The University of Delaware is one of the country's most popular universities, with more than 25,000 freshman applicants for the Class of 2012, in a pool described as the strongest in the history of the institution. The incoming freshman class totals 3,562, with the average "new" SAT score at 1816. “There has been an extraordinary shift upwards in the quality of students who have applied, in the quality of the students we admitted, and in the quality of the students who have accepted our offers of admission,” UD Director of Admissions Lou Hirsh said. “This is a change that is likely to be felt in every UD classroom.”

UD invented study abroad and remains in the forefront in providing students international learning experiences. In 2007, UD received the Andrew Heiskell Award for Innovation in International Education from the Institute for International Education during a ceremony at the United Nations. The first Junior Year Abroad program in the world was offered by UD in 1923. Today, more than 45 percent of all undergraduates study abroad before they graduate, a fact showcased during commencement when students wear colorful sashes reflecting the countries where they studied. In recent years, UD students have studied in more than 50 countries and on all seven continents, including Antarctica. Also, UD has working agreements with a number of universities in Asia, Europe and South America.

UD is committed to providing an amosphere in which all students are welcome, and in which all students feel welcome. UD is ranked eighth in the nation among “flagship state institutions” in the graduation rate of African-American students, according to a report in a recent issue of The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. UD’s rate of 63 percent is substantially higher than the national average of 43 percent.

 

UD has exceptional faculty, including internationally known authors, scientists, and artists, including Nobel Laureates, Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellows, members of the National Academy of Engineering, National Academy of Sciences, and American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Pulitzer Prize winner. Currently, there are more than 100 endowed professorships, which honor faculty members for their distinguished service as teachers and scholars, as recognized by their peers on campus, across the nation, and around the world.

 

Since 1990, UD has had four Rhodes Scholarship winners: Leonard P. Stark, Class of 1991; Douglas Mauro de Lorenzo, Class of 1998; Thomas M. Pellathy, Class of 2000; and David A. Kovara, Class of 2002. In all, UD has had 11 Rhodes Scholars since the prestigious program began in 1904. UD also has produced numerous Marshall, Goldwater and Truman Scholars, and in 2005 was named a Truman Scholarship Honor Institution for its outstanding record of Truman Scholars selected. Three UD students were named Goldwater Scholars in 2008 -- Ritika Samant, a junior biological sciences major and political science minor; Spencer Tofts, a junior mathematics major; and Jeffrey Bosco, a junior chemical engineering major with minors in chemistry, mathematics and Japanese language.

 

In 2008, eight UD faculty members received prestigious awards through federal grant programs designed to support the work of particularly promising young faculty members. Six received the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development Award, a highly competitive program that recognizes those scientists deemed most likely to become academic leaders. The other two awards came from similar programs operated by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and NASA. Recipients are Xiaoming Li, Takashi Buma, Ian Appelbaum, and Sylvain Cloutier in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Fabrice Veron and Matt Oliver in the College of Marine and Earth Studies; Millicent Sullivan in the Department of Chemical Engineering; and Svilen Bobev in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

 

UD was named to the 2007 President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll with Distinction for exemplary service efforts and service to disadvantaged youth. The President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll recognizes institutions of higher education that support exemplary, innovative and effective community service and service-learning programs. Susan Serra, Office of Service Learning coordinator at UD, said the selection is a tribute to the University. “It's gratifying to have UD recognized for the outstanding work our faculty and students are doing in reaching out to the community. It's exciting to have participated in the development of programs that have had such a positive impact on so many people,” she said.

 

UD traces its origins to a small private academy founded in 1743 by the Rev. Francis Alison, whose first class was a remarkable one. That first class included three Signers of the Declaration of Independence, George Read, Thomas McKean and James Smith. Read also signed the Constitution. Their names are memorialized on residence halls on the Laird Campus.

 

UD is on sound financial footing thanks to the generosity of alumni and friends, who provide funds for undergraduate scholarships, graduate fellowships, improved facilities, endowed faculty positions and unrestricted general support. UD's endowment stands at more than $1.3 billion.

 

 

Two UD alumni have won the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, also known as the “genius award.” They are Jacqueline Jones, a 1970 graduate and Truman Professor of American Civilization at Brandeis University, and Charles Lewis, a 1975 graduate who founded the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C.

Notable alumni include U.S. Senator Joseph Biden, Tony Award-winner Susan Stroman, National Football League Most Valuable Player Rich Gannon and Robert Gore, the inventor of the popular Gore-Tex materials.

Tom Degnan was named a 2007 “Hero of Chemistry” by the American Chemical Society for his work at ExxonMobil in developing PxMax, the world's most selective catalytic process for producing para-xylene, and Mary Patterson McPherson, former president of Bryn Mawr College, was named executive director of the American Philosophical Society in 2007.

 

UD has a long, proud tradition of excellence in intercollegiate athletics and during 2007-08, two Fightin’ Blue Hens athletic teams were invited to NCAA tournament play -- volleyball and football. The volleyball team won the Colonial Athletic Association championship and reached the second round of the NCAA tournament. The football team reached the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision championship game, falling to Appalachian State University. UD quarterback Joe Flacco was a first round NFL draft choice of the Baltimore Ravens.

The University of Delaware's 146-foot research vessel, Hugh R. Sharp, was highlighted as one of the top new ships built in North America in a 2006 edition of American Ship Review. The floating laboratory includes a number of leading-edge features.

 

 

A citation in the Princeton Review once referred to the UD campus as “absolutely the most gorgeous anywhere,” and a 2007 Washington Post story noted, “with its elegant, elongated Green, [UD] is a stunning landscape of Georgian Colonial red-brick, white-columned architecture to rival anything conceived by Thomas Jefferson.”

 

 

UD is a center for advanced research in the science and policy of alternative energy options, with scientists studying solar power, wind power, vehicle-to-grid technology and hydrogen fuel cells, with a demonstration hydrogen fuel cell bus serving the University’s shuttle route.

 

 

The world-class collections of the University Museums enrich the campus community and far beyond. The University Gallery has over 10,000 objects, artworks, and artifacts, with particular strengths in vintage and contemporary photography; Pre-Columbian and Southwest Native American ceramics; American prints and drawings from the 19th century to the present; and significant works by the renowned Brandywine School artists Howard Pyle, Stanley Arthurs, Frank Schoonover, and N. C. Wyeth. UD also is home to 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. At the core of the Mineralogical Museum's vast holdings are 2,000 specimens purchased from Tiffany in 1919 by Irénée du Pont, then president of the DuPont Company. They had been on display in the jeweler's Fifth Avenue showroom in New York City.

John Byrne, Distinguished Professor of Public Policy and director of UD's Center for Energy and Environmental Policy, and Frederick “Fritz” Nelson, professor of geography and director of UD's Permafrost Group, are members of a working group within the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace prize jointly with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore. IPCC, a science body advising the United Nations on the dangers of global warming, was established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in recognition of the problem of potential global climate change.

 

In 2007, the UD Chorale won the grand prix round of the 10th International Choir Festival in Tallinn, Estonia, the first time since 1994 that an American choir has won the competition. Under the direction of Paul Head, associate professor of music, and accompanied by Betsy Kent, UD Chorale pianist, the 57-member chorale competed against more than 40 choirs from around the world for selection to the grand prix round, in which the chorale beat five other choirs and emerged in first place.

 

UD's cheerleading squad and dance team regularly take top honors in national competition. In 2008, UD cheerleaders Gillian Guadagnino and Seth Riblett won the coed partner stunt competition national championship. YoUDee, the Fightin’ Blue Hens mascot, is the 2002 national champion and a member of the Mascot Hall of Fame. The highly regarded Marching Band is 300 members strong and performs championship-caliber halftime shows at football games.