MBNA Champion of Campus

President David P. Roselle's first meeting with Charles M. Cawley, founder of MBNA Corp., set the pattern for the relationship that would grow between the University of Delaware and the successful credit card company.

Roselle, new on campus in 1990, phoned Cawley's office and asked for an appointment to meet him in person. "I was surprised to receive a nearly immediate return call and still more surprised that the suggested time for the meeting was the next day,'' Roselle says. "Surprise turned to astonishment when I arrived and found him standing in the parking lot of the MBNA office complex waiting to greet me and walk with me to his office."

Roselle came with a request, and he left with more than he asked for. "I was delighted by the reception Mr. Cawley gave to the idea I wanted to discuss. He not only was receptive to my idea, he improved upon it and agreed to provide support," Roselle says.

Since that day, MBNA has kept improving and supporting. As MBNA grew into the world's largest independent credit card issuer and Delaware's largest private employer, its gifts to the University grew.

Two of its largest gifts were complete surprises. One was the largest gift in the University's history in 2000--$25 million to pay for scholarships, teacher training and support for the College of Business and Economics. Then, in 2002, a $20 million gift made the College of Business and Economics a named college in honor of Alfred Lerner, MBNA's late chairman and CEO.

"Becoming a named college signals a higher level of recognition and quality to our colleagues, both on campus and around the country,'' says Michael J. Ginzberg, dean of the Lerner College of Business and Economics. "I believe the quality was there already, but the endorsement provided by the naming helps tell the story to others; it increases our credibility in the academic and the business worlds. Having Al Lerner's name associated with the College is especially valuable because of the values he held, the things he stood for."

Ginzberg says the $20 million endowment will make a major budgetary impact--providing a substantial discretionary cash flow that can be used to develop new programs and enhance the ones already in place.

When the University publicly thanked MBNA for one of its major gifts, Cawley turned the tables, thanking the people of the University of Delaware on behalf of the people of MBNA:

"We see the value of a University of Delaware education every day through the work of graduates who are here at MBNA,'' Cawley said. MBNA employs about 1,400 UD alumni, including some of the company's top executives, plus about 800 current students who work part time.

Proving his point, Diane Sievering Kedash, a 1981 UD graduate and MBNA senior vice president, spoke at the event, noting, "I am very proud to have the distinction of being both a University of Delaware graduate and an MBNA manager. That means I get to say both 'thank you' and 'you're welcome'."

The litany of gifts from MBNA to the University continues. Cawley, now retired from MBNA and a member of the University's Board of Trustees, is co-chair of the Campaign for Delaware and it became the most successful fund drive in UD history. Company mentors steer MBNA Delaware Scholars. The MBNA Career Services Center places students in jobs. UD's Downtown Center in Wilmington offers courses in three Wilmington buildings donated by MBNA. The company endowed a named professorship in the Lerner College of Business and Economics and founded a minority recruitment and scholarship program there. The MBNA Foundation also established the Polly Russell Dowling Fellowship in the Professional Theatre Training Program, in honor of the late mother of Louise Roselle.

Roselle says Cawley discourages bricks-and-mortar plaques recognizing contributions from him and his wife, Julie, but corporate donations have put the MBNA name on three campus sites--the MBNA Concourse in the Bob Carpenter Sports/Convocation Center, the MBNA Career Services Center and MBNA America Hall, now Alfred Lerner Hall, home of the College of Business and Economics.

The MBNA name also is tucked away in many wallets on campus, on the University of Delaware affinity card, which has generated in excess of $2 million for UD's Alumni Association since 1993.

"The University of Delaware is very, very thankful to the people of MBNA for their outstanding record of generosity and is very, very proud that so many of them are UD alumni and current students. We are truly privileged to enjoy their friendship and support," Roselle says.