The Review T h e U n i v e r s i t y o f D e l a w a r e ’s i n d e p e n d e n t s t u d e n t n e w s p a p e r s i n c e 1 8 8 2
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TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2015 VOLUME 141, ISSUE 15
‘A force for good’ Professor Dentel remembered as global citizen To some, he was known simply as Dr. Steve. Dr. Steven Dentel, professor of environmental engineering—influential in creating the undergraduate major—passed away last Wednesday after a sevenyear battle with prostate cancer. He was 63. An expert in wastewater and biosolids treatment, Dentel had a passion for finding environmental solutions in the developing world, most recently furthering water sanitation efforts in a project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This passion for helping others transcended into him serving as the dedicated advisor for the university’s Engineers Without Borders (EWB), assisting in the chapter’s creation in 2006. He is characterized by friends, family and colleagues as a person of inquisitive brilliance with unwavering faith in others’ abilities to learn. He’s remembered by his sense of humor, signing
his most recent Pinball high score with the name “oneeyed Steve” after a surgery that gave him double vision. Dentel installed a sensor on his desk, so visitors walking past were met with the sound of the Star Trek doors opening. Aaron Dentel-Post— one of his two sons— said his father was an “unrelenting perfectionist” who could simply ponder and understand novel topics. Dentel-Post said the memories that stuck out the most with his father were the ones when he was explaining something to him. “He had an approach to life that was, ‘you can understand something if you pay enough attention to it,’” Dentel-Post said. “He just had faith in other people in terms of what they could learn.” Sophomore Sarah Hartman remembers walking into her first EWB meeting last year and seeing Dentel not in the front of the classroom, but sitting among
club members. He was the professor wearing a Hawaiian shirt, comfortable pants and sandals, approachable to the students in the desks surrounding him. After hearing Hartman was interested in switching from mechanical engineering to environmental engineering, Dentel set up a meeting to ensure Hartman was comfortable with the new major. “Him pulling me aside was something he did because he cared,” Hartman said. “He wanted me to be happy. He cared about happiness.” He was given an inaugural award in his name last May–– the Steven K. Dentel AEESP Award for Global Outreach. When he went to accept the award, Hartman remembered seeing tears fill his eyes. Though Hartman said Dentel was modest, during the speech he pushed the praise onto others, crediting them for his successes.
Dentel traveled much of his life, having spent extensive time in Cameroon, Germany and France.
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After student push, university to hire LGBT coordinator MEGHAN JUSCZAK Managing News Editor The university is hiring a full-time staff member who will focus purely on LGBT issues, Dawn Thompson announced at a LGBT Campus Advisory Board meeting last week. Thompson, the vice president for student life, said the position will create a specific space on campus where LGBT students can go for support, resources and advocacy on their behalf. The coordinator will work closely with Haven, the LGBTQ Registered Student
Organization (RSO), which has experienced bloated obligations in recent years. Jeremy Mathis, the former Haven president, is largely responsible for this position’s creation, and said the RSO has been stretching itself extremely thin ever since he was a member. “It was an issue of the university needing to step up and take responsibility for providing the services that [...] queer students needed,” he said. “Haven as a student organization was bearing the brunt of the work when it came to educating the
whole campus about LGBT issues and supporting queer students when they got here.” When Mathis assumed the role of president, he decided this needed to change. He began by writing a letter to Thompson and Provost Domenico Grasso in November 2013. The letter highlighted the “gaps” that existed for queer students, he said, mainly that there was no place or person queer students could go to—aside from the Dean of Students’ Office, which any student can utilize—where their
specific needs could be met. Matt Spicer, Haven’s current president, said this new position is important because it will be an official avenue for queer students to receive resources or advocation if they experience discrimination. He and Mathis said they “vividly” recall stories from their time in the RSO when students came to Haven looking for support a student group could not provide. Mathis said students in the past were sometimes turned away from the counseling center because
those at the center did not possess a deep understanding of queer theory that would allow them to support the students fully. Often, students grappling with their queer identities would come to Haven instead and need to deal with mental health issues, especially suicidal ideation. His experiences with these students was what pushed him to advocate so intensely for an LGBT coordinator.
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Tears, smiles accompany sorority rush week
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KIRK SMITH/THE REVIEW Girls embrace after learning of their sorority fates at Clayton Hall. Hundreds of women took part in recruitment activities before finding out which sororities had selected them.