bringing safe drinking water to the village of Bakang, in the western province of Cameroon.

 

For more than 60 years, UD's Department of Music, a member of the National Association of Schools of Music, has been dedicated to the musical growth of its students and the cultural enrichment of the community. Each year, UD's Community Music School provides private study lessons, ensemble classes, summer camps, and early childhood classes for more than 500 students from the surrounding area. Opportunities range from jazz to steel band, string chamber ensemble to ragtime, and suzuki violin to choral camps. The Children's Choir enables children in the local Newark area to experience artistic choral singing and perform quality children's choral literature. Additionally, musical performances are held throughout the year featuring such artists as UD's own internationally renowned violinist Xiang Gao and his China Magpie Ensemble.

 

 

 

UD's nationally recognized Professional Theatre Training Program (PTTP) presents plays from the classic repertoire, providing the campus and the community with the opportunity to attend high-quality productions of masterpieces by such playwrights as Shakespeare, Shaw, Moliere, Ibsen, Chekhov, Williams, and Wilde, among others. Graduate students are selected for the three-year conservatory program through an extensive national search and are trained in one of three areas: acting, stage management, or technical production. The Resident Ensemble Players (REP), joining the program in fall 2008, is a resident professional acting company consisting of some of America's most experienced and respected regional theatre actors. Alumni of UD's Professional Theatre Training Program perform regularly at leading theatres across the United States, as well as on Broadway and in film and television.

The University Museums encompass three galleries on campus, each offering exhibitions and programs that are open to the public free of charge. Housed in Old College on the north campus, the University Gallery presents a schedule of changing exhibitions throughout the academic year, including works of the permanent collection, ranging from Southwest Native American ceramics to paintings of the Brandywine School ("The Privateers of '76" by Frank Schoonover is shown here), as well as traveling and loan exhibitions. Following an award-winning renovation, Mechanical Hall reopened in 2004 as the home of the Paul R. Jones Collection of African American Art, one of the world's most comprehensive collections of works by 20th-century African American artists. The building also houses a print room for studying objects in the collection. The Mineralogical Museum offers an internationally renowned display of about 500 specimens, from crystallized minerals to recent discoveries. Currently under renovation, the Mineralogical Museum is scheduled to reopen in January 2009.

 

Two major UD public events--Coast Day and Ag Day--teach thousands each year about environmental resources and stewardship. Ag Day, hosted by the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources on UD's Newark campus, brings nature to life for the 3,000 people who attend each year through interactive exhibits, children's games, a livestock display, plant sales, lectures, food, and entertainment. Coast Day, hosted by the College of Marine and Earth Studies and Delaware Sea Grant at UD's Lewes campus, immerses 10,000 visitors annually in the wonders of the sea through research exhibits to ship tours, crab races, a crab cake cook-off, seafood cooking demonstrations, and a boat show. The award-winning day has been a model for similar events in New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Oregon.

 

UD strives to be a good neighbor. On our main campus in Newark, town-and-gown efforts such as Newark Community Day, held in September, provide a great opportunity for UD students and Newark residents to get together, have fun, and learn about each other. UD also is a member of the Downtown Newark Partnership, a coalition that includes the City of Newark, downtown business owners, and Newark residents who work together to promote and preserve Newark’s unique downtown area as a community and commerce center. The City of Newark's Department of Parks & Recreation offers numerous volunteer opportunities, such as youth sports league coaching, to UD students. The City of Newark and the Town & Gown Committee annually honor UD students for their service to the community.

 

UD is a significant contributor to the state's overall economic well-being through its purchases of goods and services from Delaware vendors. In 2007, students, faculty, and staff spent $410 million, creating an overall economic impact of $751 million and supporting over 7,700 jobs in the regional economy. Additionally, the UD community has had a long and rewarding relationship with the United Way of Delaware and the many agencies it supports. In the last 11 years, members of the UD community have contributed more than $2.3 million through this annual campaign. The strong showing of generosity across campus reflects the strong tradition of giving among University employees.