Page 46 - UD Messenger Vol. 24 #1

44 University of Delaware Messenger
world, years after they leave UD. “That’s how I think I can make the world a better place,” he says. “You are far more likely to impact the world through a person than a theory.”
Gabrielle
Foreman, the Ned
B. Allen Professor
of English, with
joint appointments
in history and
Black American
studies, also sees
the reach
scholarship can
extend to
hundreds of students, at UD and beyond.
Her Colored Conventions project—which digitizes the social networks of African-American political organizers from the 19th century—involves 100-plus undergraduates from the University and more than 700 transcribers from across the country, all working toward a common goal: to educate.
“The student response has been overwhelming, but I’m not surprised,” she says, “We are documenting political struggle and change, crucial to anyone’s sense of self and history.”
It’s clear to Foreman and her fellow professors that even in the sometimes insular world of research—a world that can seem irrelevant to outsiders’ lives— endowments increase the chances of big breakthroughs that can have a broader impact on society itself. In case after case across campus, endowments are allowing scholars to explore game- changing ideas that might have been deemed too risky to explore without the supplemental finances, professors say.
“The funds made available through endowed professorships make it possible
to seed a new research project that may not be able to attract funding any other way,” said Babatunde Ogunnaike, dean of the College of Engineering and the William L. Friend Chair of Chemical Engineering.
For Epps, that means being able to pursue his goal of using the waste products of manufacturing to create next-generation plastics that are biodegradable—and thus possibly pave the way toward cups, automobile tires and other disposable products that are less environmentally harmful. For Oliver, it means gaining a greater understanding of how changes in environmental conditions—many of them man-made—may be impacting sea life. For Foreman, it’s about understanding the deep and unstudied voices and social networks of a century past.
THE POWER OF PHILANTHROPY
The University of Delaware has 113 endowed professorships, with a goal of establishing 50 more by 2020. Next to competitor institutions, this number is low.
But it’s growing. In the past few years, UD has received gifts and commitments to establish 18 professorships, five of which were made in the past year alone.
“The donors who make these gifts either really understand academia and the need for professorships, or they think of the impact UD professors have had on their own careers and want to continue that tradition,” says Monica Taylor Lotty, vice president of Development and Alumni Relations.
Like William Severns Jr., EG50, who studied under Allan Colburn, Robert Pigford, Jack Gerster and other “outstanding engineers, brilliant minds”of chemical engineering.“Right here in Delaware, I was exposed to top faculty from all over,” he says. “I admired that.”
To continue—and ensure—this tradition of faculty excellence, he and his wife, Jacqueline,
recently committed $4 million to establish the William Severns Jr. Distinguished Chair of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.
They are not alone in their generosity.
“The strength of our faculty is absolutely necessary for the quality of the program to continue,” says Alan Ferguson, EG65, a UD-trained engineer and venture capitalist who, with his wife, last year established the Allan and Myra Ferguson Distinguished Chair of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. “Chemical engineering is a star at UD, and we want to keep it that way.”
Gabrielle Foreman
“Prof. Foreman
has worked
tirelessly to
foster campus
communities
that are diverse, collaborative and
unusually interdisciplinary.”
—Jim Casey, AS12M, 18PhD
AMBRE ALEXANDER PAYNE
COURTESY OF GABRIELLE FOREMAN