Hello Honors Alumni,

I hope you are enjoying your summer! We just finished celebrating a wonderful end to the spring semester with the Honors Degree Medal Ceremony, Commencement and Alumni Weekend. This year, we started a new Honors tradition of recognizing the Dean’s Outstanding Senior with an award supported by Don Puglisi and Marichu Valencia. The inaugural recipient is Derek Wu, who graduated with a Biological Sciences and Environmental Science Honors Degree with Distinction. Derek was also selected as the UD’s first-ever Phi Kappa Phi Marcus L. Urann graduate fellowship winner. 

As of July 1, I have started another 5-year term as Dean of the Honors College and have accepted a dual role as Interim Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education. My combined position will enhance both the Honors College and undergraduate education efforts across campus and create greater synergies with units like the Undergraduate Research Program, the Center for Health Professions and the newly forming Office of National Fellowships.

In other good news, UD Honors was recently ranked #21 in a new Honors College/Program Ranking. The agency considered hundreds of Honors Colleges/Programs across the country.  While this is a new ranking system, it seems to be on target as those ranked above us include some of the Honors entities that I would call exemplars (Penn State, Arizona State, the University of South Carolina and the University of North Carolina). UD Honors is well-positioned to join the group of top-tier Honors Colleges.  

The summer fun never stops here in Honors, as we are in the midst of welcoming 640 new incoming first-year students to the College during New Student Orientation. I hope you remember your orientation and first year in Honors fondly and wish you a relaxing end to your summer.

Cordially,

Michael J. Chajes, Ph.D., P.E.

Interim Vice Provost for Undergraduate Studies
Dean of the Honors College
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering