Campaign for Delaware
A success by every measure

The exceptionally successful Campaign for Delaware, launched in October 1998 as a five-year, $225 million fund raising
effort, has taught the University of Delaware a number of valuable lessons.

Primary among those lessons is the fact that "the University of Delaware has a lot of friends who believe in our mission and the way it is being carried out," UD President David P. Roselle says.

"In addition, we have learned that we have friends who are even more generous than we had thought they would be," Roselle adds, noting that the Campaign for Delaware has far surpassed its original goal.

When the final tally is complete, the Campaign will have generated over $400 million, infused fresh funds into an endowment now about $1 billion and changed the campus landscape, both physically and in terms of an energized faculty and stronger class of students.

"I find it uplifting to know that we have friends out there who really believe in the institution and who are willing to give of their own personal funds to help us," Roselle says.

The Campaign has positioned the University of Delaware for the future, Roselle says, providing ongoing revenue streams and a new sense of confidence in the institution. "We have demonstrated the University can deliver a big success. Once an institution of higher education has demonstrated that, the opportunities for even bigger successes in the future are assured."

Roselle notes that, in terms of dollars raised per resident of the state, the Campaign for Delaware is the "most successful capital campaign in the history of public higher education." A mathematician, he points out that, on average, the effort has raised more than $200,000 per day every day for five years.

"By whatever measure you use, whether you measure by our expectations or by other universities' results, the Campaign for Delaware comes out a winner," he says.

Because of that, Roselle says UD has extended the Campaign for one year beyond the original 2003 end date, and the additional year is both a celebration and "a victory lap."

Through 2004, Roselle says he hopes to "draw attention to the University's desire to build a Center for the Arts and to ask as many people as are willing to channel their contributions to that purpose."

The center, which will house three theatres, rehearsal and exhibit space and offices, will be located next to the Amy E. du Pont Music Building on Orchard Road on what is now a parking lot. A 715-car garage will be constructed nearby on a vacant lot off Elkton Road.

That fund-raising effort is off to a strong start with a $10 million gift from the Unidel Foundation and a $5 million pledge from The MBNA Foundation.

As a result of the Campaign for Delaware, Roselle says, "The University of Delaware is a considerably better institution in terms of physical plant, scholarships and opportunities for faculty. Plus, it is a much more confident institution than it was just five years ago. No longer do you hear people accepting talk about UD being second tier. That is done with."

Since its inception, the Campaign for Delaware has targeted key areas for funding, seeking $90 million for academic support through undergraduate scholarships, graduate fellowships, discovery-based learning initiatives and improved library facilities; $35 million for faculty support through endowed chairs and professorships; $50 million for facilities and equipment; and $50 million for unrestricted annual support.

Academic support

When the Campaign for Delaware began, Roselle set an ambitious goal to make a significant increase in the amount of scholarship monies available to undergraduates, funds that could assist able students from families lacking the means to pay for a
four-year education and that could entice top-flight students to make
UD their college of choice.

Such was the case, as well, with funds for fellowships to attract high-caliber graduate students.

Through the five-year Campaign period, the freshman classes have steadily improved. The Class of 2007, which began classes in the fall, set a record with 22,000 applications for admission, of which fewer than 3,500 enrolled. The class includes 37 valedictorians, 34 salutatorians and 440 students who attained high school grade point averages of 4.0. SAT scores for the middle 50 percent of all admitted freshmen range from 1150 to 1300. The UD Honors Program enrolled 489 freshmen, with SAT scores for the middle 50 percent ranging from 1310 to 1410.

Furthermore, 546 students of color were admitted in the freshman class. They make up 15.6 percent of the class, the largest percentage in University history.

As a measure of loyalty to the University, the class includes 457 legacies, or children of alumni, including 137 children of Double Dels, families in which both parents are UD alumni.

Through the Campaign, the University has learned that "people will give back," according to Robert Davis, University vice president for development and alumni relations and himself a UD alumnus.

"A number of people have come forward who themselves benefited from scholarships and programs at the University to pay the institution back," Davis says.

"One of the most prominent examples of that type of repayment is a $10 million gift from Ann Nields Garstin, who participated in the early Study Abroad program and left a large part of her estate to the University," Roselle says.

As a 19-year-old student at Sarah Lawrence College, Mrs. Garstin set sail for France in 1929 with 66 other college students as part of the acclaimed Delaware Foreign Study Plan.

It was a formative journey in which the young woman made lifelong friends and developed a lasting attachment to the University of Delaware. Throughout her lifetime, Mrs. Garstin provided generous support to the institution as a member of the Delaware Diamonds Society and the Legacy Society.

When she died at age 88, she made one last gift to the University, a bequest of nearly $10 million to the John P. Nields Scholarship Fund, which was established in memory of her father, a former judge of the U.S. District Court.

Roselle calls the gift a "wonderful and generous gesture that speaks volumes about the impact that education can have on an individual. The establishment of this scholarship fund is truly an ideal way to kindle similarly rewarding experiences for future generations of students."

In fact, Study Abroad, which was initiated at the University by Prof. Raymond Watson Kirkbride in the 1920s, has been both the recipient of and the reason for several gifts during the Campaign.

The Starr Foundation provided $300,000 to fund Study-Abroad scholarships and thereby extend the program to additional students, and UD alumna Rita Wierzbicki has made her first donation a gift of $1,000 per year to support a student who hopes to participate in the program based on the value of her own experience.

Throughout the course of the Campaign, MBNA America has taken a special interest in the University and has been a major benefactor on many fronts, including gifts totaling $15 million earmarked for scholarship support.

Additional new corporate scholarship support has been provided by Bank One, which recently donated $100,000, and Wachovia, which recently donated $50,000, with both gifts in support of the FORTUNE program in the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics. The program provides academic and career assistance to minority students interested in careers in such fields as economics, finance, accounting and marketing.

Supporting undergraduate summer research programs at the University is the Northeastern Chemical Association, a trade organization that has provided more than $80,000 to assist students who have demonstrated interest in chemistry, biochemistry and chemical engineering.

In addition to generous corporate and foundation backing, the University has received many gifts from individual alumni and families of alumni.

UD friends Ernest and Margaret Zimmerman of Dover have established two scholarships, providing $350,000 to honor their children, both alumni. A scholarship for Kent County students who enroll in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources will honor their son, Ernest J. Zimmerman Jr., and another, in the College of Human Services, Education and Public Policy, will honor their daughter, Elizabeth A. Zimmerman.

Among families who have made gifts this year to memorialize University alumni are the Trevithicks and the Wormsers.

The late Cheryl Wormser Trevithick, a 1986 elementary education graduate with a passion for both children and education, was honored by her husband, Grant Trevithick, her parents, Hans and Edith Wormser, and other family members and friends, through the establishment of an endowment of $100,000 to fund a scholarship to assist deserving students majoring in elementary education who want to give their time and talents in service to children. The scholarship bears the name Cheryl's Gift.

Besides scholarships and support for research and programs, the Campaign for Delaware has provided funds and new collections for the University of Delaware Library, a facility at the heart of the institution's academic endeavors.

The University Library received a bequest of about $3 million from the estate of the late Melva B. Guthrie, who died in 1968 at age 71 with the wish that she be remembered for her kindness. A native of Delaware, she was married to James H. Guthrie, the manager of Irénée du Pont's Cuban estate, Xanadu. Mrs. Guthrie also made an earlier $3 million bequest.

"Mrs. Guthrie's residual bequest to the Library, an enormous act of generosity, will support University of Delaware students, scholars and researchers forever," Susan Brynteson, May Morris Director of Libraries, says.

Also through the Campaign, the University Library has acquired several important non-cash gifts.

A large collection of the literary papers of the American expatriate writer and composer Paul Bowles were given to the library by arrangement with the author. The collection includes thousands of items, such as letters, manuscripts, revisions of manuscripts, translations, publishers' reports, memorabilia and numerous other items housed for many years in the author's home in Tangier, Morocco.

In addition, a large collection of items related to noted Irish author, critic and playwright Samuel Beckett was donated to the library by the late legal scholar Sir Joseph Gold. A leading figure in 20th-Century literature and winner of the Nobel Prize, Beckett is best known for his play Waiting for Godot, and the gift was the basis for a major Beckett Festival in October 2003.

Of immense importance to the entire University community is a gift of art from Atlanta collector Paul R. Jones that provides exciting new opportunities for learning and sharing in the 21st Century. The multi-million dollar Paul R. Jones Collection is, with more than 1,500 pieces, one of the world's premiere collections of works by African-American artists and provides students, academics and the community a major resource.

The Paul R. Jones Collection is being housed in historic Mechanical Hall, which has undergone a $4.6 million renovation and which will be the centerpiece of a major exhibition opening this fall and continuing through the 2004-05 academic year.

Jones gave the University his life's work in an effort to bring African-American art into the mainstream of American art, to build ties between a major institution of higher education such as UD with historically black colleges and universities and to provide a home through which the works can be enjoyed by as wide a population as possible. In addition to the new gallery and coming exhibit, the University is in the process of digitizing the collection.

Faculty support

Another important component of the Campaign for Delaware has been to attract funds to enable the University to develop the faculty through endowed chairs.

At the opening of the Campaign, the University had fewer than 10 faculty chairs with endowments in excess of $350,000. The University now has close to 100 such endowments in place. "Such chairs help us attract and retain leading professors, thus deepening our pool of instructional and research talent and further enriching our community," Roselle says.

Funds to support endowed chairs have come from a variety of sources, including foundations, corporations, alumni, faculty and staff. Major support for endowed chairs has been provided by the Unidel Foundation, which committed $10 million toward the effort.

Among recent gifts, the University has received $250,000 from Mae R. and Robert C. Carter to create the Mae and Robert Carter Professorship in Women's Studies. Mae Carter is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley who has had a profound impact on the status of women at the University of Delaware through a number of positions, including assistant provost for women's affairs. "With the exception of Winifred Robinson (dean of the Women's College from 1914-38), Mae Carter has done more to change the position of women at the University of Delaware than any other individual in the institution's history," Carol Hoffecker, Richards Chair of History Emerita, wrote in Beneath Thy Guiding Hand, a history of women at the University.

"The entire University community has been part of the development effort," Kevin O'Brien, associate vice president for University development, says. "Faculty, staff and students have all played important roles and that helps create a positive impression of the University. They are saying, 'We believe in this place, we love being teachers or students or administrators here, and we are giving to the University.' Who knows the institution better?"

The $1 million Robert Edelsohn Chair in the field of services for adults with developmental disabilities has been established in the Department of Individual and Family Studies in the College of Human Services, Education and Public Policy by Robert's parents, Lanny and Micki Edelsohn. The department is home of UD's Center for Disabilities Studies, to which Micki Edelsohn has served as an adviser, and the endowed chair honors the Edelsohns' son.

Alumni have played a vital role in the provision of endowed chairs, as well, with Robert L. Gore, EG '59, chairman of W.L. Gore & Associates and vice chairman of the University of Delaware Board of Trustees, and members the Gore family giving $1 million to the Department of Chemical Engineering to endow three named professorships: Antony N. Beris is the Arthur B. Metzner Professor of Chemical Engineering, Abraham M. Lenhoff is the Gore Professor of Chemical Engineering and Metzner is the H. Fletcher Brown Professor Emeritus of Chemical Engineering.

University partners also have joined in the Campaign for Delaware effort to endow chairs. Aramark Corporation, which for more than a decade has overseen dining services on campus, provided a gift of $1 million to establish the Aramark Chair in Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Management, held by Fred DeMicco, who chairs the University's HRIM department.

Endowed chairs have an important impact, both in attracting and retaining talented faculty members and also in raising the profile of the institution. In the wake of the string of corporate scandals over the last few years, Charles Elson, the Edgar S. Woolard Jr. Chair and director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance in the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics, has been widely quoted in the business press and has received attention among politicians and academics for his work.

Because of Elson's reputation in corporate governance circles, he is able to provide University undergraduates a highly engaging course that includes discussion panels featuring some of the leading business, academic, media and judicial figures in the nation.

Facilities and equipment

It is undeniable that the Campaign for Delaware has helped transform the University of Delaware campus, which was hailed by a Princeton Review as "absolutely the most gorgeous campus anywhere."

Roselle points with pride to the fact that the "University has earned national attention for the revitalization of the campus, our record for modernization serving as a model for other institutions of higher education."

And, it is a revitalization that has been undertaken in concert with the historic nature of the campus, creating an ideal situation as old and new work hand in hand to ensure the future.

The Campaign has seen the completion of the original plan for The Green with the completion
of a $27 million addition to
P.S. du Pont Hall--home of the College of Engineering. Foundation commitments to support the addition included $10 million from the Longwood Foundation, $2 million from the Crystal Trust, $500,000 from the Good Samaritan Foundation, $250,000 from the Welfare Foundation and $100,000 from the Marmot Foundation.

The building, which features leading-edge clean laboratories and the most modern of equipment, is a fitting tribute to Pierre S. du Pont, arguably the University's most important benefactor.

DuPont Hall sits across from and complements Gore Hall, a magnificent $17.5 million classroom building funded by a gift from Robert L. Gore, his wife Sarah I. Gore CHEP '76M and his mother Genevieve W. Gore.

Another major construction project was Alfred Lerner Hall, located at Amstel Avenue and Orchard Road and home to the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics. The $15 million building was funded in part by a gift of $2.5 million from MBNA America and $1 million from benefactor Chaplin Tyler.

Several corporations supported construction of the Delaware Biotechnology Institute in the Delaware Technology Park off Wyoming Road.

At the University athletics complex, a modern facility for field hockey and men's and women's lacrosse was added with the construction of Fred P. Rullo Jr. Stadium. The $3.3 million state-of-the-art artificial turf stadium was funded in part
by a gift of $1 million from the Rullo family.

The 2,000-seat facility is an asset to the entire community as the site of NCAA Division I contests, the Turf Bowl featuring area high school field hockey teams and intramural competitions.

The acquisition of leading-edge equipment for University facilities has been another Campaign for Delaware priority. The W.M. Keck Foundation provided $1.02 million for a new transmission electron microscope imaging facility in Colburn Laboratory, providing new research opportunities into molecular-level phenomena.

 

The Endowment