r/udel • u/Matt245274 • 1h ago
I'm trying to document issues at UD and push for long-term accountability and transparency. I'd appreciate your help.
Hi everyone,
I recently graduated from UD, and over the past few years, I've become increasingly concerned about accountability and transparency at the University.
I'm starting a long-term independent research project to document issues, controversies, policies, decisions, and personal experiences involving UD, especially during the post-COVID years, although I'm also looking at issues going back further.
I genuinely believe UD is an important institution with a lot of good people, students, faculty, staff, researchers, and alumni. But I also believe that institutions with as much influence, public funding, and power as UD should have strong systems of accountability and meaningful public oversight.
One area I'm particularly interested in is Delaware's public-records laws. UD receives millions of dollars in taxpayer funding, but Delaware's FOIA law restricts our (aka the public) ability to request records unlike how typical public, state-assisted universities can. I'm beginning to explore whether Delaware law should be changed to provide greater transparency and public access to certain University records and decision-making.
But FOIA is only one possible part of what I'm working on.
The broader question I'm trying to answer is:
How can we create stronger systems of accountability and oversight for higher education in Delaware, protect academic research and DEI, strengthen student rights, and make sure universities are more transparent with the communities they serve?
I'm building a large spreadsheet/database of issues that could help identify patterns and areas where reform may be needed.
I'm looking for experiences or information involving things such as:
- Student rights and disciplinary processes
- FERPA and privacy concerns
- Housing problems or Residence Life
- Financial transparency, tuition, fees, or institutional spending
- Faculty or staff experiences
- Shared governance and leadership decisions
- Academic freedom or research
- DEI and civil-rights issues
- Discrimination or accessibility concerns
- Campus safety
- UD Police
- Mental-health systems and student support
- Title IX
- Protest, free speech, or institutional responses to major events
- Problems communicating with administration
- Situations where you felt UD lacked transparency
- Experiences where you felt there was no meaningful accountability or appeal process
- Examples of policies or decisions that negatively affected students, faculty, staff, or the surrounding community
- Lawsuits, investigations, settlements, or controversies you think deserve more attention
Personal experiences are absolutely welcome. If something happened to you while you were a student, employee, alum, parent, or community member, I'd be interested in hearing about it.
Right now, my goal is to use experiences people share as potential leads and then look for documentation, policies, official records, reporting, or other evidence that can confirm the broader issue.
You can comment publicly if you're comfortable. If your experience is personal or sensitive, you can also send me a DM.
I'm especially interested in hearing from people who have information from 2016 onward/the start of President Assanis, with a particular focus on the post-COVID period. I am open to information pre-Assanis
Even if your issue seems small, please feel free to share it. Sometimes one person's experience may reveal a policy or systemic problem that affects many other people.
I'm still in the early stages of this project, and I don't have all the answers yet. But I want to build something evidence-based that could eventually contribute to real, long-term reforms in Delaware higher education.
If you have an experience, document, article, lawsuit, policy, investigation, controversy, or anything else you think I should look into, I would really appreciate your help.
Thank you.