Notes
ON MARCH 2, 2015, University of Delaware President Patrick Harker announced that he would step down on June 30 to become president and chief executive officer of the Federal Research Bank of Philadelphia. On March 13, the Board of Trustees named a search committee to identify the university’s next president and selected Nancy Targett, dean of the College of Earth, Ocean and Environment, to serve as acting president. Ultimately, on November 18, the board appointed Dennis Assanis as the twenty-eighth president of UD. Assanis was provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Stony Brook University, a State University of New York campus.1 He previously had served on the faculty of the University of Michigan and was familiar with the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, which had moved to the top rank of public affairs schools after being named for the former president in 1999.
Soon after being appointed, Assanis reviewed the proposal previously developed for how UD would recognize Vice President Biden, which focused on creating a Biden Institute for Social Justice and Civic Engagement that would be housed in a new social sciences building. He determined that an alternative path should be considered. Assanis requested an analysis of how naming the School of Public Policy and Administration for Biden might advance an overall strategy to strengthen the school’s national standing and build new alignments with other university academic units. He believed that the interdisciplinary character of a school of public policy could help advance new programs and partnerships on and beyond campus.2
Provost Domenico Grasso invited College of Arts and Sciences Dean George Watson to submit a white paper on the possibilities of naming the school for Biden and the likely effects of making the school a university priority. The task of writing the white paper fell to University Professor of Public Policy Dan Rich, and Senior Associate Dean for the Social Sciences David Wilson. The “White Paper: The Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration” was submitted on June 17, 2016.3 Soon after, Assanis confirmed his support for the analysis and proposed action plan the paper articulated.
The white paper described how naming the school for the forty-seventh Vice President of the United States could lead to the overall strengthening of the school and its programs: “Reflecting the Vice President’s accomplishments and priorities, the Biden School will build upon SPPA’s existing strengths, connect those strengths with other areas of university excellence, become the focal point for strategic investment, and rise rapidly to the top rankings of public affairs schools in the nation.”4 The paper detailed the resources needed to fulfill that vision. Most important was the addition of faculty lines, many of which should be at the senior level, targeted to core areas of public administration and public policy and areas of scholarship that would become increasingly recognized for excellence. Building upon its historical role, the Biden School would “be distinctive for providing research-driven, real-world solutions to the world’s most challenging issues: improving education, community health, and environmental quality; encouraging economic innovation and prosperity; promoting equity, social justice, and cultural understanding; and strengthening services from all sectors to support a better and more secure quality of life.”5
Rich and Wilson had reviewed the organizational models of prominent public affairs programs. They proposed that the Biden School should be a hybrid that combined some of the best features of leading schools with the distinctive strengths of UD’s programs. This hybrid model would establish the Biden School as a hub for interdisciplinary policy programs around which there would be many spokes, each of which would represent partnerships with academic units across campus. The partnerships would bring together faculty, professionals, and students from many disciplines to collaborate on scholarly solutions to societal challenges. Initially, the Biden School would continue to reside within the social sciences portfolio of the College of Arts and Sciences. However, it was evident to Rich, Wilson, and Watson that, over the longer term, the Biden School should become a freestanding professional school parallel to its aspirational peers among the nation’s leading schools of public affairs.
The white paper proposed that naming the school and establishing it as a university priority would immediately strengthen its stature. The key would be to effectively communicate these changes, particularly to leaders of the nation’s public affairs programs who are primarily responsible for the ranking of programs.6 National recognition would continue to grow as investments were made in hiring high-profile faculty in the core areas of public administration and public policy and in interdisciplinary fields where the school already had strengths.7 The school would also offer special programs, some existing and some new, including creating the Biden Institute, which would focus on domestic policies. From the fall of 2016, President Assanis was outspoken in identifying the School of Public Policy and Administration as a priority. He was not hesitant to suggest that the school would be named for Biden.
As the plan outlined in the white paper moved forward, university administrators discussed with Vice President Biden and his sister and key advisor Valerie Biden Owens the role that he and other senior members of the Biden team would play at the University of Delaware. Through the fall of 2016, an agreement was developed between the university and Biden that defined the terms of the new partnership. Biden was also in conversations with the University of Pennsylvania about a potential association. One question to be resolved was how his relationship with the two institutions would be differentiated.
On February 7, 2017, UD and Biden announced their new partnership, which would combine Vice President Biden’s longtime work on domestic policy issues with the university’s strengths in public policy education and research. Biden would serve as the founding chair of UD’s Biden Institute, “a new research and policy center focused on developing public policy solutions on issues ranging from economic reform and environmental sustainability to civil rights, criminal justice, women’s rights, and more. The Institute would also convene thought leaders on the most important issues of the day.”8 In a separate press release on that same day, the University of Pennsylvania announced that Biden had been named Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice Professor and would lead the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, which would be in Washington, DC.9 The focus of the Penn Biden Center would be on international issues and challenges.
With a focus on domestic policy, UD’s Biden Institute was conceived as a university-based think tank focused on the nation’s most pressing problems. One of its primary roles would be to convene policy leaders, analysts, and advocates in an ongoing dialogue to define policy issues and evaluate options and do so in ways that would engage the entire UD campus and the wider community. Biden especially wanted a focus on expanding economic opportunity and social justice. Valerie Biden Owens became vice chair of the institute, and some of the individuals who had worked with Biden during his tenure as vice president joined the staff. Among them was Michael Donilon, who had been a senior advisor to Biden for virtually all of his political career. Donilon became managing director of the Biden Institute and joined the faculty of the School of Public Policy and Administration.
The Biden Institute’s executive director, Catherine McLaughlin, previously served as executive director of the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. There, she attracted high-profile resident and visiting fellows and engaged university students in active dialogue with national and global political and policy leaders. She accepted the position of executive director of the Biden Institute after resigning from Harvard to work for Secretary Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election campaign. One of her priorities was for the institute to promote the value of civic engagement and encourage young people to enter public service and leadership positions. She also would encourage programs that highlighted political and policy debate.
The public launch of the Biden Institute came on April 7, 2017, when Biden addressed a crowd of 2,500 on the UD Green, with most of the students wearing “Biden is Back” T-shirts. Biden told the students he was proud of them because they wanted to change the world. He praised the School of Public Policy and Administration for providing the education needed to accomplish change. Biden shared his vision for the institute as “a world-class intellectual center” that would be a destination for leaders and scholars to visit from across the U.S. and around the world. And those visitors, he told students and faculty, “will be available to all of you” for discussions and other interactions.10
As soon as it was established, the Biden Institute initiated a series of campus programs with nationally known speakers, some of whom were invited to have public conversations with Biden on critical policy issues. The institute also launched programs for students to meet with political and policy leaders and, on many occasions, to meet and converse with Vice President Biden himself. Donilon became actively involved with UD’s Washington, DC, semester, teaching and inviting well-known leaders to meet with its students. McLaughlin took advantage of her experience at Harvard to introduce programs, including a nonpartisan effort to increase voter registration among UD students, to help students recognize the responsibilities of citizenship. She also planned to build connections between civic engagement activities at UD and similar efforts at campuses across the nation.
At Harvard, McLaughlin had worked closely with Valerie Biden Owens, a resident fellow at the Institute for Politics. McLaughlin proudly affirms that “politics has been her inspiration and composed her life’s work.”11 Biden Owens also found her calling in politics. She led every campaign during her brother’s political career before he became vice president, including his seven straight U.S. Senate victories and his unsuccessful runs for two Democratic presidential nominations. She also had been his principal surrogate on the campaign trail.12 Biden Owens and McLaughlin both had extensive experience with and commitment to cultivating women’s leadership in politics. Indeed, Biden Owens had trained women worldwide to engage in and influence the political process. She worked extensively with Women’s Campaign International in countries such as Liberia, Venezuela, Romania, and Taiwan, teaching women to organize and develop communication and political skills. She also served on the national board of the Women’s Leadership Forum of the Democratic National Committee.
FIGURE 47. Valerie Biden Owens receiving an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from John Cochran (left) and Dennis Assanis at the May 2018 commencement.
Biden Owens often attributes her leadership success to the confidence she developed as a student at UD. She reflected on her college experiences when she was the keynote speaker at the March 19, 2019, Women of Promise dinner. “UD gave me the freedom and the knowledge and the platform to nurture my confidence and to grow into myself and prove my brother right,” Biden Owens said, referring to her brother Joe. “Confidence begins with conviction. You must find your own true north—the values that you stand for and the things that you simply cannot abide.”13 In recognition of her accomplishments, the university awarded Biden Owens an honorary Doctor of Laws degree in May 2018.
When Biden announced his third candidacy for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States on April 25, 2019, he resigned as chair of the Biden Institute. The institute continued its work as a research and policy center addressing some of the nation’s key issues, particularly those affecting America’s middle class. It also maintained programs that enabled UD faculty, staff, and students to meet with some of the nation’s leading public officials and policy analysts. Some of these leaders were members of the institute’s newly formed Policy Advisory Board. They included UD alumni David Plouffe, who had managed the 2008 Obama presidential campaign, and Steve Schmidt, who had managed the 2008 McCain presidential campaign. The chair of the Policy Advisory Board was Sarah Bianchi, former head of economic and domestic policy for Vice President Biden and global head of policy development for Airbnb. The board also included leaders from a wide range of sectors with expertise and experience related to key domestic policy priorities, especially the revitalization of the U.S. middle class.
Viewed in historical context, the establishment of the Biden Institute reaffirmed many of the values and commitments that had inspired the creation of the Division of Urban Affairs in 1961 and led to the establishment of centers and institutes in the various iterations of the school over the years. Like these earlier initiatives, the Biden Institute formed a bridge between the world of ideas and the world of action. It was dedicated to creating and applying knowledge to address some of the nation’s central challenges and had an opportunity to influence the national policy agenda.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
The white paper had proposed that “civic engagement will be a central feature of the programs offered by the Biden School” and that “through civic engagement, students will become active citizens and recognize that what they learn in their classes can improve the communities where they live and work. The Biden School will help to make civic and community engagement a defining part of a UD education and prepare future generations of leaders dedicated to public and community service.”14 Civic and community engagement had been central to the School of Public Policy and Administration’s identity from its inception and was built into the Delaware Model of public affairs education. In 2016, another institutional dimension was added, the Community Engagement Initiative (CEI).
CEI came about from a grassroots effort of faculty, staff, and students in 2014 to assemble a successful application for the Community Engagement Classification from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.15 The classification underscored the university’s role as a dynamic force for incorporating engagement in the education of its students and the scholarship of its faculty. In February 2016, Provost Domenico Grasso launched the Community Engagement Initiative to further strengthen UD’s identity as an engaged university. Although it was a unit of the provost’s office, CEI was housed in SPPA, where CEI Director Dan Rich had his faculty appointment. Deputy Director Lynnette Overby, a professor of dance and the lead architect for the University of Delaware’s Carnegie Classification, had a joint appointment in the school. CEI and the school were to become partners in efforts to strengthen civic and community engagement across campus and in the communities the university served. Maria Aristigueta points out that this partnership was mutually beneficial and that “the symbolic placement of the Community Engagement Initiative in Graham Hall speaks to the important contributions that the school makes to community engagement.”16
In fall 2016, as the Biden Institute was coming together, President Assanis agreed to join other university presidents in meeting a challenge posed by Campus Compact, a national organization of approximately twelve hundred higher education institutions committed to civic and community engagement. The organization had called upon presidents of member universities to develop civic action plans representing their institutions’ strategic plans for enhancing community engagement.17 The UD Civic Action Plan was completed in the fall of 2017. Assanis approved it and submitted it to Campus Compact in December 2017. Summarizing the plan, he explained, “The University of Delaware Civic Action Plan articulates our strategic vision and sets the agenda to strengthen our contributions as one of the nation’s most engaged research universities. While the university is proud of its Community Engagement Classification from the Carnegie Foundation, we consider it not so much an achievement but a starting point.”18
Over the next three years, most of the recommendations of the Civic Action Plan were implemented.19 All seven deans defined their college’s commitments and contributions to community engagement in alignment with their overall priorities. A university-wide Council on Community Engagement actively promoted policies and practices that supported collaborative initiatives across campus and in the communities that UD serves.20 In May 2018, the University Faculty Senate approved the Community Engagement Scholars course of study, the first university-wide undergraduate course of study available to all undergraduates in all colleges. By fall 2019, 115 students were enrolled. Under this program, thirteen CEI faculty fellows carried out engaged scholarship projects in the community and two dozen more faculty fellows participated in CEI partnerships. In May 2019, the Faculty Senate presented the first faculty awards for excellence in engaged scholarship and approved a graduate certificate in Engaged Scholarship.21 The following year, it presented the first university-wide graduate student awards for excellence in engaged scholarship.22
The Civic Action Plan called for creating five new knowledge-based community partnerships. These were designed to mobilize university-wide capacity in areas of community priority. All the partnerships drew upon the contributions of faculty, professionals, and students from the School of Public Policy and Administration. First, the Partnership for Public Education, which had already launched in the fall of 2016, was a product of the school’s work on issues of educational equity and was designed to mobilize university-wide resources to improve Delaware public education.23 It was led by Liz Farley-Ripple, a faculty member in the School of Education who had a joint appointment in the SPPA, and by colleagues from IPA.
The Partnership for Healthy Communities (PHC) was launched on October 30, 2017, at an event with Joe Biden as the featured speaker. The purpose of PHC was to mobilize UD’s capacity to find ways to improve the health and well-being of Delaware residents, particularly those living in communities characterized by social and economic disadvantage. PHC was led by former Delaware Secretary of Health and Social Services Rita Landgraf, professor of practice in the College of Health Sciences, and Erin Knight (PhD, UAPP 2011), a faculty member in SPPA and associate director of its Center for Community Research and Service.24
In fall 2017, President Assanis and Delaware State University President Harry Williams signed an agreement with Wilmington Mayor Mike Purzycki to create the Wilmington Policy Partnership, the first formal framework for a university collaboration with the city since the Wilmington Com munity Development Partnership in the 1990s. Parallel to this effort, the Center for Community and Research Service supported an effort to coordinate the contributions of the many UD units that offer programs and services in Wilmington by facilitating periodic meetings between the leaders of those programs to promote collaboration and new initiatives.
The Partnership for Arts and Culture (PAC), led by Lynnette Overby, was launched on March 10, 2018. The partnership engaged representatives from seventy university and community arts and culture organizations to support collaborations to strengthen arts and cultural institutions at all levels, local to global. With funding generated from the university and community partners, PAC supported a small grants program that funded collaborative projects to expand the role of arts and culture in communities throughout Delaware and beyond.
FIGURE 49. Provost Robin Morgan speaks at the first Provost’s Symposium on Engaged Scholarship, March 5, 2020.
Finally, in UD’s home community of Newark, the Community Engagement Initiative and the Institute for Public Administration provided start-up support for The Newark Partnership (TNP), a city-wide, community-based nonprofit organization dedicated to the city’s economic, social, aesthetic, and environmental enhancement. TNP was incorporated on December 30, 2018, and focused on growing the city’s economic prosperity, strengthening the contributions of Newark’s nonprofit sector, and promoting civic engagement on issues of importance to the city’s future.25
Another program established as part of the university’s commitment to civic engagement was the annual Provost’s Symposium on Engaged Scholarship, the first of which was held on March 5, 2020. Hosted by Provost Robin Morgan, the symposium brought together 150 UD faculty and professionals, and the deans of all the colleges, to develop priorities for enhancing engaged scholarship.26 A year later, Morgan announced that Lynnette Overby would become director of the Community Engagement Initiative upon the retirement of Dan Rich on May 31, 2021.27
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
By fall 2017, some of the action steps described in the white paper were clearly being implemented. Most importantly, the faculty hiring plan was proceeding. Sebastian Jannelli from the Office of Development and Alumni Relations was assigned to focus on fundraising for a new building that would be named Biden Hall. He later became the development officer for the Biden School. While the focus of the building plan before Assanis’s arrival had been on a consolidated social science building with a Biden Institute for Social Justice and Civic Engagement, the newer plan was to have the building house the Biden School and the Biden Institute. For some, however, the relationship between the Biden Institute and the Biden School was somewhat perplexing. The Biden Institute had been created, but the school had not been named. As a result, some of the benefits expected from the school’s naming were delayed.
In part to help raise the profile of Biden’s new partnership with the University of Delaware and boost recognition of the School of Public Policy and Administration, Biden was the featured speaker at the October 2017 national conference of the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs and Administration (NASPAA). He encouraged the over three hundred educators and administrators there to help students become, and remain, engaged in public policy and public service. He shared his deep concern about the decline of the American middle class. Biden issued a challenge to the assembled leaders of public affairs programs: “What policy solutions do you propose to ensure America has a growing and thriving middle class?”28 He asked them to engage themselves and their colleagues in developing those solutions, and invited all of them to reconvene at the UD the following year. At a reception hosted by the university in conjunction with the conference, Assanis described the importance of the new partnership between UD and the Vice President. He also shared the open secret that, sometime in the future, the School of Public Policy and Administration would be named for Biden.29
On September 28, 2018, the follow-up conference Biden had called for, the Biden Challenge conference on revitalizing the middle class, was held on the UD campus. Organized by the Biden Institute and SPPA, participants included many who had heard Biden issue his challenge a year earlier. They also included policy leaders from across the U.S. The conference included panel discussions and idea exchanges on policies and issues affecting the sustainability of the middle class.30 Attendees at the conference were told that the school would be named for Biden, but no timeline was confirmed.31
When George Watson, who had been dean of the College of Arts and Sciences for more than a decade, retired at the end of the summer of 2018, Associate Dean John Pelesko succeeded him.32 Pelesko, like Watson, was an active supporter of plans for the Biden School. President Assanis continued to designate the development of the school as a priority. Encouragement to move ahead with the naming came a month after the Biden Challenge conference. Sandra Archibald, dean of the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington, visited UD as the Charles P. Messick Visiting Scholar. Archibald had been dean at Evans since 2003 and had been responsible for changing the trajectory of that school. At one point, the very existence of the Evans School had been challenged. Archibald not only saved the school but then led it into the top rank of public affairs programs in the nation. Archibald was quite familiar with UD’s School of Public Policy and Administration and had worked with many of its faculty through NASPAA and ASPA. The title for her presentation, which was organized as an interview with SPPA Director Aristigueta, was “Why Am I Jealous of Delaware? Innovations, Programs, and Initiatives of Top Ten Schools.” President Assanis and Provost Morgan attended her presentation, along with other senior UD administrators and CAS Dean Pelesko.
Archibald was unequivocal that SPPA had a solid foundation and was in a far better position to move rapidly into the top rank of the nation’s public affairs programs than the Evans School had been when she became dean. She explained the reasons for her assessment and what she thought was required for UD to take advantage of the opportunity to raise its profile. Two points were clear. First, the school needed to be named for Biden without further delay. Second, it needed to become a freestanding, independent professional school of public affairs led by a dean, comparable to its aspirational peers. That was the accepted and expected model for public affairs schools nationally, and until that model was implemented at UD, its school would not have the recognition it deserved.33
Of course, another factor in the timing of the school’s naming was that Biden was expected to decide about running for U.S. President early in 2019. It would be complicated to add his name to the school once he was an active candidate. This recognition provided additional impetus to move ahead.
Assanis announced the establishment of the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration at the December 11, 2018, UD Board of Trustees meeting. Aristigueta, expressing the views held by her colleagues, projected the impact of the action taken:34 “The newly named Biden School is poised to build upon our existing strengths to become a globally recognized, comprehensive school of public affairs that offers outstanding academics and conducts interdisciplinary research into solutions for some of the world’s greatest challenges. Along with substantive policy research, the Biden School’s programs will help to make civic and community engagement a defining part of a UD education and prepare future generations of leaders, scholars, and researchers dedicated to meeting critical societal needs.”35
On February 26, 2019, a celebration of the naming of the Biden School took place at Clayton Hall. Assanis noted the historical significance of the moment, not only for the school but also for the university: “Few institutions are fortunate enough to be able to claim as an alumnus a leader and public servant as distinguished as Joe Biden . . . By affixing the Biden name to the essential work being done here, we are reaffirming our commitment to integrity, to service and to excellence.” Biden described himself as “humbled and honored by the renaming of the school” and praised professors who, he said, gave him the confidence to believe that he could make a difference in the world. “I owe this university a great deal,” he said. “I hope the Biden School can convince a new generation of women and men that they can make a difference.”36
The celebration featured a conversation between Biden and Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential historian Jon Meacham that focused on themes from Meacham’s book The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels.37 Toward the conclusion of the discussion, Meacham posed the question to Biden that was on the minds of most of those in the audience: “Will you become a candidate for President in 2020?” Biden responded that he was “in the final stages of [making] that decision.” “They—the most important people in my life—want me to run,” he explained, describing the consensus expressed at a recent family meeting. But, he said, he was still exploring the details of what it would take to put a campaign together and considering whether to proceed.
POLITICS
Joe Biden’s announcement of his candidacy for U.S. President on April 25, 2019, generated understandable excitement across the University of Delaware campus, particularly in the school that was named for him only months before. Many members of the UD community looked forward to actively supporting the candidacy of its most famous alumnus. However, the university as an institution would remain nonpartisan, as required by its charter and confirmed by its policy.38 Maintaining that institutional distance was more complicated than it had been in earlier campaigns because Biden now had a more formal association with the university, and that association was a well-publicized point of institutional pride.39 After Biden’s announcement as a candidate, the university leadership reminded the campus community about university policies on political activity.40
FIGURE 51. John Cochran, Valerie Biden Owens, Joe and Jill Biden, and Eleni and Dennis Assanis at the Biden School Naming reception, Clayton Hall, February 26, 2019.
FIGURE 52. Joe Biden and Jon Meacham at the Biden School naming event, Clayton Hall, February 26, 2019.
During the primaries, the university was not drawn into the campaign other than by the quite welcome recognition of UD as Biden’s alma mater. There was occasional recognition that the school of public policy and administration had been named for him and that the Biden Institute included key advisors of his, most notably Valerie Biden Owens and Michael Donilon.41 The university’s Office of Communication and Marketing navigated media inquiries as the campaign moved forward. At times, individuals at the Biden School and the Biden Institute were contacted by people looking for a channel to the Biden campaign. All of those cases were deferred with replies that UD was not a conduit to the campaign.
While the policies were clear and consistent, the evolving situation with the campaign eventually entangled the university in political controversy. In April 2020, a dispute arose around Biden’s senatorial papers, which had been donated to the University of Delaware Library in 2012. The university received numerous Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for records relating to an alleged sexual harassment complaint, but they were all denied.42 The decision not to release the papers was based on two principles. First, such a release could only occur with the donor’s approval, in compliance with the donation agreement between Biden and the university. Biden had not authorized the release of the papers.43 Second, FOIA did not apply to the university if no state funds were used to obtain the items requested or if they did not relate to meetings of the Board of Trustees. No state funds had been used to obtain the Biden senatorial papers.
After it received further complaints regarding the release of the papers, the university’s interpretation of FOIA limits in reference to the requested items was submitted for review to the Office of the Delaware Attorney General. In two separate opinions, the office held that UD had not violated FOIA with respect to the denial of the records request submitted. Those opinions were appealed to the Delaware State Superior Court.44 On January 4, 2021, the Superior Court rejected both appeals and affirmed the attorney general’s conclusion that UD was not in violation of FOIA.45 The controversy over the senatorial papers highlighted the unavoidable fact that the welcome notoriety that the university received for its proud association with Biden might sometimes be accompanied by public criticism.
On December 2, 2020, shortly after Biden was elected, the Office of General Counsel issued a new, updated university policy on political activity and lobbying. It reaffirmed the non-partisan requirements under the university charter and the lobbying limits consistent with its status as a tax-exempt nonprofit institution. On January 20, 2021, Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., was sworn in as the Forty-Sixth President of the United States, with his hand on a family Bible held by Dr. Jill Biden, another proud Blue Hen.
President Biden called on several UD alumni with ties to the Biden School to help launch his administration. Michael Donilon, former managing director of the Biden Institute, was appointed senior White House advisor, and others affiliated with the institute also joined the administration.46 Delaware’s U.S. Congressional Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester (MA, UAPP 2002) served as co-chair of the Presidential Inaugural Committee and on the vetting committee for the vice presidential selection. Tony Allen, who had worked on Biden’s staff in the 1990s and was president of Delaware State University, was appointed co-chair of the Presidential Inaugural Committee. Cecilia Martinez (PhD, UAPP 1990), a former research associate in the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy, served as part of the Biden-Harris Transition Team and was appointed senior director for environmental justice for the White House Council on Environmental Quality.47
AN INDEPENDENT SCHOOL
Once the school was named for Biden, the University of Delaware leadership shifted its attention to establishing it as a freestanding professional school. This action was more than a technical, administrative change in the school’s identity. UD, unlike most other research universities, had no freestanding professional schools. Becoming freestanding would mean that the school would be led by a dean who reported directly to the provost. The heads of all other UD schools reported to a college dean.
On September 6, 2019, Provost Morgan and College of Arts and Sciences Dean Pelesko met with the Biden School faculty to confirm that they would be receptive to a faculty recommendation that the school become a freestanding unit. Morgan also indicated that she was ready to initiate a national search for the school’s dean once the decision process had moved through the University Faculty Senate. On October 4, the Biden School faculty, with the support of school director Maria Aristigueta, voted to recommend becoming a freestanding professional school led by a dean effective July 1, 2020.48 The faculty argued that this change would significantly strengthen the school, placing it at a level in the university comparable to that of the nation’s other leading public affairs schools.
On October 21, 2019, the Biden School faculty’s recommendation was presented by Dean Pelesko for discussion at the College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Senate.49 This meeting was preliminary to the University Faculty Senate’s consideration. The process should have moved forward without complications, given the support of the school’s faculty and the endorsement of college and university administration. However, that was not the case. Some of the complications were procedural and reflected concerns about the rapid timetable for the decision rather than the proposal’s merits. Other questions concerned the implications of the decision for the university’s academic structure.
A year earlier, a new graduate college had been approved with a very different composition from the existing colleges. In addition, at the same time as the Biden School transition was being considered, a proposal was initiated to convert the UD Honors Program to an honors college. Most significantly, creating a freestanding professional school was at variance with the prevailing university organization in which all schools were parts of colleges.50 The Biden School proposal raised questions about the status of the other schools and whether they would remain in their current colleges or would become freestanding, and if so, based on what criteria. Just two weeks before the CAS Faculty Senate’s consideration of the Biden School proposal, the University Faculty Senate had approved a proposal for the Department of Music to become the School of Music, but with the specific provision that it would remain in the College of Arts and Sciences. However, after considerable discussion and a failed proposal to defer the decision, the CAS Faculty Senate approved the Biden School’s transition proposal.51
As the Biden School proposal moved to the University Faculty Senate, it was apparent that the proposal needed to be subjected to the complete review process typically required for senate action. That meant a change in the previously anticipated timetable. A vote was not expected on the Biden School becoming a freestanding professional school until late in the spring semester of 2020. Provost Morgan confirmed that she would not initiate a search for the dean of the Biden School until the Faculty Senate acted.
Senate President Matt Robinson recommended that, before the Biden School and other organizational proposals were considered, the Faculty Senate should have an open discussion on the overall academic structure of the university, and the difference between a school, a college, and a department. At an open discussion on December 9, 2019, Robinson pointed out that four current schools had previously been freestanding colleges led by a dean, including the Biden School, the School of Marine Studies, the School of Education, and the School of Nursing.52 Further, most research universities have a mix of both colleges and professional schools led by deans and operating at the same administrative level as colleges. UD was the exception.
In February 2020, Aristigueta sent a detailed report to the Faculty Senate entitled “The Biden School’s Transition to a Freestanding Professional School.” The report presented the case for the transition and provided detailed documentation to support that case, including the argument that eighteen of the twenty top public affairs programs in the nation were freestanding schools led by a dean. In fact, virtually all of the nation’s leading public affairs schools were independent units that became magnets for development opportunities and broader partnerships with institutions from all sectors, local to global. The report proposed that a freestanding Biden School would have similar benefits for the University of Delaware. The school’s independence would enable it to better support the distinctive features of its professional culture and its role in public service and applied research, all of which had documented importance for its success. The report concluded, “the Biden School’s transition will better support its mission, programs, and people; increase its contributions across the campus and in the wider community, and enhance national recognition for its programs and the University of Delaware.”53
In late February and early March, the proposal was considered by the Senate Committees on Undergraduate Studies, Graduate Studies, and Budget and by the Senate Coordinating Committee. All of them endorsed the proposal. On Monday, April 6, the University Faculty Senate convened remotely, as the campus had closed due to the Coronavirus health crisis. The last item on the agenda was a vote on freestanding status for the Biden School. The senate voted by a large margin to approve the resolution.54 The Board of Trustees subsequently approved the change. Effective July 1, 2020, the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration became the first freestanding professional school at the University of Delaware.