I lived in Rodney my freshman and sophomore years (1979-1981). I have so many memories but one that sticks out is the “great mudslide." I seem to recall it was in the spring and we had a downpour about mid day.

After it subsided, a few us decided it would be fun to run and dive headfirst across the grassy common. Before you knew it, there were hundreds of students sliding about. Mud seemed to be everywhere. A few unlucky sliders ended up with road rash as there was no way to stop yourself from sling off the grass onto the pavement. 

Eventually everyone drug themselves into the bathrooms and showered off, leaving layers of mud caked everywhere. Of course, the grounds crew wasn’t too happy that we had totally destroyed every square foot of the grass in the Commons, nor was the cleaning staff for having to deal with all the mud residue in the bathrooms.  

Jeff Hendrix, EG83

Between my wife and I, we spent five years in Dickinson C/D. My freshman year, I was in Dickinson D, and for the next two years I was a RA [resident assistant] in Dickinson C. My wife’s freshman year was in Dickinson C, and her sophomore year was in Dickinson D. (And the best man at our wedding lived in Dickinson for two years as well!)

While we have no end (and I mean no end!) of stories about life in Dickinson C/D, one of the funniest moments at Dickinson C was returning from a night out. (I was an RA in Dickinson C at the time) and going into the lounge and finding all the furniture glued to the wall! That’s right, tables, chairs, couches, all glued neatly to the wall, along with soda cans, magazines and even decks of cards. Ashtrays were neatly glued onto the arms of chairs, complete with ashes and what remained of cigarettes. Even the lounge trash cans had a couple of crumpled sheets of paper adhered to the bottom.

It was a bit disorienting as your brain processed that the floor was now a wall, or the wall was a floor, or something like that. At first, you could be excused for thinking you may have had too much to drink, but it was real. One of the residents had a summer job at a munitions factory, so he had some industrial glue handy for just such kinds of mayhem. By the morning, all of the furniture and accessories were back in their naturally occurring, gravity-retained positions, but for a moment there, it seemed the whole world had taken on a quarter turn.

So no one can say that life in Dickinson didn’t challenge your perspective!

PS: It was really sad to see Dickinson come down, so many memories!

Blue Hens Forever!

Mark, EG86, and Toni, AS87, Koskiniemi, Tucson, Ariz.

I met Brian Krantz in the fall of 1988 in Dickinson C/D—where we both lived at the time—during the first week of our mutual freshman year at UD. Last week, we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary.

It may have been one wild night that fall that “sealed the deal” on the future of our relationship. We went on a grocery shopping date to the Acme that, at the time, was basically around the corner from the Dickinson/Rodney complex. In a moment of youthful stupidity, we agreed it would be fun to “borrow” the shopping cart for the walk back to Dickinson, then adopt it as our dorm mascot. We named her Beatrice and were proud to show her off to our roommates when we returned from our big night out at Acme. Thanks to a very chill RA, Beatrice was put to good use for dorm Olympics, including shopping cart time-trials in the hallways and creative shopping cart suspension in the stairwells. The latter was an impressive and sturdy feat of engineering, yet still only remained in suspended status for a matter of hours.

Second semester of freshman year, I moved out of extended housing in Dickinson and across campus to Thompson Hall. But Brian and I remained in touch, began seriously dating the following year, graduated in 1992 and moved to Atlanta together afterwards, got married in 1995 and had two beautiful daughters together in the years that followed. (The older of the two will tour UD this fall and likely apply next fall).

Through it all, we regularly referenced our Beatrice and all the fun memories she provided for us and our dorm-mates. It is unlikely any of this would have come to pass had it not been for Dickinson’s existence in 1988. 

Thank you, be well, and GO HENS!

Barrie Smith Krantz, AS92

I lived in Dickinson my freshman year starting in Sept. 1979.  I was in the Freshman Honors Program and this was the first year that the FHP was located on the main UD campus in Newark.  The program participants were all housed in Dickinson A/B; I was in B. Lots of fond memories from my time there. 

One of my fondest memories was when Dr. Burnaby Munson (my chemistry professor freshman year) would come over once a week to the FHP dorm and bring drinks and snacks for everybody for a "study break" (in an effort to keep us all out of trouble).  Dr. Munson had a big impact on my life at UD and beyond and, in a way, was kind of my father away from home. He later became director of the FHP and did a fantastic job. 

Unfortunately, we lost Dr. Munson last summer. I live far away in Denver, Colorado and don't get out to the East Coast very often, but I was fortunate enough to visit with Dr. Munson one last time in the summer of 2018.  

Christopher M. Naro, EG83

My journey oddly began as a planned phone call in July 1998 between myself and my soon-to-be roommate, Leanna. What a bizarre and awkward conversation! A girl (me), from a tiny town called Pennsylvania Furnace, Pa., speaking with a girl from Bellmore, New York.  Later, after our conversation, we admitted our misconceptions about each other.

That being said, we became fast friends, and best friends for life in no time at all. It changed both of our lives immensely, and Dickinson was the framework for this, giving us both so many memories of living there for our first year of college. Strange bathroom stories, scary shower moments of never knowing who was on the outside of the curtain, meeting the oddest but coolest of people, and much more. WE will never forget Dickinson. And I will never forget Dickinson. The dorm was a bit small, but we were able to smuggle in all kinds of snacks and, of course, things we were not supposed to have. The day we got into trouble for downloading music from Napster onto my computer, I will never, ever forget.  But we had such fun times! Unforgettable times!   

Fast forward … Leanna (my roommate) and I roomed together in an apartment on Main Street for the next three years after we met. We remained the best of friends. She was even the maid of honor in my June 2002 wedding to my husband Bruce, also a Delaware alumni! 

In as few words as possible, even though Dickinson was super far away (it seemed at the time) from campus, it was OURS. It was a great place to call home, and it will never, ever be forgotten. 

RIP Dickinson.

Rebecca S. (Snyder) Band, AS02

A little background: I was the Assistant Director of Residence Life from 1987 to 1998.  From 1987 to 1993 I was responsible for West Campus (Rodney, Dickinson).  This story came from a humorous incident that occurred during my first year in the position:

It was one of those days when I found myself running from meeting to meeting with no time in between. That afternoon, I was running to a disciplinary hearing in the Dean of Students Office, where I was a campus hearing officer. There were a few of us who had that designation and it required us to meet with students who violated a campus policy. These violations were usually minor–serious enough that the University felt a meeting with the perpetrator was needed, but not so serious that a full-scale hearing with witnesses was warranted.

I ran up the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator and was breathless when I burst into the Dean of Students office. A worker handed me a file and whispered in my ear, “Colin is here already” while tilting her head toward the student sitting alone on the black leather couch in the waiting area.

Usually I tried to come early to these meetings so I could review the file first. Since Colin was there already, I did not make him wait. I took the file, walked over and said “Hi, Colin.  I’m Rob Longwell-Grice and I’ll be meeting with you today.” Colin stood up and we shook hands. His palm was wet and he had some sweat on his upper lip. Most students were nervous at these meetings, so I was not really surprised. In fact, I kind of liked them to be a little nervous. It showed they were taking things seriously.

We walked silently down the hallway and entered the conference room. Sitting down, I explained how the meeting would run. Colin had no questions, so I got right down to business.  Not knowing what the violation was, I asked Colin what he did that landed him in this situation.

“Well,” he said, “it’s because I put a grocery cart on the roof of Dickinson Hall this past weekend.”

Over the years, I had been in a lot of disciplinary meetings. Most of the meetings involved alcohol consumption and destruction of property. Some came with a story that made the meetings interesting.  Some did not. But none of the meetings had ever involved furniture on a roof. This was a first for me.

“Why did you do that?” I asked. I was trying to stifle a smile.

“To make a statement,” Colin replied.

“And what statement is that?” I asked.

“Anyone who sees the cart needs to decide for themselves what statement I am making,” he declared self-righteously. “I cannot tell each individual how to interpret the point I am making.” 

“I see,” is all I could muster. “Is the cart really on top of Dickinson Hall? That is five stories high. How would they even see it up there? And how did you get it up there in the first place?”

“It’s on the piece of the roof that overhangs the entrance so everyone can see it when they enter the building. I cannot disclose my sources or my methods because that might get someone else in trouble. If you knew how I did it, you might also try to stop others from making similar statements.”

“Do you live in Dickinson?” I asked, not really knowing what else to ask.

“Yes, I do,” he replied curtly.

“And did you meet with your hall director, Mary, about this?”

“Yes, I met with her,” Colin replied coldly.

“And …?”

“She wanted me to take it down. However, to do that I would have to show how I got up there. She also insisted on knowing what statement I was trying to make. I couldn’t do either, so our meeting did not end satisfactorily.”

“And here you are,” I sighed.

“And here YOU are!” he parroted, with a slightly different intonation. Not knowing exactly what to do in this situation, I decided to open the file and read the notes. Colin stopped staring at me and began staring at the artwork on the wall. I read the initial incident report written by the resident assistant. I then read the notes from the hall director. The notes showed that Colin took responsibility and never tried to hide his actions. He just did not see what was wrong with what he did. In fact, he was quite proud of it, and the hall director saw him as defiant. Reading the notes took a few minutes, and I was aware of Colin’s loud breathing. Finally, I shut the folder and looked at him.

“I am a bit perplexed and a bit humored by this situation, Colin.”

Colin was suddenly emboldened. His previous nervousness gone, he said “I do NOT intend this to be humorous. This is the purpose of college, is it not? To make people think. Why would you find that humorous?”

Now annoyed, I decided to end the meeting. “Colin, while I appreciate your attempt at making your fellow students ponder the point of why a grocery cart from the local Acme might be sitting on the roof of Dickinson Hall, I can’t allow it to remain there. There is no punishment for you, per se. I will, however, need to get the grounds crew to remove the cart and I will have to bill you for the removal.”

“That’s fair,” Colin quickly responded.

Turning off the tape, I rose and shook hands with Colin and thanked him for coming.

I did have another meeting to attend so I wrote myself a note to call the grounds crew later, then left the Dean’s Office. As I left, I decided to see for myself what the cart looked like. Knowing it would make me a little late for the meeting, I walked over to Dickinson Hall. I saw the cart sitting on the overhang and paused to look at it. As I stood there, looking at it, one of the Dickinson resident assistants walked by. Recognizing me, he paused to ask what I was doing. I pointed to the cart and told him that I had just met with the student who put the cart on the overhang. 

“He said he did it to make a statement, so I decided to see for myself what kind of a statement that might be.” 

As we stood there staring at the cart, two members of the grounds crew showed up with a ladder. They put the ladder against the overhang.

One of the crewmembers recognized me. “Hey, Rob! What the heck is this all about?” he said, pointing to the roof. 

“Well,” I said, “a student put it up there to make a statement,” putting air quotes around the “make a statement” for emphasis.

The crewmember chuckled and said, “Students.” He began to climb the ladder and then paused. He turned back to me mid-climb and said, “I’m not sure what statement he is making, but let’s get it back to the store before someone fines us for having it here!” He laughed at his joke and continued up to the roof.

The resident assistant said goodbye and walked away. I took one last look at the cart just before it was lifted off the roof by the grounds crew. I was unsure what the statement was, but I can say this much: It made a lasting impression on me!

Rob Longwell-Grice, EHD91

Assistant Director of Residence Life from 1987 to 1998

Fourth Floor Freshman Friends....Dickinson. That's where I met my future husband of over 25 years. He lived in one corner room of the floor, me in the other corner room of the same floor and we intersected for life. It was Dickinson where we met, became friends, became college sweethearts and Rodney where we solidified our life long goals.  It was this corner lot of land spaced far off main campus that we shared our dreams, supported each other's achievements and helped each other along our difficult freshmen and sophomore years. Where has the time gone?

That was September 1989. We look back at our Dickinson/Rodney pictures and laugh how young we look, the dorm full of excitement at our adventures ahead. I remember how he watched his beloved Yankee gamess in my dorm room, had pet fish and how I made pasta in a crock pot. We would walk over railroad tracks to class together, and visited the computer lab in Dickinson to print papers because our giant dorm computer didn't have one. I remember really nice friends and horrible food and how exciting it was to be together. Not much has changed.

We still have pets, we still have his Yankees games, and we still have each other.  Dickinson/Rodney taught us to dream big, to dream together, to work hard at our longevity and goals. It wasn't the buildings, it was the people, the life, and spirit that occupied those buildings that we will always cherish and build upon today.

Thank you Dickinson/Rodney, thank you to my beloved college freshman sweetheart and soul mate for life, Jeff, and our children (one has since graduated UD class of 2019), Maya, Ben, David, the adventures didn't end in those dorms, they just began.....

Shari Kessler, EHD93

Back in those days, we swiped our student ID to use our meal plan at the dining hall and to spend points at the markets. As a completely inept freshman, I thought the points reset each week like the meal plan credits did. My first week on campus, I spent every single one of my points (like $150) at Rodney Market on Tombstone pizzas, soda and chips. I didn’t realize they were supposed to last the entire month. It took me roughly 15 days to put on my “freshman 15”!

RIP Dick C and The Rodjects

Kevin Adams, AS96