Delaware State University

Delaware State University

Former names	-State College for Colored Students (founding–1947) -Delaware State College (1947–1993)
Motto in English	Enter to Learn, Go forth and serve
Type	Public, Land Grant, HBCU
Established	May 15, 1891
Endowment	US$20.8 million[1]
President	Dr. Harry Lee Williams
Academic staff	600
Students	3,400[2]
Location	Dover, Delaware, USA
Campus	Suburban
Colors	Columbia blue and Red
Athletics	NCAA Division I
Nickname	Hornet
Affiliations	Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference
Website	www.desu.edu

Delaware State University (also referred to as DSU, DESU, or Del State), is an American historically black, public university located in Dover, Delaware. DSU also has two satellite campuses located in Wilmington, Delaware, and Georgetown, Delaware. The university encompasses six colleges and a diverse population of undergraduate and advanced-degree students.

History

The State College for Colored Students was established on May 15, 1891, by the Delaware General Assembly. It first awarded degrees in 1898. In 1944, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education awarded the college provisional accreditation. Three years later, the institution became Delaware State College by legislative action. Although its accreditation was revoked in 1949, it was regained in 1957. On July 1, 1993, the institution changed its name yet again, this time to Delaware State University.^[3]

Campus

The 400-acre (1.6 km²) main campus in Dover, the capital of Delaware, is an approximate two-hour motor drive from Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., and three hours from New York City. There are two satellite campuses in Wilmington and Georgetown.

The main campus in Dover contains thirty buildings, including:

There are seven campus residential halls: four for women, and three for men. There are also three apartment-style residence halls for upperclassmen. They include:

Two dining halls serve the more than 1,500 on-campus students.

As a part of the Internet2 initiative, the university maintains several research computer laboratories including a high-performance computational cluster in its DESAC center. Almost every building has a computer lab and each student has a dedicated data port for internet access, their own phone, a campus email address, and cable television access in all residence hall rooms. Most campus buildings also offer wireless connectivity.

DSU is one of 148 schools in the country to receive Tree Campus USA recognition from the Arbor Day Foundation.^[5] The university owns two farms near Kenton and Smyrna, and has an Airway Science Program based at Delaware Air Park in Cheswold.^[6]

Administration

Harry Lee Williams became the 10th president of DSU on Jan. 10, 2010.^[7]

The business and affairs of the university are governed by the Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees has all the powers accorded it by Title 14, Chapter 65 of the Delaware Code.^[8] The Board consists of 15 members whose appointment or election is provided for in the Delaware Code, and the governor of the state and the president of the university, both of whom shall be members of the board, ex officio, with the right to vote.^[9]

Academics

The university consists of six colleges:^[10]

• College of Agriculture & Related Sciences
• College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences
• College of Business
• College of Education, Health & Public Policy
• College of Mathematics, Natural Sciences & Technology
• School of Graduate Studies and Research

The university offers fifty-one undergraduate degrees, twenty-five graduate degrees, and five doctoral degrees (interdisciplinary applied mathematics and mathematical physics, applied chemistry, neuroscience and optics, and doctorate programs in education).^[11] The university also offers several cooperative and dual degree programs.^[12] Students receive instruction in classes with a 13:1 student-to-faculty ratio. About 83 percent of undergraduates receive scholarships, grants, loans or work-study income. It has a traditional Honors Program and a Minority Access to Research Careers (MARC) Honors Program to increase the number of students in science interested in pursuing biomedical research and obtaining doctor of philosophy degrees in biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, computer science, and biopsychology.

In addition to satisfying the requirements for the major or majors and any minor, all undergraduates are required to complete the General Education Program, which includes: seven core courses, twelve foundation courses (across the curriculum), and the Senior Capstone Experience.

Accreditations include the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE), the American Chemical Society (ACS), the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing, Inc. (ACEN), the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), the Accreditation Council for Programs in Hospitality Administration (ACPHA), the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), and the Commission on Accreditation for Dietetic Education (CCDE).^[13][14] The university’s College of Business is accredited nationally and internationally by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB).^[15]

Aviation program

DSU's Aviation Program provides students with education and experience in preparation for careers in the aviation industry. Curricula in the program lead to a B.Sc. degree with concentrations in Aviation Management or Professional Pilot. Professional Pilot graduates will complete their Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requirements for Private Pilot, Instrument, Commercial, Multi-Engine and Certified Flight Instructor ratings while earning their bachelor's degree.^[16]

Delaware State operates the only full-service, university-based flight school in the mid-Atlantic area. The Aviation program is approved by the State of Delaware Education Department for Veterans Flight Training.^[17][18]

Research

The institution has greatly increased its research endeavors over the past several years, as it has developed the research infrastructure needed to attract federal grants for projects in the following DSU Research Centers and in the sciences and mathematics: 1) Applied Mathematics Research Center, numerical analysis of partial differential equations, analytical methods in solid mechanics, wavelet analysis, NURBS methods of computer geometric design, nonlinear PDEs, topology; 2) The Center for Applied Optics, as well as The Center for Research and Education in Optical Sciences and Applications (CREOSA) (a National Science Foundation-Center for Research Excellence (NSF-CREST)), optical science and laser physics (including Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy); 3) Center for Applied Optics for Space Science (CAOSS) (a National Aeronautics and Space Administration University Research Center (NASA-URC));^[19] 4) additional physics, including mathematical physics, plasma physics, theoretical physics, fluid dynamics, high pressure materials, semiconductor materials and devices, geophysics; 4) Hydrogen storage and Fuel cell Chemistry Center, biochemistry, organic chemistry, analytical chemistry, synthetic chemistry, NMR spectroscopy, electrochemistry, phospholipases; 5) IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence (NIH-INBRE), cell biology, microbiology, molecular mechanisms of neuronal function, neurobiology and behavior, nanobioscience, RNA sequencing; 6) biotechnology; 7) Delaware Center for Scientific and Applied Computation, computer science and bioinformatics, data mining and machine learning, combinatorics, spatial-temporal statistics, artificial neural networks); 8) neuroscience; and 9) environmental sciences; among others.^[20][21]

Major grants are awarded through the U.S. Department of Defense, National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, National Aeronautics and Space Administration and other granting agencies.^[22]

Rankings

DSU is ranked 14th among the Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the U.S. News & World Report (2017).^[25]

The College of Business at DSU is one of the nation's most outstanding business schools, according to the Princeton Review. The Princeton Review and Random House have selected the college for their 2009 edition book to be recognized as one of "The 269 Best Business Schools" in the U.S. offering quality MBA programs. The college has dropped for the eighth year in a row in the ranking list (2009-2016).^[26]

Global connections

The university has over thirty formal international partnerships with institutions in countries including China, Cuba, Egypt, France, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Nigeria, Poland and the UK which facilitate research and conference collaborations as well as student exchanges.^[27]

Student activities

Athletics

The university fields teams, who are known as the Hornets, in:

Men's

Women's

The athletic programs participate in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA)'s Division I (FCS for football). The Hornets compete in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference as full members since the conference was founded in 1970.

The university's Department of Intramural Sports provides a wide variety of quality recreational programs for students, faculty and staff.

Notable alumni

Shooting incidents

September 21, 2007, campus shootings

Wikinews has related news: Two students shot at Delaware State University

On September 21, 2007, at approximately 1:00 a.m., two university students were shot on campus near Memorial Hall. One student, 17-year-old Shalita Middleton, was critically wounded and died 32 days later. The other student was hospitalized in stable condition, according to a news release on the university's website.^[31] Classes were cancelled and the campus was "locked down" with students confined to their dormitories and traffic blocked at the campus gate, through Sunday, September 23. On that day, a freshman student named Loyer D. Braden was arrested for attempted murder in connection with the incident, and was expelled from the university. The charges against Braden were dropped in 2009 because of prosecutorial misconduct.^[32] The shooting is significant because it marked the first test of a university's response to a campus shooting following the Virginia Tech shootings in April 2007.

April 18, 2015, campus shooting

At approximately 8:00 p.m., a shooting occurred on the DSU campus during an annual university-sanctioned student Greek cook-out event. There were three victims who were injured in the shooting. They were all transported to Kent General Hospital in Dover and were reported to be in stable condition. The identities of the victims are unknown at this time. The student residential population was directed to stay in their residential halls. Non-DSU individuals were directed off-campus. No arrest(s) had been made as of 11:00 p.m. on April 18. DSU campus police were the lead agency investigating the incident. The Dover Police Department, Delaware State Police and other agencies provided assistance.

References

Additional references

• "Delaware State University Accreditation (History)". Delaware State University. 2005. Archived from the original on February 6, 2006. Retrieved 2006-05-22. 

External links

• Official website
• Official Athletics website

Coordinates: 39°11′10″N 75°32′33″W / 39.1861°N 75.5426°W / 39.1861; -75.5426