UD maintains education and research collaborations with more than 200 institutions on six continents. “Our University is being recognized more and more globally,” Assanis said. “We're actively working to diversify our portfolio of partnerships. We’re pretty much on all the continents. Two hundred-plus global partners sounds like an impressive number, and it is, but it’s about the depth of those relationships and the kinds of partnerships that we’ve built.”

A faculty hiring and retention plan is being developed to strategically grow the faculty in alignment with enrollment and other resource needs. UD has added about 100 faculty positions since 2016. With new members and replacements, about a third of the University’s faculty have come to UD in the past six years, bringing fresh energy and perspectives and enhancing existing excellence.

“We’re not going to rest on our laurels,” Assanis said. “There’s still tremendous room to grow, and we’re very, very excited about the future.”

Equally exciting, Assanis said, is continuing to reimagine the University's physical capital. The full opening of the Fintech Innovation Hub on the Science, Technology and Advanced Research (STAR) Campus is anticipated for this summer. “Building X,” which will replace McKinly Lab and provide research and teaching spaces for multiple departments including biology, psychology, neuroscience, physics and quantum science, is scheduled to be completed in fall 2024. The 25,000-square-foot addition to Drake Hall, which features teaching and research labs for chemistry and biochemistry, is now complete.

Also at the meeting, Provost Laura Carlson discussed expanding flexible and non-traditional pathways that lead to UD degrees. An offer of admission is both a promise and an obligation, she said, and ways to fulfill that promise include expanding Winter and Summer Sessions and broadening inclusive pathways such as UD’s Associate in Arts Program and its partnerships with Delaware State University and Delaware Technical Community College.

“Students are not all the same, and this generation of students might need something more, so I really believe that we need to be more adaptive and inclusive and understand that the traditional approach isn’t going to work for everyone,” Carlson said. “What we're interested in is thinking about multiple pathways that can all lead to a UD degree —that’s a much more inclusive approach.”

During the meeting, Gary Henry, dean of the College of Education and Human Development, discussed ways that the University is partnering with school districts throughout Delaware to address the teacher shortage crisis in the state as well as a recent drop in student achievement and outcomes that has been caused, in part, by the pandemic.

“It's a very special and what I think of as a reciprocal relationship,” Henry said. “As the P-12 education system does better and produces more and better students, UD benefits from those students coming to the University. And as we do better in terms of preparing teachers and citizens to go out and support public education, the P-12 education system does better itself.”

Enrollment in teacher preparation programs has dropped nationally over the past decade, but the issue is particularly acute in Delaware, Henry said. About 85 UD graduates enter the Delaware public school system each year, accounting for about 20% of the new teachers that are needed every year in the state.

“I think it's an obligation to the state to help serve schools and help dig out of that crisis,” Henry said, adding that CEHD deposits are up 100% over last year. “We've got to address this teacher shortage in Delaware with a systemic response, reaching down into the high schools, motivating and encouraging those students to come to UD, providing them the educational opportunities and internship opportunities that they need to prepare themselves to teach, and then working with Delaware schools to place them in those schools so they stay in Delaware.”