The University of Delaware (UD, UDel, or Delaware) is a privately governed, state-assisted land-grant research university in Newark, Delaware, United States. UD offers 4 associate programs, 163 bachelor's programs, 136 master's programs, and 64 doctoral programs across its ten colleges and schools. The main campus is in Newark, with satellite campuses in Dover, Wilmington, Lewes, and Georgetown. With 24,221 students , According to the National Science Foundation, UD spent $186 million on research and development in 2018, ranking it 119th in the nation.
UD students, alumni, and sports teams are known as the "Fightin' Blue Hens", commonly shortened to "Blue Hens", and the school colors are Delaware blue and gold. UD sponsors 21 men's and women's NCAA Division I sports teams and have competed in the Coastal Athletic Association (CAA) since 2001 except for the men's hockey team which competes in the ESCHL. The university has left the CAA and subsequently joined Conference USA for the 2025–2026 academic year.
History
Early years: Newark Academy
The University of Delaware traces its origins to 1743, when Presbyterian minister Francis Alison opened a "Free School" in his home in New London, Pennsylvania. During its early years, the school was run under the auspices of the Philadelphia Synod of the Presbyterian Church. The school changed its name and location several times. It moved to Newark by 1765 and received a charter from the colonial Penn government as the Academy of Newark in 1769. In 1781, the academy trustees petitioned the Delaware General Assembly to grant the academy the powers of a college but no action was taken on this request.
Transformation to Delaware College
In 1818, the Delaware legislature authorized the trustees of the Newark Academy to operate a lottery in order to raise funds with which to establish a college. Commencement of the lottery, however, was delayed until 1825, in large part because some trustees, several of whom were Presbyterian ministers, objected to involvement with a lottery on moral grounds.
In 1832, the academy trustees selected the site for the college and entered into a contract for the erection of the college building. Construction of that building (now called Old College) began in late 1832 or in 1833. In January 1833, the academy trustees petitioned the Delaware legislature to incorporate the college and on February 5, 1833, the legislature incorporated Newark College, which was charged with instruction in languages, arts, and sciences, and granted the power to confer degrees. All of the academy trustees became trustees of the college, and the college absorbed the academy, with Newark Academy becoming the preparatory department of Newark College.
Newark College commenced operations on May 8, 1834, with a collegiate department and an academic department, both of which were housed in Old College. In January 1835, the Delaware legislature passed legislation specifically authorizing the Newark Academy trustees to suspend operations and to allow the educational responsibilities of the academy to be performed by the academic department of Newark College. If, however, the college ever ceased to have an academic department, the trustees of the academy were required to revive the academy.
In 1843, the name of the college was changed to Delaware College.
The college was supported by a state authorized lottery until 1845. By the late 1840s, with the loss of lottery proceeds, the college faced serious financial problems. Although enrollment did increase to levels that would not be surpassed until the 1900s (there were 118 college students in 1854), the financial condition of the school deteriorated further. On January 12, 1869, the board of trustees of Delaware College signed an agreement to become the state's land-grant institution. In exchange, the state received a one-half interest in the property of the college and the authority to appoint half of the members of the board of trustees. The Morrill Land-Grant College Act granted Delaware the title to 90,000 acres in Montana which it sold and invested the profits into bonds used to fund the college.
Delaware College's new status as a semipublic college led to the termination of its official connection with the private academy. In 1869, the Newark Academy was revived as a separate institution operating under the 1769 charter.
In 1870, Delaware College reopened. It offered classical, scientific and, as required by its land-grant status, agricultural courses of study. In an effort to boost enrollment, women were admitted to the college between 1872 and 1885.
In 1887, Congress passed the Hatch Act, which provided colleges and universities including Delaware College with funding with which to establish an agricultural experiment station. In 1890, the college purchased nine acres of land for an experimental farm next to its campus. In 1890, the college became the recipient of more federal aid when the New Morrill Act was passed. It provided for annual payments to support land-grant colleges. Under the law, the State of Delaware initially received $15,000 per year, which was to be increased by $1,000 per year until it reached $25,000. Delaware College received 80% of this money. (It did not receive all of it because the law provided that in states in which land-grant colleges did not admit black students, an equitable amount of the granted money had to be used to educate the excluded students. Delaware College had never admitted black students (although it had admitted Native American and Asian students), and as a result the state of Delaware established Delaware State College near Dover for black students, which opened in 1892.) In 1891 and 1893, Delaware College received appropriations from the state for the construction of new buildings. One new building built with this money was Recitation Hall.
As a result of this additional funding, Delaware College was invigorated. New buildings, improved facilities, and additional professors helped the college attract more students. Student life also became more active during this period. In 1889, the first football game involving a team representing the college was played. Also in 1889, the college adopted blue and gold as the school's colors.
In 1914, the Women's College of Delaware opened on an adjoining campus, offering women degrees in home economics, education, and arts and sciences. Brick archways at Memorial Hall separated the men's and women's campuses and gave rise to the legend of the "Kissing Arches" (where students would kiss good night before returning to their respective residence halls).
In 1921, Delaware College was renamed the University of Delaware. It officially became a coeducational institution in 1945 when it merged with the Women's College of Delaware.
The university grew rapidly during the latter half of the 20th century. After World War II, UD enrollment skyrocketed, thanks to the G.I. Bill. In the late 1940s, almost two-thirds of the students were veterans. Since the 1950s, UD has quadrupled its enrollment and greatly expanded its faculty, its academic programs, and its research enterprise.
In 2010–11, the university conducted a feasibility study in support of plans to add a law school focused on corporate and patent law. The study suggested that the planned addition was not within the university's funding capability given the nation's economic climate at the time. The university has developed the site into the Science, Technology and Advanced Research (STAR) Campus. The site is the new home of UD's College of Health Sciences, which includes teaching and research laboratories and several public health clinics. The STAR Campus also includes research facilities for UD's vehicle-to-grid technology, as well as Delaware Technology Park, SevOne, CareNow, Independent Prosthetics and Orthotics, and the East Coast headquarters of Bloom Energy. In 2020, UD opened the Ammon Pinozzotto Biopharmaceutical Innovation Center, which became the new home of the UD-led National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals. Chemours opened its global research and development facility, known as the Discovery Hub, on the STAR Campus in 2020. The new Newark Regional Transportation Center on the STAR Campus will serve passengers of Amtrak and regional rail.
Campus
thumb|The south green with [[Memorial Hall (Newark, Delaware)|Memorial Hall in the background and Magnolia Circle in the foreground]]
thumb|Gore Hall on the Green, Main Campus
thumb|Morris Library, South Green
The campus itself is divided into four areas: Main, Laird, and South campuses, as well as the Delaware Technology Park.
Main Campus, which has most of the academic and residential buildings, is centered on a roughly north–south axis between South College Avenue and Academy Street. At the center of the campus is Memorial Hall, which once divided the Women's College from Delaware College. North and south of Memorial Hall is a large, roughly rectangular green space known either as "The Green" or "The Mall," around which are many of the oldest buildings on campus. Though the buildings were constructed at various times over the course of more than a century, they follow a cohesive Georgian design aesthetic. The Green area is further subdivided into three areas. "North Central," which is north of Delaware Avenue, contains the original men's dormitories (now co-educational) of what was then Delaware College, as well as several classroom buildings north of Main Street in what had been the original Engineering departments. "Central," which lies between Delaware Avenue and Memorial Hall, contains many large classroom buildings and laboratories. "South Central," which extends from Memorial Hall to Park Place, houses the original Women's dormitories, as well as some classroom buildings and the Morris Library.
Laird Campus, which has several dormitories as well as a conference center, hotel, and the Christiana Towers apartment complex (currently closed), lies north of Cleveland Avenue between New London Road and North College Avenue. It is primarily residential. It is the former home to the Pencader Complex, which was demolished and replaced by three new residence halls. A total of four residence hall buildings have been built, three of which are named after the alumni who signed the Declaration of Independence, George Read, Thomas McKean, and James Smith, each of whom signed for Pennsylvania; the fourth residence hall is named Independence Hall. In addition, the construction of a Marriott Courtyard run by the Hospitality Business Management department expanded the campus.
South Campus has the agricultural school, all of the sports stadiums (including Delaware Stadium and the Bob Carpenter Center), and the Science, Technology and Advanced Research (STAR) Campus, which is built on the site of a former Chrysler vehicle assembly plant. It lies south of the Northeast rail corridor and north of Christina Parkway (Delaware Route 4)
The Delaware Technology Park, which lies to the far east of Main Campus, is located north of the train tracks, south of Wyoming Road, east of Library Avenue (Delaware Route 72) and west of Marrows Road and has several research laboratories, classroom buildings, and offices. The Children's Campus, located across the Library Avenue from the Delaware Technology Park, is a 15-acre site home to the Early Learning Center (ages 6 weeks to third grade), the Lab School (ages 6 months to kindergarten) and The College School (first to eighth grades). Also located on-site are UD's Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners Program and the Center for Disabilities Studies.
In 1891, prominent Philadelphia architect Frank Furness designed Recitation Hall. Several buildings (Wolf, Sussex, and Harter Halls) were designed by Frank Miles Day, who also designed the formal campus landscape. From 1918 to 1952, Marian Cruger Coffin was appointed the university's landscape architect, a position which required her to unite the university's two separate campuses (the men's to the north and the women's to the south) into one cohesive design. This was a challenge since the linear mall design of each was out of alignment with the other. Coffin solved this problem by linking them with a circle (now called Magnolia Circle) instead of curving the straight paths, which rendered the misalignment unnoticeable to the pedestrian.
thumb|A plaque about and near the Louise and David Roselle Center For The Arts.
Other major facilities that have opened since 2000 include:
- The Louise and David Roselle Center For The Arts, with facilities for the school's music and theater programs, was opened in 2006.
- In 2013, the Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering (ISE) Laboratory opened on the corner of Academy and Lovett streets. In 2015, it was named the Patrick T. Harker ISE Laboratory in honor of the university's 26th president.
Organization and administration
In 2015, the UD board of trustees elected Dennis Assanis as the 28th president of the University of Delaware; he took office in June 2016. He succeeded Nancy , former dean of the university's College of Earth, Ocean and Environment, who served as interim president in 2015–16. She was named 27th president of the university near the end of her service; she was the institution's first female president. served after the departure of President Patrick Harker in 2015 to serve as the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
Tuition and funding
For the 2022–23 academic year, undergraduate tuition per semester was $14,822 for Delaware residents and $36,082 for non-residents. The total cost of attendance for the 2022–23 academic year (tuition, mandatory fees, room and board) was $32,444 for Delawareans and $54,964 for non-residents.
The university receives funding from a variety of sources as a consequence of its historical origins. Among those sources is the State of Delaware budget. In fiscal year 2020, 10% of the university's revenue came from government grants. Tuition, room, board, and fees were 57% of the university's total revenue.
University services
thumb|University of Delaware shuttle bus
The University of Delaware Emergency Care Unit (UDECU) is a registered student organization at the university, which provides emergency medical services to the campus and surrounding community. UDECU has approximately 50 members, all of which are volunteers and students at the University of Delaware. UDECU operates one basic life support ambulance (UD-1), one first response vehicle (UD-2), and a bike team. Advanced life support is provided by New Castle County Emergency Medical Services.
The University of Delaware Police Department is responsible for law enforcement on UD's three campuses. The police represent one branch of the University of Delaware Department of Public Safety, whose employees also include security officers, as well as dispatchers, EMTs, and Police Cadets.
Academics
The university offers more than 150 undergraduate degree programs and, due to the number of academic options, many students complete dual degrees as well as double majors and minors. UD students have access to work and internship opportunities, worldwide study abroad programs, research and service learning programs.