Carol Hoffecker, one the state’s most eminent historians, touches the lives of school children through her textbooks, inspires University students with her teaching, engages the public with her lectures and is held in high esteem by her colleagues. Currently, the Richards Professor of History at UD, her alma mater, she is leading the University’s efforts to reform undergraduate education, On Friday, Oct. 22, she was named the Delaware 1999 Professor of the Year.

In recommending Hoffecker, University President David P. Roselle wrote, “In the Diamond State, Carol Hoffecker is widely regarded as a jewel.”

The award, from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, recognizes extraordinary dedication to teaching, commitment to students and innovative teaching methods. Created in 1981, the U.S. Professors of the Year program is the only national award program that recognizes college and university professors for their teaching.

“[Dr. Hoffecker] is held in high esteem for her knowledge and scholarship, as well as for her wit and engaging ability to celebrate the past by linking it to the present,” Roselle wrote. “It is Prof. Hoffecker’s passion for her subject matter, her respect for students–undergraduate and graduate, her commitment to providing the finest learning experience for undergraduates and her love of teaching and of her alma mater that combine to make her such a richly deserving candidate for [the] award.”

“I’m glad that Prof. Hoffecker is being recognized nationally for the quality teaching that the UD family has known for years. She’s simply terrific,” Thomas DiLorenzo, dean of the College of Arts and Science, says.

Upon learning of the award, Hoffecker said, “I am very honored to have been selected because I have enormous respect for the quality of the faculty at this University. We have some magnificent teachers who are able to excite students about their subject matter and research. To have been singled out from such an outstanding faculty is an honor indeed.”

Hoffecker’s first visit to the University was as a 6-year-old, driven down from Wilmington with her mother and father (a “very loyal UD alumnus and football fan” who attended the University in the ’20s) to have dinner.

She says she remembers how impressed she was, walking around the Mall and Old College, not realizing what a major role UD would play in her later life.

Little did she know that one day, Margaret L. Andersen, former interim dean of the College of Arts and Science, would write, “Students report that her courses are demanding and informative, while also being enjoyable. She insists on the highest standards of academic performance, including extensive writing assignments and hands-on research in historical archives. Prof. Hoffecker is, in short, an outstanding teacher whose students are inspired by her love of her subject.”

Former student Dennis J. Siebold, finance legal officer for New Castle County, calls Hoffecker an “inspiring teacher who remains interested in her students’ lives long after they leave the University” and current student, Blake Ferreira of Newark, says “her door is always open and [she] is always ready and willing to help a student in need. She manages to give everyone positive feedback, not harsh criticism.”

But, then, discussing a subject you love is easy, Hoffecker says. “I always loved history,” she explains.

As an undergraduate at UD, Hoffecker wrote her senior thesis on Delaware during the War of 1812 and the siege of Lewes. It was her first research effort about the history of Delaware, which in her later career would be the focus of much of her writing.

After receiving her bachelor’s degree from UD, Hoffecker received her master’s degree from Radcliffe College and her doctorate from Harvard in 1967.

She launched her teaching career at Sweet Briar College in 1963 and later taught at Northeastern University.

She returned to Delaware in 1968 as a junior resident scholar at the Hagley Museum and Library, where she began work on a history of Delaware.

She came back to UD in 1970, when she became coordinator of the Hagley Graduate Program and taught courses on Delaware history and urban history. In 1973, she became a full-time faculty member.

The following year, she wrote Wilmington, Delaware, Portrait of an Industrial City: 1830-1900, published by the University of Virginia Press. This was followed by Brandywine Village, Corporate Capital: Wilmington in the 20th Century and Wilmington: A Pictorial History.

Hoffecker also participated in a Bicentennial project commissioned by the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1976. For that project, she wrote, Delaware: A Bicentennial History, part of a project to produce histories of each state, written from the personal perspective of native writers.

She also wrote Federal Justice in the First State, a history of the judges and the significant cases that have come before the federal court in Delaware. While doing research for this book, she came across the papers of the late U.S. Sen. John Williams, which had been given to the University. Hoffecker became interested in this unusually apolitical senator and has written a book about his career, with the working title Honest John Williams.

Other books by Hoffecker include Delaware, The First State for school-aged children, which is used in classrooms throughout the state; Beneath Thy Guiding Hand: A History of Women at the University of Delaware for the UD Office of Women’s Affairs; and Unidel: A Foundation for University Enrichment. Off campus, she edits the Delaware History Magazine, a publication of the Historical Society of Delaware.

From 1983-1988, Hoffecker chaired the history department. Then she was asked to assist in the provost’s office on an interim basis. This became formalized when she was named associate provost for graduate studies from November 1988 until June 1995.

“But,” she says, “teaching is my primary career. I want to get my students excited and interested in history, to give them the background to become good citizens and to have a better understanding of the world we live in.”

–Beth Thomas