Call Number:

MSS 0735

Repository:

University of Delaware Library Special Collections

Extent:

0.66 linear foot (2 boxes)

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

MSS 0735, Robert L. Hampel University of Delaware College of Education oral history collection, Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware.

Date:

2014-2015 (inclusive)

Creator:

Hampel, Robert L., DelFattore, Joan, 1946-, Golinkoff, Roberta M., Hiebert, James, Howaniec, Patsy, Johns, David, Mosberg, Ludwig, Murray, Frank B., Raths, James D., Rys, Gail, Sharkey, Stuart, Stanley, William B., Taggart, Robert, Toccofondi, Primo, VanDornick, Barbara, and Vukelich, Carol

Form:

Oral histories (document genres) and Transcripts

Abstract:

The Robert L. Hampel University of Delaware College of Education oral history collection holds the transcripts of eighteen interviews with fourteen faculty, staff, and administrators in the University of Delaware’s College of Education in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Five of the interviews offer the recollections of Frank B. Murray, who joined the College in 1969 and served as Dean from 1979 to 1995. Several transcripts include attachments written by the respondents.

Created in 1945, the University of Delaware College of Education prepared aspiring elementary and secondary school teachers and also offered several masters degree programs. As school enrollments soared in the 1950s and 1960s, the College expanded rapidly, with more than one thousand students by 1970. As public schools contracted in the 1970s, budget cuts at the University of Delaware almost closed the College of Education in 1977. Programs for future high school teachers were dispersed across campus, and the College’s four departments consolidated in two units, the Department of Educational Studies and the Department of Educational Development.

Under Dean Frank B. Murray, the College not only survived but prospered. Graduate programs expanded, with a new Ed.D. for administrators especially popular. Relations with Delaware schools improved as more and more faculty connected their research with local school improvement initiatives. Promotion and tenure standards rose. The national visibility of the College was enhanced by the Dean’s leadership of the national Holmes Group and Project 30 reforms, two acclaimed efforts to revamp undergraduate teacher education. Enrollments returned to and then surpassed the highs of the late 1960s.

Historical information provided by Robert L. Hampel.

The Robert L. Hampel University of Delaware College of Education oral history collection has the transcripts of eighteen interviews with fourteen faculty, staff, and administrators from the College of Education, which became part of the College of Human Resources, Education, and Public Policy in 1997. All but one interview was conducted by Professor Robert Hampel, who joined UD in 1985 and twice served as Interim Director of the School of Education (1998-2000, 2010-2012). Six of the fourteen persons interviewed had retired before the interviews were conducted in early 2014; a seventh was employed elsewhere.

The topics discussed in the interviews include the undergraduate and graduate programs in the College; relations with Delaware schools; the leadership styles of various administrators; the connections between the College of Education and the central administration of UD; and the innovative projects of different faculty and staff. The transcripts range in length from four single spaced pages to nineteen pages.

For additional information on the College of Education, the University of Delaware Archives has the 1979 to 1995 “chronological files” of incoming and outgoing correspondence as well as faculty minutes, annual reports, and flyers that profiled faculty research.

Collection description information provided by Robert L. Hampel.