What makes Newark a great place to live? The staff of The Newark Post, the town's weekly newspaper, compiled a list of 50 things to enjoy for its "Newcomers Guide," a yearly supplement that welcomes new residents to town. Among those 50 items mentioned were:

• Speakers, concerts and entertainment at the University of Delaware
• National music and comedy acts at the Bob Carpenter Center
• Access to quality collegiate and professional athletic events
• The Morris Library
• UD's beautiful campus

The staff also found reason to celebrate in the fact that in Newark you can be a vegetarian and not starve, you can have green hair and no one will stare at you and, if you love bricks, well, there's no better place to live! *

SMART, the Student Mediation Action Response Team, formed two years ago to mediate disputes between UD student renters and Newark residents expects to become more visible in the fall.

The program, funded by the University and the city, offers residents the chance to talk through their complaints before involving the police. After a round-table discussion, both sides in a dispute sign a mediation agreement, and SMART follows up a few months later to make sure each side is abiding by it. The group, sponsored by the Commuter and Off-Campus Student Organization (COCO) and the Delaware Undergraduate Student Congress (DUSC) hopes to "hit the ground running" in September, according to adviser Nancy Geist Giacomini.

UD ranks eighth in a Wilmington News Journal survey of the state's top 50 employers. UD has 3,410 full-time employees and 235 part-time employees. The state is its own largest employer with 15,260 people holding state jobs, and DuPont remains the state's second-largest employer with 13,303 workers. MBNA America and the Christiana Care Health System are the third- and fourth-largest employers.